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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's
+Philosophy, by W. Tudor Jones
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy
+
+Author: W. Tudor Jones
+
+Release Date: October 9, 2005 [EBook #16835]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marc D'Hooghe.
+
+
+
+
+AN INTERPRETATION OF RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY
+
+By
+
+W. TUDOR JONES, Ph.D. (Jena)
+
+
+LONDON
+
+1912
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+     [Greek: Hara ohyn, hadelphoi, hopheiletai hesmen, ou tê sarki tou
+     kata sarka zên, ei gar kata sarka zête meggete hapothnêskein, ehi
+     de pneumati tas praxeis tou sômatos thanatoute zêsesthe. hosoi gar
+     pneumati theou hagontai, outoi uioi theou ehisin.]--St. Paul
+     (Romans, viii. 12-14).
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+PREFACE [p.7]
+
+
+The personality and works of Professor Rudolf Eucken are at the present
+day exercising such a deep influence the world over that a volume by one
+of his old pupils, which attempts to interpret his teaching, should
+prove of assistance. It is hoped that the essentials of Eucken's
+teaching are presented in this book, in a form which is as simple as the
+subject-matter allows, and which will not necessitate the reader
+unlearning anything when he comes to the author's most important works.
+The whole of the work is expository; and an attempt has been made in the
+foot-notes to point out aspects similar to those of Eucken's in English
+and German Philosophy.
+
+It is encouraging to find at the present day so much interest in
+religious idealism, and it is proved by Eucken beyond the possibility of
+doubt that without some form of such idealism no individual or nation
+can realise its deepest potencies. But with the presence of such
+idealism as a conviction in the mind and life, history teaches us that
+the seemingly impossible [p.8] is partially realised, and that a new
+depth of life is reached. All this does not mean that the individual is
+to slacken his interests or to lose his affection for the material
+aspects of life; but it does mean that the things which appertain to
+life have different values, and that it is of the utmost importance to
+judge them all from the highest conceivable standpoint--the standpoint
+of spiritual life. This is Eucken's distinctive message to-day. The
+message shows that an actual evolution of spirit is taking place in the
+life of the individual and of human society; and that this evolution can
+be guided by means of the concentration of the whole being upon the
+reality of the norms and standards which present themselves in the lives
+of individuals and of nations. No one particular science or philosophy
+is able to grant us this central standpoint for viewing the field of
+knowledge and the meaning of life. The answer to the complexity of the
+problem of existence is to be found in something which gathers up under
+a larger and more significant meaning the results of knowledge and life.
+This volume will attempt to elucidate this all-important point of
+view--a point of view which is so needful in our days of specialisation
+and of material interests. It may be, and Eucken and his followers
+believe it is, that the destiny of the nations of the world depends in
+the last resort upon a conception and conviction of [p.9] the reality of
+a life deeper than that of sense or intellect, although both these may
+become tributaries (and not hindrances) to such a spiritual life.
+
+I have to thank Professor Eucken himself for allowing me access to
+material hitherto unpublished, and for encouraging me in the work. I am
+bold enough to be confident that could I say half of what our revered
+teacher has meant for me and for hundreds of others of his old pupils,
+this volume would be the means of helping many who are drifting from
+their old moorings to find an anchorage in a spiritual world.
+
+                                                W. TUDOR JONES.
+
+  Highbury, London, N.,
+
+        _November_ 1, 1912.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+Preface                                                   7
+
+1. Introduction                                          13
+
+2. Religion and Evolution                                26
+
+3. Religion and Natural Science                          57
+
+4. Religion and History                                  70
+
+5. Religion and Psychology                               87
+
+6. Religion and Society                                 108
+
+7. Religion and Art                                     119
+
+8. Universal Religion                                   128
+
+9. Characteristic Religion                              151
+
+10. The Historical Religions                            166
+
+11. Christianity                                        180
+
+12. Present-Day Aspects of Philosophy and Religion      206
+
+13. Eucken's Personality and Influence                  227
+
+14. Conclusion                                          236
+
+List of Eucken's Works                                  245
+
+Index                                                   249
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AN INTERPRETATION OF RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTION [p.13]
+
+
+Rudolf Eucken was born at Aurich, East Frisia, on the 5th of January
+1846. He lost his father when quite a child. His mother, the daughter of
+a Liberal clergyman, was a woman of deep religious experience and of
+rich intellectual gifts. When quite a boy he came at school under the
+influence of the theologian Reuter, a man of wonderful fascination to
+young men. The questions of religion and the need of religious
+experience interested Eucken early, and these have never parted from him
+during the long years which have since passed away.
+
+At an early age he entered the University of Göttingen and attended the
+philosophical classes of Hermann Lotze. Lotze interested him in
+philosophical problems, but did not [p.14] satisfy the burning desire
+for religious experience which was in the young man's soul. Lotze looked
+at religion and all else from the intellectual point of view. His main
+business was to discover proofs for the things of the spirit, and the
+value of his work in this direction cannot be over-estimated. Hermann
+Lotze's works are with us to-day; and he has probably made more
+important contributions to philosophy and religion from the scientific
+side than any other writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century.
+But he seems to have been a man who was inclined to conceive of reality
+as something which had value only in so far as it was _known_, and left
+very largely out of account the inchoate stirrings and aspirations which
+are found at a deeper level within the human soul than the _knowing_
+level. Life is larger and deeper than logic, and is something, despite
+all our efforts, which resists being reduced to logical propositions. It
+is quite easy to understand how a young man of Eucken's temperament and
+training should acquiesce in all the logical treatment of Lotze's
+philosophy, and still find that _more_ was to be obtained from other
+sources which had quenched the thirst of the great men of the past.
+
+When Eucken entered the University of Berlin he came into contact with a
+teacher who helped him immensely in the quest for religion, and in the
+interpretation of religion as the [p.15] issue of that quest. Adolf
+Trendelenburg was a great teacher as well as a noble idealist, and his
+influence upon young Eucken was very great. Indeed, it seems that
+Trendelenburg's influence was great on the life of every young man who
+was fortunate enough to come into contact with him. The late Professor
+Paulsen, in his beautiful autobiography, _Aus meinem Leben_ (1909),
+presents us with a vivid picture of Trendelenburg and his work. Under
+him the pupils came into close touch not only with the _meaning_ but
+also with the _spirit_ of Plato and Aristotle. The pupils were made to
+see the ideal life in all its charm and glory. The great Professor had
+all his lifetime lived and meditated in this pure atmosphere, and
+possessed the gift of infusing something of his own enthusiasm into the
+minds and spirits of his hearers. Eucken has stated on several occasions
+his indebtedness to Trendelenburg. The young student entered the temple
+of philosophy through the gateways of philology and history. This was a
+great gain, for the barricading of these two gateways against philosophy
+has produced untold mischief in the past. At present men are beginning
+to see this mistake, and we are witnessing to-day the phenomenon of the
+indissoluble connection of language and history with philosophy. In
+fact, the new meanings given to language and history are meanings of
+things which happened in the [p.16] culture and civilisations of
+individuals and of nations, and such a material casts light on the
+processes, meaning, and significance of the human mind and spirit.
+
+Eucken learnt this truth in Berlin at a very early age, and his life and
+teaching ever since have been a further development of it. This fact has
+to be borne in mind in order that we may understand the prominence he
+gives to religion, religious idealism, spiritual life, and other similar
+concepts--concepts which are largely foreign to ordinary philosophy and
+which are only to be found in that mysterious, all-important borderland
+of philosophy and religion.
+
+After graduating as Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Göttingen,
+we find him preparing himself as a High School teacher, in which
+position he remained for five years.
+
+In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in the University of
+Basel. In 1874 he received a "call" to succeed the late Kuno Fischer as
+Professor of Philosophy in the renowned University of Jena. It is here,
+in the "little nest" of Goethe and Schiller, that Eucken has remained in
+spite of "calls" to universities situated in larger towns and carrying
+with them larger salaries. It is fortunate for Jena that Eucken has thus
+decided. He, along with his late colleague Otto Liebmann, has kept up
+the philosophical tradition of Jena. In spite of modern developments and
+the presence of [p.17] new university buildings, Jena still remains an
+old-world place. To read the tablets on the walls of the old houses has
+a fascination, and brings home the fact that in this small out-of-the-way
+town large numbers of the most creative minds of Europe have studied and
+taught. The traditions of Goethe and Schiller still linger around the
+old buildings and in the historical consciousness of the people. Here
+Fichte taught his great idealism--an idealism which has meant so much in
+the evolution of the Germany of the nineteenth century; here Hegel was
+engaged on his great _Phenomenology of Spirit_ when Napoleon's army
+entered the town; here Schopenhauer sent his great dissertation and
+received his doctor's degree _in absentia_; here too, the Kantian
+philosophy found friends who started it on its "grand triumphant
+march"--a philosophy which raised new problems which have been with us
+ever since, and which gave a new method of approaching philosophical
+questions; here Schelling revived modern mysticism and attempted the
+construction of a great _Weltanschauung._ But only a small portion of
+the greatness of Jena can be touched on. Eucken has nobly upheld the
+great traditions of the place, not only as a philosophical thinker but
+also as a personality.
+
+What is the secret of Eucken's influence? It is due greatly, it is true,
+to his writings and their original contents, for it is not possible for
+[p.18] a man to hide his inner being when he writes on the deepest
+questions concerning life and death. A great deal of Eucken's
+personality may be discovered in his writings. Opening any page of his
+books, one sees something unique, passionate, and somehow always deeper
+than what may be confined within the limits of the understanding, and
+something which has to be lived in order to be understood. And to know
+the man is to realise this in a fuller measure than his writings can
+ever show. He has to be seen and heard before the real significance of
+his message becomes clear. His personality attracts men and women of all
+schools of thought, from all parts of the world, and they all feel that
+his message of a reality which is beyond knowledge--though knowledge
+forms an integral part of it--is a new revelation of the meaning of life
+and existence. Professor Windelband, in his _History of Philosophy_ and
+elsewhere, describes Eucken as the creator of a new Metaphysic--a
+metaphysic not of the Schools but of Life. This aspect will be discussed
+at fuller length in later pages, so that it may be passed over for the
+present.
+
+Eucken believes in the reality and necessity of his message. He is aware
+that that message is contrary to the current terminology and meaning of
+the philosophy of our day. Some of his great constructive books were
+written as far back as 1888, and have remained, almost until our own
+day, in a large measure unnoticed. [p.19] The _Einheit des Geisteslebens
+in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit_ is a case in point. It is one of
+his greatest books, and its value was not seen until the last few years.
+But the philosophy of the present day in Germany is tending more and
+more in the direction of Eucken's. Writers such as the late Class and
+Dilthey, Siebeck, Windelband, Münsterberg, Rickert, Volkelt, Troeltsch
+--naming but a small number of the idealistic thinkers of the present
+--are tending in the direction of the new Metaphysic presented by Eucken
+in the book already referred to as well as in the _Kampf um einen
+geistigen Lebensinhalt_.
+
+The philosophy of Germany at the present day is making several attempts
+at a metaphysic of the universe. Much critical and constructive work has
+been done during the past quarter of a century and is being done to-day.
+The attempts to construct systems of metaphysics may be witnessed on the
+sides of natural science and of philosophy. Haeckel, Ostwald, and Mach
+have each given the world a constructive system of thought. But these
+three systems have not, except in a secondary way, attempted a
+metaphysic of human life. Haeckel's system is mainly poetico-mythical,
+chiefly on the lines of some of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Ostwald's
+attempt is to show the unity of nature and life through his principle of
+Energetics; and Mach's may be described as an inverted kind [p.20] of
+Kantianism in regard to the problem of subject and object.
+
+None of these has attempted a reconstruction of philosophy from the side
+of the content of consciousness; in fact, they all find their
+explanation of consciousness in connection with physical and organic
+phenomena observed on planes below those of the mental and ideal life of
+man. Such work is necessary; but if it comes forward as a _complete_
+explanation of man, it is, as Eucken points out again and again, a
+wretched caricature of life. To know the connection of consciousness
+with the organic and inorganic world is not to know consciousness in
+anything more than its history. It may have been similar to, or even
+identical with, physical manifestations of life, but it is not so _now_.
+Eucken admits entirely this fact of the history of mind; but the meaning
+of mind is to be discovered not so much in its _Whence_ as in its
+present potency and its _Whither_.[1] A philosophy of science is bound
+to recognise this difference, or else all its constructions can
+represent no more than a torso. Physical impressions enter into
+consciousness, [p.21] and doubtless in important ways condition it,
+but they are _not physical_ once man becomes _conscious_ of them. A union
+of subject and object has now taken place, and consequently a new beginning
+--a beginning which cannot be interpreted in terms of the things of
+sense--starts on its course. This is Eucken's standpoint, and it is no
+other than the carrying farther of some of the important results Kant
+arrived at.
+
+This difference between the natural and the mental sciences has been
+emphasised, at various times, since the time of Plato. But the
+difference tended to become obliterated through the discoveries of
+natural science and its great influence during the latter half of the
+nineteenth century. The key of evolution had come at last into the hands
+of men, and it fitted so many closed doors; it provided an entrance to a
+new kind of world, and gave new methods for knowing that world. But, as
+already stated, evolution is capable of dealing with what _is_ in the
+light of what _was_, and the _Is_ and the _Was_ are the physical
+characteristics of things. In all this, mind and morals, as they are in
+their own intrinsic nature operating in the world, are left out of
+account. A striking example of this is found in the late Professor
+Huxley's Romanes Lecture--_Evolution and Ethics_. In this remarkable
+lecture it is shown that the cosmic order does not answer all our
+questions, and is indifferent [p.22] and even antagonistic to our
+ethical needs and ideals. Huxley's conclusion may be justly designated
+as a failure of science to interpret the greatest things of life. Before
+culture, civilisation, and morality become possible, a new point of
+departure has to take place within human consciousness, and the attempt
+to move in an ethical direction is as much hindered as helped by the
+natural course of the physical universe. This lecture of Huxley's runs
+parallel in many ways with Eucken's differentiation of Nature and
+Spirit, and Huxley's "ethical life" has practically the same meaning as
+Eucken's "spiritual life" on its lower levels.
+
+Numerous instances are to be found in the present-day philosophy of
+Germany of the need of a Metaphysic of Life, and of the impossibility of
+constructing such from the standpoint of the results of the natural
+sciences either singly or combined.
+
+Professor Rickert's investigations are having important effects in this
+respect. In his works he has made abundantly clear the difference
+between the methods and results of the sciences of Nature and the
+sciences of Mind. And even amongst the mental sciences themselves,
+all-important aspects of different subject-matters present themselves,
+and render themselves as of different _values_.
+
+Professor Münsterberg has worked on a similar path, and has insisted
+once more on the nature of reality as this expresses itself in [p.23] a
+meaning which is over-individual. Professor Windelband's writings (_cf.
+Präludien, Die Philosophie im XX. Jahrhundert_, etc.) have emphasised
+very clearly the need of the presence and acknowledgment of norms in
+life, and of the meaning of life realising itself in the fulfilment of
+these norms.[2]
+
+When we turn to the great neo-Kantian movement, we find alongside of
+discussions concerning psychological questions important ethical aspects
+presenting themselves. The works of the late Professor Otto Liebmann of
+Jena (_cf_ the last part of his _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_) and of the
+late Professor Dilthey and Dr. G. Simmel point in the same direction.
+Professors Husserl, Lipps, and Vaihinger, as their most recent important
+books show, work on lines which insist on bringing life as it is and as
+it ought to be into their systems. The same may be said of Professor
+Wundt's works in so far as they present a constructive system.
+
+But the ground was fallow twenty-five years ago when some of Eucken's
+important works made their appearance. Even as late as 1896 he complains
+of this in the preface of his _Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_:
+"I am aware that the explanations offered in this [p.24] volume will prove
+themselves to be in direct antagonism to the mental currents which
+prevail to-day."[3] He states that his standpoint is different from that
+of the conventional and official idealism then in vogue. By this he
+means, on the one hand, the "absolute idealism" which constructed
+systems entirely unconnected with science or experience--systems whose
+Absolute had no direct relationship with man, or which made no appeal to
+anything of a similar nature to itself in the deeper experience of the
+soul; and, on the other hand, the degeneration of the neo-Kantian
+movement to a mere description of the relations of bodily and mental
+processes.
+
+Probably enough has been said to show that the idealistic systems of
+Germany are tending more and more in the direction of a philosophy which
+attempts to take into account not only the results of the physical
+sciences and psychology, but also those of the norms of history and of
+the over-individual contents of consciousness.
+
+It has been stated by several critics in England, Germany, and America,
+that Eucken has ignored the results of physical science and psychology.
+This was partially true in the past, when his main object was to present
+his [p.25] own metaphysic of life. The problems of science and
+psychology had to take a secondary place, but it is incorrect to state
+that these problems were ignored. It is remarkable how Eucken has kept
+himself abreast of these results which are outside his own province.[4]
+But he has been all along conscious of the limitations of these results
+of natural science and psychology. The results fail to connote the
+phenomena of consciousness and its meaning. While Eucken has accepted
+these results, I have not seen any evidence that any of his conceptions
+concerning the main core of his teaching--the spiritual life--are
+disproved by any of them. He shows us, as will be elucidated later, that
+as sensations point in the direction of percepts, and percepts in the
+direction of concepts, so concepts point in the direction of something
+which is beyond themselves. And as the meaning of reality reveals itself
+the more we pass along the mysterious transition from sensation to
+concept, so a further meaning of reality is revealed when concepts
+search for a depth beyond themselves. This is the clue to Eucken's
+teaching in regard to spiritual life. It is a further development of the
+nature of man--a development beyond the empirical and the mental. And
+the object of the following chapters will be to show this from various
+points of view.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER II [p.26]
+
+RELIGION AND EVOLUTION
+
+
+Eucken accepts gladly the theory of descent in Darwinism, but insists
+that the theory of selection must be clearly distinguished from it.
+He agrees with Edward von Hartmann that the doctrine of selection is
+inadequate to explain the phenomena of life. But, as he points out,
+there is much which is true and helpful in the theory of selection
+even in regard to human life. "In all quarters there is a widespread
+inclination to go back to the simplest possible beginnings, which
+exhibit man closely related to the animal world, to trace back the
+upward movement not to an inner impulse, but to a gradual forward
+thrust produced by outward necessities, and to understand it as a mere
+adaptation to environment and the conditions of life. It seems to be a
+mere question of natural existence, of victory in the struggle against
+rivals."[5] But he is not satisfied that such an explanation covers the
+[p.27] phenomena of consciousness. If there were no more than this at
+work in the higher forms of life, the things of value--the things which
+have meant so much in the upward development of humanity--would be
+reduced to mere adjuncts of physical existence. If mental and moral
+values mean no more than this, they are simply annihilated. But the
+values of life are something quite other than any physical manifestation;
+and however much they are conditioned by physical changes it is
+inconceivable that what is purely physical should be the sole cause of
+them. Man would never have risen so far above Nature, and become able to
+be conscious of his own personality and of the meaning of the world, had
+there not been present from the very beginning some spiritual potency
+which could receive the impressions of the external world and bind them
+together into some kind of connected Whole. This connected Whole may be
+no more in the beginning than a potency without any content, and its
+roots may be discerned in the world below man; but without such a
+potency, different in its nature from physical things, the whole meaning
+of the evolution of mind and spirit is utterly unintelligible. But what
+can this potency mean but something which includes within itself the
+germ of that which later comes out in the form of the values which have
+been gained in the life of the individual and of the race?
+
+[p.28] In order to understand Eucken's conceptions concerning Spirit,
+Whole, Totality, and other similar terms, this fact has to be borne in
+mind. The capacity for _more_ is present in man's nature. It may remain
+dormant in a large measure, but it is not entirely so, as witnessed by
+the fact that men have scaled heights far above Nature and the ordinary
+life of the day. And humanity, on the whole, has climbed to a height to
+give some degree of meaning to the life of the day--a meaning superior
+to physical impressions, and which is able to see somewhat behind,
+around, and beyond itself. Wherever this happens, it comes about through
+the presence and activity of the life of the spirit within man. The
+spiritual life is, then, a possession of man, but it is a possession
+only in so far as it is used. It is subject to helps and hindrances from
+the world; it is not freed from its own content; it can never say,
+"So far and no further according to the bond and the duty"; it has to
+undergo a toilsome struggle before it can ever become the possessor of
+the new kind of world to which it has a right.
+
+In all this we notice something in the _new world of consciousness_
+similar to what happens within the physical world. In the world of
+nature no animate (and probably no inanimate) thing has received a
+_donum_ which it may preserve as its own without effort. Everything that
+has value has to be preserved through [p.29] struggles necessitated by
+the changing conditions of the impinging environment as well as
+struggles between contrary characteristics within the nature of the
+thing itself. Otherwise nothing could maintain its identity and
+individuality at all. There must be some core in everything which exists
+as an individual thing. This individuality is seen more clearly as the
+scale of existence is mounted. In the organic world each thing lives in
+a more or less degree its own life, however much that life is
+conditioned and even hindered by the environment. What is it, then, that
+keeps the thing together? It is some point of union of elements
+otherwise scattered. When we come to man we see this more clearly than
+in the world below him. This core is a kind of Whole made up of isolated
+impressions mingling with a potency different in nature from themselves,
+and transmuting them to its own nature in the forms of self-consciousness,
+meanings, values. This potency--this Whole--although present from the
+very beginning as the condition of becoming conscious of anything, yet
+remains in constant change. Impressions pour in through the senses,
+enter the Whole that is already present; they drop their content into
+that Whole by means of the senses, and the miracle of transmutation,
+entirely mysterious, takes place.
+
+This point is not new. It is a fact well [p.30] known in the history of
+psychology, and played a very prominent part in the psychology of Kant.
+But Eucken has deepened the conception in such a way as to be able to
+rid himself of the postulates of Kant concerning God, Freedom, and
+Immortality. The germs of these, according to the meaning of Eucken,
+are within the spiritual life itself, and not transcendent in the form
+presented by Kant or external as presented by Hegel. There is, then,
+within consciousness a process in many respects analogous to the natural
+process. And as the meaning of the physical universe has become clearer
+through the conception of evolution, so the meaning of consciousness,
+originating in a higher world than Nature, will become clearer if viewed
+in a similar manner. Let us then turn to one of the most important
+aspects of Eucken's work, Evolution and Religion.
+
+Eucken's deepest, and consequently the most difficult, account of the
+meaning of religion is to be found in his _Truth of Religion_ and his
+_Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt._ It is important to deal with
+the concept of the spiritual life at this stage of our inquiry, for it
+is the pivot around which the whole of Eucken's philosophy turns.
+
+The essence of religion is conceived by him as the possession by man of
+an eternal existence in the midst of time; of the presence of an
+over-world in the midst of this world [p.31]--guiding man to the
+revelation of a Divine Will.
+
+This is Eucken's main thesis, and connected with this thesis is the fact
+that religion can come to birth in the soul of man only through a
+conquest of the ordinary, natural world which surrounds him. The world
+which surrounds him hinders more than it helps the birth of religion in
+the soul. The aim of religion is therefore not the perfecting of man in
+a natural sense, but the bringing about of a union of human nature and
+the Divine. Religion must therefore include a "world-denial and a
+world-renewal." There is not enough for man's deeper nature either in
+the physical world or in the ordinary life of the hour. The natural
+world knows of no complete self-subsistence, for everything is connected
+with its environment, and it is in this connection with its environment
+that life below man largely obtains its existence. But in man we
+discover a transition stage from the sensuous to the non-sensuous, and
+it is in the latter that the meaning of the former can be obtained. The
+history of civilisation and culture is a history of this all-important
+fact. The meaning of man is, therefore, not to be found in his
+relationship to the physical world, but in his own consciousness.
+Although we may not be aware of it, consciousness is the power which, in
+the long and slow progress of the ages, has overcome the sensuous and
+made it subservient to the [p.32] meaning and value which its own
+content of experience has presented. The necessity and proof of religion
+are not then discovered in anything in the external world, but in the
+realisation of the fact that we are meant to be citizens of a world
+higher in its nature, the birthright of which is to be found within our
+own nature. The conquest of nature and the growth of culture are proofs
+to man of his superiority to the world of sense impressions. This denial
+of the sufficiency of the world of sense in the evolution of the human
+soul, on the one hand, and the affirmation of the potentiality of a
+higher world of spirit on the other hand, constitute the nucleus of the
+Christian religion. Its superiority consists in giving their rights to
+both worlds, and also in showing that they do not possess the same
+value. This essential nature of Christianity will be demonstrated later.
+
+We must return, then, to consciousness itself and see what may be
+discovered within it concerning the meaning of religion. The great
+thinkers of the ages have all been agreed as to the impossibility of
+finding sufficient proofs and meanings of religion either from Nature or
+from some supernatural source flowing in a miraculous manner towards our
+earth. The growth and interpretation of natural science in modern times
+have rendered it impossible to find proofs of religion in any external
+mode. Yet the problems of man's [p.33] Whence and Whither raise
+themselves with energy and even tragedy in our own day. These, as Eucken
+points out, are "problems concerning our Whence and Whither, our
+dependence upon strange powers, the painful antitheses within our own
+soul, the stubborn barriers to our spiritual potencies, the flaws in
+love and righteousness, in Nature and in human nature; in a word, the
+apparent total loss of what we dare not renounce--our best and most real
+treasures."[6] The loss takes place because we have been looking outward
+instead of inward for support, and prop after prop has given way. This
+is the situation to-day, and it has been brought about by no evil power,
+but by the gradual dawning of the meaning of things. Still, it is not
+the whole meaning of things, for, as Eucken points out: "But we are now
+experiencing what mankind has so often experienced, viz. that at the
+very point where the negation reaches its climax and the danger reaches
+the very brink of a precipice, the conviction dawns with axiomatic
+certainty that there lives and stirs within us something which no
+obstacle or enmity can ever destroy, and which signifies against all
+opposition a kernel of our nature that can never get lost."[7]
+
+The religio-philosophical problem is, then, a return to _the Whole of
+Life_. It is here that any satisfactory answer can be found if found
+[p.34] at all. It is necessary to investigate the final grounds as well
+as the most complete structure of Life; it is further necessary to
+discover whether the movement of Life necessarily leads to religion.
+As Eucken invariably presents the truth of religion, the meaning and
+significance of religion are to be found through self-consciousness.
+This meaning of consciousness is twofold in nature. On the one hand,
+it is something that may be _known_, and, on the other hand, it is
+something that is _active_ through its own inherent energy. Here we find
+a difference between what we may _know_ we are and what we _are_. Our
+knowledge of what we are, the conditions of what we are, the history of
+what we are--all these are a help for us to be what we are capable of
+becoming. But all these are not the very movement of the becoming
+itself. That movement is the resultant of the spiritual potency after
+experiences in the form of cognition have marked out the path for
+conation. This conation is an inheritance; it is present in the form of
+dissatisfaction with the present situation; it moves in the direction of
+a goal which is marked out by intellect. Now, however much this conation
+may be analysed, it resists being decomposed into a number of elements
+which make it up, for any such number, except in the very manner they
+are united, could not produce the situation. In other words, whatever
+the history of this conation may be, it is now a unity or whole. [p.35]
+Conditioned as it is by the surrounding world and by its own history, in
+so far as it is this, it is _determined_; but it is still _free_ in so
+far as it is capable of becoming a new point of departure for life and
+of proceeding on its way in a world of spirit. Unless man's nature
+contained within itself some unity or whole of the kind already referred
+to, it would mean no more than a receptacle of momentary impressions
+which would vanish as soon as their physical effects had passed away.
+But man is in reality more than all this. In the form of memory and
+experience he is able to hold together in a core of his being the
+_meaning_ of these impressions after they have filtered into his
+consciousness. That is what we find, in however obscure a way, as the
+very beginning of every human life. This unity or whole, as already
+stated, may be no more than a potency in the beginning of life, but it
+gains in content and depth as it passes from impression to impression,
+and from experience to experience. And all further impressions and
+experiences have to be referred to this nucleus of the nature in order
+that they may be used and may prove themselves helpful. It is in this
+nucleus of the nature that everything obtains its meaning and value.
