father of all mystical philosophy in Europe (unless, as he himself
would have wished, we give that honour to Plato), mapped out the
upward road as follows:--At the bottom of the hill is the sphere of
the "merely many"--of material objects viewed in disconnection,
dull, and spiritless. This is a world which has no real existence;
it may best be called "not-being" ("ein lauteres Nichts," as Eckhart
says), and as the indeterminate, it can only be apprehended by a
corresponding indeterminateness in the soul. The soul, however,
always adds some form and determination to the abstract formlessness
of the "merely many." Next, we rise to, or project for ourselves,
the world of "the one and the many." This is the sphere in which our
consciousness normally moves. We are conscious of an overruling
Mind, but the creatures still seem external to and partially
independent of it. Such is the temporal order as we know it. Above
this is the intelligible world, the eternal order, "the one-many,"
das ewige Nu, the world in which God's will is done perfectly and
all reflects the divine mind. Highest of all is "the One," the,
Absolute, the Godhead, of whom nothing can be predicated, because He
is above all distinctions. This Neoplatonic Absolute is the Godhead
of whom Eckhart says: "God never looked upon deed," and of whom
Angelus Silesius sings:

"Und sieh, er ist nicht Wille,
Er ist ein' ewige Stille."

Plotinus taught that the One, being superessential, can only be
apprehended in ecstasy, when thought, which still distinguishes
itself from its object, is transcended, and knower and known become
one. As Tennyson's Ancient Sage says: