confining the last to the method which rests on inner experiences, and
proceeds by the negative road. The experiences of the mystic have a
greater certainty than any external revelations can possess.

Gerson's psychology may be given in outline as follows: The cognitive
power has three faculties: (1) simple intelligence or natural light,
an outflow from the highest intelligence, God Himself; (2) the
understanding, which is on the frontier between the two worlds; (3)
sense-consciousness. To each of these three faculties answers one of
the affective faculties: (1) synteresis;[231] (2) understanding,
rational desire; (3) sense-affections. To these again correspond three
_activities_: (1) contemplation; (2) meditation;[232] (3) thought.

Mystical theology differs from speculative (i.e. scholastic), in that
mystical theology belongs to the affective faculties, not the
cognitive; that it does not depend on logic, and is therefore open
even to the ignorant; that it is _not_ open to the unbelieving, since
it rests upon faith and love; and that it brings peace, whereas
speculation breeds unrest.

The "means of mystical theology" are seven: (i.) the call of God;
(ii.) certainty that one is called to the contemplative life--all are
not so; (iii.) freedom from encumbrances; (iv.) concentration of
interests upon God; (v.) perseverance; (vi.) asceticism; but the body
must not be maltreated if it is to be a good servant; (vii.) shutting
the eye to all sense perceptions.[233]

Such teaching as this is of small value or interest. Mysticism itself
becomes arid and formal in the hands of Gerson. The whole movement was
doomed to failure, inasmuch as scholasticism was philosophy in chains,