+
+The _Whole_ consequently grows, and gradually man becomes conscious of
+his personality as over against the environing world and even his own
+body. This consciousness of [p.36] _inwardness_ is of slow growth,
+because the natural tendency of life is to give a primary place to the
+world from which we have emerged--the world of physical existence, and
+also because much of that physical world reigns powerfully within our
+nature. But when reflection turns into itself, it becomes aware that the
+inwardness constitutes the kernel of a reality higher in its nature than
+anything either in the physical world or in the physical life which the
+man has to lead.
+
+Two modes of reality now present themselves to the life, neither of
+which allows itself to be conceived of as an illusion. On the one hand,
+we find the physical world and our own physical nature. We discover that
+we cannot jump out of these without destroying all we possess; we have
+to come to some kind of understanding with the physical world and our
+own physical existence. Yet, on the other hand, the consciousness of a
+kernel of our being, non-sensuous and spiritual in its nature, has for
+ever broken our satisfaction with the physical world and our own
+physical existence. There are only two alternatives on which we can act.
+Either we are to conceive of our spiritual personality as something
+secondary and subsidiary to the natural world, or we are to insist on
+its independence, and acknowledge it as the beginning of _a new mode of
+existence._ If the former alternative is chosen, the personality can
+never pass to a state of self-subsistence, [p.37] but will conceive of
+reality as something which is mainly physical. The consequence is that
+the personality will suffer seriously in its evolution, for such an
+evolution is brought about through the recognition and willing
+acknowledgment of the breaking forth of _a new kind of reality_ within
+the spiritual nucleus of life. If the latter alternative is chosen, this
+nucleus of life is now seen as something quite other than a quality
+entirely dependent upon the physical or than a mere flowering of the
+physical; it is seen as a reality higher in its nature than the physical
+or even than the ordinary life of the individual. Such a situation is
+forced on man when once he reflects upon the inward meaning of the
+content of his consciousness. It is true that such questions may be
+thrust into the background, and consequently inhibited from presenting
+us with their full value and significance. And it is this which happens
+only too often in daily life. The constant need of attention to external
+things, the absorption of the mind in conventionality and custom as
+these present themselves in the form of a ready-made inheritance--all
+these occupy so much of the attention as to prevent man from knowing and
+experiencing what _his own life_ is or what it is capable of becoming.
+Man has penetrated into the secrets of Nature as well as into the past
+of human society through close and constant attention to external
+things. [p.38] He has been able to gather fragments together, piece them
+into each other, and through this frame laws concerning them. It is thus
+that the external world and society have come to mean more to a human
+being than to an animal. The animal is probably almost entirely the
+creature of its instincts and of the percepts which present themselves
+to it from moment to moment, and which largely disappear. But man rises
+above this situation. The external world and everything that has ever
+happened on its face are not merely objects external to himself, which
+contain all their qualities in themselves. Somebody has to experience
+all this, and that somebody that experiences all this is _mental_ in his
+nature, however much this nature has been conditioned by _physical_
+things in the past or present.
+
+Eucken emphasises this fundamental fact in all his books. Wherever a
+being is capable of _experiencing_ impressions and of giving _meanings_
+to these, we are bound to conclude that the power which does this is
+something quite other than physical in its nature. It may be that such
+a power has never been known except in connection with what is physical;
+it may be that various chemical changes give the truer and clearer
+explanation of its origin, as far as its origin can be known at all;
+it may be that there was nothing of the _mental_ visible in the early
+stages of its development; but all this is very different from stating
+that [p.39] no potentiality for mental evolution was there. And it is
+this potentiality which is the issue at stake. We have no warrant for
+stating that it does not exist because it does not lend itself to be
+verified by the senses. Where does _mind_ manifest itself to the senses?
+It is something which does not exist in space as a horse or a tree. It
+may be that consciousness has emanated from simple chemical beginnings
+and combinations, but it is not a simple or a chemical thing _now_. We
+divide worlds into inorganic and organic. The main principle of division
+is necessitated on account of the fact that some characteristics are
+present in the former which are absent in the latter. It is precisely
+the same between Body and Mind, with one difference. Body and Mind are
+indissolubly connected, but one cannot be reduced into the other.
+However much the connection on one side may influence the other side,
+the difference between a _meaning_ and a _thing_ remains. And it is this
+fundamental difference which makes it absolutely necessary to
+acknowledge _a world_ of consciousness in contradistinction to a world
+of matter and its behaviour, whether such matter is to be found in the
+human body with its mechanical and chemical changes and transformations
+or in the physical universe outside our body.
+
+It is only when the mind becomes aware of its own existence--an
+existence not to be established as being in Space (or entirely in [p.40]
+Time) but as a reality subsisting in itself and in will-relations--that
+the efforts and fruitions of the spirit of man become intelligible at
+all. But such an awareness has become a permanent possession in a
+greater or less degree within the life of man. Whenever he becomes
+conscious of the fact that in his own soul a new phenomenon has made its
+appearance, he begins, after the willing acknowledgment of the reality
+of such a phenomenon, to exercise its potency over against the external
+world and over against much that is present in his own psychical life. A
+Higher and a Lower present themselves to him. The two alternatives force
+themselves, and there is no third: either this deeper kernel of his life
+must mean the possibility and, in a measure, the presence of _a new land
+of reality_; or, on the other hand, it means no more than a mere
+epiphenomenon and blossoming of the merely _natural_ life. If the latter
+view is adopted, the spiritual nucleus of man's nature obtains but
+slight attention except on the side of its connection with the
+surrounding organic world, and consequently what this nucleus is in
+itself as an experience recedes into the background, and descriptions
+and explanations in scientific or philosophical form step into the
+foreground. But a contradiction is imbedded in this very account. Some
+kind of experience of life, apart from, and higher in its nature than,
+the connection of the spiritual nucleus with its [p.41] physical
+history, persists in the life. The man of science is generally a good
+and worthy man. He believes in the moral life, and he does not throw the
+values of the centuries overboard. Such belief and valuation are not
+made up of the content of the explanation of life from its physical
+side, but are an unconscious acknowledgment of the presence of _truths
+and values as experiences and as now subsisting in themselves_, however
+much they are caused by physical things.
+
+If, on the other hand, an acknowledgment of the reality of this
+spiritual life is made, new questions immediately arise. And the most
+fundamental of these questions have always been those farther removed
+from any sensuous or physical domain. They are questions concerning the
+value and meaning of life. It is a deep conviction of the reality of the
+deeper kernel of our being that alone constitutes the entrance to a _new
+kind of world_. But to acknowledge the presence of such a new world does
+not signify the possession of it simultaneously with the acknowledgment.
+The new world is discovered, but it is not yet possessed. There are
+terrible obstacles in the way; there are enemies without and within to
+be conquered. It is of little use entering into this struggle without an
+acknowledgment--born of an inward necessity--of the spiritual nucleus of
+our nature. Unless man has accustomed himself to hold fast to this
+"subtle thing termed spirit" [p.42] he will soon be swamped in the
+region of the natural life once more; and when this happens the
+spiritual nucleus loses the consciousness of its own real subsistence as
+something higher in its nature than physical things or than the body and
+the ordinary life of the day. If the enterprise is to issue in anything
+that is great and good--into a spiritual world with an ever-growing
+content here and now--an insistence upon the reality of this deeper life
+coupled with the highest end which presents itself to the life must be
+made. Something is now seen in the distance as the meaning and value of
+life--something which our deeper nature longs for, and which has created
+a cleft within the soul between the ordinary things of sense and time
+and that which "never was on sea or land." It is something of this
+nature which Eucken discovers as the germ of all the spiritual ideas of
+religion as well as of the essence of religion itself. The Godhead,
+Eternity, Immortality, are concepts which arise within the soul through
+a consciousness of the inadequacy of all natural things and of even
+mental descriptions and explanations to answer and to satisfy the
+potency and longing of human nature.
+
+Most of the great thinkers of the ages have insisted on the necessity of
+the recognition and acknowledgment of this deeper life which is in dire
+need of a content. If man is not to be swamped by the external and
+become the [p.43] mere sport of the "wind and wave" of the environment,
+he has to enter somehow into the very centre of his being and become
+convinced that the dictates which proceed from that centre are the most
+fundamental things in life. This has always formed the kernel of
+religion, however often men, failing to reach that kernel, have lived on
+the husks. But even this very sham notifies some small attempt in the
+right direction. In modern times--in the various forms of Idealism and
+Pragmatism--such a need of getting at the core of being and of being
+convinced that the effort is worth while, has been emphasised again and
+again. "_Launch yourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as
+possible_. Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall
+re-enforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions
+that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old;
+take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your
+resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning
+such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon
+as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is
+postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all."[8]
+
+"The Stoic and Butler also said, 'Follow God.' In each case you must
+realise that, whatever you do, you take your life in your [p.44] hands;
+you enter on a grand enterprise, a search for the Holy Grail, which will
+bring you to strange lands and perilous seas. For you cannot say,
+interpreting, 'Thus far and no further, merely according to the bond and
+the duty.' In following God, you follow by what has been, what is ruled
+and accomplished, but you follow after what is not yet. 'It may be that
+the gulfs will wash us down'; it may be that the gods of the past will
+rain upon us brimstone and horrible tempest. But he that is with us is
+more than all that are against us. Whoever keeps his ear ever open to
+duty, always forward, never attained, is not far from the kingdom. The
+gods may be against him, the demi-gods may depart; but he, as said
+Plotinus, 'if alone, is with the Alone.'"[9]
+
+It is impossible for us, as Eucken constantly insists, to stop short of
+this. Who can prescribe limits to the capability of consciousness when
+it is focussed, in the form of a conviction, on the deepest problems
+which press themselves upon it? There is only one objection that the
+empiricist can bring forward, and that is that all such ideals can never
+be proved to exist as things exist in space. But, as already hinted, is
+existence in space the only form of existence? Is it not necessary for
+something which is _not_ in space to make us aware of what is in space?
+"If not as men of science, yet as [p.45] men, as human beings, we have
+to put things together, to form some total estimate of the drift of
+development, of the unity of nature."[10]
+
+If the deepest core of consciousness is acknowledged and the vague
+ideals and ends which present themselves are attended to, _something new
+happens_ in the life. Life now starts on the great enterprise referred
+to by William Wallace. It finds its highest reality in an experience
+born within itself and differentiated for ever from the natural and even
+the intellectual life. To such a conclusion man is forced; and if the
+situation is evaded, something within his soul never comes to birth. It
+is seen at once that in order to know the content of this _new world_,
+it is necessary for a long series of struggles to take place. And to
+this point we now turn.
+
+The deeper consciousness has relegated the natural world to a secondary
+place, and has further shown man that the main object of life includes
+not only finding a footing against the dangers of natural things, but to
+plant oneself within a spiritual world of meanings and values. This
+cannot be done without _an independent and decisive act of the soul_. A
+meaning of life has now revealed itself beyond that of the "small self."
+This meaning can be reached only through this decisive act of the soul.
+This meaning is _over-individual_ in its nature; [p.46] it is a truth,
+goodness, or beauty, which presents itself as an idea and ideal formed
+by the experiences of many individuals, at different epochs and in
+different circumstances. Thus the individual, in order to realise his
+own life, must work with material presented in the community. Such
+material has been found helpful in the life of the community. It
+consists of collective results made up of large numbers of single
+factors. These have been tied together in the form of various syntheses.
+Such various syntheses comprise a larger meaning than what ordinarily
+happens from moment to moment in connection with the relation of the
+individual to the external world or, indeed, within the individual's own
+ordinary life. Many of the isolated, fragmentary experiences of the
+individual have to give way when tested in the light of any larger
+synthesis. If this were not so, no commercial, social, civilised life
+would be possible at all. The more real life is now perceived to be that
+of the larger meaning and value. The individual, solitary experiences
+may be legitimate, for they often express wants and needs of the
+individual which have a certain right to obtain satisfaction. But the
+extent and limits of these rights have to be measured by some norm or
+standard other than themselves, or else each individual will proceed on
+his own course regardless of the rights of others. It is the presence of
+various syntheses which express the [p.47] collective life of the
+whole--of each and every individual--that makes civilisation possible.
+Thus, in the very process of civilisation itself, as Eucken points out,
+there is present a factor which is termed Spiritual, and which is not to
+be mistaken for a mere flow of cause and effect, or for one mere event
+following another. Eucken emphasises this all-important element of the
+over-individual qualities present in human history. There is here much
+which resembles Hegel's Absolute. But there is a great difference
+between the two in the sense that Eucken shows the constant need of
+spiritual activism on the part of individuals in order to realise and
+keep alive the norms and standards which have carried our world so far;
+and there is also the need of contributing something to the values of
+these through the creation of new qualities within the souls of the
+individuals themselves.
+
+But the problems of civilisation and morality are not the only, or the
+highest, problems which present themselves. But even such problems have
+partially been the means of drawing man outside himself, and of enabling
+him to see that his self can only be realised in connection with the
+common good and demands of the community. He now feels the necessity of
+living up to that standard. This is an important step in the direction
+of the moral and religious life. It reveals the presence of a spiritual
+nucleus of our being obtaining a content beyond the needs [p.48] of the
+moment; it shows life as realising itself in wide connections; and the
+individual becomes the possessor of a certain degree of spiritual
+inwardness in the process. Even as far as this level we find the deeper
+life--the spiritual life--insisting on the validity of its mental and
+moral conclusions over against the objects of sense. Without this
+insistence no knowledge would progress and be valid. The macrocosm is
+mirrored and coloured in a mental and moral microcosm. A replica of the
+external world has a reality in consciousness, and this reality is not a
+mere photograph of the external, but it is the external as it appears to
+the meaning it has obtained in consciousness. The meaning of the world
+is thus something beyond the world itself; it is more than appears at
+any one moment. If the world were less than this, if the percept could
+not somehow become a concept, all progress would come to a standstill,
+and we should be no more than creatures of sensations and percepts which
+vanished as soon as they appeared. But these do not vanish; they persist
+in various ways, as after-images, concepts, memory. Thus, in the very
+act of knowing anything at all, something greater than the physical
+object known is present. And Eucken would insist, therefore, that the
+mental and spiritual are present from the very beginning and bring to a
+mental focus the impressions of the senses. In the interpretation of
+Eucken's philosophy several writers [p.49] have missed the author's
+meaning here. They have, through the ambiguity of the term "spiritual"
+in English, conceived of "spiritual life" as something entirely
+different from the mental life. It is different, but only in the same
+way as the bud is different from the blossom; it means at the religious
+level a greater unfolding of a life which has been present at every
+stage in the history of civilisation and culture.
+
+But, as already noticed, the mental life is passed when we enter the
+life of a community. The norms and standards, already referred to, make
+their appearance and persist in demanding obedience to themselves even
+at the expense of much within consciousness that points in another
+direction.
+
+But even such a stage as this does not give satisfaction to man. Much
+effort and sacrifice are needed to live up to the life of the community.
+And such effort and sacrifice are often the best means of calling into
+activity a still deeper, reserved energy of the soul. The soul now
+recognises a value beyond the values of culture and civilisation. The
+Good, the True, and the Beautiful appear as the sole realities by the
+side of which everything that preceded, if taken as complete in itself,
+appears as a great shadow or illusion. Here we are reminded of Eucken's
+affinity with Plato's Doctrine of Ideas, as well as of his attachment to
+the revival of Platonism by Plotinus. Values for life, subsisting in
+themselves, become objects [p.50] of meditation, of "browsing," and of
+the deepest activity of the soul. Life is now viewed as consisting in a
+great and constant quest after these religious ideals. It sees its
+meaning beyond and above the range of mentality or even morality, though
+it is well that it should pass as often as possible through the gate of
+the former, and is bound to pass always through the gate of the latter.
+A break takes place with the "natural self"; the mental life of
+concepts, though necessary, is now seen as insufficient; and life is now
+viewed as having a "pearl of great price" before its gaze. Here the
+_stirb und werde_ of Paul and Goethe becomes necessary. The real
+education of man now begins. His life becomes guided and governed by
+norms whose limits cannot be discovered, and which have never been
+realised in their wholeness on the face of our earth. What can these
+mean? They cannot be delusions or illusions, for they answer too deep a
+need of the soul to be reduced to that level. If we blot them out of our
+existence, we sink back to a mere natural or mechanical stage. When the
+soul concentrates its deepest attention on these norms or ideals they
+fascinate it, they draw hidden energies into activity, they give
+inklings of immortality. Is it not far more conceivable that such a
+vision of meaning, of beauty, and of enchantment is a new kind of
+reality--cosmic in its nature and eternal in its duration? Man has to
+[p.51] come to a decision concerning this. There is no half-way house
+here possible without the deepest potencies of human nature suffering
+and failing to transform themselves from bud to blossom and fruit.
+
+At a later stage in our inquiry this question will recur in connection
+with the conception of the Godhead. But here it may be observed that to
+decide on the affirmative side that somehow such norms and ideals which
+mean so much are cosmic realities, is simply to state no more than that
+an evolutionary process is taking place towards a new kind of world as
+well as a new kind of existence. No outsider is competent to pronounce
+judgment on the validity of the proofs possessed within this spiritual
+realm. The qualifications here are beyond the range of knowledge,
+although knowledge does not cease to act within such a realm. The
+experiences here cannot be measured or weighed; and that a certain
+obscurity is present in them is only what may be expected, considering
+that the spiritual nature is farther removed from the region of nature
+with its physical existence than when it deals with problems on the
+intellectual level. But such spiritual proofs are found in the fact that
+these realities present themselves only at the height of spiritual
+development, and in the fact that they produce an _inversion_ of the
+nature of man, and change the centre of gravity of his life to a more
+inward recess of his being [p.52] than is open on the natural or
+intellectual side.
+
+Thus, once more, the soul is driven forward by its own necessities to a
+religious reality. What can it do but grant cosmic origin and validity
+to such ideals? If these ideals are not this, then, as Eucken points
+out, they are the most tragic illusions conceivable.
+
+When they are acknowledged as cosmic realities, man is in the midst of a
+religion of a _universal_ kind. But the acknowledgment of these as
+cosmic realities is something more than a concept. The men who have come
+to this conclusion required something more than logical arguments in
+order to establish this truth. The conclusions were based upon a
+_specific (characteristic)_ religious experience of their own. And such
+a religious experience was larger and more real than anything that could
+be established in the form of concepts concerning it. As we shall notice
+in a later chapter, it is somewhat on this account that Eucken
+differentiates between _universal_ and _specific (characteristic)_
+religion.
+
+It becomes evident that such contents of the new spiritual world cannot
+be utilised by man without effort. These realities have to pass from the
+region of ideas to the region of actual experiences. In other words,
+they must become man's own religion. Man has now become convinced of the
+reality of a universal spiritual life as constituting, in a measure, the
+[p.53] foundation of the evolution of the soul, and as the goal towards
+which he must for ever move. Eucken is unwilling to speculate as to the
+origin or the goal of this. The centre of gravity of life must be laid
+in what may be known and experienced between these two poles. There is
+a certainty which is _intermediate_ between man and the Godhead. It is
+when this certainty is realised as an actual portion of the soul that
+man becomes competent to carry farther--backward and forward--the
+implications of this certainty. And implications of a new kind of
+_Weltanschauung_ result from the spiritual experiences of the
+_Lebensanschauung_ of the spiritual life. On this matter we shall touch
+at a later stage in the inquiry.
+
+At present let us confine our attention to the _intermediate_ reality
+which presents itself in a form that is over-individual. It is only when
+we pass out of the psychology of the subject--a matter that deals with
+the _history_ of mental processes--that we are able to view the meaning
+of the realities which are over-individual. As already pointed out,
+these realities are not the creations of man's fancy or imagination
+after reason has been switched off. They are non-sensuous realities
+which have moulded and shaped the lives of individuals and nations in
+varied degrees. These ideals are not to remain merely objects of
+knowledge; they are to become portions of the inmost experiences of the
+soul. This they cannot become without the [p.54] calling out of the
+deepest energy of the individual. His fragmentary spiritual life--small
+as it is--still calls for _more_ of its own nature, and this _more_ has
+been seen in the distance as something of infinite value.[11] A
+mountain, as it were, has to be climbed; dark ravines have to be gone
+through; and rivers have to be swum across. The whole vision means no
+less than an entrance into _a new kind of world_, the scaling to a new
+kind of existence, and a conquest which will make the pilgrim a
+participator in that which is Divine. A struggle has to take place,
+because so much that belongs to the life, on the level where it now
+stands, belongs to a world _below_ it. Impulses and passions, the narrow
+outlook, the timidity and hollowness of the "small self"--all these,
+which have previously remained at the centre of life, have to be thrust
+to the periphery of existence. So that an entrance into the highest
+spiritual world is not merely something to _know_, but far rather
+something to _do_ and to _be_. This is the meaning of Eucken's activism.
+It is not the busying of ourselves over trifles; there is no need of
+encouragement in that direction. It is rather the inward glance on the
+nature of the over-individual ideals; it is a deep and constant
+concentration upon their value and significance, in order that the soul
+may plant itself on the shores of the _over-world_. It is in granting a
+[p.55] higher mode of existence to these ideals, and in preserving them
+as the possession of the soul, that man finds the ever greater meaning
+of that spiritual life which was present within him from the very
+beginning of his enterprise. The process of forcing an entrance into
+this over-world has to be repeated time after time. There are no enemies
+in front, but the man is surrounded by them from around and behind him.
+The indifference, in a large measure of the natural process, the rigid
+instincts of mere self-preservation, the temptation to smugness and
+ease, the cold conclusions of the understanding when satisfied with
+explanations from the physical world, the hardness of the heart--these
+and many other enemies fight for supremacy, and the soul is often torn
+in the struggle. The struggle continues for a great length of time; but
+the history of the world testifies to an innumerable host of individuals
+who scaled and fell, who started again and again, until at last their
+conceptions of the Highest Good became a permanent experience and
+possession of their deepest being.
+
+And when the spiritual life creates an entrance into this _over-world_
+something happens which makes a fundamental difference in the life. The
+life may again and again sink back to its old level, but what has
+happened will never allow it to remain satisfied on that level. "We fall
+to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake" (Browning). Life
+now becomes [p.56] alternately _a quest and a fruition_.[12] The
+individual has to gather his whole energies together because something
+great is at stake. This is nothing less than the possession of a new
+kind of reality. The struggle has yielded a conquest for the time being.
+He tastes and "eats his pot of honey on the grave" of enemies within and
+without. This fruition means no less than a taste of "eternal life in
+the midst of time" (Harnack), and the relegating of the whole world of
+phenomena to a subsidiary place.
+
+This is the kernel of Eucken's _Truth of Religion_. The book deals with
+the most subtle psychological problems of the soul, and reaches the
+conclusion of an entrance by man into a divine world. All this is far
+removed from the ordinary traditional conception either of God or of
+religion. Perhaps the majority of mankind is not as yet ready for such a
+presentation of religion. But I think it may be safely said that it is
+through some such mode of conceiving religion as this that the "great
+and good ones" of the world found an entrance into a divine world and
+grasped the conception of the evolution of the soul as a process which
+begins where organic evolution ends.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER III [p.57]
+
+RELIGION AND NATURAL SCIENCE
+
+
+In the previous chapter we have noticed how man is able to reach an
+over-world which will grant him a new kind of reality over against the
+whole remaining domain of existence. But the evidence hitherto brought
+forth has been that of the nature of man himself. We have in this
+chapter to inquire whether there is a warrant for such a conclusion
+within the realm of natural science. Does science give any hint of the
+presence of spiritual life anywhere in the universe? Eucken answers
+distinctly in the affirmative.[13]
+
+The conclusions of natural science have, in modern times, come into
+direct conflict with religion. Traditional religion has grown up on a
+view of the universe which has been [p.58] utterly discarded by modern
+knowledge. Religious leaders have often had to be dragged to see the
+truth of this statement, and, as Eucken points out, many are still far
+from realising the seriousness of the cleft between knowledge and
+religion. The theology of the Middle Ages has not yet disappeared,
+although fortunately there are some signs of a great reconstruction
+going on in our midst. Fortunately, this naive view of the universe is a
+theology and not a religion; but doubtless even the religion of the soul
+suffers when its _knowing_ aspect is perpetually contradicted by
+scientific knowledge. There is such a close connection between "head"
+and "heart"--even closer than between body and mind--that the use of
+discarded theories of the universe and of life cannot but prove
+injurious to the deepest source of life.
+
+The mental conceptions of religion have, in the course of the ages,
+undergone many transformations, and there is no reason why another
+transformation should gradually not come about in the present. In Hebrew
+and Greek times we discover a polytheism, after a long course of
+development, emerging into henotheism, and finally, here and there, into
+monotheism. The old conceptions of gods and spirits present in trees and
+wells, mountains and air, are overcome. They are not so much destroyed
+as supplanted by higher conceptions. In pre-Socratic philosophy we find
+the gods and [p.59] spirits relegated to a secondary place, and Nature
+is conceived as a system of inner energies and strivings. In these
+conceptions Man is drawn closer to Nature, and the connection of his
+life is shown to be closely interwoven with the life of Nature. But the
+empirical aspect of this teaching was pushed into the background through
+the teachings of Socrates and Plato. The "myth" regained some of its
+pristine power in a new kind of way; and "God transcendent of the world
+and immanent in the world" came prominently forward as a doctrine of the
+universe and of life. This is the kernel of the Christian theology,
+constructed through the blending of Hebrew and Greek philosophies. Such
+a conception remained very largely the philosophy as well as the
+theology of the Christian Church until the seventeenth century. During
+this long interval hardly any progress was made in the investigation of
+Nature, so that such a theology proved rather a help than a hindrance to
+the religion of those who understood it. But such a theology has been
+destroyed, however unwilling many people are to acknowledge the fact.
+But until this fact is acknowledged, there is very little hope, in
+Eucken's opinion, of the Christian religion gaining many adherents from
+the side of those who understand the modern meaning and significance of
+natural science. The physical universe has become a problem; and the old
+solution was a matter [p.60] of speculation based upon scarcely any
+observation and experiment. Eucken marks the stages which have brought
+about a revolution in our conceptions of the universe as consisting of
+the change brought about in the science of astronomy through Copernicus
+in the sixteenth century, the founding of exact science through Galileo
+in the seventeenth century, and the theory of evolution propounded by
+Darwin and his followers in the nineteenth century. The whole tendency
+has been to describe and explain Nature in terms of mechanism, and to
+extend such mechanism into the life of man. Proof after proof has poured
+upon us, and has been the means, on the whole, of establishing a kingdom
+of mechanism within the realm of Nature and of human nature. Theology
+and speculative philosophy went on their courses unheedful of these
+developments of physical science, until in our day both have had to
+reconsider the tenableness of their position, and to see that Nature and
+its physical manifestations have to enter as all-important factors into
+their reconstructions. Miracle is now relegated to a secondary place in
+theology, and it has disappeared altogether from science; a Supreme
+Being transcendent of, and immanent in, the world is not known to
+science, however far it reaches into the secrets of Nature. Doubtless
+the loss to religion has been here incalculable; for although the
+natural scientist was able to destroy the old building, [p.61] he was
+unable to construct a new one. And Eucken shows that the natural
+scientist will remain unable to accomplish this, because the material
+with which he deals is physical in its nature and constitutes no more
+than a part--a secondary part--of what is found in the world.
+
+The old mode of conceiving the universe, when driven from its citadel by
+the new conceptions of physics and astronomy, turned for refuge to the
+mystery of Life itself. Here it supposed itself to be safe. But the
+development of modern chemistry and biology shows how dangerous it is to
+base a theological and religious superstructure on the unfilled clefts
+of natural science. The lesson here during the past hundred years ought
+to be a grave warning against its repetition in the future. These clefts
+have been filled more and more by the investigations and results of
+modern chemistry and biology, so that the theologian is constantly kept
+in a state of panic, and has to shift his camp and run away when the
+tide of knowledge sweeps in with its newly discovered results. The whole
+situation seems serious, but it is not so disastrous as it appears at
+first sight. Doubtless the gains of science have been numerous, and have
+shaken and practically ruined the old theological and metaphysical
+foundations; but a halt has now been called on science itself, and its
+limitations have become perceptible even to its own [p.62] leaders. It
+is not quite so certain that the problem of organic life can be settled
+in terms of chemical combinations and mechanism. Many scientists[14] are
+agreed on this point, although they repudiate the claims of neo-vitalists
+such as Driesch and Reinke.[15] No judgment can be pronounced on this
+subject at the present day, and probably the problem will take a long
+time before any important results will accrue. And even these results
+will not solve the problem of organic life, for the manifestations of
+life, the higher we mount the scale of being, are not things visible to
+the senses but express themselves in the forms of meanings and
+will-relations.
