Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 89-91. (Budapest, 1980)

KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK - ELŐADÁSOK - Schultheisz, Emil: Az élettani korszak kezdete (angol nyelven)

that "the knowledge which we have will answer to the truth which we have".

8 A natural development of this view was his doctrine of "Learned Ignorance", that the more we learn, the more we come to a realization of our own real ignorance in the face of the Infinity. Cusa's rebellion against the scholastics included a reaction against reason and logic in learning about God, the Universe, or the world around us. In metaphysics he makes a distinction between reason and intellect: Reason must think in opposites. A is either B or not B. A figure is either a circle or not-a-circle. A square is not-acircle. To Reason, a circle and a square are separate, yet as the number of sides increases toward infinity, the difference between a polygon and circle disappears, and the law of opposites no longer holds, but a new law appears, the Coincidence of Opposites. This is an act of intellect. God is of course both Being and Non-Being, and the reconciliation of opposites in Him gives the real validity to the whole argument.

9 Tn the physical world, reason and logic are in no greater measure the fundamental approach to wisdom. Observation, measurement are so important that it becomes practically the etalon of the human mind. This is expressed in the very first pages, which echo the words of a sermon of Johannes Tauler, one of the great German mystics (nevertheless, scientist !) who had written that "The great masters' of Paris read big books and turn the pages; this is good, but others read the living book where everything lives eternally and turn to the heavens and the earth. . . ".

10 This is the beginning of physiological

—thinking in medicine! Cusa's association of the mind and measurement comes later on in the form of a Latin pun : "I think there is not, nor ever was, any perfect man that did not frame some conception of the mind, such as it was I for my part, have a conception, that the mind is the bond and measure of all things, and I conjectured it is called Mens a mensurando, the mind from measuring"

.

11 As mentioned before, Cusa's observations on natural philosophy are contained in the "Fourth Booke Concerning Statick Experiments; or Experiments of the Bal lance"

. It involves also a discussion of the value of measurement in a whole variety of circumstances. The weight of water is first considered, recalling Vitruvius who, "writing of architectura, bids us chuse such a place to dwell in, as hath light and airy waters, and avoid them places, whose waters are heavy and earthy."

12 They continue on to the specific gravity of blood and urine, in sickness and health, at various ages, and in different countries, then to "Herbes, Stocks, Leaves, Fruits, Seeds and Juyces"

13 of medical application. Then follow directions for counting the pulse letting water run out of a clepsydra "whitest the pulse of a sound young man would stick an hundred " and weighing the water as a measure of time. By such a technique one might "come to the diversity of the pulse in a young man, and an old man, in a sicke man, and a sound man, and so by consequent, to the truer knowledge of the disease."

14 In a similar manner the rate of breathing might be measured in various ages and in diverse infirmities, and other studies might be made on men 8 The dialogues of Plato, ed. B. Jowett, Oxford, Vol. IV. p. 645. (Plato, Parmenides) 9 Hoffmann, E.: Nikolaus von Cusa. Zwei Vorträge. Heidelberg, 1947, p. 80 lu Die Predigten Tauleris. ed. Vetter, Berlin, 1910, p. 421 11 Cusa, op. cit. p. 59 12 Ibid. p. 172 13 Ibid. p. 174 14 Ibid.