+
+The limits of natural science become clearly perceptible when we enter
+into the complex problem of the relation of subject and object, [p.63]
+or of mind and body. The final tribunal in regard to the great questions
+of life and religion is not natural science. This is not a matter of a
+mere wish that it should be so on the part of religious teachers who
+ignore the findings of science, but is a conviction of the scientists
+themselves.
+
+Natural science has been so busy with the investigation of the physical
+world that it has had time to remember but little besides objects in the
+external world. And yet what are objects in the external world without
+a subject to know them?[16] And what are the hypotheses which science
+frames in order to explain phenomena but syntheses of factors framed in
+consciousness?[17] What are laws of Nature but mental constructions
+framed concerning similar ways of behaviour on the part of a large
+number of objects? What are the fundamental conceptions which serve as
+the very groundwork of the whole of science but concepts which are
+explanations of phenomena and not themselves phenomena?[18]
+
+Wherever we look, we find that our view [p.64] of Nature is in the first
+place a result as well as a conviction of the content of consciousness;
+that we do not perceive things and their qualities in a form of
+immediacy, but only after they have entered into consciousness are we
+able to know what external objects really are. The constructions of
+science in the form of hypotheses and laws are a proof that the reality
+of the physical world and its meaning are known only in so far as they
+are known by mind, and in so far as the _universal_ (which is a mental
+content) explains the _particular_ (which may or may not be an object in
+the external world).
+
+Eucken emphasises this truth in several of his books, and whenever the
+truth is borne in mind the scientist becomes aware of the existence of a
+reality beyond that of the objects of sense. And even when the scientist
+is unaware of the mental qualities which operate in perceiving external
+objects and of the generalisations formed as the result of the
+impressions left by the objects in the mind, he uses these all the same.
+Professor Haeckel (one of Professor Eucken's colleagues in Jena) starts
+out in _The Riddle of the Universe_ with the strong hope of reducing the
+whole universe (including God) into a state of material substance, and
+ends with a kind of peroration on the virtues of the new goddesses, the
+True, the Good, and the Beautiful.
+
+[p.65] But an increasing number of scientists to-day are aware of the
+limits of science. They know that the mental models which they have to
+frame in order to interpret phenomena are not material things, and exist
+nowhere except in a world of mind and meaning. Eucken's conclusion then
+is that what knows and interprets is a mental quality. He would rather
+call it the life of the spirit of man, or the spiritual life. A
+non-sensuous power has to operate in order that the physical world may
+be known at all; that power has, further, in a manner unknown, to gather
+the fragmentary impressions of the senses, turn them into that which is
+mental, combine them into what is termed meaning.
+
+We are led back to the point made so clear by Descartes--to his
+insistence on the presence of a thinking subject as the starting-point
+for the knowledge of all existence. This truth was elucidated later by
+Kant in a manner which the world can probably never get rid of.
+Therefore, if so much happens in the mind in connection with the
+knowledge and interpretation of the world, our view of the world _after_
+this happens in the mind is entirely different from the view which
+exists _before_ it happens. Thought stands over against the sensuous
+object, transforms the object into a logical construction of meaning.
+When one becomes aware of this, not only do the objects themselves
+become most problematic [p.66] in their relation to consciousness, but
+the very tools with which the scientist works--_e.g._ space and
+time--become so puzzling that only by a return to a metaphysic do they
+become partially explainable. And thus we are landed in a region of
+idealism in the very midst of the work of natural science. Naturalism
+has arisen only because the subject was forgotten in the enchantment of
+the object. The attention has been turned so long on the object that the
+nature and the results of the attention itself are quite left out of
+account. We can all believe in what naturalism has to say concerning
+organic and inorganic objects; but it has not said enough when it leaves
+the power that knows the meaning of what it says out of account.
+
+The conclusion Eucken arrives at is, then, that we must ascribe reality
+to the quality that knows and interprets as well as to the thing that is
+known. He ascribes reality to the physical world, but this is not the
+whole of reality. This cannot be so, simply because we could not know
+that the physical world was real had it not been that there was
+implanted in us a mental organisation to know all this. The other
+reality is that of consciousness and the meanings it formulates. Thus
+natural science itself announces the presence of _more_ than sensuous
+nature. This _more_ which knows the external world is the _more_ which
+has constructed civilisation, culture, and [p.67] religion. This _more_
+has formed an independent inner life over against the natural world. Had
+it not been for this power of the _more_ to construct its inner world,
+Life would have been no more than the life of sensuous nature--shifting
+from point to point, and entirely at the mercy of a physical
+environment. But the progress of mankind shows everywhere the growth of
+a life higher in nature than that of physical or animal existence. Some
+kind of total-life has been formed in which the individual can
+participate; and in the participation of which he can be carried far
+beyond physical things and beyond his own individual interests. Mankind
+has striven after truth, and has discovered something that is beyond the
+opinions of individuals, that does not serve his own petty interests,
+but overcomes them and reaches out after truths which are valid and good
+for all.
+
+What is all this that has happened? What has brought it about? What is
+the individual potency that knows the world and passes beyond it? What
+are the ideals and norms which revealed themselves in the co-operative
+movements of humanity, and only revealed themselves when humanity was at
+its highest attainable level? Enough has been said to show that it is
+_more_ than Nature, that characteristics are found within it entirely
+unknown in Nature. We are bound to take this _more_ into account, for it
+has constructed all the gains of mankind. [p.68] What can it be, in the
+individual efforts of the soul and in the ideal constructions of science
+and the higher ethical and religious constructions of life, but a
+reality higher than sense and outside the categories of space and time?
+What better name can be given to it than a Spiritual Life in
+contradistinction to the life of Nature?
+
+When this life of the mind and spirit of man is acknowledged, it is seen
+to be the beginning of a new order of existence. There appears within it
+a new kind of reality. It is the standpoint from which natural science
+itself has arisen. Such an acknowledgment of life as a new kind of
+reality alters in an essential manner the whole view of the world.
+Nature now signifies not the whole of things, but only a step beyond
+which the cosmic process progresses. Two worlds, instead of one world,
+now appear--one growing out of the other, but keeping a connection still
+with the other. Nature consequently gains a deeper significance of
+meaning when we recognise that it gives birth to mind and spirit
+--characteristics which merge into consciousness, values, and ideals.
+Nature is not discarded in our new view, but it takes a secondary place.
+The primary place must be given to the spiritual life--the life which is
+active as an organisation in knowing and being and doing. And when this
+truth is realised, this life of mental and spiritual activity becomes
+the [p.69] centre from which the new reality will obtain an ever greater
+content. The deepest aspect of reality is then discovered, not without
+but within. This reality is now conceived as something which belongs to
+a new kind of world, and this new world stands above the physical world.
+Man, when he conceives of things in this manner, will be able to bear
+the indifference of the physical course of existence towards the
+spiritual potencies of his being. The natural process may seem to harass
+and even destroy him; it matters not, for he has been led to a
+conviction of the possession of qualities which have not come into
+activity and power in any world _below_ him, and which have laws of
+their own and goals spiritual in their nature. But all this will not
+come about as a shower of rain descends. The spiritual life has to
+insist on its superiority to the natural process, and to construct, with
+the deepest energy of its being, ever richer moral and spiritual
+contents for itself; for it is these contents which constitute the
+growth of the meaning and value of the new world, as well as of its
+indestructible reality beyond the process of Nature.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER IV [p.70]
+
+RELIGION AND HISTORY
+
+
+The subject of history has obtained a most prominent position in the
+whole of Eucken's philosophy. All his books deal with the subject, and
+in a manner resembling one another, whatever the particular subject
+dealt with may be. But the most exhaustive treatment of history
+presented in his volumes is to to be found in the chapter on history in
+_Systematische Philosophie_("Kultur der Gegenwart," Teil I., Abteilung
+VI.), and in the latter half of _The Truth of Religion_. In the former
+volume Eucken deals with history in its relation to civilisation and
+culture, and in the latter the place of history in the religions of the
+world is strikingly expressed.
+
+We have already noticed in the previous chapter how he set out to
+discover the presence of a mental or spiritual life in the very act of
+knowing the physical world and in the constructions which form both the
+basis and the apex of physical science. It was shown [p.71] here that a
+life higher than the physical was present in order to be able to read
+the meaning of the world. Such a life became a standpoint to view
+Nature, and is the possession, more or less, of each individual. But
+although the possession of individuals and _above_ Nature, the
+consciousness that knows Nature is still carried beyond its own
+individual life. The meaning of the physical world appears in
+consciousness, through the syntheses it forms, as objective, although it
+is not an object of sense but of thought; and, further, this very
+objectivity subsists in the form of generalisations and meanings which
+create standards for each individual in his relations with the physical
+world. Eucken then concludes that there is a trans-subjective aspect
+present in the conclusions of physical science itself.[19] And it is on
+this fact that he bases the presence of a mental or spiritual life in
+the very act of knowing at all. But it is evident that the whole of
+man's potencies and relations are not confined to the knowing of Nature
+and framing interpretations concerning it. There are other provinces to
+which man is related--other objects besides physical ones to which his
+attention is called to frame interpretations concerning them also.
+History is one of these provinces. The subject-matter here is entirely
+[p.72] different from the subject-matter of physical science. In the
+latter the objects are physical; in the former the objects are not
+things, but _will-relations._[20] We are in history dealing with the
+effects of heredity and physical environment upon all organic life--man
+included. But it has been already shown that man, though rooted in the
+natural world and dependent upon it, is still the possessor of a world
+which is above the physical. Man's roots in Nature have been unearthed
+in a large measure; and his dependence on the world from which he has
+emerged is greater than was suspected, and probably it will be
+discovered in the future that he is still more dependent on what is
+below him. But however deep his connection with Nature may prove itself
+to be, he will still remain an unsolved problem if he is coolly stripped
+of all the qualities he has gained since he emerged from the bosom of
+Nature.
+
+We are consequently led to the higher aspects of history where the
+centre of gravity of the matter lies in the _relations of wills_.
+
+By will-relations is meant the impact of individuals upon one another
+from the side of _meaning_. It is through the expressions of the meaning
+of our concepts that we are able to construct an intelligible world. The
+individual's [p.73] deeper reality does not consist in the percept we
+obtain of him, but in the mental attitude he has expressed towards a
+mental attitude of ours. The _clothing_ of meaning is certainly
+physical; there is our friend's physical body in front of us, and his
+speech is audible in a physical sense to physical ears. But neither body
+nor speech is absolutely necessary for the expression of meaning to
+another. We have neither seen nor heard many of the individuals who have
+exercised great influence over our lives. Words have answered the
+purpose. By this is not meant that we have not lost something of great
+value in having to depend on print alone. Something of every individual
+reveals itself in his body and speech which is missed when we have to
+depend on paper and ink as mediums of meaning. But meaning is something
+other than its medium; it is a mental or spiritual content. This content
+has to be classified and interpreted. The interpretation forms here
+again, as on the level of natural science, syntheses and generalisations
+larger than any one individual. These are the resultants of mind with
+mind and will with will. When human beings come into contact with each
+other, there originates a state of things in which something is
+_thought_ and _done._ What is thought and done deals with situations
+outside the situation of each individual. The interpretation of these
+situations is, therefore, an objective reality which becomes a [p.74]
+norm for each individual. Mankind has thus created a reality which is
+beyond that of the content of each individual's experience _as an
+individual_.
+
+We thus see that there are presented in such norms two aspects of a very
+different nature. On the one hand, we discover the contribution of each
+individual, and witness events dealing with situations which succeed one
+another with greater or less rapidity. This aspect is in constant flux.
+It constitutes the capability of meeting the needs of the moment. All
+this works well so long as the needs of the moment involve no great
+complexities. But immediately the situation becomes complex there is a
+turn to something besides this mere flow of things.[21] To what? It is a
+turn to something whose nucleus of meaning and value has persisted in
+the midst of all the flow. This is no other than one or other of the
+highest of the ideal constructions which formed the basis of the life of
+the community. The community had been unconsciously garnering something
+over-individual and over-historical for its future use. Thus, in history
+itself there is the presence of a reality higher than the individual,
+and higher than the ordinary meaning of the [p.75] hour. This becomes the
+standard by which everything has to be measured. Of course, this norm
+does not remain static in regard to its own content. But its growth of
+content depends upon the contributions made to it by individuals in
+their will-relations. Something over-individual issues out of all these
+relations, and this enters into the still higher over-individual norms
+which are the heritage of society. Eucken consequently shows that
+history itself is dependent upon something which works within
+it--interpreting its events, and absorbing into itself something that is
+of value. What other can this be but a spiritual life higher not only
+than physical things but even than the will-relations which accrue from
+moment to moment? It has already been noticed that on these lower levels
+the spiritual life is ever present--present as a potency and experience
+when viewed from the standpoint of the individual's creativeness, and
+present as norms and values when viewed as an object of thought brought
+forth through general conclusions founded on situations beyond any
+single situation of the individual. Thus, we get in Eucken's teaching
+the over-historical as the power which operates within the events of
+history. It is what philosophy has termed the Ideal, and what religion
+has termed the revelation of God. It is not correct, then, to say that
+we are dependent upon the content of the moment apart from the presence
+of the [p.76] content of the past in that moment in order to grasp
+reality. The Past does not mean a mere series of events which occurred
+some hundreds or thousands of years ago, and before which we bend and
+towards which we try to turn back the world, for that would mean what
+Eucken terms "mere historism." The Past has rolled its meaning down to
+the Present: the Past mingled with the content of the Present is at each
+point of its course something other than it was before.[22] But in any
+case this aspect of the Past as presented by Eucken shows that human
+life requires a great span of time which has already run in order to
+create its ideals and to be raised from the triviality of the mere
+moment. Goethe perceived the importance of the same truth:--
+
+
+    "Wer nicht von drei tausend Jahren sich weiss
+       Rechenschaft zu geben,
+    Bleib' im Dunkeln unerfahren, mag von Tag
+       Zu Tage leben!"
+
+
+At certain epochs in the history of the world great events have
+happened. Often such epochs are followed by epochs of inertia. Men bask
+in the sunlight of the glory that was revealed to humanity; they receive
+help and strength from what had been. But the greater the interval
+between the occurrence [p.77] of that greatness and the contemplation of
+it, the more difficult does it become to grasp and to possess something
+of the true meaning, value, and significance of such greatness. The
+greatness, as the interval grows, becomes something to be known,
+something which is believed to fall upon us in an external, miraculous
+manner; and finally it often becomes an object of wordy dispute and
+strife. Certain periods in the history of the Christian Church give
+abundant evidence of the truth of this statement. Eucken points out in
+his _Problem of Human Life_ how barren in creative power, for instance,
+was the fourth century. Why? An interval of nearly three centuries had
+passed away since the Master and his followers had proclaimed truths and
+experiences which were the burning convictions of their deepest being.
+Gradually, and often unconsciously, men glided down an inclined plane,
+until at last the spiritual nucleus of Christianity had largely
+disappeared and little more than the husks remained. At the close of
+such intervals religion becomes a number of conflicting intellectual
+theories, and the worst passions are called to its support. Dogmatism
+and intolerance prevail, and a blight comes over the choicest potencies
+of the soul. All this happens because certain great events and
+experiences of the past are conceived of as marking a terminus in the
+history of the moral and spiritual evolution of the world. The [p.78]
+soul is not stirred to its depth to preserve such experiences and, if
+possible, enhance them. Thus the world leaves such a rich spiritual
+content largely behind itself; and when this happens, it becomes a
+matter of the greatest difficulty to recover it. And even when it is
+recovered, something of infinite value has been for ever lost. The
+present moment of the soul has to live on itself; and such a life
+remains alien to depths of reality which have been plumbed by the great
+personalities of history in the past. It is a want of conviction in
+truth and reality that makes us seek finality in the past. It may be
+that the highest personalities of our day are not able to scale such
+spiritual heights as were scaled by the Christians of the primitive
+Church; but unless they believe that the same power is present in their
+souls they will never have courage even to make the attempt. It is a
+vision of the nature of the reality which was climbed by the
+personalities of the past, coupled with the consciousness of the same
+spiritual power in the present, that will enable Christianity to be
+lived on such a "grand scale" in the present and the future. The
+spiritual experiences of the past have become over-individual and
+over-historical norms for our lives; but such norms are no more than
+ideas until the will enters into a relation with them. When this
+happens, the individual does not only observe a goal in the distance but
+also starts to move towards such [p.79] a goal with the whole spiritual
+energy of his nature. And every individual who moves in the direction of
+such norms brings some contribution of value from the present to be
+added to the norms of the past. The spiritual life is thus individual
+and over-individual, historical and over-historical, transcendent and
+immanent.
+
+Eucken has worked for many years at this difficult problem--a problem so
+important in the life of civilisation and religion. It has already been
+hinted that the conception bears striking resemblances to aspects of
+Hegel's philosophy. But there are differences. One of these was pointed
+out long ago by Eucken: "The gist of religion is with Hegel nothing but
+the absorption of the individual in the universal intellectual process.
+How such a conception can be identified with moral regeneration of the
+Christian type, with purification of the heart, is unintelligible to
+us."[23] Eucken's philosophy, on the other hand, is pre-eminently a
+spiritual activism. The life-process is shaped by the collective
+activity of individuals; and when this activity slackens the ideals of
+the over-world suffer. Man is thus called to be what he _ought to be_;
+and in the process he heightens something of the value of the Ought. An
+Ought and a Will are involved in the creativeness of the individual life
+and of the Life-process; so that it is a mistake to conceive [p.80] of
+Eucken's activism as some stirring of the individual to realise merely
+his own needs as these present themselves to him from moment to moment.
+He is called and destined to do infinitely more; he is to be a creator
+of the Life-process and a carrier in the making of a new world; but all
+this can be done only from the standpoint of a vision of a spiritual
+life superior to history and to the individual himself. Vision and
+action are to be ever present. In the light of the vision man becomes
+more than he now is; through action the vision increases in depth and
+value.
+
+What relation this has to the conception of the Godhead will be dealt
+with in a later chapter. It is enough at present to bear in mind that,
+as far as we have gone, a reality above sense, time, history, and the
+content of the individual life has become evident. And it is such a
+reality which gives meaning to the events of history.
+
+It has to be borne in mind that much which is natural and of the earth
+enters into history. Such effects have become clearly discernible in
+modern times. Physical conditions do exercise an influence, and hem the
+course of the spiritual life. The indifference of the physical order of
+things to the ethical values of history is a problem which constantly
+perplexes every thinking mind. No solution to the puzzles of life is to
+be found in Nature. What do we discover there? "We discover enchainments
+[p.81] of phenomena which seem to conduct to the creation of great
+misery and which, with unmerciful callousness, drive man over the brink
+of an abyss. The faintest hint would have sufficed to hold him back from
+such a catastrophe; but this is not given, and consequently destruction
+takes its course. Petty accidents destroy life and happiness; a moment
+annihilates the most toilsome work. Often, also, we discover a chaotic
+medley, a sudden overthrow of all potency, a seeming indifference
+towards all human weal and woe, a blind groping in the dark; we discover
+gloomy possibilities constantly sweeping as dark clouds over man and
+occasionally descending as a crashing tempest."[24] Hundreds of similar
+examples may be found in Eucken's books, and all point to the
+insufficiency of the natural process for satisfying the deepest needs of
+our being. But in spite of the fact that the natural process accompanies
+Life everywhere, man has built a world beyond the world of sense.
+
+With the entrance of the spiritual life a new mode of history makes its
+appearance. This fact is to be witnessed in the tools invented by man in
+order to overcome physical barriers. The growth of technics in our own
+day is a proof of Nature yielding here and there to the demands of life
+and intellect. This has all been brought about by mentality, and new
+modes of living are the result.
+
+[p.82] And when we enter the domain of human society the superiority of
+the spiritual life becomes evident here as well. It is true that we are
+as yet far from any ideals of human society which include the good of
+all, and which bind all together in spite of radical differences that
+will continue to persist. Systems of various kinds are presented--often
+at variance with one another; but even these are evidence of a spiritual
+life far above the achievements of any single individuals. What must we
+do? We must all work on in the direction of the highest: and the higher
+we mount the nearer we are to a point of convergence of all the
+different syntheses; and out of the union there will be born a synthesis
+which will include the whole family of man. We possess already such a
+synthesis partially realised here and there in the lives of the greatest
+personalities of history; but to the mass of mankind such a synthesis is
+little more than a name, even though that name be God or Infinite Love.
+The content of the name has to be realised: and this can never come
+about except through a deep stirring and longing, through enormous
+sacrifices, painful and recurring failures, to issue finally in a
+conquest--a height attained by mankind on which the content of God and
+Infinite Love will be born in the soul as a living, personal, and
+durable experience. When this comes to be--and every genuine effort in
+the movement of our higher being brings us nearer to it--there issues
+[p.83] an incomparably higher mode of life. Thus a new history is framed
+through the spiritual activities of individuals; and something of its
+very nature and of the mode by which such a reality can be reached will
+become an atmosphere into which future generations will be born, as well
+a higher condition than has ever previously existed to hail the entrance
+of human souls into the world.
+
+Eucken insists that it is not the movement of democracy towards better
+social conditions that will be effective in bringing about such a
+change. Much, of course, can be effected by better social conditions.
+There are needs to-day in connection with labour which ought to be met.
+But at the best they can do no more than touch the periphery of human
+existence. A poverty in the "inward parts" will still exist in the midst
+of external plenty. But if men and women could be brought to the
+consciousness of spiritual ideals and their efficacy, a disposition of
+soul and character would be created which would rapidly change the evil
+conditions of life and the perplexing problems of capital and labour.
+Several writers have gone astray when they have imagined that Eucken has
+but scant sympathy with the social needs of our times. It would be
+difficult to find anywhere a man of a more tender heart. But he sees
+deeper than the level of material and social needs and their fulfilment.
+He sees that it is only by a change [p.84] of disposition and attitude
+of the soul that permanent changes in the material well-being of the
+world can come about. For it is in the soul's relation with its
+over-individual and over-historical ideals that permanent qualities can
+be created and preserved: it is in our own deepest being, through a
+conviction of the values of sympathy, sacrifice, and love that any
+genuine history can find its birth and nurture. We require to pay no
+less attention to the things of the body; but the things of the spirit
+must step into the foreground of life once again. Then we are working at
+the heart of the Life-process--a Life-process which is the beginning of
+a new cosmic process; and what will issue out of such a result will
+probably be greater and better than anything we can dream of. Men are
+called to this work to-day. They understand but little its significance
+and its trend; they must be willing to learn from those who have lived
+through these problems, and who see ramifications of the problems into a
+soil deeper than is perceptible by the masses. The masses must be
+willing to be taught in the things of the spirit. Hence we see the need
+of great personalities who will combine in their own souls a penetrating
+knowledge and an intense enthusiasm for the real welfare of mankind. A
+true history can never be born outside this region; the world, without
+such a conviction, can only wander out of one morass into [p.85]
+another; and failure after failure will be the inevitable result of all
+the attempts. Movements will have value and duration only in so far as
+they are the outcome of a need of a spiritual life which includes
+demands of intellect, morality, and religious idealism.
+
+Eucken shows at the close of his remarkable article in _Beiträge zur
+Weiterentwickelung der Religion_ that some form or other of the Eternal
+must enter into time and its changes, and become a norm towards which
+mankind will move. When this happens, mankind will not be content to
+look merely beyond the grave for the redemption of the race and the
+annihilation of sin. The very world in which we live is surrounded by an
+over-world of ideal truth and goodness. Why should we live on "hope and
+tarrying" when there is so much to be done and gained? The energies of
+men run on such lines into "sickly sentimentalism" and "watery wishes,"
+and nothing great issues out of our activities on the surface of life.
+History becomes no more than a succession of changes of which the later
+are of no more value than the earlier. All this happens, because there
+is no Eternal--no over-world of over-individual and over-historical
+values--present. In a large measure our very religion grants us here but
+little help. It is either a contemplation of certain events in the past
+which were delivered for once and for all or an immersion in the social
+environment. [p.86] We remain aliens to the truth that these events can
+be repeated to-day. We are not convinced as to the possibilities of our
+own nature and of the realisation of the Divine in the making of
+history. Our age is an age of stripping things of their connections and
+qualities and of finding their essence in what they _were_ and not in
+what they _are_ and _ought to be_. Even history is brought back to its
+origin from savagery; and its explanation is sought in its _beginnings_
+and not in its _ends_; the aspirations of the soul are supposed to be
+explained in their totality when biological and psychological names are
+given them; enthusiasm and conviction, which leave the level of the
+daily rut and the conventionalities of society, are branded as signs of
+shallowness and even of insanity. We are in the midst of plenty, and
+feed on husks. The situation will not be altered until we turn from
+intellect to intuition--which is no other than a turn from the mere way
+in which things are put together to what the things essentially are and
+ought to be in their meaning and value. When this happens, a new meaning
+will be given to history, and the events of the day will be illumined
+and valued in the light of the standard of spiritual ideals. Can we then
+doubt that there works in history a Divine element which is
+over-historical, and which alone gives their meanings and values to the
+events of history itself?
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER V [p.87]
+
+RELIGION AND PSYCHOLOGY
+
+
+It has been noticed in the two previous chapters how Eucken discovered
+the presence of a mental or spiritual life in the very act of knowing
+any object in the physical world. And the presence of such a life
+enables the percept to turn into a concept. Such a concept is something
+far removed from the level of the sensuous object or of its mere
+perception. We are in this very act in a world of _meaning_. When such a
+meaning comes to be acknowledged, it forms a kind of standard which
+interprets any future facts that enter into it. The further the progress
+of the knowledge of physical objects advances the more the concepts
+become removed from the level of the sensuous; as is witnessed, for
+instance, in the forms of laws and hypotheses, which constitute the very
+groundwork of physical science. The physical scientist, whether he is
+conscious of it or not, has constructed an ideal world of _meaning_
+which constitutes the explanation [p.88] of the external world. This is
+a fact so familiar that it needs no further elucidation here. But there
+is great need for calling attention to the power which _does_ all this
+as well as to the reality of the interpretation which that power, in its
+contact with physical phenomena, has brought forth. That such a power of
+the mind is connected with physical existence does not in the least
+explain its nature. It is not physical _now_; it is meaning and value,
+and there is no such thing as meaning or value in the nature of physical
+objects in themselves. Their meaning and value come into being when they
+serve a purpose which the mind has framed concerning them. Eucken
+insists that a reality must be ascribed to so much as all this--to that
+which knows and interprets Nature. However much Nature and Spirit
+resemble one another, however much the latter is dependent on the
+former, Nature must be conceived as exhibiting a lower grade of reality
+than mind. Indeed, Nature could not exist for mind unless there were a
+mind to know it; and this fact inevitably leads us to ask the question,
+whether Nature could exist at all.[25]
+
+Eucken maintains that the insufficient attention paid to this priority
+of the subject is the [p.89] defect of all the systems which have
+reduced life and all its values to their lowest denominator. A naive
+realism is a relic of past ancestry; it is a failure to conceive
+anything as reality unless it lends itself to the senses. Had men not
+grasped a higher order of reality than that of the external object, none
+of the mental and moral gains of the world would ever have been
+realised. Hence, man has to insist that the mental or spiritual life is
+the possessor of a reality of its own, although much of the material
+comprising that reality has been drawn from the physical world through
+the senses. But the spiritual life has proceeded far beyond these
+initial stages of knowing the world. Material of a kind other than the
+physical has presented itself to it. Thus, in will-relations we find the
+material itself belonging to a higher order of existence than the
+material of the physical world. It is then what might be expected when
+the spiritual life, within the domain of events of human history, forms
+a Life-system higher in its nature than the natural process.
+
+Eucken then concludes that Nature and History require for their
+interpretation the presence of a spiritual life. Nature involves the
+spiritual in the very power of mind in knowing external things. He would
+not state that the physical course of things is enough in itself to
+prove the existence of spiritual life. We are uncertain of any working
+towards [p.90] definite ends in Nature. The whole matter belongs to the
+region of speculation; and speculation based on something other than
+observation and experiment has greatly retarded progress in connection
+with the truest interpretation of the highest things. Eucken would
+really agree here with the physical scientist pure and simple that,
+however far back the investigations of the physical world are carried,
+the scientist does not seem to come to anything at the furthest point
+which bears more affinity to what is mental than was to be discovered at
+the point from which he set out.
+
+But in History it is different. We are here dealing with material which
+is not in space, and which has not resulted through any mere succession
+in time. The material, in fact, is timeless, because it is a synthesis
+of factors which cannot be reckoned mechanically, and which requires a
+great span of time in order to be constructed by the spirit of man. At
+this level the spiritual life has gained a reality which is
+over-personal as well as personal. It is true that this over-personal
+reality is in the _mind_ of the individual; but that does not mean that
+the reality is no more than a private experience. Its content is clearly
+now higher and more significant than the individual's own life. That we
+cannot locate in space this over-personal aspect of the ideal is
+probably a disadvantage. But this cannot be helped; and [p.91] it cannot
+possibly be otherwise, simply because the over-personal reality is not a
+spatial thing. The same may be said of the content of individual
+experience, even when it does not for the time being hold before itself
+any ideal. But such over-personal elements mean more than was to be
+found on the level of _knowing_ the world. A further development of
+spiritual life has taken place; and reality has become _objective_ in
+its nature and _subjective_ in its apprehension and appropriation by the
+individual. Reality has, through the over-personal which has evolved in
+history, obtained _a cosmic significance_; and it is out of this region
+that a _Lebensanschauung_ as well as a true _Weltanschauung_ have
+developed.
+
+This digression from the subject of this chapter has probably prepared
+us to see that the potentiality of consciousness and the presence of
+over-personal elements presenting themselves to consciousness are the
+two main elements in the construction of the several grades of reality
+which present themselves on the lower level of Nature and on the higher
+level of History.
+
+But our question now is, Does the nature of man himself confirm such
+statements as have already been made? And it is to man's own nature and
+its content we now turn, as these are presented in Eucken's teaching.
+
+It is probable that Eucken has done less justice to psychology from the
+side of the [p.92] connection of consciousness with the external world.
+He is aware, and points out the fact in several of his books, of the
+close connection between mind and body; but seems to think that the fact
+is sufficiently brought out by text-books on psychology that some kind
+of dualism or parallelism is absolutely necessary to be held in order to
+account for the content of consciousness. What exact meaning and
+province should be assigned to psychology is to-day a matter of serious
+dispute. Textbooks of the nature of William James's _Principles of
+Psychology_ present a double aspect of the subject-matter as well as of
+its mode of treatment. It is often difficult to differentiate in James's
+works where one aspect ends and another begins. Psychology is presented
+by him as a natural science on one page, and on the opposite page we
+discover ourselves in the region of ethics and even of metaphysics and
+religion. On the one side, we find the _connection_ of consciousness and
+its mode of operation with the physical organism presented in terms
+which emphasise the mechanical and chemical sides. On the other side,
+the _content_ of consciousness itself, _after_ the connection has taken
+place, is presented as a psychology as well. So that several important
+writers on psychology have emphasised the need of differentiating one
+aspect from the other, and of confining the meaning of psychology to the
+description and explanation of the _connection_ [p.93] of mind and
+body.[26] But when we pass to the content of consciousness, something
+more than a mere connection of mind and body is discovered. The content
+of consciousness includes the _Will_--the unrest of consciousness in its
+actual situation, a dissatisfaction with its state of inertia, and a
+movement towards some End. When the Will operates with the content of
+consciousness we are in a realm which is beyond the physical--a realm,
+too, which is other than a passive, descriptive attitude of a spectator
+of things. The realm of _values_ has now been reached; and a content,
+different in its nature from any account it is able to give of itself or
+of its connection with the physical, starts on its own independent
+course. The psychologist is "right in insisting that the atoms do not
+build up the whole universe of science. There are contents in
+consciousness, sensations and perceptions, feelings and impulses, which
+the scientist must describe and explain too. But if the psychologist is
+the real natural scientist of the soul, this whole interplay of ideas
+and emotions and volitions appears to him as a world of causally
+connected processes which he watches and studies as a spectator. However
+rich the manifold of the inner experience, everything, seen from a
+strictly psychological standpoint, [p.94] remains just as indifferent
+and valueless as the movement of the atoms in the outer experience.
+Pleasures are coming and going; but the onlooking subject of
+consciousness has simply to become aware of them, and has no right to
+say that they are better or more valuable than pain, or that the
+emotions of enjoyment or the ideas of wisdom or the impulses of virtue
+are, psychologically considered, more valuable than grief or vice or
+foolishness. In the system of physical and psychical objects, there is
+thus no room for any possible value; and even in the thought and idea of
+value there is nothing but an indifferent mental state produced by
+certain brain excitement. For as soon as we illuminate and shade and
+colour the world of the scientist in reference to man's life and death,
+or to his happiness and pain, we have carelessly destroyed the pure
+system of science, and given up the presupposition of the strictly
+naturalistic work."[27] Wundt presents a standpoint not quite so
+pronounced, but which looks in the same direction.[28]
+
+This fundamental difference has been recognised by Eucken, and forms an
+important contribution on his part towards elucidating [p.95] the
+meaning of spiritual life not only in the process of knowing but in its
+new beginning in its creation of an "inner world of values." The content
+present in the construction of this "new world" is other than a mental
+content expressing connection of psychical and physical. Eucken
+differentiates between the two aspects already referred to, and
+designates the difference by the terms _Noological and Psychological
+Methods_. These methods are most clearly presented in _The Truth of
+Religion_. He says: "To explain _noologically_ means to arrange the
+whole of spiritual life [including mental life] as a special spiritual
+activity, to ascertain its position and problem, and through such an
+adaptation to illumine the whole and raise its potencies. To explain
+_psychologically,_ on the contrary, means to investigate _how_ man
+arrives at the apprehension and appropriation of a spiritual content and
+especially of a spiritual life, with what psychic aids is the spiritual
+content worked out, how the interest of man for all this is to be
+raised, and how his energy for the enterprise is to be won. Here one has
+to proceed from an initial point hardly discernible, and step by step,
+discover the way of ascent; thus the psychological method becomes at the
+same time a psychogenetic method. The main condition is that both
+methods be held sufficiently apart in order that the conclusions of both
+may not flow together, and yet may form a fruitful completion."
+
+[p.96] "Such separation and union of both methods and their
+corresponding realities make it possible to understand how to overcome
+inwardly the old antithesis between Idealism and Realism. The
+fundamental truth of Idealism is that the spiritual contents establish
+an independence and self-value over against the individual, that they
+train him with superior energy, and that they are not material for his
+purely human welfare. In the _noological method_ this truth obtains a
+full recognition. Realism, however, has its rights in the forward sweep
+of the specifically human side of life with all its diversions, its
+constraints, and its preponderantly natural character. Viewed from this
+standpoint, the main fact is that life is raised out of the idle calm of
+its initial stages, and is brought into a current; in order to bring
+this about, much is urgently needful by man, which cannot originate,
+prior to the appearance of the spiritual estimation of values, but which
+becomes his when he is set in a strong current; then, on the one hand,
+anxiety for external existence, division into parties, ambition, etc.,
+and, on the other hand, the mechanism of the psychic life with its
+association, reproduction, etc., are all seen in a new light. These
+motive powers would certainly never produce a spiritual content out of
+man's own ability; such a content is only reachable if the movement of
+life raises man out of and above the initial performances and the
+initial motives. No mechanism, [p.97] either of soul or of society, is
+able to accomplish this; it can be accomplished alone by an inward
+spirituality in man. Through such a conception, Realism and Idealism are
+no longer irreconcilable opponents, but two sides of one encompassing
+life; one may grow alongside the other, but not at the expense of the
+other. Indeed, the more the content of the spiritual life grows, the
+more becomes necessary on the side of psychic existence; the more we
+submerge ourselves in this psychic existence, the greater appears the
+superiority of the spiritual life."[29] This difference between nöology
+and psychology is pointed out by Eucken in his delineation of spiritual
+life along the whole course of its development. The insistence on the
+reality of life within the region of values, brought forth through the
+activity of the Will, is shown to be absolutely necessary in order that
+life may not sink into the level of the mere physical object on the one
+hand, and into mere subjectivity and momentary changes of consciousness
+on the other hand. It is a decision at this point which constitutes the
+great turn to a life of the spirit and to the granting to it of a
+_self-subsistence_ as real as objects in the external world; it is a
+turn which includes, further, a new beginning of a remove from the
+content of the moment and from the impinging of the environment upon the
+subject; it is a realisation by the mind and [p.98] soul that its own
+content is now on a path which has to be carved out, step by step, by
+its own spiritual potency. It is in the light of what is attempted and
+accomplished in this respect that the external world and all its
+ramifications into the soul are in the last resort to be interpreted.
+When the foundation of life is thus placed upon a spiritual content of
+meaning and value, norm and end, the _first impressions_ of things are
+seen as nothing more than preparatory stages and conditions to a life
+beyond themselves. To come to a decision, insisted on again and again,
+in regard to the reality of life and its content is not possible without
+the deepest act of the whole of the soul. Such a conviction concerning
+the spiritual kernel of our being is not a mere matter either of thought
+or feeling or will. The three make their contribution towards the great
+affirmation which takes place, but they are united at a depth in
+consciousness which has no psychological name; they come to a kind of
+focus within the blending of the over-individual norms and the need and
+capacity of the soul for such norms. When this happens, the individual
+has created a cleft in his own nature which renders it forever
+impossible for him to be satisfied with the mere external aspect
+produced by the first impressions of things. An inverted order of things
+has come about: the sensuous world is relegated to the circumference,
+and a spiritual world [p.99] dawns within the content of the soul. This
+is the deepest meaning of religion; and, as we shall see at a later
+stage, it constitutes the very nucleus of Christianity with its
+announcement of conversion, the regeneration of the soul, and the union
+and communion of man with the Divine.
+
+Doubtless all this is difficult of apprehension, mainly on account of
+the fact that there is no proof for it in a manner that can be made
+intelligible. But the question arises, What is the power that acts and
+brings forth proofs concerning anything? It is evidently not the whole
+of the potentialities of man's nature: it is no more than the
+understanding dealing with the evidence of impressions. But the
+understanding, when dealing with the content of the union of individual
+potency and over-individual norms, is dealing with a content infinitely
+larger and more complex than itself; the material is too great and
+intricate for the understanding to handle; it is a fruitless attempt of
+the Part to monopolise the meaning and value of the Whole. The proof
+rather lies within the domain of the soul itself, and is not something
+which may be tacked on to any kind of external, spatial existence; it is
+the emergence of a _new kind_ of existence or _self-subsistence._ The
+proof (if we designate it by such an insufficient term) is _within_ the
+experience and not _without_; it is the spiritual experience itself and
+not merely an account, [p.100] in the form of even valid logical
+concepts, concerning such experience.[30]
+
+The space devoted to this subject may be justified on account of the
+fact that Eucken's meaning of the evolution of spiritual life towards
+higher levels cannot be understood without an understanding of the
+distinction between _knowledge_ about experience and the _content_ of
+experience itself, as this latter reveals itself in the ways
+mentioned.[31] Eucken has lately paid great attention to this matter in
+the new edition (1912) of _Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der
+Gegenwart_, especially in the chapter on the "Philosophy of Religion and
+the Psychology of Religion."[32]
+
+The root of the matter here seems to be the ready acknowledgment of the
+content of [p.101] spiritual life as well as of the fact that it
+possesses a higher grade of existence than anything in the world without
+or even within the psychic life. This is granting the manifestation of
+spiritual life a foundation deeper than nature, culture, civilisation,
+and even morality; for it is the norms of the over-world uniting with
+the spiritual nature of man which have brought forth all these. This
+willing acknowledgment becomes ever necessary, because something of _two
+worlds_ is now present in the life of the man. On the one hand, the
+natural world, with its material elements and its instincts and
+impulses, is present in the soul. But, on the other hand, all these
+cannot be torn away from the life. They constitute a great deal of the
+vitality and the pleasure which are the legitimate possessions of man.
+How cold and soulless would life be without these! But the danger arises
+when there is not present a Standard sufficiently high and powerful to
+govern these, and to make them serve the higher interests of the soul.
+In other words, they must be melted in the contents and values of the
+over-individual ideals; they must be sanctified to subserve the higher,
+absolute ends and demands of the spirit. What can we say, then, of Life
+when the natural assists the spiritual and when the individual passes
+out to the realm of the over-individual save that a real point of
+departure into _a new kind of world_ has actually taken [p.102] place?
+Even this interpretation is insufficient to explain what happens,
+although it happens within ourselves; far less, as we have seen, will
+any other interpretation which explains life in lowest terms suffice.
+We are then, says Eucken, driven to the conclusion that such a state is
+either the breaking forth of a new kind of reality or the worst of all
+possible illusions. And this great and inexorable _Either_--_Or_
+presents itself in every decision taken towards what is higher than the
+level we are standing on. The matter here does not belong to any
+speculative domain, and is not the result of fancy or imagination out of
+which reason has taken its flight. The matter is concrete--tangible
+through and through. The history of mankind bears witness to the
+validity of it; the experience of each individual in the deepest moments
+of life echoes the experience of the race. The superiority of this _new
+beginning in the over-world_ has to be established over and over again
+by each individual on account of the danger of sinking back to a lower
+level where the main power of spiritual life is not in action. A
+certainty is therefore requisite in the very beginning of the
+enterprise--an enterprise which is absolute and eternal. No limits are
+perceptible to the possibilities of spiritual life when the fullest
+conceivable content of the soul is seated at the centre of life, and
+when every outward is interpreted and governed by an inward. This
+experience is [p.103] far removed from all attempts to found religion on
+speculation drawn either from the physical world or from the
+generalisations of logic. These have their value--they point to the
+presence of some degree of spiritual life when the human mind has worked
+upon the material presented to it. But the matter at this highest level
+does _not_ deal with the _relations_ of life but with _life itself_ in
+the light of an over-world.
+
+Eucken is nowhere finer than when he detects the necessity for the
+acknowledgment of such a spiritual foundation of life. It is not a mere
+individual need, but the union of an individual need with a reality
+objective to the need. If the reality were already the possession of
+man, no such need could arise. Still, the reality is present in his mind
+as an idea and ideal; it is present to the individual, but it is not as
+yet the possession of the individual except in a measure at the best. So
+that the certainty includes within itself a _realisation_ and a further
+_quest_. And the very nature of the quest involves a _struggle_ of the
+whole nature. The certainty has gone so far as to show that the highest
+good which presents itself to the soul is the "one thing needful," and
+is possible of partial attainment. When all this burns within the soul,
+something of the norm or ideal gets fixed within it, and the individual
+starts to conquer more and more the new world into which he is now
+landed. [p.104] Often the life is driven out of its course by alien
+currents; a great deal of what the man has now left behind himself still
+clings tenaciously to the new life, and the whole soul becomes an arena
+often of a terrible conflict. The spiritual life and its content of a
+new reality may be temporarily beaten in this warfare; but the battle is
+finally won if ever the deepest within the soul has been touched by a
+conviction of the eternal value and significance of the new life. The
+conquest is followed by periods of calm and fruition. Here the deeper
+energies gather themselves together; they grant a peace which the world
+cannot give and cannot take away; they create new certainties, new
+demands, and new attempts for the possession of a reality which is still
+higher in its nature than anything that previously revealed itself.
+
+Gradually the soul is forced more than ever to the conviction that the
+whole matter is too serious to be of less than of _cosmic_ significance.
+And it is out of this that the idea of the Godhead arises. It is not a
+speculative dream but a conclusion forced upon the man by the actual
+situation; the material for the conclusion is not anything which
+descends into the soul with a ready-made content. Eucken states that
+such a view of revelation belongs to the past history of the race. It is
+now no less than a revelation springing from the very nature of the soul
+at its highest possible level. [p.105] It occurs only when a foundation,
+a struggle, and a conquest have been worked out by the soul in the
+manner already depicted. No close determinations, as we shall see later,
+are made concerning the meaning and nature of the Godhead. The man is
+here at an altitude so rare and pure that it forbids any logical or
+psychological analysis. God is not something to be explained, but to be
+possessed. When the attempt is made to explain Him, He is very soon
+explained away; when he is possessed, He becomes not something other
+than was present before, but _more_ than was present before; a cosmic
+significance is given to the universe and to man's struggle to scale the
+heights of the over-world with all its momentous values.
+
+Here, again, the spiritual life has landed us out of psychology into the
+deepest experiences of religion and into the consciousness that the
+_intermediate_ realities which presented themselves as over-individual
+norms and ideals are realities of cosmic significance. The Godhead is
+now _possessed_. As Jacob Boehme presents it: "From my youth up I have
+sought only one thing: the salvation of my soul, the means of gaining
+possession of the Kingdom of God." Here, as Professor Boutroux[33]
+points out, "Jacob Boehme learnt from the mystics what it means to
+possess God. One must take care, so these masters [p.106] teach, not to
+liken the possession of God to the possession of anything material. God
+is spirit, _i.e._ for the man who understands the meaning of the term, a
+generating power previous to all essence, even the divine. God is spirit,
+_i.e._ pure will, both infinite and free, with the realisation of its own
+personality as its object. Henceforward, God cannot be accepted by any
+passive operation. We possess Him only if He is created within us. To
+possess God is to live the life of God." This is on lines precisely
+those of Eucken, and something of this nature seems to be gaining ground
+to-day in a strong idealistic school in Germany. We may soon discover
+that a true mysticism is the flowering of the bud of knowledge; that
+true knowledge constitutes a tributary which runs into the ocean of the
+Infinite Love of the Divine and becomes the most precious possession of
+the soul.[34]
+
+Eucken touches on this subject in an extremely interesting chapter in
+his _Truth of Religion_. "This is a question of fact, and not of
+argument.... Because we convinced ourselves that things were so, we
+gained the standpoint of spiritual experience over against a merely
+psychological standpoint. For the [p.107] latter standpoint occupies
+itself with purely psychic processes, and in the province of religion
+especially it occupies itself with the conditions of the stimulations
+of will and feeling, which are not able to prove anything beyond
+themselves. The spiritual experience, on the contrary, has to do with
+life's contents and with the construction of reality; it need not
+trouble itself concerning the connections of the world except in a
+subsidiary manner, because it stands in the midst of such connections,
+and without these it cannot possibly exist. Man never succeeds in
+reaching the Divine unless the Divine works and is acknowledged in his
+own life; what is omitted here in the first step is never again
+recovered and becomes more and more impossible as life proceeds on its
+merely natural course. If, however, the standpoint of spiritual
+experience is gained, then religion succeeds in attaining entire
+certainty and immediacy; then the struggles in which it was involved
+turn into a similar result, and its own inner movements become a
+testimony to the reality of the new world which it represents."[35]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VI [p.108]
+
+RELIGION AND SOCIETY
+
+
+Eucken shows that the problems of history are closely allied with those
+of society. The best accounts of the meaning he attaches to human
+society are to be found in _The Main Currents of Modern Thought, Der
+Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_, and _Life Basis and Life Ideal_.
+The conclusions reached in these three books are the same--they are an
+insistence on the need of spiritual life as a creative power in the
+utilisation of norms and ideals as well as in the creation of further
+norms and ideals. He points out the devious paths which human society
+has travelled over: all these, in the case of society and of the
+individual, are shown to lead to disaster when they depend merely upon
+the environment or upon the ideals of a utilitarian mode of a
+historico-social construction.
+
+Society has gained much through the necessity of emphasising some
+aspects of a Whole--of thinking and acting collectively--instead [p.109]
+of emphasising merely the Parts. The history of human society, in a very
+large measure, is the history of shifting the centre of gravity of life
+alternately from the Whole to the Parts and _vice versa_. When the
+centre of gravity remains in some kind of Whole, a number of individuals
+move towards the same goal, and much that is subjective has to be
+shifted to the background of life. Now, this is a gain, and it is the
+only path on which a corporate life becomes possible. Men (and women
+too) stand shoulder to shoulder when some kind of Whole or Ideal seems
+to them to be a necessity of their nature. But progress is brought about
+not only through cementing human beings together in order to move
+towards _any kind_ of ideal. The energy is in the right place, but the
+question has to arise as to the _nature_ of the over-personal ideal
+itself. All over-personal ideals cannot connote the good of _all_, but
+the good of all must be present as possessing a validity of its own
+before any lower over-personal ideal can prevent landing men in
+disaster. The over-personal ideals which do not include the good of all
+often represent the good of a section alone, and all other sections have
+to become convinced that this is a good. Thus many Life-systems present
+themselves. Each of these includes a good. The problem is, How is each
+section to realise that there is a good present in what each other
+section presents? [p.110] There must be some common standard by which
+the ideal of each section of the community can be measured, for it is in
+the light of such a standard alone that the lower good receives its true
+place, meaning, and value. There are, beyond all sectional over-personal
+ideals, values which connote the highest welfare of everyone "who
+carries a human face." These values are the results of the partially
+collective experiences of the deepest in life, and have been gained in
+the history of the race. They are the values which are the needs and
+rights of all. Justice, Sympathy, Love--these and others are the highest
+syntheses. They have, as yet, been only partially reached; and this
+partial realisation is the possession of a few, and has not yet
+succeeded in becoming the necessary standard which shall pass judgment
+on all lower ideals. "Rights are rights," we are told. This may be true,
+but something higher has to interpret them, or else one set of rights
+comes into conflict with other sets and stands but little chance of
+realisation. And even if realised, a whole series of complexities
+immediately arises. This has been, in the main, the history of human
+society. And are we able to say that society has progressed much during
+the past century in this direction of illuminating lower needs in the
+light of higher ones which include the good of all? Eucken doubts
+whether the progress has been great. And here once more, [p.111] in
+connection with the deepest meaning of society and the individual, he
+sees the need of ideals which are universally true and universally
+valid. This means that the spiritual life as it presents itself in the
+universally true, good, and beautiful, must become the sun which will
+shine upon all that is below it; it is the Whole in which the Parts must
+find their function and meaning. If the life of society relates itself
+to anything lower than this, the best within it cannot come to flower
+and fruit. In other words, society will have to return to a conception
+and utilisation of an _absolute spiritual life_ before it can gain any
+new territory of eternal value. Probably quite as much attention will
+have to be devoted to the Parts--to the environment, the needs of the
+hour, the material comforts and happiness of life. But granting that the
+possession of all these will come about, what then? We are still
+wretchedly poor in the "inward parts." What we have won has not within
+itself sufficient spirituality to touch the deepest recesses of the
+soul. Material plenty and pleasure are a good when they are used as they
+ought to be used. Where is that "something" that teaches us this? Where
+is the Ought? The Ought is something outside and infinitely higher than
+all the gains which the environment or the group is ever able to bring
+forth. "Life," says Eucken,[36] "cannot be made simply [p.112] a
+question of relationship to environment and of the development of mutual
+relationships (as this tendency would have it) without the independence
+of the isolated factor [spiritual life] being most seriously reduced.
+And it must not be forgotten that the individual is the sole source of
+original spiritual life; corporate social life can do no more than unite
+and utilise. The maintenance of the strength and freedom of this
+original life would be less important, and its limitation would be more
+easily endurable, if human life stood upon a firm foundation and needed
+only to follow quietly in a naturally appointed direction. In reality,
+life is not only full of separate problems, but being situated (as it
+is) between the realm of mere Nature and the spiritual world, must begin
+by systematically directing itself aright and ascending from the
+semi-spiritual to the truly spiritual construction of life. It is hence
+called upon to perform great tasks, which cannot be carried out without
+serious efforts and the mobilisation of all our spiritual forces. This
+necessarily leads us back to the original sources of strength, and hence
+to the individual."
+
+This passage represents well Eucken's main teaching in regard to our
+social problems. We shall ever fail in the highest sense if the
+spiritual content of life is no more than a _means_ to reach material
+ends, however necessary such ends may be. For in such a [p.113] manner
+spiritual life--the universally true and valid--is reduced to a lower
+plane; it becomes entangled in lower stages, and thus ceases to be a
+"light on the hill" illumining the steep upward path. Convictions of a
+spiritual nature--the very forces which have moulded society--are absent
+from such a system of life which has no more than the day or the hour to
+look forward to. Individual and society become the creatures of mere
+impulses and passions, stimulated to activity by a "dead-level"
+environment. Something of value is gained when even this kind of
+environment is a good; but the response is quite as readily given to
+that which is injurious, simply because the "universally true and good"
+is absent as an inwardness and conviction in the soul.
+
+Without such an inwardness and its content the deeper energy of life is
+not touched, and men drift with the tide of the environment. Without the
+ideals or syntheses which are, in their very nature, universal and
+absolute, progress comes to a standstill, and degeneration soon sets in.
+The ordinary situation, apart from the presence of the content of the
+over-world within the life of the soul, swings like a pendulum between a
+shallow optimism and a blind pessimism. There is no power present in the
+soul to come to any fundamental decision, but life drifts on a river
+between Yea and Nay; a failure to penetrate beneath the [p.114] crust of
+chance and circumstance becomes evident, and the deeper values and
+meanings of life disappear.
+
+Eucken's only solution for our present-day troubles is a return to our
+own deeper nature as this was depicted in previous chapters. The signs
+of the times, he tells us, are encouraging; the utilitarian mode of life
+is wearing itself out; the tastes of material comforts have been with us
+long enough to experience the poverty of their quality; and the mad
+gamble for the "things which perish" is gradually weeding out its
+devotees. Eucken's solution to the problems of society is a _religious_
+one. Where is the conception of religion as the solution of the
+momentous and intricate problems of our day to be found in the teachings
+and writings of our economists? It is not to be found. These deal either
+with petty details or with laws which have no spiritual content whatever
+in them. Society may proceed with various Life-systems--individualism,
+socialism, or any other, but until it gets into touch with its deepest
+soul, each such system of life is hastening towards its own destruction
+and towards the injury of progress.
+
+The conception of the State is presented by Eucken in a similar manner.
+He points out how we stop short in our politics of dealing with the
+universally true and good. Party strives against party, and nation
+against nation. [p.115] Groups of all hues and cries propound their own
+particular ideals as the all-important ones. Higher ideals are left out
+of account, so that we find the world to-day spending its energies in
+warfare concerning many things of minor importance. How can we expect
+fruition and bliss to follow on such lines?
+
+Eucken presents in a convincing manner the danger of resting upon the
+external in Society and State. "We are experiencing to-day a remarkable
+entanglement. The older forms of Life, which had hitherto governed
+history and its meaning, have become too narrow, petty, and subjective
+for human nature. Through emancipation from an easy-going subjectivity
+and through the positing of life upon external things and, indeed, upon
+the whole of the great universe, Life, it was believed, would gain more
+breadth and truth; and in a noteworthy manner man undertook a struggle
+against the pettiness of his own nature and for the drawing out of all
+that was merely human and trivial. A great deal has been gained through
+such a change and new tendency of life. In fact we have discovered far
+more than we had hoped for. But, at the same time, we have lost
+something--a loss which at the outset occasions no anxiety, but which,
+however, through painful experience, proves itself to have been the 'one
+thing needful.' Through its own development the work has destroyed its
+own vehicles; it has [p.116] undermined the very ground upon which it
+stood; it has failed, notwithstanding its infinite expansion, through
+its loss of a fundamental and unifying Life-process; and in the entire
+immersion of man into activity his deepest being has been sacrificed.
+Indeed, the more exclusively Life transforms itself into external work,
+the more it ceases to be an inner personal experience, and the more
+alien we become to ourselves. And yet the fact that we can be conscious
+of such an alienation--an alienation that we cannot accept indifferently
+--is a proof that more is firmly implanted in us than the modern
+direction of life is able to develop and satisfy. We acknowledge
+simultaneously that we have gained much, but that the loss is a painful
+one. We have gained the world, but we have lost the soul; and, along
+with this, the world threatens to bring us to nought, and to take away
+our one secure foothold in the midst of the roaring torrent of material
+work."[37]
+
+Eucken shows that the individual will obtain his true place in Society
+and the State only when spiritual ideals have become fixed norms--norms
+which form the highest synthesis to be conceived of. And Society and the
+State will discover their vocations in precisely the same manner. It is
+impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that things are not well with
+the world to-day. The growth of the material [p.117] interests of the
+world and of life has become a menace on a scale unknown in the previous
+history of civilisation. There is only one refuge in the midst of all
+this welter and chaos. That indestructible refuge is "an inner synthesis
+and spiritual elevation of life." It is this alone which can prevent the
+disintegration that is bound to follow in its absence. The petty human
+element cannot be eliminated from this; and the mere life of the
+hour--the life that has no substance of duration within itself--cannot
+be stopped on its reckless career without the presence of spiritual
+ideals within and without. If the world proceeds in its denial of the
+reality and need of spiritual life and its over-world, the negation,
+when it reaches its climax of disaster and despair, will "turn again
+home"--to the necessity of spiritual values--and out of the ruins a new
+humanity will emerge.
+
+Thus, once more we are landed into the province of a religion of
+spiritual life as a necessity in the affairs of the world and of the
+State. Eucken's great plea is that the civilised nations of the world
+should become aware of all this before it is too late to turn
+back--before the boat has reached too near the rapids to avoid disaster.
+The remedy is in our own hands. How to create the consciousness of the
+situation is the problem of problems, and all individuals are called to
+bring the whole of their energies to its solution.
+
+[p.118] It is evident that some kind of uneasiness has to take place in
+the deepest recess of the human soul, but the best ways and means of
+doing this are not yet quite evident.[38] We know what we need and what
+prevents decadence of individuals and nations. "If ye know these things,
+blessed are ye if ye _do_ them" (Gospel of John). The bridge between a
+knowledge of the Ought and its possession is difficult to construct, but
+its importance is necessary to be brought constantly before the people.
+The majority of the people have thought fit to leave almost the only
+place where such an obligation was presented--_i.e._ the Christian
+Church. Until they return, or some other institution higher than the
+Church is brought into existence, the peril will remain. No individual
+conviction, based on anything less than spiritual ideals, will suffice.
+What we are looking for is in our midst; it is and has been from the
+very beginning, in spite of an "existential form," largely archaic,
+present in the spiritual nucleus of the Christian religion.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VII [p.119]
+
+RELIGION AND ART
+
+
+Eucken has written less on this subject than on any of those which
+constitute the headings of the chapters of this book. But he has treated
+art in precisely the same manner as he has treated all other important
+problems: he has shown that no great art is possible unless it is rooted
+in a creativeness which is _spiritual_. In his _Main Currents of Modern
+Thought_ we get an instructive account of art and its relation to
+morality. His account of the development of art in modern times, from
+the Renaissance to the present day, shows the ebb and flow of the
+conception of the Beautiful. The check which the Renaissance received
+through the Reformation in relation to art had its good as well as its
+evil side. Intense scorn arose in the Protestant world for every kind of
+image and decoration, because these were supposed to posit life on what
+was purely sensuous and natural, and so bar the way to the Divine.
+Still, the obstruction [p.120] created by Protestantism in this
+direction opened a door in quite another direction. Art of a higher kind
+than picture or statue arose, which was far removed from the sensuous
+level and which emerged from a deeper soil within the soul. The whole
+series of musical composers produced by Germany is a proof of this. The
+period of the _Aufklärung_ viewed art with scant favour, but with the
+rise of the New Humanism a change in favour of art took place.
+
+The origin of this change is to be found where one might least expect
+it--in the soul of the sage of Königsberg. Kant's _Critique of Judgment_
+is unanimously allowed to be the greatest book ever produced on the
+subject. Goethe and Schiller were influenced by it--the latter in a
+remarkable manner. We find in these writers an effort to unite the Good
+and the Beautiful. It is impossible to read the poetry of Goethe without
+finding that great moral problems are imbedded in his conceptions of the
+Beautiful. His poetry is an attempt to bridge the chasm between the
+external world and the soul. His nature was too deep to remain satisfied
+with the mere impressions of the senses. The union of the world
+_without_ with the world _within_ gave him a view of the universe and of
+human life full of originality and suggestiveness.
+
+Schiller worked in practically the same direction. A moral standpoint of
+a high order [p.121] is to be discovered in his writings, and he
+believed this standard to be possible of preservation alongside of a
+legitimate "freedom granted in the phenomenon." "Then the two tendencies
+again became divided. Romanticism gave a peculiar definite and
+self-conscious expression to the priority of art and the aesthetical
+view of life, while Fichte and the other leaders of the national
+movement exerted a powerful influence in the direction of strengthening
+morality. The social and industrial type of civilisation, which became
+more and more powerful during the course of the nineteenth century, was
+inclined, with its tendency towards social welfare and utility, to
+assign a subordinate part to art. Modern art arises in protest against
+this and is ambitious to influence the whole of life; in opposition to
+morality it holds up an aesthetic view of life as being alone
+justifiable. Hence at the present time the two spheres stand wide
+apart."[39]
+
+Eucken shows how such an antithesis between morality and art has
+partially existed for thousands of years. But whenever a cleavage takes
+place both morality and art suffer. On the one hand, morality tends to
+become a system of rules for the performance of which a reward is
+promised either in this world or in the world to come. On the other
+hand, art is stripped of the distinction between the values of sensuous
+things as these express [p.122] themselves in their relation to human
+life. In the former case, insistence on morality (even on morality
+alone) has deepened human life; it has given it a more strenuous tone;
+and it has created a scale of values which alters the whole meaning of
+life. But morality conceived as a system of regulations and laws has
+always the tendency to harden and narrow the life, and to posit the
+individual too much upon himself. Any justification from without--from
+the physical side--consequently fails to give any help or satisfaction.
+And man needs this help. As it is impossible for him to fly out of the
+world to some region where mind or spirit alone reigns, he has to do the
+best he can with the physical world in the midst of which he exists. It
+is within such a world that he has to cultivate the spiritual potencies
+of his own being. It is true that the spiritual potencies of his own
+being are higher and of more value than anything in Nature. Still, that
+does not mean that Nature has to be discarded or condemned before the
+potencies of his own being can develop. Nature is not a mere blind
+machine; it has produced all--including man and his potencies--that is
+to be found on the face of it. It is therefore not entirely meaningless,
+and the meaning it possesses is a necessary element in the evolution of
+personal spiritual life. Man must enter into some relation with Nature.
+But such a relation produces even more than all this. When viewed in a
+friendly mood, [p.123] Nature herself wears an aspect higher than a
+materialistic or intellectual one. It calls forth the best in
+imagination; it enables us to feel that something of the power that
+dwells within the soul dwells also in all the manifestations of
+phenomena.[40] This fact is evident in all the poetry of the world, and
+without the perpetual presence of Nature to the soul in the form of
+wonder, reverence, and admiration, no poetry worthy of the name is
+possible. Nature thus is of value in the fact that when its phenomena
+present themselves to a consciousness aware not only of its _knowing_
+aspect but also of its _feeling_ aspect, the union of Nature and soul
+produces a feeling of reality which creates an ideal nature. "The light
+that never was on sea or land" becomes now on sea and land; it
+illuminates the whole scene with a "halo and glory" which was concealed
+before. But there must be present "an eye of the soul" united with the
+physical impressions before all this is possible. Indeed, the effect of
+all this is nothing less than an ideal creation of a world consisting of
+Nature and the spiritual potencies of man. It is evident that if the
+_internal_ [p.124] factor, which represents itself in the form of
+morality or value, is absent, the picture of Nature is quite different.
+And this is Eucken's complaint in regard to much of the art of the
+present day: the internal factor is absent. Seriousness is not blended
+with freedom in it; or, in other words, the _inward_ has no power to
+pass its quality into the _outward_. But when the _inward_ is present in
+the form of morality or value, then art becomes joyous, serious,
+helpful, and disinterested. This last aspect of the disinterestedness of
+art was perceived clearly by Kant, and has formed an important
+contribution to the philosophy and even to the religion of the
+nineteenth century. When a potency of the soul, gained in a province
+outside art (as is the case with morality or value), operates, there is
+no danger of art degenerating into mere subjectivism; otherwise there is
+a very grave danger. Loosened from morality it becomes a mere play of
+decoration and fancy--a mere superficial embroidery of an empty life; it
+can look on the human world and all its struggles with an indifferent
+and often cynical mood. Why has all this happened? Because the inward
+factor of the "strenuous mood" has been replaced by a sentimental factor
+based on nothing deeper than the satisfaction of the senses; and the
+result of this is found in feelings which are more psychical than
+spiritual in their nature.
+
+But that art is necessary for any completion [p.125] of life is seen by
+the fact that its contribution to the soul is more than a _thought_
+contribution. For the deeper life of the spirit of man is more than
+thought, although thought forms an essential element of it; this deeper
+life has wider demands than can be expressed in the form of logical
+propositions. Eucken shows how true art is therefore indissolubly
+connected with spiritual life. "Without the presence of a spiritual
+world [the resultant of the union of the spiritual potencies and
+external objects], art has no soul and no secure fundamental
+relationship to reality, and in no way can it develop a fixed style.
+We hear to-day of a 'new style,' and are in the saddle after such a
+conception. But shall we find it so long as the whole of life does not
+fasten itself upon simple fundamental lines and does not follow the main
+path in the midst of all the tangle of effort? How is it possible to
+attain to a unity of interpretation where our life itself fails in the
+possession of a governing unity? We discover ourselves in the midst of
+the most fundamental transformations of life; old ideals are vanishing,
+and new ones are dawning on the horizon. But as yet they are all full of
+unrest and unreadiness; and the situation of man in the All of things is
+so full of uncertainty that he has to struggle anew for the meaning and
+value of his life. If art has nothing to say to him and no help to
+offer--if it relegates these questions far from itself--then art itself
+must sink to the level of a [p.126] subsidiary play the more these
+problems win the mind and spirit of man. But if art is capable of
+bringing a furtherance of values to man in his needs and sorrows, it
+will have to recognise and acknowledge the problems of spiritual life as
+well as participate in the struggle for the vindication and formation of
+a spiritual world. When art does this, these questions which engage our
+attention are also its questions."[41]
+
+In spite of the contradictions of life, in spite of much which seems
+indifferent to human weal and woe within the physical universe, the
+contradictions may be surmounted by the union of man's spirit with other
+aspects of existence which look in an opposite direction. The ideal
+world of art is not to be discovered by ignoring these contradictions,
+but by acknowledging them to the full, and by seeing that Nature is
+supplemented by man and his soul. Such a union, as has already been
+pointed out, will create an earnestness and joyousness of life; it will
+enable man, when any teleology of Nature herself fails to give him
+satisfaction, to realise a teleology within the _substance_ of his own
+life--spiritual in its essence, infinite in its duration, and the
+flowering of a bud which has grown with the help of the natural cosmos.
+When Nature is thus viewed as a preparatory stage for spirit, it will
+wear an aspect very different from the mechanical one. Its real
+teleology [p.127] will be seen: there can be no dispute about it; it has
+actually produced man, and man has now to carry farther the evolutionary
+process. Eucken has presented this aspect in a fine manner in his
+article on Schiller in _Kantstudien_[42] (Band X., Heft 3), _Festschrift
+zu Schillers hundertstem Todestage_. No one in modern times discovered
+the contradictions of the world in regard to the needs of man more than
+Schiller. And yet no one led a more joyous life than this "half-poet,
+half-thinker." Pressed from within and without by many alien elements,
+he overcame them all and found, despite his physical weakness, what a
+gift life is. It is in the direction of a great synthesis of spiritual
+life and natural phenomena that true art will discover the qualities for
+a permanent duration. Such a synthesis will enrich the spiritual life,
+and will grant it something of higher construction concerning the
+meaning and value of the union of Nature and Man. So Eucken has once
+more landed us into the spiritual life as the source and goal of all
+true Art.
+
+
+    "Only the rooted knowledge to high sense
+    Of heavenly can mount, and feel the spur
+    For fruitfullest achievement, eye a mark
+      Beyond the path with grain on either hand,
+    Help to the steering of our social Ark
+      Over the barbarous waters unto land."[43]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII [p.128]
+
+UNIVERSAL RELIGION
+
+
+We have followed Eucken's system developing step by step from the stage
+of knowing the world up through the evolution of spiritual life in
+history, in the soul, in art, and in society. Everywhere the
+investigation has revealed a progressive autonomy and duration of
+spiritual life in the midst of all the kaleidoscopic aspects of the
+objects which presented themselves to consciousness. Something spiritual
+has persisted and evolved in the midst of all the changes, and the
+changes have been utilised by this deeper potency of the soul. Through
+the evolution of this spiritual potency changes have been brought about
+in the external world, in human society, and in the individual soul.
+This spiritual potency has bent things to subserve its own inherent
+demands. The union of conation and cognition within the soul has brought
+forth everything that has happened outside the natural process of the
+physical world, and much even of that world [p.129] has been made
+subservient to man. When the attention is turned to this "fact of facts"
+concerning the work of spiritual life, individually and collectively, it
+is impossible to consider it as a mere addendum to the natural process,
+however closely connected it may be with that process. Sufficient has
+been said to prove the superiority of spiritual life over the whole
+aspects and manifestations of Nature. The question, then, cannot be laid
+aside concerning the nature of the life of the spirit in itself. What is
+it now? What is it capable of becoming? Why should its evolution snap at
+its highest point? Why cannot the power that has accomplished so much in
+the history of our world, and has always done this the more efficiently
+the more a remove from the realm of the sensuous took place--why cannot
+such a power proceed farther on its course? And what limits can be set
+to it? The pertinency of such and other questions cannot be doubted. The
+spiritual life has ascended too high and accomplished too much to be
+treated with indifference. And yet that is the way it is being treated
+only too widely to-day. Men hesitate to grant to it a reality of its own
+because of its close connection with mechanical and chemical elements.
+They half affirm and half deny its reality. The question arises, What is
+reality? Eucken agrees with the great idealists of the world that
+reality in its highest manifestation is [p.130] something that pertains
+to spirit and meaning rather than to matter and its behaviour.[44] Our
+rigid clinging to a meaning of reality from the side of its physical
+history is doubtless a remnant of a race--memory which may be largely
+physical in its nature. We find a difficulty in conceiving as yet a
+reality existing in itself--existing in itself though material elements
+have helped it on its upward course. But even here it is not at all
+certain that nothing but material elements have operated in this
+fundamental process. Men have by now known enough of the connection of
+mind with lower processes in order to be aware of a mystery present in
+the whole operation--a mystery which does not yield itself to the
+senses.
+
+But even such a past history of the spiritual life is not all that can
+be said concerning it. It is _now_ in process of evolution, and its
+greatest work is always accomplished not by looking backward but
+forward. The whole universe has operated in bringing spiritual life into
+existence. Are there any reasons whatever for concluding that the whole
+universe is not co-operating _now_ in its further development? Life,
+civilisation, culture, morality, and religion are proofs that this life
+of the spirit is moving onward and upward. It does not move without
+checks and entanglements [p.131] from without and within, but in every
+"long run" it is gaining some new ground and tilling it as its own. It
+dare not turn back; it dare not throw away the pack of the _Sollen_ (the
+Ought) off its shoulders. The over-individual norms have planted
+themselves too strongly in the heart of humanity to be ever uprooted.
+The meaning and value of life now lie in a _beyond_. It is not a
+_beyond_ within any physical region that _was_; neither is it, so far as
+we know, a _beyond_ in any physical region that _is to be_. It is a
+_beyond of the spirit_; and as it is the most real and most requisite
+possession of man, how can it have anything less than a _cosmic_
+significance? The future of spiritual life is therefore governed not by
+something that is _to be_ in the cosmos, but by something that is _now_
+present in it--by the acknowledgment, assimilation, and appropriation by
+man and humanity of spiritual norms which are far beyond their present
+actual situation.
+
+The whole meaning here is that something _sub specie aeternitatis_ has
+to take the foremost place in life. We are beings who perpetually
+_move_. Eucken and Bergson are both emphasising this to-day. But the
+latter deals with the movement alone; he has no notion whither we are
+going, nor can he possibly have until he revises very largely his
+conception of the function and meaning of intellect in life.[45] But
+[p.132] Eucken states that we do know whither we are going. What are the
+over-personal spiritual norms and standards but stars by which to steer
+the direction of our course over the tempestuous sea of time? Everyone
+who guides his life in connection with reason guides it by means of some
+norm or other. Even the daily avocation requires this in order to be
+fulfilled. And the norms which furnish guidance to the spiritual life
+have originated and are utilised in precisely the same manner as those
+of the daily avocation. The only difference is that there is more
+meaning and value in the former than in the latter. But each is a
+_Sollen_ and constitutes a _beyond_. This _Sollen_ is a certainty; it
+exists, and its existence is _in itself._ It is the star for the
+_Wollen._[46] The Will is our own; the Ought is not our own; the fact
+that we possess it as an idea is no proof that it has become a
+possession of the whole of life. In this sense the Ought has an
+objectivity and a subsistence of its own. The Will has to travel in the
+direction of the Ought, and its course is mapped out by this Ought at
+every step of its progress. Hence, in order to reach towards the
+_Sollen_ the nature of the _Sollen_ must become known. As noticed in
+previous chapters, such a movement towards so high [p.133] a goal
+becomes a difficult task--a task which demands the activity of the whole
+spiritual nature. Man's dependency and the meaning of his life are thus
+set before his eyes, and the aspects of momentary existence are valued
+as of secondary importance. Unless this meaning of the norm becomes
+clear, life will revolve around the reality nearest-at-hand, and will
+consequently fail to unfold the deeper spirituality of its nature. "And
+if all depended on the brief flash of the moment, which endures but the
+twinkling of an eye, only to vanish into the dark of nothingness, then
+all life would mean a mere exit into death. Thus, without eternity there
+is no spirituality, and without connection there is no content of life.
+But what is enthroned in itself above Time becomes for the man who wins
+such a spirituality, first of all, an immense task which allows itself
+to be grasped on the field of Time alone; and, also, the Eternal which
+works within us and which hovers before us on the horizon of Eternity
+can become our full possession only through the movement of Time. To
+wish to check the course of Time means not to serve Eternity, but to
+ascribe to Time what belongs to Eternity."[47]
+
+It is not said by Eucken anywhere in his writings that the _natural_
+sources at which Life drinks must be abandoned. These remain with us as
+long as we are in this world of space and [p.134] time. But these are
+not found in the same place, neither is the same importance attached to
+them, once the meaning and value of the over-personal norms and the
+potency of spiritual creativeness have come into union with one another.
+
+What Eucken means by universal religion is the establishment of this
+independency and supremacy of spiritual life over all else in the world.
+We have already dealt with this aspect in former chapters; the
+conclusion was reached that everywhere the presence of a life of the
+spirit made itself felt, and gave a meaning and interpretation to all
+life and existence. That is the conclusion Eucken arrives at in his
+_Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt._ The problem of religion _qua_
+religion is hardly touched. But, indeed, what other than religion can
+all these conclusions mean? Norm and potency are emphasised. An
+elevation above the world and above the "small self" has taken place.
+But something still has to be done before we have entered into the very
+heart of the matter. The problems which arise after all the conclusions
+previously arrived at are acknowledged must be taken into account.
+Having come so far in regard to the value and meaning of spiritual life,
+we are bound to go _farther_. No point occurs where we can find a
+terminus. Though we have already been constrained to grant the norms a
+reality of their own, we have only just touched, here and there, [p.135]
+upon their _cosmic_ significance. The matter thus reaches a further
+point than we have yet touched. What justification is there for granting
+spiritual life this cosmic significance?
+
+Attention has already been called to the fact of a distinction between
+nature and spirit. But attention has now to be directed to the necessity
+of emphasising the reality of spirit. The nature of spirit is revealed
+most clearly in the life and content of human consciousness. No
+anthropomorphic standard from without can come to our aid to establish
+the existence of spirit. The standard is to be found within the
+consciousness itself. A distinction has to be made between _nature and
+spirit_. However much they resemble each other in the beginnings of
+life, spirit has travelled far beyond nature or matter. It has developed
+for itself an essence which may be designated as _substance_. The chief
+characteristic of matter is that it occupies space; but spirit, though
+connected with, and largely conditioned by, matter as it exists in
+space, is now something quite other--something which has to be granted
+an existence of its own, and which forms the beginning of a _new kind of
+world_ and unfolds a _new kind of reality_.
+
+The reality of spiritual life is not discovered in anything which is
+external to life; it is to be found in life itself. The reality is
+revealed and, indeed, created by an act of the spirit of man. Such an
+act must be the act of one's [p.136] own deepest being. But although
+such a new reality is not to be found in anything external to life, yet
+the very revelation points, as we have already observed, to something
+which is over-individual. Even the meaning of the reality itself, from
+its _immanent_ side, is something quite other than the natural life and
+its contents. It is something revealed, but not as yet possessed; it is
+hard to be reached; and even within the man's own nature obstacles and
+hindrances of various kinds are to be found. But the new reality
+persists in the midst of the hindrances; the man discovers himself as
+the possessor of a deeper kind of truth than was present and operative
+in the ordinary life. A cleavage is therefore made between the "small
+self" and the spiritual life. In the degree the former wins through the
+calling forth of the deepest activities of the soul, in that degree does
+the transcendent aspect of the new reality urge itself upon man. And
+when the two aspects--immanent and transcendent--of the reality are
+firmly grasped by the soul, the soul moves upward in the exploration and
+possession of its new world.
+
+The failure to enter into this region of religion is due to the fact
+that men often attempt to construct religion on certain so-called
+faculties of the soul. Some attempt to discover and establish religion
+through the power and conclusions of the intellect. It is evident that
+when the knowing aspect of consciousness [p.137] takes such a leading
+part, and deliberately ignores the affective and active aspects, no more
+than a segment of the reality can be discovered, and such a segment
+leaves out of account important elements of human nature. If the
+affective aspect takes the lead at the expense of the other two aspects,
+we are here again in a region where only certain fragments of our nature
+are touched. If the active aspect busies itself without carrying along
+with itself the content of meaning and value to be discovered in
+consciousness, the true element of the greatness of the reality is
+missing. Eucken shows in his _Truth of Religion_ that there must be a
+point in the soul, at some deeper level than any of the three, where the
+three are working conjointly.[48] It must be so, because what is now at
+stake is more than knowing a thing; it is to _be_ the thing we know we
+_ought to be._ It is unfamiliarity with such a truth that brings a
+difficulty into the mind when face to face [p.138] with the problem of
+religion. The mind has not learned how to attend to the truth in its own
+self-subsistence, but posits this truth in its relation to the
+conditions in the external world which brought it forth.[49] Thus the
+conception of truth is made up very largely of its history on its
+physical side, and this history of the truth comes to possess the entire
+meaning of the truth itself! The road to religion, in its deepest sense,
+is barred to everyone who fails or refuses to grant the deeper reality
+which presents itself within the soul _a self-subsistence._ The only
+existence of such a reality can be its own self-subsistence. The reality
+is now conceived as something quite other than an existence in space; it
+exists for consciousness and can persist within consciousness.
+
+When reality is conceived as a substance subsisting in itself, the
+passage to the Absolute is opened. This Absolute is the most universal
+and complete meaning and value which the soul is capable of possessing;
+its very nature forces itself upon man as being true; and its value has
+revealed itself in its being the only power which will carry farther the
+spiritual evolution of the soul. If such an Absolute is left out of
+account, it is evident that the most universal [p.139] truth which
+presents itself to life as absolutely necessary cannot enter into the
+deepest recesses of the soul; it cannot be more than a subsidiary
+element accompanying lower intellectual elements of life, which are more
+closely allied on such a lower level with physical processes of the body
+and with the physical world. And when truth is treated in this manner,
+it cannot possibly make its abode and become a power in the soul.
+Consciousness hesitates to create a further cleft within itself because
+the evidence of truth at such a height as this does not lend itself to
+the senses. The result is that the full power of the truth fails to
+produce effects on the consciousness, and thus keeps it on practically
+the same level as that on which it has been accustomed to work. The
+higher truth--the higher spiritual life--has not become anything more
+than a fact of knowledge or a probability. It has not become one's own
+life. It is only when this higher aspect of spiritual life becomes
+_one's own life_, and is acknowledged and used, that it is ever possible
+for man to become the possessor of an original energy, of an independent
+governing centre, and so to realise himself as a co-carrier of a cosmic
+movement. This is the presupposition of religion: it testifies that
+within man's soul there appears something higher than sense or
+intellect, but which remains surrounded by alien elements which impose
+checks to its further development. It is quite evident that the
+appearance of [p.140] truths which are absolute and complete within the
+life is in direct antagonism to much that was previously present within
+it. This fundamental fact, however, is not evident without a great deal
+of attention paid to the nature of the higher elements which present
+themselves. Without comparing the values of the higher and the lower
+elements, how is it ever possible to know what they are and what they
+mean? When the whole being attends to both elements--higher and
+lower--there is no possibility of making a mistake concerning the
+_different_ values of what are presented. A higher grade of reality
+reveals itself over against all that had been previously gained. The
+soul is forced to admit that something of a higher nature than it
+hitherto possessed seeks admission. And this Higher, if it enters into
+the whole of life, so far from revealing itself as a continuation of
+what had already happened, reveals itself as something which is
+discontinuous with the ordinary life, and superior even to the highest
+attainments of the intellectual life. And it is this aspect which
+produces the conviction of such a revelation as being _objective_ in its
+very nature. It belongs to something or somebody outside our own
+individual experience or achievement. That there is much which is
+mysterious in all this, is only what might be expected. But the very
+fact that the Higher comes with such power when the soul expects,
+assimilates, and appropriates it [p.141] is a proof of its existence
+somewhere at the core of the universe. It cannot mean an illusion; it
+brings changes of too fundamental a nature to be no more than that. Its
+very value and the enormous difficulty of turning it from being an idea
+into being a possession demand too much energy of the soul to allow of
+its being dismissed without any more ado. It contains elements so
+different in their nature from the ordinary life of the hour as to
+render it impossible to be considered of no more than of subsidiary
+importance. For it has to be borne in mind that the values and norms
+farthest removed from the regions of sense and intellect appear only
+when man follows the drift of his own higher being; it is not when he
+remains effortless and satisfied with the life of the hour that such
+values and norms appear. They appear when the ordinary life is seen
+through as no more than a stage for the further evolution of the soul
+through the grasping of a higher kind of reality than has as yet
+presented itself to it. As Eucken says: "Religion proves itself a
+kingdom of opposites. When it steps out of such opposites, it destroys
+without a doubt the turbidity and evanescence of ordinary commonplace
+life, and separates clearly the lights and shadows from one another. It
+sets our life between the sharpest contrasts, and engenders the most
+powerful feelings and the most mighty movements; it shows the dark abyss
+in our nature, but also [p.142] shows illumined peaks; it opens out
+infinite tasks, and brings ever to an awakening a new life in its
+movement against the ordinary self. It does not render our existence
+lighter, but it makes it richer, more eventful, and greater; it enables
+man to experience cosmic problems within his own soul in order to
+struggle for a new world, and, indeed, in order to gain such a genuine
+world as its own proper life."[50]
+
+All this is not a matter of speculation, but of fact. And it is in the
+recognition of this fact that Eucken's philosophy of religion
+constitutes a new kind of idealistic movement--a movement tending more
+and more in the direction of Christianity. But he differs here again
+from the absolute idealists and the pragmatists. The former base their
+Absolute upon the demands of logic, whilst Eucken bases all upon the
+demands and potencies of life; the pragmatists emphasise the primary
+place of the will in the development of the inner life, but they have
+certainly ignored the presence of over-individual norms, as the goal of
+volition, whilst Eucken holds to the necessity of both. With the
+absolutists the relation of the Absolute with the will is not clearly
+perceived, and consequently the Absolute becomes merely an object of
+thought and contemplation; and in all this the individual does not
+become aware of a burning desire to move in the direction of the goal.
+[p.143] The pragmatist leaves the individual at the mercy of the
+momentary content of consciousness; this content is quite as likely to
+be trivial as to be great; and hence there is no absolute standard
+present to determine the nature and value of this content of the moment,
+and consequently no more than a life of effortless drifting can issue
+out of all this.
+
+This blend of absolutism and pragmatism is richer in its content than
+either of the two. Each has missed something of importance, and it is
+here supplied by Eucken.
+
+Norms and potency become two indissoluble factors in the evolution of
+the higher life. As already stated, the norms have an objectivity of
+their own, and consequently when they enter into life, life becomes
+conscious of their being something _given_ and not brought into
+existence by its own potency. It is out of this conclusion to which life
+is forced that the doctrine of Grace, found in some way or other in all
+religions, is to be accounted for. And it is out of the consciousness of
+the interval between norm and achievement that the sense of _guilt_
+follows man whenever he penetrates deeply into the deeper experiences of
+the soul. Grace and guilt--naming only two experiences of the soul--are
+not remnants of a traditional theology, but essential elements which
+accompany the deepest experience of the soul. When they are wanting, it
+is most probable that the soul has not plumbed its own [p.144] existence
+to its very depths, but has rather chosen to be satisfied with what lies
+but a little way beneath the surface--with what does not cause too much
+uneasiness, but is sufficient for a life to persist as a good member of
+the society by which it is surrounded. Only half a religion can become
+the possession of any individual who does not at least pay as much
+attention to the nature and value of over-individual norms as he pays to
+the nature of the environment and of the ordinary life. It is always a
+sign that humanity is drifting to the shallows of life when it looks
+upon religion as the flowering of the mere natural life of good custom,
+earthly happiness, and ease. Whenever the tragedy born in the conflict
+between norms and ordinary life is absent, the very elements which
+constitute greatness and the "taste of eternity" are also absent. It is
+on account of this fact that Eucken insists that no individual or nation
+that loses its own deeper religious experience can be really great or
+true; for the purest spring of human life and conduct is wanting, and
+the whole life issues from a shallower stream. It is impossible here to
+enter into the truth of this matter; but our individual observation
+concerning men and communities is almost enough of itself to verify the
+statement. That such a higher spiritual life is a reality may be
+evidenced further through its effects. It changes the whole relationship
+of the man [p.145] who has experienced it to everything he comes in
+contact with. New convictions and new points of view have now actually
+occurred within his soul; man has become conscious of a spiritual
+inwardness, brought forth through the presence of an over-personal
+spiritual life coupled with his own spiritual needs. With the possession
+of such spiritual elements, how is it possible for him any more to look
+upon the world and human life with the same eyes as before? The dawning
+of a new reality has made him a new creature; he is now compelled by his
+own deeper nature to preserve and to reflect the light which is within
+him; and all this brings prominently forward the need of something other
+for the progress of the world than the first look of things is able to
+show. It is in such manner as this that we must account for all the
+ideals which have moved mankind from the level of animalism and greed to
+the level of civilisation, culture, morals, and religion. The work is
+far from being completed: the world still clings to the old level of
+ordinary life, and is so slow to grasp the value of the life of
+spiritual ideals. Still, something has been accomplished in the course
+of the ages; and although, probably, the progress has not been
+continuous, there has been a gain in the "long run." But the point to
+bear in mind is that it is the power of the over-individual ideal which
+has carried the race along. Ideals have been perverted, it is true; they
+have been [p.146] drawn down and mixed with what was inferior in its
+nature, yet they have never been completely destroyed in this evil
+process. They have still a marvellous power of disentangling themselves
+from human perversions, and of revealing themselves once more in their
+pristine power and glory. "But the spiritual life declares its ability
+also positively within the human province through a persistent effort to
+move outside the 'given' situation, through a tracing out and a holding
+forth of ideals, through a longing after a more complete happiness and a
+more complete truth. Why is not man satisfied with the relativity which
+so obstinately clings to his existence? Why has he a longing for the
+Absolute in opposition to such relativity, and through this plunges
+himself into the deepest sorrows and distractions? This has happened not
+only in special situations of individuals, but in the whole process of
+culture; indeed, the upward march of culture would have been impossible
+without a striving of man from a level above his 'given' position and
+even above himself. Was not subjective satisfaction more easily reached
+by him in the semi-animal stages of his existence than in culture and
+civilisation with all their toils and tangles, and does the progress of
+culture and civilisation with all their mechanical appliances make him
+in the merely human sense happier? What else could compel him to step
+into this perilous track but the necessity of his own nature [p.147]
+revealing to him the presence of a new order of things?"[51]
+
+The whole of this movement is from within without. Even the physical
+world has to enter into consciousness before it can be known and
+interpreted; even the over-individual norms have to be accepted and
+interpreted by the spiritual potency before the reality which they
+possess in themselves can become our own personal reality. We receive
+from without on the plane of Nature and on the planes of mentality and
+spirituality. The consciousness does not evolve its content on any level
+of its progress from itself alone. Material from without has to enter
+into it. But the whole of this material will become one's own possession
+in the degree it is attended to after it has entered consciousness;
+something has to happen to the material _within_ consciousness; it has
+to awaken a potency, and has to distil its own content within that
+potency. But as this potency is not of the same nature entirely as what
+presents itself as possessing value, it is clear that the higher element
+which presents itself has to enter into a struggle for the throne of
+life with elements of a lower order. As this all-important fact has been
+dealt with in a previous chapter, there is no need to dwell on it again;
+but it is well to bear in mind that the fact [p.148] constitutes an
+important element in Eucken's conception of "universal" religion.
+
+"Universal" and "Characteristic" religion do not constitute two
+different religions, but two grades of the one religion. In "Universal"
+religion Eucken deals very largely with the intellectual grounds of
+religion. He is aware that it is necessary for us to carry our whole
+potencies into religion. Intellect is one of these, and we cannot afford
+to construct our religion on what comes into perpetual conflict with
+intellectual conceptions. Eucken has shown that intellectual
+conclusions, if they are carried far enough and include the whole of
+their own meaning, lead us into religion. We have already noticed how
+the presence of norms and standards were necessitated by the very theory
+of knowledge itself. It is a great gain for man to know that this is
+so--that in so far as knowledge testifies anything in regard to religion
+and spiritual life it affirms more than it negates. It is of enormous
+advantage to be assured that knowledge is on our side in the quest for
+something that is deeper than itself.
+
+Further, Eucken conceives it as the function of religion on this
+"Universal" level to present, on the other hand, the actual situation.
+What but knowledge can reveal to us the difference between spiritual
+norms and ordinary life, between intellect working alone and intellect
+merged with the spiritual potency of one's [p.149] being? We are bound
+to know these and a hundred other things. They all go to prove that
+there is justification for the movement of spiritual life in the
+direction of an over-world, and in its hope for the possession of a new
+grade of reality. It is well and necessary to affirm all this before we
+enter on the "grand enterprise." When an affirmation, based upon
+insight, is made, there will be present within the soul a greater power
+to resist hunting after shadows or slipping to a lower level when we are
+in the very midst of the quest. And, indeed, on this very level of
+"Universal" religion something besides the mere knowledge of religion
+has taken place. Values which are intellectually true are bound to
+exercise some influence on the life. Thus, something of the nature of
+the higher reality has touched the soul and will of man. We _know_ in
+what we have believed. This is a stage which must be passed through, for
+we can never feel certain upon a higher altitude unless we are certain
+of what had led to it. And although, on the higher altitude, there is
+the merging of intellectual truth in something higher than itself, still
+what is discovered on this higher level is richer in content if we can
+call up at times intellectual affirmations for its support.
+
+But "Universal" religion has its limitations, and has to pass into
+something more characteristic, specific, and personal. The over-personal
+norms, which are spiritual in their very nature, [p.150] have not only
+to be interpreted, they have also to be appreciated and reverenced. The
+_How_ of their appearance, after it is settled, takes a secondary place,
+and the norms in their own value and subsistence are attended to. Thus,
+they become not merely ideas having some kind of reality of their own,
+but also become revelations of the very nature of the world; they become
+the source of all creation; the one spring of all being. In other words,
+they are made to mean the Godhead; they mean the creation and sustaining
+power of all life. A communion with the Godhead now takes place, and man
+finds himself in possession of experiences brought about without the
+intervention of the world. Thus "Universal" religion culminates in a
+"Characteristic" or personal religion. And to this culmination, as it is
+presented by Eucken, we now turn.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER IX [p.151]
+
+CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION
+
+
+On the level of "Universal" religion great changes have taken place in
+life. The consciousness and conviction of the reality of a new kind of
+world have arisen; the sensuous, and even partially the intellectual,
+domains have been relegated to a secondary place: other values, higher
+in their nature and more universal in their scope, have attracted the
+attention of mind and soul. In all this a change has taken place in the
+disposition as well as in the will. Prior to this change the character
+had not become conscious of its own inwardness, but remained subservient
+to the norms of social and moral inheritance. Some amount of morality
+and good will have issued forth in this manner, and, indeed, the gain
+cannot be overestimated. But it is evident that something further has to
+happen if the movement of society is to proceed onward and upward, and
+if the energy for such a movement is to be discovered within the soul.
+The whole material which enters into consciousness has to obtain a
+deeper meaning [p.152] than it hitherto possessed. And this happens on
+the level of "Universal" religion. The _spiritual_ is now recognised as
+the highest manifestation of life; and this spiritual is seen to be
+something which has to be gained through a struggle which calls the
+whole nature into activity. Such a movement from the less to the more
+spiritual proceeds side by side with the _freedom_ of the individual.
+Freedom has now taken a new meaning. Hitherto it meant little more than
+the consciousness of the individual moving along the line of least
+resistance. The effort to move in such a direction is generally
+pleasurable; and when it tends to become painful the individual gives up
+the effort. The highest norms were not present with a categorical
+affirmation of their reality and value. But when they are present, the
+will is turned from the direction of ordinary life and its ease to the
+conception of the meaning and value of the highest norms. Something,
+appearing as of intrinsic value, now makes itself felt, and stirs the
+whole nature. Thus, a _new movement_ begins; the _passive_ attitude of
+the soul gives way to an _autonomous_ attitude and movement. The will,
+consequently, is conscious of a deeper need than any hitherto
+experienced, and therefore calls into being some deeper elements of its
+own in order to reach its goal. The whole nature has now affirmed the
+_idea of the good_, which had dawned upon it as an imperative. It is in
+[p.153] such a moment that the real nature becomes free--it becomes
+conscious, through and through, of the possibility of leaving its old
+world and of ascending into a new one. This is, in Eucken's words, the
+real spiritual evolution (_Wesensbildung_) of human nature. This
+evolution, which, prior to this, was considered very largely as a kind
+of gift of the environment, is now perceived as capable of realisation
+only in so far as the spiritual norms are willed. When we examine the
+progress of humanity, we discover that it has taken place in this
+manner; a task had to be set and the whole nature had to be called forth
+to realise it. The result is that a new creation takes place in the
+history of the world. Such a creation becomes a new norm in the moral
+world, as well as a possession in the life of the individual who has
+struggled to realise it.
+
+Such a spiritual process, after something of its nature has been
+realised, finds necessities laid upon it on all hands. Once we have
+stepped into the very centre of spiritual norms and ideals they begin to
+reveal with a wonderful rapidity and impressiveness their own intrinsic
+content and value. "Universal" religion has enabled us to realise that
+we are dealing with "grounds" which are a demand of the deepest nature,
+and with convictions which seem, without a doubt, "to ring true." The
+man has found a shelter in the midst of all the chaos and welter of the
+natural process, [p.154] and his deepest reason has not failed to come
+to the assistance of his spiritual need. He now becomes conscious of
+security and even of victory in the enterprise before the battle has
+really begun on an arena outside his own nature; a conviction is being
+brought into being within his deepest soul that the best and strongest
+elements in the universe are on his side. Although hindrances and
+entanglements of all kinds increase in number, the increase in spiritual
+certainty, and faith in the final issue of his life, have grown at a
+greater ratio. Such a man has settled his destiny; he has come to the
+great spiritual affirmation of life--an affirmation which has to be
+repeated so often, and which each time distils something of a higher
+order within the soul.
+
+It is evident that such an affirmation of the reality of spiritual
+ideals, which have now an existence of their own, should lead us
+farther. If they mean so much, why cannot they mean more? If they
+subsist in themselves, they must be what they _are_. They are to us
+meaning and value of infinite significance. But such and other spiritual
+characteristics are _not things_, and, as we have seen, not mere
+projections of our own individual selves. There is nothing short of
+personality and over-personality by which they can be even partially
+designated and determined. We are forced to this conclusion if they are
+to be objects of communion and union: and we are forced [p.155] further
+to gather the Many into the One. That was what was done on all lower
+planes. Why stop short here, because infinitely much happens when the
+Many find their points of union and meaning in the One?[52] We have said
+that infinitely much happens when the Many find their meaning in the
+One. A need of the nature has arisen which demands this, and it has
+arisen at its _highest possible level alone_. Such a nature will never
+become absolutely certain of the meaning and value of all that has led
+up to this until the One obtains a self-subsistence. If this effort
+fails, the whole effort of development towards unity and inwardness
+fails. And when such a chain of effort snaps at its highest link of
+spiritual development, everything that had entered into the process at
+all the levels below it snaps along with it in so far as it had any
+validity whatever in the light of what is higher than itself.
+
+But the fact that this conception of the One, conceived as Absolute
+Spiritual Life, has produced so many effects of the highest kind is a
+proof of its existence. Qualities come into being which can never come
+with such power in any other way. The spiritual experiences, revealed at
+such a level, have something to say on this matter. These experiences,
+[p.156] although aware of the meaning of universal concepts, have become
+aware of something higher still: Knowledge has given place to Love; a
+region has been reached beyond all the contradictions of the world and
+beyond all the dialectics of knowledge. It is a region which includes
+the good of all without injuring the good of any; and all the meaning of
+the world and of life is interpreted from this highest standpoint. This
+is the essence of "characteristic "or specific religion. On the level of
+"universal" religion, God was seen from the standpoint of the world; in
+"characteristic" religion the world is seen from the standpoint of God.
+The appearance of the world is consequently different from each
+standpoint. All must now be viewed and valued from the standpoint of
+"characteristic" religion, from the standpoint of the One--the Godhead;
+and if humanity is ever to be brought to this standpoint, the nature and
+the meaning of the One have to be presented to it. And it is this, as
+Eucken shows, which has been partially accomplished by the religions of
+the world. Their founders were personalities who had scaled the heights
+towards the "holy of holies" of the One; they descended into the plains
+to reveal what they had seen and heard and experienced on the heights.
+They had been able to commune with the Alone, and their natures had been
+completely transformed. In passing thus from the stage of "universal"
+[p.157] religion to the higher stage of "characteristic," men have
+discovered a further security and spiritual evolution of their whole
+being. Their views of man and the world have become changed; they now
+long to make mankind the possessor of the "vision splendid" which has
+meant all for them. Communion with the One as Infinite Love has revealed
+to them a peace and a power which are far beyond all the lower unities.
+
+It is of value, in the midst of all the complexities of life, of the
+partial interpretations of the various branches of knowledge, to have
+passed through the several stages below the One. Some must guard the
+highest citadel of religion and keep open the avenues to Infinity,
+Eternity, and Immortality. And the greater the number who are able to do
+this, the better for the world and for the individual. But a taste of
+this Infinite Love can be obtained without all this. Just as some of us
+are able to walk without a knowledge of the bodily mechanism and to eat
+and digest without a knowledge of the history of our bread, so the
+deeper spiritual potencies inherent in man are able to find a vast
+amount of satisfaction by resting upon and trusting in a Love Absolute,
+Eternal, and Infinite. Here, man is in a region of infinite calm beyond
+the distractions of the world and of knowledge. He cannot remain here
+for any great length of time; he has to return to the world, but he is
+never [p.158] again the same being after having scaled the "mount of
+transfiguration." "Religion holds as certain and conclusive that this
+new inner foundation is the greatest thing of all and the wonder of
+wonders, because it carries within itself the power and certainty of the
+overcoming of the old world and the creation of a new one; it is on
+account of this that religion longs for the conviction of the whole man,
+and brands the denial of this as pettiness and unbelief. The world may
+therefore remain to the external view as it appeared before--a kingdom
+of opposition and darkness; its hindrances within and without may seem
+to nullify everything else; they may contract and even seemingly destroy
+man and his spiritual potencies; all his acts may seem fruitless and
+vain, and his whole existence may seem to sink into nothingness and
+worthlessness. Yet, through the entrance of the new life and a new
+world, everything is transformed from within, and the clearness of the
+light appears all the more by contrast with all the depth of the
+darkness. Indeed, in the midst of all the mysteries of existence, hope
+and conviction and certainty will consolidate our experience, so that
+ultimately evil itself must serve the development of the good."[53] Or
+in the words of Luther: "This is the spiritual power which reigns and
+rules in the midst of enemies, and is powerful in the midst [p.159] of
+all oppression. And this is nothing other than that strength is
+perfected in weakness, and that in all things I can gain life eternal,
+so that cross and crown are compelled to serve and to contribute towards
+my salvation."[54]
+
+Eucken shows how this idea of God comes from the Life-process itself.
+The Godhead is present, not as an external revelation but as the ever
+fuller meaning and experience which have been carried along in the soul
+in its passage from the natural level to the highest spiritual plane. At
+its summit the development unfolds its true spiritual content of Love.
+The Highest Power--however much there still remains dark concerning
+it--has had communication with man, is present within his soul, has
+become his own life and nature, as well as his self-subsistence over
+against the order of the world. Here Love is raised up into an image of
+the Godhead--Love as a self-communication and as an essential elevation
+of the nature, and as an expression of inmost fellowship.[55] "There
+originates a mutual intercourse of the soul and God as between an I and
+a Thou." It has already been stated that Eucken insists that no close
+determination, in an intellectual form, should be given to this
+conception and experience of God. The idea of a personality of God is
+not an intellectual idea presented in any doctrinal form; it is an idea
+[p.160] born _within_ the _Life-process_ on its highest levels. On such
+levels it becomes obvious and indispensable. Man may be clearly
+conscious of the symbolism of the idea, and yet, at the same time, grasp
+in it an incontestable intrinsic truth which he knows to be far above
+all mere anthropomorphism. Eucken shows that it is not merely a human
+greatness that has been transferred to the Divine, but that the whole
+meaning here is a return to the source of a Divine Life and its mutual
+communication with man; and therefore the whole process is not an
+argument of man concerning the Divine, because the Divine has to be
+apprehended through the Divine within us. "All opposition to the idea of
+the Divine personality is ultimately explained by the fact that an
+energetic Life-process is wanting--a Life-process which entertains the
+question not so much from without as from within. Whenever such a
+Life-process is found, there is simultaneously found, often in overt
+contradiction to the formal doctrinal statement, an element of such a
+personal character of God."[56] But this _immanent_ aspect of the idea
+of God is accompanied by a _transcendent_ aspect. We have noticed
+already that the very nature of the _Ought_ included a transcendent and
+objective aspect.[57] The same fact becomes evident in [p.161] religious
+experience. The two poles--immanence and transcendence--are
+complementary. The former shows that something of the Divine nature has
+been implanted within human nature; the latter shows that more is in
+existence than we have already possessed. Spiritual norms never decrease
+but increase in splendour the nearer man is to their attainment.
+Something is here discovered which is not found in the world; it is a
+kind of transcendent summit, a mysterious sublimity. And an approach
+towards this summit produces experiences never to be possessed in any
+other kind of way. As Eucken himself puts it: "If this sublimity
+superior to the world secures an abode in the soul, and, indeed, becomes
+the inmost and most intimate part of our being, and enables us to
+participate in the self-subsistence of infinity, it opens up within us a
+fathomless depth, in which the existence that lies nearest to our hands
+is swallowed up, and it makes us a problem to ourselves--a problem which
+transforms the whole of life--whilst it enables us to understand and to
+handle what at the outset appeared to be its whole life as a mere phase
+and appearance. Thus it is the same religion which opens out from God to
+man and which simultaneously opens itself out in man himself and becomes
+a great mystery to him. Therefore, in the idea of God the intimate and
+the ultimate must both be present if religion is to reach its full
+development and to [p.162] avoid the dangers which everywhere threaten
+it."[58] Both these aspects interlace in one Life-process; the unity is
+present in the manifold, and the ultimate present in the intimate.
+
+According to Eucken, it is out of such an experience as we have noticed
+that the idea of immortality becomes a firm belief and faith within the
+soul. The idea cannot be proved scientifically, simply because its
+spiritual content is greater than anything which is _below_ it. The
+whole proof lies within the experience itself at this, its highest
+summit. "The Infinite Power and Love that has grounded a new spontaneous
+nature in man, over against a dark and hostile world, will conserve such
+a new nature and its spiritual nucleus, and shelter it against all
+perils and assaults, so that life as the bearer of life eternal can
+never be wholly lost in the stream of time." We are here in a region
+farthest removed from sense and understanding; but the remarkable thing
+is that the conviction of immortality does not dawn on any lower level;
+it is not on the lower levels a portion of spiritual experience. It
+seems as if an element of immortality is only to be gained at a certain
+height of the spiritual life. On all levels below, men seek for proofs
+in the analogies of Nature, in the supposed return of the spirits of the
+dead, and in the craving found in their own lives. All these proofs have
+one thing in common: they [p.163] are all of a lower order of value than
+the meaning which the content of experience gives to immortality on its
+highest level. For at this highest level the proof is not something
+happening outside the man; it is the deepest part of his own being which
+now actually possesses a taste of life eternal. It seems, then, that
+there is no answer to the problem outside ourselves, because it is not
+something to be known, but something to be experienced after long toil
+and a stirring of the nature to its lowest depths in the drift of all
+that is highest and best.[59] It is sufficient for us to possess a life
+which is spiritual and timeless in its nature: and when such a life is
+possessed, empirical proofs are neither demanded nor desired. It is
+within one's own new and spiritual world that proofs are now discovered,
+and they are timeless and spaceless in their own intrinsic nature. "Do
+this, and thou shalt live." If the man has to negate all concerning the
+preservation of his natural individuality, the new world he has gained
+for his soul will have abundant affirmation within itself, without the
+support of any earthly props. It is his own highest life which testifies
+to him that "death does not count" at all.
+
+Eucken's whole plea is that spiritual life at the point of its highest
+manifestation should not be interpreted by anything below itself.
+[p.164] We have already noticed how, on lower levels, spiritual life was
+even there interpreted by its _norms_, and not by its connections with
+what was _below itself_. The disappearance of miracle in religion is an
+indispensable stage which must be passed over. It is necessary only on a
+mid-level of religion, and has really been far more of the nature of a
+symbol than of a fact. It is at our peril that in religion we give up
+such a symbol until a more "inward wonder" has happened within our own
+soul. When the self-subsistence of the spiritual life and the reality of
+the norms of the over-world, now all united in God, are experienced, all
+miraculous manifestations of the Divine, imaginary or real, are
+relegated to a secondary place. They all belong to a point which the man
+has passed; they are milestones to which he can never return. "An evil
+and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign
+be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet." As Eucken points out,
+"This is no other than the sign of spiritual power and of a Divine
+message and greatness." The movement from signs and miracles is a
+movement from the outward to the inward, from percept to spirituality;
+and the essence of religion, as a reality in itself and as an experience
+of the soul, is to be found by taking such a step. The centre of gravity
+of life has now been shifted from the outward to the inward. To
+accomplish this means nothing less than a [p.165] struggle for _the
+governing centre of life_. Unless we succeed in this struggle, the inner
+life will reach no independence and subsistence of its own. Even when
+the struggle succeeds in gaining its longed-for depth, it has not
+removed for once and for all the contradictions from without and within.
+Difficulties, from the lower side, will accompany the spiritual life in
+its higher evolution, but once it has become conscious of its own Divine
+nature and certainty it will gain sufficiently in content and power to
+relegate them all to the periphery. Something has happened within the
+soul which can never be obliterated. As Eucken says: "The contradiction
+is now removed from the centre to the periphery of life; it can
+therefore only touch us from without, and is not able to overthrow what
+is within; it will not so much weaken as strengthen the certainty,
+because it calls life to a perpetual renewal and brings to fruition the
+greatness of the conquest."[60]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER X [p.166]
+
+THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS
+
+
+We have noticed in the two preceding chapters how Eucken distinguished
+the two stages of religion--the "Universal" and the "Characteristic"
+--and how he showed the necessity of both stages. As man cannot escape
+from the conclusions of his intellect, it becomes necessary for him to
+come to an understanding with those conclusions; and although such
+conclusions do not form a complete account of life in its deepest
+aspects, still they are indispensable for him in order to know that he
+is on the path towards a further development of his spiritual nature.
+Hence the grounds of religion have to be emphasised by the conclusions
+of the intellect. But though intellectual conclusions, as we have
+already seen, warrant us in holding fast to the presence and reality of
+a life of the spirit and to the possibility of an evolution of such a
+life, all this does not mean that such an evolution is actually reached
+through the affirmations of [p.167] the intellect. The road of spiritual
+development is marked out, but we have to travel over that road
+ourselves. Something more than an intellectual acknowledgment of the
+existence of such a road is necessary before the actual movement takes
+place. When the actual movement does take place, when the intellectual
+conclusions come in contact with a will arising from our deepest needs,
+the matter becomes personal--it becomes something that has to be
+affirmed by the blending of intellect with the deeper spiritual
+potencies. The vision at this higher stage constitutes not only the
+certainty of a path for man--a path which leads to higher regions--but
+brings forth hidden energies in order to start him on the enterprise.
+The whole vision is now seen to be possible of realisation only through
+personal decisions of the whole nature in the direction of the
+over-personal values which present themselves. These over-personal
+values increase as the soul passes along the upward path and as it
+grants a self-subsistence and unconditional significance to these
+values. There follows here an increase of spiritual reflection; the
+content of the vision is loosened from sense and time; its
+self-subsistence becomes more and more real and more and more and more
+different from all that was experienced on any level below; knowledge
+steps into the background, and love and appreciation now guide the whole
+movement of [p.168] the soul. As we have already seen, when this
+happens, the idea of God as Infinite Love presents itself, and the
+soul's main task is to climb to the summits "where on the glimmering
+limits far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn." Religion
+is at such a level more than an intellectual insistence upon its
+grounds; the soul looks now rather to its summits. Hence the two stages
+of Universal and Characteristic religion become necessary. And it is not
+always true that the Universal mode ceases once the Characteristic mode
+is partially realised. The soul has to descend from the heights into the
+ordinary world below. And as it now sees the world with new eyes, it
+sees much more to be condemned than was previously possible for it to
+see. There comes the constant need of certifying the validity of its
+experience on the heights, and of getting others who have never
+attempted the experiment to do so. The man possessed of something of the
+vision within his own soul proclaims his "gospel," and conceives of all
+kinds of ways and means by which humanity can be drawn towards the same
+goal.
+
+This is the meaning which Eucken attaches to the origin and development
+of the union of universal and specific religions as these have been
+revealed in human history. The intellectual grounds of religion as well
+as something of the actual spiritual experiences are presented by the
+founders. Every kind of [p.169] religion has originated in this manner.
+They are all attempts at showing that a _here and now_ and a _beyond_
+have united and become potencies of life, and can become actualities.
+The _here and now_ always points to a _beyond_, and the _beyond_, when
+it is realised, returns to the _here and now_ and always transforms it.
+Thus, we are in the midst of two worlds which are continuous with one
+another just as the valley is continuous with the base of the mountain.
+
+Such historical religions do not, then, originate in the collective
+experiences of humanity, but in what has actually happened in the life
+of unique personalities. These personalities have become, as it were,
+mediators between God and man. Such religions adopt the most diverse
+forms, because the personalities have given of the content of their own
+personal experiences, and no two experiences view anything from
+standpoints precisely identical. The historical religions may
+consequently be narrow in their outlook. The personalities are dependent
+upon their race, place, training, and inheritance for the particular
+intellectual presentation of their religion. Thus, each historical
+religion has its own view of the universe and its own morality. But the
+value of no historical religion is to be judged from this standpoint
+alone. Such views of the universe and such morality must have appeared
+to them somehow as a good--as [p.170] ways and means to what lay
+_beyond_. We may have outgrown such ways and means; other ways and means
+higher in their nature may have become our inheritance. But these higher
+ways and means could not have evolved out of their lower stages had not
+some element of the _beyond_ instilled itself into them. The historical
+religions could never have flourished on immorality and superstition,
+however much of these we may discover in them. It is the _beyond,
+over-personal_ element which has kept them alive, and this element has
+always had a hard struggle to overcome and transform _the here-and-now_
+elements. Whenever the historical religions are traced back to their
+sources, there is discovered an element _above_ the world in the souls
+of their founders and of their immediate followers. As Eucken puts it:
+"To these founders the new kingdom was no vague outline and no feeble
+hope, but all stood clear in front of them; the kingdom was so real to
+their souls and filled them so exclusively that the whole sensuous world
+was reduced by them to a semblance and a shadow if they could not
+otherwise gain a new value from a superior power. The new world could
+attain to such immediacy and impressiveness only because a regal
+imagination wrestled for a unique picture in the tangled heap of life,
+and because it invested this picture with the clearest outlines and the
+most vivid colours. Thus the new world dawns on humanity with [p.171]
+fascinating power, rousing it out of the sluggishness of daily routine,
+binding it through a corporate aim, raising inspiring ardour through
+radiant promises and terrible threats, and creating achievements
+otherwise impossible. This prepared road into the kingdom of the
+invisible, this creation of a new reality which is no merely serene kind
+of play but a deep seriousness, this inversion of worlds which pushes
+sensuous existence down into a distance and which prepares a home for
+man within the kingdom of faith--all this is the greatest achievement
+that has ever been undertaken and that has ever worked upon human soil.
+... Their works seemed to carry within them Divine energies; wonders
+surrounded their paths; their life and being bridged securely the gulf
+between heaven and earth."[61] Now, Eucken shows that it is of great
+importance to acknowledge these personalities in order that life may be
+brought into a safe track. Enough has already been said of the
+impossibility of finding a sufficiency for life and death within the
+span of ordinary existence. And as this is so, a whole span of past and
+present has to be taken into account. The world cannot move a step
+towards the heights of the future without this. The real future is the
+blend of what _was_ and _is_ forming the standard and the receptacle for
+what is _to be._ We have already noticed how such a standard [p.172]
+evolves; and how, when it is followed to its utmost limits, it merges
+into the conception of God. But as all this is a conception spiritual in
+its nature--devoid of flesh and blood as its clothing--it becomes
+extremely difficult for the majority of mankind to hold fast to its
+reality in a world where flesh and blood mean so much. Something more
+tangible is craved for by man as a proof of an over-world and of an
+over-personal life. Such proof men are able to obtain in the great
+religious personalities of the world without having to go through the
+intellectual processes of discovering the grounds of religion. Men are
+able to view this spiritual truth as they view a picture. It becomes
+easy to understand how such personalities have been raised beyond all
+human valuations to a likeness to God and even to an equality with God.
+Such personalities were the highest conceptions which men could possess
+of the Godhead. This seems to have been a necessary stage in the
+evolution of the religious life as well as of religious conceptions. And
+even to-day attention is not to be diverted from such personalities. The
+question whether they were or were not gods has become meaningless. What
+psychology is able to fathom the soul of any individual? Every attempt
+at doctrinal formulation states less than was present within the souls
+of such personalities. But, on the other hand, it does seem necessary,
+[p.173] according to Eucken's teaching, to avoid confusing such
+personalities with the All. They were great; they possessed elements
+above the world; but none of them possessed the whole that is in
+existence.
+
+The truth concerning these founders of religion seems to lie in the fact
+that they realised a depth of life beyond the world, the intellect, and
+the span of ordinary life. It is this fact that needs to be brought
+prominently forward in our day. And such a fact becomes an experimental
+proof of the presence and efficacy of the Divine within the soul and
+points to an upward direction the total-movement of the world. If such a
+fact does not succeed in holding for itself a primary place, other
+subsidiary facts will colour and weaken its true spiritual content and
+value. This is the road on which speculative and superstitious ideas
+have found an entrance into the historical religions. When such is the
+case, the spiritual reality is gradually weakened, is lowered to the
+level of intellectualistic dogma, until it ultimately becomes, though in
+the guise of religion, the worst enemy which spiritual religion has to
+encounter. All hard and fixed dogmatic settings of religion usurp the
+supremacy of the spiritual life itself.
+
+Eucken shows this in connection with religious
+institutions--institutions which were meant by their founders to be
+essential but [p.174] still subservient to the needs and aspirations of
+spiritual life. Thus, genuine religion is measured by a doctrinal
+standard or by a sacrament. These may possess an incalculable value in
+religion, when used as means and not as ends; but they may, and often
+do, issue in its degradation to a stage which is hardly a spiritual one.
+Every historical religion possesses some absolute truth, but does not
+possess the whole truth; and also each historical religion possesses
+some elements which have to pass away. But this matter will be dealt
+with in a later chapter.
+
+The main service of the historical religions is to bring home to us the
+fact that in the course of human history a spiritual life above the
+world has again and again dawned on mankind through the experiences and
+works of great personalities. To realise intensely such a fact is to
+realise the fact that all this can happen again in a more concentrated
+form than is actually presented in the slow and toilsome effects of the
+results of the collective life of the community.
+
+It may be well to refer here to Eucken's classification of the religions
+of the world. This classifications consists of _the Religions of Law and
+the Religions of Redemption_. The Religions of Law maintain that the
+kernel of religion lies in "the announcement and advocacy of a moral
+order which governs the world from on high." God has revealed His will
+to man; [p.175] if man obeys, rich rewards await him in a future life;
+if he disobeys, painful punishment is sure to follow. Man himself has to
+select one of the two alternatives, and he believes himself able to
+choose. The Religions of Redemption consider such a view false and
+superficial. Now, there is no doubt that the Religions of Law are stages
+which are of value when men are incapable of grasping the difficulties
+and complexities of religion. The whole of religion on this level of Law
+is a replica of the relations which obtain on a smaller scale between a
+sovereign and his subjects, or between a master and his slave. Authority
+is something purely external. The two Religions of Redemption--the
+Indian and the Christian--seek the meaning of religion in a very
+different manner. They both agree that human capability, which seems so
+evident to the Religions of Law, is the most difficult and important of
+all questions. They agree further that the essence of religion does not
+consist in guiding life for the sake of something that life is to
+participate in or to avoid in the future; they agree that a change must
+happen within the soul in this world, and that this change only comes
+about through the aid of a supernatural power. But these two religions
+differ fundamentally in their different ways of looking at the world. To
+the Indian religions, the existence of the world is an evil; the world
+is itself a kingdom of illusions. "All in it is transient [p.176] and
+unreal; nothing in it has duration; happiness and love are merely
+momentary, and men are as two pieces of wood floating on the face of an
+infinite ocean which pass by one another, never to meet again. Fruitless
+agitation and painful deception have fallen upon him who mistakes such a
+transient semblance for a reality and who hangs his heart upon it.
+Therefore it behoves man to free himself from such an unholy arena. This
+emancipation will take place when the semblance is seen through as
+semblance, and when the soul has gained an insight right into the
+foundation of things. Then the world loses its power over man; the whole
+kingdom of deception with its evanescent values goes to the bottom, all
+the excited affections caused by the world are extinguished, and life
+becomes a still and holy calm; it reaches the depth of a dreamless
+sleep, enters, through its immersion into an eternal essence, beyond the
+shadows; it passes, according to Buddhism in its most definite
+interpretation, into a state of entire unconsciousness."[62]
+
+How different a spirit from all this breathes in Christianity! In
+Christianity the world is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far
+enough. Something of the revelation of the Divine may be discovered
+within it, but this is only a segment of a greater whole which comes to
+realisation within the soul. Here, the world is not cast away, despite
+all its limitations, but [p.177] is perceived as the only sphere where
+spiritual experience may exercise itself and draw out its own hidden
+potencies. Tribulation is to be found in the world; but a standpoint
+_above_ the world, gained by cutting a path right through the world, is
+possible. When such a standpoint is reached, the world is seen as it
+ought to be seen and used as it ought to be used. But this aspect of the
+meaning of the world in the Christian religion will be dealt with later.
+It is sufficient to state here that Eucken considers Christianity
+superior to all other religions by virtue of the fact that it overcomes
+the world, not by fleeing from it, but by transforming it. It views the
+physical world as a stage upon which the life of the spirit has to
+realise all its possibilities; the world and all that is within it take
+a secondary place: the primary place is now accorded to the world of
+ideals and values as these merge into love and the conception of the
+Godhead.
+
+The question of the finality of the Christian religion in its purely
+historical sense has been discussed by Eucken in his _Truth of Religion,
+Christianity and the New Idealism_, and _Können wir noch Christen sein_?
+In these three works he arrives at the conclusion that no one religion
+has a claim to the name "absolute religion," because even Christianity
+itself cannot be more than a partial, though the highest, manifestation
+of the Divine. And what Christianity has been and is in [p.178] itself
+as a force in the history of the Western world cannot be the same as
+what it was in the personal experience of its Founder. It is not
+something which descended once and for all into the world, and so
+remains its permanent inheritance. It is the most priceless inheritance
+we possess; but such an inheritance has to be discovered again and
+again. All this cannot come about without calling up to-day the same
+spiritual energies as were needful for the tasks that were present when
+Christianity started to conquer the world. Its aspects of "world-denial
+and world-renewal" render Christianity the very religion we need. "It is
+the religion of religions," but a statement of this fact does not mean
+the realisation of the fact. The same energy and aspiration are needful
+to-day as in the days of yore. Christianity, whenever it has lived on
+its highest levels, has struggled for two tremendous facts at least: the
+insufficiency of the world and the regeneration of the world in the
+light of the Divine. It is not a repetition of what the Founder said
+concerning religion. What the Founder said cost him enormous labour to
+discover and to possess. We shall gain so much and no more of the same
+spiritual substance as we put the same kind of energy in motion. In
+order that we may unravel the complexities of our day, a spirit similar
+to his spirit must become ours. When such a spirit ceases to exist,
+Christianity will become merely a [p.179] name; its power will have
+disappeared, and men can delude themselves into believing that they
+possess it when in fact they are the possessors of but little of its
+spirit and of much of its form. But the possession of the same spirit as
+that of Jesus constitutes the further development of Christianity, and
+this further development is nothing other than what we have already
+seen--the experience and efficacy of an eternal order of things in the
+midst of all the changes of time. Thus we are thrown back once more, not
+upon our bare individual selves, but upon the presence of the Divine
+within the spiritual life itself. Christianity is therefore not
+something that has been completed in the past, but the highest mode of
+conceiving and of experiencing Life in the present; it becomes an
+inward, personal and spiritual experience; and its duration and
+expansion depend upon the increase and depth of such a spiritual
+inwardness.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER XI [p.180]
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+
+It has been noticed how "Characteristic" or "Specific" religion means
+the carrying farther of the implications of "Universal" religion. It is
+not only necessary to know the "grounds" of religion, as these reveal
+themselves within the conclusions of the intellect: we have to plant
+ourselves upon these "grounds"; we must _be_ what they _mean_. Thus,
+religion becomes a personal task--something that can never be realised
+until the whole nature comes to constant decisions of its own and acts
+upon those decisions in the light of what has expressed itself in the
+form of those over-personal norms which have further developed into a
+conception of, and communion with, the Godhead. We have noticed further,
+how this essence of religion was realised in the lives of great
+personalities in history, as well as in the religions which they helped
+to found.
+
+Eucken does not hesitate to affirm that the highest of these religions
+is the Christian [p.181] religion. The core of the Christian religion
+consists, as we have already noticed, in its presentation of "a
+world-denial and world-renewal" in a far higher degree than any of the
+other religions, and also in the fact that it presents the union of the
+human and the Divine in a clearer light than before. We have noticed,
+too, how the Indian religions had to condemn the world in order to
+penetrate to the very essence and bliss of religion. Mohammedanism
+affirmed the world in too strong a manner, and its eternal world
+constituted a kind of replica of the present material world on an
+enlarged scale. The Jewish religion evolved through a series of stages
+which finally culminated in Christianity. The Roman and the Greek
+religions presented too many pluralistic aspects to be able ever to
+reach the highest synthesis whereby the Many found their meaning,
+interpretation, and value in the One.
+
+Although the Christian religion cannot be designated as absolute
+religion, still it may be designated as the highest and most perfect
+manifestation of the Divine. The meaning of the term "absolute religion"
+involves a conception impossible to maintain, on account of the fact
+that in all religions some spiritual truth is discerned and realised.
+The term "absolute religion" is also false on account of the fact that
+no religion can contain the whole that is to be revealed and
+experienced. Christianity [p.182] is best valued when it is seen, not as
+a completion of the revelation of the Divine to man, but as a revelation
+which has to be preserved, deepened, and carried farther. In the soul of
+the Founder of Christianity there was doubtless present far more than is
+expressed in the Biblical records, and far more than actually filtered
+into the individual and collective consciousness of the earliest
+Christian communities. But we cannot live on what has occurred in the
+life of any other individual or community except in so far as this
+enters also into our own individual and the collective consciousness. We
+have already touched on this aspect of the impossibility of obtaining
+sufficient strength for the warfare of the present in anything that
+occurred in the past. Some measure of strength--and no psychology is
+able to say how much--can be obtained from a vision of the spiritual
+meaning and significance of the life of the Founder. But there is very
+great danger in looking here alone for the sole source of all the help
+we need. The spiritual principles of Christianity have been operating in
+the world ever since the Master presented the Gospel which he lived and
+died for. The problem of Christianity is thus a twofold problem. On the
+one hand, we have constantly to go back to the Fountain-head, because it
+is here that the stream is purest. But we have, on the other hand, to
+enter into the religious current which surrounds us; and this may be not
+so [p.183] pure as it was at its source. Alien waters have entered into
+the current--waters of very different taste from those which even the
+Founder expected. These have doubtless polluted the stream. But, on the
+other hand, good elements--primary and secondary--have entered into the
+deepest nature of Christianity itself. These have to be taken into
+account. They have been necessitated by the new and ever more complex
+situations and conditions into which Christianity has had to enter from
+generation to generation. It was comparatively easy for Christianity in
+its early beginnings to include within its compass the whole of life.
+But by to-day life has branched off in so many new directions;
+perplexing problems of knowledge and life have made their appearance. We
+dare not dismiss these to a region outside the sphere of influence of
+Christianity. Christianity, if it is to remain and increase as a living
+force, has to interpret these problems; it has to help us to distinguish
+between the chaff and the wheat.
+
+What, then, is the true meaning of Christianity? Eucken shows that it is
+not possible to determine the nature of Christianity without realising
+that the nucleus common to all religions lies in the fact "that they
+manifest and represent a Divine Life, and that such a Life in its inmost
+foundation is superior to its external configuration and activity, and
+is able to withstand all the changes of time, and to [p.184] maintain
+within itself, in spite of all its curtailment through the human
+situation, _an eternal truth_." This nucleus lies deeper in Christianity
+than in any other religion. But even Christianity itself is not a pure
+spiritual nucleus. Much, as we have already noticed, has gathered around
+it--much that reveals a lower grade of spirituality. All this
+constitutes the clothing of Christianity. The clothing has been changed
+again and again in the past. What reason is there for affirming that it
+cannot be changed again? It is therefore necessary to differentiate
+between the _Substance_ of Christianity and its _Existential-form_. The
+Substance constitutes the fundamental Life superior to the world, and
+has been present throughout the whole of the Christian era; and it is
+this Substance which has raised men beyond the merely human situation;
+it is the Substance that has enabled men to overcome the world, and
+afterwards to see the world from the standpoint of the Divine. In this
+work of differentiation we are dependent in a very large measure upon
+the results of knowledge. Such results do not grant us the Substance of
+Christianity, because this is something which has to be lived into in
+order to be possessed. The transformation which occurs on account of a
+change in the Existential-form may indeed prove helpful to the spiritual
+nucleus itself, because it represents a truth of the intellect-a truth
+which does not conflict with any [p.185] knowledge outside its own
+sphere. There are many dangers to be discovered in this process of
+interpreting the spiritual nucleus. A mode of interpretation whose
+meaning has very largely passed away is bound to prove injurious,
+because it comes into sharp conflict with a newer and more comprehensive
+meaning, and consequently Christianity fails to win the support of those
+who are acquainted with the new Existential-form. And even the
+individual who retains the old clothing, and looks upon it as being
+something of the same nature as the spiritual nucleus, is in danger of
+basing a portion of his religion on a foundation of sand. But, on the
+other hand, he who is aware of the flaws of the old Existential-form
+without having assimilated the Spiritual Substance which lies beneath
+it, is in danger of drifting from religion altogether. The only way of
+serving best and carrying farther the development of the Christian
+religion is to grasp and experience deeply the fact that the Spiritual
+Substance is something entirely different from its form of existence.
+Its form of existence is an attempt to account for the Substance; it
+consists of intellectual concepts. And as with everything else in this
+world so with religion; mere intellectual concepts change, and cannot be
+more than receptacles used by the human mind to enshrine the things
+which are presented as meanings and values within the soul.
+
+[p.186] Eucken pays great attention to the necessity of this process of
+differentiation between the two elements in Christianity. There is a
+need to-day of a new form of existence for Christianity; but the
+satisfaction of this need will not grant us the spiritual nucleus
+itself. The spiritual nucleus is something to be gained not by means of
+knowledge, but by means of love. Eucken goes so far as to state that the
+idea of love and love of one's enemy as presented in Christianity forms
+a new element for the redemption of the individual and of the race. To
+grasp this idea and to penetrate into its nature is to solve all the
+problems of life and death. This is the Eternal element in the Christian
+religion. It is found, it is true, in other religions; but why should we
+look for it elsewhere when it blossomed with such divine glory in the
+life of the Founder? This is the highest spiritual synthesis
+conceivable. The world has known nothing greater, and nothing greater is
+to be known. This is the Eternal element in Christianity which has to be
+possessed and preserved and furthered. If we ask the question concerning
+the success or failure of Christianity in the future, the answer is to
+be found by answering the question, Is Love to God and Love to man found
+within it to-day? If we are able to answer in the affirmative, we are
+thereby answering the question in regard to the future duration and
+conquests of Christianity. And if it possesses [p.187] this element
+deeply enough, it can adopt any existential-form which appears true
+without any kind of alarm. If we have to answer in the negative, there
+is no guarantee as to persistence of Christianity in the future.
+Anything less than the spiritual nucleus of Love is lacking in strength
+necessary to withstand the storms of the future.
+
+We thus see that the essence of Christianity and its durability do not
+lie in any kind of theology: it lies within the Spiritual Substance
+which has abode within it throughout the centuries. Here will the world
+find its peace and power; here will all social complexities be solved;
+here will the meanings and blessings of the spiritual over-world of
+goodness and love become the possession of man. This is what Eucken
+means by contending that it is not the business of Christianity to deal
+with social problems in any light but the light of Infinite Love.
+Without an experience of this deepest source of Christianity, we do not
+possess the equipment for doing anything more than patching and
+re-patching the evils of the world. And all our patching, when but a
+small span of time has passed away, will leave the situation just as it
+was, or probably worse. Every solution will give birth to a new
+complexity; the world may be incessantly active in connection with the
+betterment of the social situation,'but we shall never heal the wounds
+of individuals and of nations until they are [p.188] brought to the
+depth of the spiritual life revealed in Christianity as Eternal Love. "A
+warm love towards all humanity runs through Christianity; it longs to
+redeem every individual; it gives man a value beyond all special
+achievements and on the other side of all mental and moral deeds; it has
+been the first to bring the pure inwardness of the soul to a clear
+expression. But it has also, through the linking of the human to a
+Divine and Eternal Order, raised life beyond all that is trivial and
+merely human with its civic ordinances and social interests. He who,
+with the best intention, views Christianity as a mere means for the
+betterment of the social situation, draws it from the heights of its
+nature, and deprives it of the main constituent of its greatness--the
+emancipation from the petty-human within the depths of the human itself.
+It is essentially the nature of Christianity that it transplants man
+into a new world over against the world that is nearest to our hands; it
+has planted the fundamental conviction of Platonism of the existence of
+an Eternal Order over against the world of Time amongst a great portion
+of the human race, and has given a mighty impetus to all effort. But it
+has, though it separated the Eternal from Time, brought it back again
+into Time; and through the presence of the Eternal it has, for the first
+time, proposed to mankind and to each individual a fundamental inner
+renewal, [p.189] and through this has inaugurated a genuine
+history."[63]
+
+Acknowledging such a nucleus as constituting the very substance of
+Christianity, Eucken proceeds to show the necessity of preserving and
+unfolding the nucleus against the changes of Time. The nucleus has to be
+preserved over against Nature. It has been noticed in previous chapters
+how modern science has presented us with a view of Nature immensely
+vaster than that presented in Christian theology. Such a view has
+destroyed for ever a large number of the theological conceptions of the
+past. The earth has been reduced to a subsidiary place within the
+cosmos; and any attempt to return to the old conceptions is bought at
+too high a price. A new mode of thought in regard to the interpretation
+of the physical universe has come to stay, and the sooner the Christian
+Church comes to an understanding with it the better for the Church
+itself. And this new mode may be gladly accepted, because it cannot
+touch the nature and destiny of the _soul_ of man. We are not able to
+view the perfect circle of things, but we are able to [p.190] trace a
+segment of it in the fact of the unmistakably cosmic character of the
+spiritual life. The progressive intensifying of the Life-process has
+made the fact abundantly clear that Nature is not the final reality it
+was supposed to be by the scientific mode of the past, but that it
+signifies no more than a "human vista of reality." And, as we have
+already observed in connection with the Theory of Knowledge, the nature
+of that "vista" is determined by a mental process and a construction
+beyond Nature. Nature appears as no more than an environment when once
+the power of Eternal Life has appeared within the soul. An insistence on
+this power and _its_ capacity has raised man to a level from which he
+recognises the "priority of spirit" in spite of all the "palpableness of
+sensuous impressions." Man thus appears great as against Nature; but
+there is more than enough to make him humble when he views himself in
+the light of that truth which constitutes the Spiritual and Eternal
+Substance of Christianity.
+
+Not only do we find the two different elements present in the
+Christianity of our day; they are also apparent in the presentation of
+Christianity found within the Gospels themselves. The miraculous
+elements in the Gospels exhibit a number of contradictions; and an even
+more serious objection to them is the fact that they come into direct
+conflict [p.191] with the scientific interpretation of Nature. As Eucken
+says: "To place a miracle in that one situation would mean an overthrow
+of the total order of Nature, as this order has been set forth through
+the fundamental work of modern investigation and through an incalculable
+fulness of experiences. What would justify such a breach with the total
+mode of reality ought to appear to us with overwhelming, indisputable
+clearness. Has the traditional fact this degree of certainty, and cannot
+it be explained in any other way? Who is able to assert this with entire
+assurance? If the superiority of the Divine was, on this particular
+occasion, to be proclaimed in a tangible manner, why did all this happen
+for a small circle of believers alone, and why did it not happen to
+others? There seems, however, to have been necessary a certain state of
+the souls of the disciples to make them see what they thought they saw;
+but in all this there is found a psychic and subjective factor in
+operation--a factor whose potency is very difficult to define and to
+mark its boundaries. It would have been a fact of a wonderful nature if
+the souls of the disciples, from within, became suddenly and without
+intermediary convinced of the continuation of the life and the presence
+of the Master: all this would have been no sensuous miracle--no break in
+the course of Nature. But we have to bear in mind how times of strong
+religious agitation and [p.192] convulsion are so little qualified to
+judge concerning external phenomena, and how easily a psychic state
+solidifies into a supposed percept! Within and without Christianity
+there are numerous examples of the sensuous appearance of a dead person
+being considered to be fully authenticated by the narrower circle of
+friends. Savonarola appeared more than a hundred times after his death,
+but always to those whose hearts clung to him; and to fifteen nuns of
+the convent of St Lucia he gave the consecrated wafer through the
+opening in their _grille_."[64]
+
+Eucken shows that an inability to accept the miraculous element in the
+Gospels need not prevent anyone from being the possessor of the
+Spiritual Substance. The spiritual content of Christianity is a content
+which lies beyond the region of physical phenomena, whether those
+phenomena are natural or are supposed to be supernatural. Christianity
+is dragged down to a lower level by confusing its mode of existence with
+its spiritual kernel. Religion is able to subsist without such aids
+simply because it has discovered the true wonder within the spiritual
+life itself. We do not know what future investigations may reveal from
+the scientific side. It may be that Nature will appear more and more
+mechanical in many of its manifestations; but even if this should prove
+to be the case, it can produce no injury whatever to the nature [p.193]
+and content of spiritual life. It may be, on the other hand, that the
+scientific movement now proceeding in the direction of neo-Vitalism will
+produce results which will modify and even overthrow the mechanical
+conceptions of life, and thus enable the future to construct a
+Metaphysic of Nature.[65] The battle between these two schools of
+science is proceeding to-day. But even if the final issue should be a
+decision in favour of mechanism, the destiny of Christianity or of the
+human soul does not depend upon such a decision. If the issue should
+turn in favour of the vitalistic conception, great gains are bound to
+accrue to religion; for thus a warrant for a belief in a reality higher
+in nature than what is termed physical will be established and shown to
+be at work in the origin and constant "becoming" of physical phenomena.
+The main point for us to-day is to hold fast to the superiority of
+spiritual life to all that we know concerning the physical universe.
+Unless this is done, we shall lose the deeper inward connections of
+life, and shall be in danger of sinking back to the level of
+naturalism--a level from which the culture and religion of the Western
+world have partially emerged. Further, the spiritual nucleus of
+Christianity [p.194] must be preserved over against the changes of
+history. Changes in human society threaten Christianity more directly
+than even the changes of Nature. These changes, in so far as they are
+judged by a spiritual standard to be good, can be accepted by
+Christianity, but only on the presupposition that Christianity has
+learned how to differentiate between its Eternal Substance and its
+temporal form of existence. The mere flow of the events of Time is
+insufficient to produce a religion of substance and duration, for here
+we are dependent upon the content of the moment. This aspect has been
+already dealt with in the chapter on Religion and History.[66] A similar
+necessity for differentiating between the Eternal and the temporary
+which Eucken enforced in regard to Christianity applies in his view to
+all the movements of the world. Whatever form--scientific,
+philosophical, social, theological--these movements may take, they have
+all to find their meaning in a Standard which is Eternal. Whenever such
+a Standard has been recognised, mankind was able to move in an upward
+direction; whenever it was absent, the complexities of knowledge and
+life increased and had no light to reflect upon themselves, and no power
+to [p.195] raise themselves to a higher plane. When the Eternal and
+Substantial is present at the governing centre of life, all of reality
+that can possibly present itself to man is viewed in an entirely
+different light. Great spiritual movements cannot possibly arise from
+any shallower source. There must be present in all such movements a
+consciousness of something of Eternal value, and a faith in the
+possibility of attaining a higher grade of reality in the midst of all
+the fragmentary factors which present themselves. Religion is thus
+viewed as a movement which takes place not by the side of life, but
+within life itself. A power of immediacy grows within the soul; it is
+now able to sift and winnow, to select and to reject; it is able to
+penetrate into the difference between first and second things, and to
+relegate all minor things to their lower sphere.[67]
+
+It is of no avail to ignore this difference; and neither is it of any
+avail to ignore the difference between the _old_ and the _new_
+existence-forms of Christianity. The old and the new conceptions cannot
+possibly flow together. One mode has to take a primary place, and the
+other a secondary place. The old intellectual presentation of
+Christianity has, in many ways, become inadequate. But [p.196] still it
+cannot be thrown overboard in any light-hearted manner, if for no other
+reason than that it has grown along with the growth of the Spiritual
+Substance itself. Some kind of shock, and even loss, may be temporarily
+experienced in parting with it; but this is a process that has to be
+passed through; and once it is passed through, the new clothing of
+Christianity cannot but help man to see a richer meaning in the Eternal.
+It may not fit quite so compactly for a time; it may not merge easily
+with the Spiritual Substance. We are far less comfortable in a new suit
+of clothes than in an old one; but comfort is not the only criterion in
+regard to the things of the body or of the soul. There may be a need for
+a change, and our needs are of more significance than our comforts. The
+change from old to new can be accomplished when the difference of
+Substance and Form is clearly perceived, and when the Substance is
+preserved in the midst of the change. This is one of the greatest tasks
+set to the Christian Church to-day, and no one is competent to undertake
+it if he has not experienced in the very depth of his own soul the
+meaning of the Eternal as the essence of the Christian religion. Eucken
+has grasped this truth in an unmistakable manner; and he sees nothing
+but disaster for religion in any attempt to present a new clothing at
+the expense of ejecting the Eternal kernel. But still he insists that in
+[p.197] theology the claims of the new forms are overwhelmingly
+necessary and just.
+
+When we turn to Eucken's conception in connection with the place of the
+personality of the Founder in the Christianity of the present, we are
+treading on very difficult ground. This is a question which cannot be
+decided by the cold, calculating intellect. Without a doubt, there is
+here something unique in the history of the world--something which no
+psychology can fathom and no logic can construct into exact
+propositions. But here once again, the two elements--the Spiritual
+Substance and its Form--are apparent in the life of the Founder, and in
+our conceptions concerning his life and death. But we need not fear that
+any real loss will accrue if we hold fast to the indisputable fact of
+the presence of a divinity within his life--a divinity which has to be
+repeated on a smaller scale in our own lives before we are ever able to
+have even a glimmer of it. It is out of such a spiritual experience that
+the life of the Master can gain its real value and significance for us.
+But in the past there has been a tendency to see a good deal of this
+significance in theological constructions which have now ceased to
+contain any genuine meaning. At the best these constructions could never
+mean more than the best intellectual presentations of good men.
+Something besides them--deeper than them all--had to appear before any
+soul could be [p.198] converted to the things of Eternal Life. Here
+Eucken shows that metaphysical concepts such as the Trinity have tended
+to become purely anthropomorphic and mythological, probably necessary at
+a certain level of religion, but which have now been superseded by truer
+conceptions of life and existence. There is no longer any meaning in
+asking whether the Founder was a "mere man" or a God. He was an
+intermediate reality between the two. To measure the depth and content
+of his soul is a presumption of shallow minds; to determine in a
+speculative manner the exact nature of his divinity, and to formulate
+imposing doctrines out of all this is quite as presumptuous. It is
+sufficient for us to know that he overcame the world, that the Godhead
+dwelt in a form of immediacy within his soul. All this is an
+experimental proof of the working of the Divine upon the plane of Time.
+But such Divine breaks in pieces if it is subjected to exact
+determinations. Some account of it we must have: the understanding
+demands this; but that account must include what the best light of
+knowledge has to throw on the subject. But when all is said, something
+infinitely greater remains unsaid, and yet to be experienced--something
+that requires the soul to exert itself in order to experience what all
+this means. When face to face with the meaning and value of the life and
+death and spiritual resurrection [p.199] of the Founder of our
+Christianity, we are face to face with an eternal reality revealed
+within the soul of the "son of man." At such a depth of our nature, the
+petty questions concerning how much or how little was present disappear
+into the background of life, and we are able through such a vision to
+pass to the Father. When emphasis is laid on such a fact as this,
+Christianity will again become a religion of the spirit--a religion
+which will unite all mankind at a point of unity beneath all close
+intellectual determinations and differences. And Eucken points out that
+it is not in the life of Jesus alone that we can obtain such a vision.
+But we do not gain the vision by merely _saying_ this. If we know of any
+other character who _was_ so much and who _did_ so much, probably we
+shall obtain there what we need. But in the Western world at least we do
+_not_ know any such character; the essence of his life and personality
+has been always connected with the conception of God. But this is not
+the sole conception and, as Eucken says, we cannot bind ourselves
+entirely to this one point in Christianity. The narrow paths which lead
+to religion are many; we have to draw help from all quarters where the
+Divine has been revealed. But the danger lies in merely knowing so many
+such paths while walking on none of them. The personality of Jesus will
+remain in Christianity, and the world in its darkness will turn again
+and [p.200] again to that palpable proof of the Divine seen on such a
+summit, and endeavour to scale the same everlasting hill of God. "Here
+we find a human life of the most homely and simple kind, passed in a
+remote corner of the world, little heeded by his contemporaries, and,
+after a short blossoming life, cruelly put to death. And yet, this life
+had an energy of spirit which filled it to the brim; it had a Standard
+which has transformed human existence to its very root; it has made
+inadequate what hitherto seemed to bring entire happiness; it has set
+limits to all petty natural culture; it has stamped as frivolity, not
+only all absorption in the mere pleasures of life, but has also reduced
+the whole prior circle of man to the mere world of sense. Such a
+valuation holds us fast and refuses to be weakened by us when all the
+dogmas and usages of the Church are detected as merely human
+organisations. That life of Jesus establishes evermore a tribunal over
+the world; and the majesty of such an effective bar of judgment
+supersedes all the development of external power."[68]
+
+We may bring this chapter to a close by once more pointing out Eucken's
+insistence on the Spiritual Substance of Christianity and the need of a
+new Existential-form. The Substance was present in the life of the
+Founder; mankind has to turn to that fact for one of [p.201] the
+experimental proofs of the Divine. But such a fact is not sufficient. It
+is something which happened in _someone else_, and not in ourselves. The
+fact is to serve as an inspiration that something similar shall and can
+happen _in ourselves_. When this is realised, we become conscious of the
+power of the Divine within the soul; and the problems of our own day are
+seen and interpreted in the same spirit as that in which Jesus faced and
+interpreted the problems of his day. Such a spiritual experience will
+become a power to use all the good of life, and thus sanctify it in the
+very using of it. The over-personal norms and standards have now become
+our own possession; they enable us to see the world as it ought to be
+seen and to work for the realisation of the vision; and the norms mean
+even more than this, for we have already seen that they point to
+something _beyond_ themselves and yet continuous with themselves. They
+point to Infinite Love as the very essence of the Godhead. The reality
+of the over-individual norms and the conception of the Divine as
+Infinite Love thus induce in us a conviction of the possibility of an
+evolution of the spirit and of a reality beyond sense and time. The
+Eternal thus enters into Time and overcomes Time. This is Eucken's final
+conclusion in regard to the Christian religion and the destiny of man.
+But all this has to be experienced before it [p.202] can be realised.
+"The task to-day is to work energetically, to labour with a free mind
+and a joyful courage, so that the Eternal may not lose its efficient
+power by our rigid clinging to temporal and antiquated forms, so that
+what we have recognised as human may not bar the way to the Divine as
+that Divine is revealed in our own day. The conditions of the present
+time afford the strongest motives for such work. For once again, in
+spite of all the contradictions which appear on the surface of things,
+the religious problem rises up mightily from the depth of life; from day
+to day it moves minds more and more; it induces endeavour and kindles
+the spirit of man. It becomes ever plainer to all who are willing to see
+that mere secular culture is empty and vain, and is powerless to grant
+life any real content or fill it with genuine love. Man and humanity are
+pressed ever more forcibly forward into a struggle for the meaning of
+life and the deliverance of the spiritual self. But the great tasks must
+be handled with a greatness of spirit, and such a spirit demands
+freedom--freedom in the service of truth and truthfulness. Let us
+therefore work together, let us work unceasingly with all our strength
+as long as the day lasts, in the conviction that 'he who wishes to cling
+to the Old that ages not must leave behind him the old that ages'
+(_Runeberg_), and that an Eternal of the real kind cannot [p.203] be
+lost in the flux of Time, because it overcomes Time by entering into
+it."[69]
+
+Eucken is aware of the various Life-systems which present themselves on
+every side as all-inclusive. But he sees no hope for a real spiritual
+education of mankind until every Life-system shall seek for a depth
+beyond the _natural_ man and all his wants. And such a movement is
+visible amongst us to-day. It needs to be possessed and proclaimed. The
+redemption of the world depends upon its success. The Christian religion
+is such a Gospel. "But a movement towards a more essential and
+soul-stirring culture--to a progressive superiority of a complete life
+beyond all individual activities--cannot arise without bringing the
+problem of religion once more to the foreground. Our life is not able to
+find its bearings within this deep or to gather its treasures into a
+Whole unless it realises how many acute opposites it carries within
+itself. Life will either be torn in pieces by these opposites, or it
+must somehow be raised above them all. It is the latter alone that can
+bring about a thorough transformation of our first and shallow view of
+the universe as well as the inauguration of a new reality. Man has
+emerged out of the darkness of nature and remains afflicted with the
+afflictions of nature; yet at the same time, with his appearance upon
+the earth the darkness begins to illumine, and [p.204] 'nature kindles
+within him a light' (Schopenhauer); he who is a mere speck on the face
+of a boundless expanse can yet aspire to a participation in the whole of
+Infinity; he who stands in the midst of the flux of time yet possesses
+an aspiration after infinite truth; he who forms but a mere piece of
+nature constructs at the same time a new world within the spiritual life
+over against it all; he who finds himself confined by contradictions of
+all kinds, which immediate existence in no way can solve, yet struggles
+after a further depth of reality and after the 'narrow gate' which opens
+into religion. Through and beyond all the particular problems of life
+and the world, it behoves us to raise the spiritual life to a level of
+full independence, to make it simultaneously superior to man as an
+individual and to bring it back into his soul. When this comes to be
+there is at the same time a transformation of his inmost being, and for
+the first time he becomes capable of genuine greatness.... These final
+conclusions strengthen the aspiration after a religion of the spiritual
+life.... Such a religion is in no way new, and Christianity has
+proclaimed it and clung to it from the very beginning. But it has been
+interwoven with traditional forms which are now seen through by so many
+as pictorial ideas of epochs and times. Earlier times could allow the
+Essence and the Form to coalesce without discovering any incongruity in
+this. But the [p.205] time for doing this has irrevocably passed away.
+The human which once seemed to bring the Spiritual and Divine so near to
+man has now become a burden and a hindrance to him. A keener analysis, a
+more independent development of the Spiritual and Divine, and, along
+with this, the truth of religion, do not succeed in reaching their full
+effects if religion is looked upon as merely something to protect
+individuals, instead of as that which furthers the whole of humanity
+--as that which is not merely a succour in times of trouble and sorrow
+but also as that which guarantees an enhancement in work and
+creativeness. The situation is difficult and full of dangers, and small
+in the meantime is the number of those who grasp it in a deep and free
+sense, and who yet are determined to penetrate victoriously into it, so
+that the inner necessities of the spiritual life may awaken within the
+soul of man. Whatever new tasks and difficulties lie in the lap of the
+future, to-day it behoves us before all else to proceed a step upward in
+the direction of the summits and to draw new energies and depths of the
+spiritual life into the domain of man; for this kind of work will
+prevent the coming of an 'old age' upon humanity and will breathe into
+its soul the gift of Eternal Youth."[70]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER XII [p.206]
+
+PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
+
+
+In this chapter some of the most important problems of the present day
+will be touched upon in the light of Eucken's Philosophy of Religion.
+Reference has already been made to Eucken's account of the limitations
+of various Life-systems, of their struggle with one another, and of the
+necessity for a religious synthesis which will include their most
+important results within itself.[71] The answer as to the possibility
+and necessity of such a synthesis constitutes the kernel of Eucken's
+Philosophy of Religion. He has succeeded in a remarkable manner in
+assessing the results of science, philosophy, sociology, art, and
+religion. In them all he has discovered the presence of a reality which
+is non-sensuous in its nature, and, which reveals itself [p.207] in
+judgments of value that carry within themselves their own _necessity_
+and _self-subsistence_. This is his conclusion in regard to the work of
+the spirit of man on whatever plane of knowledge or experience that
+spirit works. Man's spirit has to carry all its knowledge and experience
+into its own conative spiritual potencies. We thus see that everything
+becomes an aid to the unfolding of an ever greater degree of reality
+within the spirit of man. It is then within the _spirit_ of man that
+everything finds its interpretation and value. Whatever interpretation
+is given to anything apart from the union of the _whole_ potency and
+cognition of man's spirit is only a partial interpretation. And it is in
+the failure to recognise this truth that so many Life-systems have set
+themselves against the higher aspects of philosophy and religion. The
+most important question has not been asked: What is the relation and
+value of all results in connection with the deepest potency and
+necessity of man's spirit? Are these results capable of enriching that
+spirit of man when he becomes conscious of them? These are the questions
+which Eucken continually asks and answers in his great works; and it is
+this fact which makes his teaching so valuable and superior to all the
+Life-systems of our day. It is difficult to think of any aspect of
+experience which Eucken has left out of account. He has not, indeed,
+interpreted [p.208] in detail all the Life-systems in vogue, and no
+human being is capable of achieving such a task; but he has clearly
+perceived the flaws which lie in them all. And this discovery of his has
+revealed a flaw common to them all. That flaw consists in ignoring the
+presence of a spiritual life as the great workshop where every form of
+reality finds its truest meaning. This flaw is so serious in that
+several Life-systems have thus over-estimated the importance of their
+results by neglecting to take into account the potentialities and
+necessities of man's spirit. Let us, then, try to trace this defect in
+connection with some of the most important Life-systems in vogue to-day.
+When the various systems of _Idealism_ are estimated, they seem to
+present aspects of reality with vast portions of human potencies and
+experiences left out of account. _Absolute Idealism_ is based upon the
+demands and implications of logic. Its doctrines would have taken a very
+different colouring had it considered that the necessities of Logic have
+to be adjusted to the necessities of Life. Such systems are of little
+value to the soul, because the needs of the soul were not taken into
+account when they were formulated. This fact was the main cause of the
+late Professor James's rebellion against all forms of Absolute Idealism.
+He felt that they bore no relationship to human life and its needs, and
+consequently could not exercise any important [p.209] influence on life;
+they could not move the will, for no possibility of reaching the
+Absolute was offered to man. All the conclusions were in the realm of an
+_intellectual universal_ and not in the realm of _spirit_. They must be
+unreal in the highest sense on account of this very failure. They have
+presented their half-gods as realities outside Nature, human nature, the
+pressing ideals of life, and even God Himself.
+
+Eucken shows that any true Life-system has to start with Life itself.
+There may be interpretations needful which have no implications for
+Life, and these have a right of their own; but when such interpretations
+are carried further, when the subject who _knows_ such interpretations
+and who _uses_ them is taken into account, then the interpretations
+found on this level are something quite different from what they were
+when the whole spirit of man was not taken into account. Eucken
+consequently comes to the conclusion that philosophy has not completely
+fulfilled its vocation until it has become a philosophy of _Life_--until
+the truest meaning of every object is discovered in its relation to all
+the necessities of the spirit. And it is here that his teaching comes
+into conflict with so much that goes by the name of Idealism. How can
+any system be more than a half-truth when its final meaning is presented
+with but little attention to the highest aspect we know in the world
+--to human life in its struggles and conquests, [p.210] in its living
+and loving, and its forward movement towards some distant goal? The
+special value of Eucken's teaching lies, then, in the fact that it
+interprets what happens, can happen, and ought to happen within life
+itself. No system which leaves out the soul with its possibilities is
+complete. This has been done too often in the past, and is being done
+to-day. Is it, then, a wonder that philosophy has given so very little
+help to Life in its complex problems without and its sharp opposites and
+contradictions within? Life is more and needs more than a philosophy of
+words, devoid of power, can offer it. Life, when at its best, believes
+in the all-power of its own spiritual potency; it has faith in the
+possibility of ascent from height to height, as well as in the
+possibility of an incessant progress not only of individuals but of the
+whole of mankind.[72] A System stands or falls according as it is able
+to conceive of Life in such a manner. And Eucken has done this as
+probably no other living philosopher has done it.
+
+If we turn to _Immanent Idealism_, we discover the same failure. It
+emphasises the presence within consciousness of what is idealistic and
+noble, but it leaves out the objective and imperative character of what
+is present. It also forgets that the possession of ideals as ideas is
+only the initial stage of such ideals becoming a very portion [p.211] of
+the deepest substance of soul itself. We may deceive ourselves even with
+the contemplation of the best ideals; they can never become truly ours
+until the will is set in motion and the whole nature is stirred to its
+depths in order to press forward to what it perceives as having infinite
+value. Something has inevitably to happen within the depth of the soul
+before its real creation can advance. Eucken here, again, has perceived
+this truth and presents it everywhere with great power. His Philosophy
+is an _Activism_ of the most powerful type. He is aware that to _know_
+and to _be_ are so far apart. But his Activism is not a mere movement of
+the individual's will, brought forth by anything that has grown within
+it as a private inheritance. The Activism is started and kept going on
+its course by the over-personal norms and values already referred to. It
+is the union of norm and will that constitutes the full action. Life's
+greater meaning and value is, therefore, not a ready-made possession; it
+is rather something already possessed, and a vision of something _more_
+in the distance to be possessed.[73] The presence of the Divine within
+the soul is not the same prior to the search and after the search. This
+is [p.212] one of the most distinctive features of Eucken's teaching,
+and constitutes a necessary supplement to certain presentations of
+Immanent Idealism prevalent in various forms to-day.
+
+When we pass to _Materialism_ in its various forms, we find Eucken
+conscious of its poverty and its caricature of life. It is caused by
+excessive absorption in the sensuous object with all its manifold
+relations. But it is possible to believe in all that it states; for it
+can never really say anything concerning the deeper meaning of spiritual
+life if for no other reason than that it cannot penetrate into life's
+deeper experiences. It is a stage in human thought which is passing
+away. What will become of it after Professor Haeckel's passing is
+difficult to imagine. One thing at least is certain: as a complete
+system of the universe or of life it is doomed.[74] A mechanical
+interpretation of the universe is legitimate: we may have to adopt more
+of such interpretations in the future. But there is no need for any
+alarm from the sides of philosophy and religion. Their citadel is not
+built upon a _thing_, but upon a _thought_; and the gap between the two
+increases in the degree in which our knowledge of Nature and Man
+increases. Eucken has many great things to say on this subject in his
+larger works. Doubtless he would agree with some of the [p.213]
+advocates of _Naturalism_ in regard to the meaning of the physical
+universe, but such agreement would not be an admission that _all_ had
+been said that could be said concerning the need and the possibility of
+a _Metaphysic of Life_.
+
+The one word _More_ constitutes all the difference. This _More_, with
+Eucken, is the beginning of a new order of existence and of value where
+the physical order ends. His work consists in interpreting this _More_,
+and we have already seen whither the _More_ leads us: it leads us into
+spiritual norms and their values, and these in their turn led us into
+Infinite Love in the Godhead. The failure to see the value of all this
+is due to the inattention of the advocates of Naturalism in regard to
+the non-sensuous structure of mind: the _Thing and its relations_
+monopolise them so completely that they are blind to every reality
+non-sensuous in its nature, although they possess some amount of such
+reality in their very knowledge and adoration of the _Thing_. Our
+troubles will continue to accumulate, and the prospect of the future
+will grow extremely dark, if the grip which physical things have on the
+world to-day be not relaxed. The very physical powers which we have
+helped to create, and which hitherto have proved of service to men, will
+mean our destruction unless something of the _More_ which is beyond them
+be found as a possession and an activity within the governing centre of
+life. This is Eucken's [p.214] plea over against the various forms of
+the Naturalism and Materalism of our day. These are not enough for man.
+But man is so slow in recognising this fact. The appeal of Spiritual
+Idealism is considered to be something which is vague and useless. Our
+deepest reality and the source of all true energy have been robbed of
+their efficacy by our absorption in scraping together physical elements
+of chaff and dust. How often does Eucken show our dire poverty in the
+midst of all this external plenty! The all-sufficiency of all forms of
+Naturalism condemns itself through its failure to pass beyond itself.
+Had there not been some who did pass beyond the _Thing and its
+relations_ the spiritual values of the race would have been annihilated.
+"As soon as we demand to pass beyond mere awareness to a genuine
+knowledge, we discover our deplorable poverty, and must confess that
+what is termed certain seems on clearer investigation to rest upon a
+totally insecure foundation."[75] "It is not natural science itself
+which leads to naturalism, for, indeed, no natural science could arise
+if reality exhausted itself in the measurements of naturalism; but it is
+rather the weakness of the conviction of the spiritual life; it is the
+failure of certitude in regard to the presence of a spiritual existence;
+it is the unclearness concerning the _inner_ conditions of all mental
+and spiritual activity which a shallow and popular philosophy [p.215]
+presents--it is all this which turns natural science into a
+materialistic naturalism."[76] The strength of materialistic _monism_
+does not lie in any proof of there being nothing but mechanism in this
+wide universe, but in its energetic propaganda against certain
+traditional theological forms of ecclesiastical religion--forms which
+are rapidly being disowned by the leaders of religious thought. Even
+monism concedes that "it is better being good than bad, better being
+sane than mad." This concession, and the attempt to live according to
+it, constitute a proof of the presence in some form of a non-sensuous
+reality and value in the constructions of materialistic monism itself.
+Hence, Eucken's conception of spiritual life cannot be got rid of after
+all. It will remain so long as men live above the animal level and
+strive to ascend to something higher still.
+
+When the _neo-Kantian_ movement is examined, we find that its long and
+honourable history presents us with gains which cannot be measured. But
+we have already noticed that in so far as this movement has specialised
+within the domain of the connections of mind and body, and has attempted
+to reduce psychology to the limits of the relations between the two, it
+is largely outside the _inner_ meaning and value of the life of
+consciousness. [p.216] Its work has proved useful in many important
+respects. It has made man realise that the connection of body and mind
+is not so simple a matter as materialistic naturalism would lead us to
+suppose; and it has shown, on the whole, the impossibility of reducing
+consciousness to mechanical elements. Even in the various forms of
+psycho-physical parallelism the factor of mind and meaning stands apart
+in its origin from the factors of bodily movement. But neo-Kantianism
+has developed on higher lines than those of physiological psychology. It
+has dealt with the presence of an inner world of thought--a world of
+values and judgments of values, of norms, imperatives, and
+ideals--realities which are not presented in any scheme of natural
+science. It is impossible to read such a great book as the late
+Professor Otto Liebmann's _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_[77] without
+discovering this truth. In this great work, as well as in his _Gedanken
+und Thatsachen_, Liebmann shows how man is more than a natural product.
+[p.217] "Natural science," he tells us, "is a very useful, and, indeed,
+an indispensable handmaid to philosophy, but it is in no manner the
+first, the deepest, the most original basis of philosophy."[78]
+Liebmann's successors, especially Windelband, Rickert, Münsterberg,
+Adickes, and Vaihinger, work on similar lines. And there is a great deal
+in Eucken's teaching which tends in the same direction. But he goes a
+step further than all the neo-Kantians. We have already noticed how he
+gives judgments of value and spiritual norms a _cosmic_ significance. He
+finds that when these norms and values have awakened with great
+clearness within man's spirit they inevitably lead to the conception of
+the Godhead. And it is in this work that Eucken's Metaphysic of Life
+becomes a _religious metaphysic_. As values and norms mean so much when
+a reality is granted them by the truest of the neo-Kantians, they come
+to mean infinitely more when they are acknowledged as somehow
+constituting the foundation and the acme of all existence. Eucken's main
+desire is to establish such norms and values beyond the possibility of
+dispute and beyond the constant changes of Life-systems. They mean for
+him what is present within their spiritual content as a realisation as
+well as the _More_ to which they still point. His teaching is not
+contradicted by anything in the neo-Kantian movement;[p.218] he accepts
+its transcendental reality and lifts it out of the realm of
+individuality and of history into a cosmic realm. After having followed
+the implications of the neo-Kantian movement so far, he feels compelled
+to take the next step. For unless that next step is taken, some of the
+deepest potencies of human nature fail to come to flower and fruit. When
+the step is taken, they do blossom and bear fruit. Is not this a
+sufficient justification for taking the "next step"? It is; for man
+cannot allow any potency of his being to remain dormant without
+suffering a loss; and on this highest level of all the loss must be
+incalculable. "Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart will
+never find its rest until it rests on Thee." That confession of
+Augustine is Eucken's confession also; and it is the implication which
+such a confession contains that constitutes the significance of his
+message to the world. He is in the line not only of the philosophers but
+of the prophets and the mystics. The ladder of knowledge reaches, like
+Jacob's ladder, up to heaven itself--to that pure atmosphere where
+knowledge, merged in a deeper reality, becomes something so different
+from what it was before. An eternal blessedness has now become the
+possession of man.
+
+Eucken has a great deal to say regarding the _Historical_ Life-systems
+of the present day. [p.219] He is aware that the neglect by German
+thinkers of the fundamental importance of Hegel's teaching on this
+question has meant a heavy loss. That loss is already perceived, and
+Hegel's value in the realm of the Philosophy of History is being
+rediscovered. Men are more and more feeling the necessity of conceding a
+validity and objectivity to the concepts of History. The work of the
+late Professor Dilthey[79] in this respect is of great importance, and
+has strong affinities with Eucken's teaching on the same subject. But
+Dilthey's objectivity and validity stopped short of religion in the
+sense in which religion is presented by Eucken. Dilthey gave the norms
+of History a transcendental objectivity and considered them sufficient
+for man. But Eucken, as already stated, while granting all this and even
+insisting upon it, finds that the norms of History do not include the
+whole that human nature needs. The "next step" has to be taken whereby a
+reality is revealed beyond the confines of the best collective
+experiences of the human race. Once more, we are landed in the
+conception of the Godhead. The step became inevitable, because the best
+[p.220] historical concepts, in their totality, pointed to something
+still beyond themselves.
+
+During the past few years Eucken has devoted much attention to the
+Life-system presented in _Pragmatism_. He is alive to the value of much
+of the work of the late Professor William James and of Dr F.C.S.
+Schiller. He feels that Absolute Idealism is too abstract and too remote
+from life to move the human will. It is too much like placing a man
+before a mountain, and asking him to remove it. The very magnitude of
+the object weakens instead of strengthening the will. Pragmatism has the
+merit of insisting that the task be done piecemeal, so that man may not
+lose heart at the very outset. And some kind of goal is present in
+Pragmatism. But Eucken's main objection to Pragmatism is that, however
+adequate it may be at the beginning of the enterprise, it will tend, as
+time passes, to turn man in the direction of the line of least
+resistance, and so be degraded to the level of the ordinary life and its
+petty demands.[80] His Activism is entirely different from James's
+Pragmatism. James depended too much upon the "span of the moment" and
+its immediate experience. There is in this "span" often no cosmic
+conviction present in consciousness to proclaim that the action is
+[p.221] "worth while" at all costs. While constantly demanding the need
+of effort in order to experience the deeper potencies of spiritual life,
+Eucken insists that such effort can enter into a current only in so far
+as norms and values are clearly perceived as the meaning and goal of
+spiritual life. A _universal_ of meaning and value must be perceived,
+however imperfectly it may be, before the individual can call his
+deepest nature into activity. And what is such a _universal_ but
+something beyond the flow of the moment and beyond the realm of ordinary
+daily life? Such a _universal_, too, must have an existence of its
+own--an existence and a value which are beyond the opinions of any
+individual or of any group of individuals, even if such a group were to
+include the whole human race. It is clear, then, why Eucken parts
+company with Pragmatism.
+
+If, finally, we view his attitude towards the _Religious_ Life-systems
+of our generation, we find words of warning and of encouragement. His
+whole work culminates in religion. But he teaches us that we have to
+learn from the sides of knowledge already presented in this chapter. And
+it may be said that the Christian Church (or any other Church) has yet
+to learn this lesson. It still seeks to find its revelation in what
+_was_, and in modes which come constantly into direct conflict with the
+results of the various Life-systems already referred to. It wants the
+fruits of religion without tilling [p.222] the ground and nurturing its
+plants. Its insistence on placing the basis of religion in myth and
+miracle dooms it to a greater disaster in the future than even in the
+past. Eucken sees no hope for a "revival" of religion in the soul until
+an inverted order of conceiving reality takes place. The religious
+synthesis from the intellectual side is to be obtained by passing
+through the grades of reality explicit in the various Life-systems, and
+by abstaining from the imposition of barriers which forbid anyone
+roaming and "ruminating" within these. If one condition is obeyed, this
+is the most fruitful way to construct a new religious metaphysic which
+will supplant traditional theology. That condition is that the various
+Life-systems form a kind of scale which extends from Matter up to the
+Godhead. The new religious metaphysic will then mean a real philosophy
+of values.
+
+Does this constitute an impossible task for the Christian Church? It
+will remain impossible so long as we look upon the essence of
+Christianity as something which descends upon us apart from the exertion
+of our own spiritual potencies. It is a consolation to know that the
+highest reality may be experienced without having to undergo a training
+in the methods and implications of science, history, or metaphysics. But
+the experience here cannot possibly mean so much as the experience which
+passes through and beyond the implications of knowledge to the [p.223]
+Divine. Such an experience as the latter must be richer in content. And
+even apart from this, it produces something of value on the intellectual
+side--something which grants religion a security in the eyes of the
+world. When the Church tends in this direction, its faith will come into
+comradeship with the various branches of human knowledge as these reveal
+themselves on level above level. Christianity has nothing to fear, but
+everything to gain, from the development of all the branches of human
+knowledge. Its source being Spiritual and Eternal, why should opposition
+be presented to any development of the lower realities in science,
+Biblical criticism, history, and philosophy? This lesson is not yet
+learned, and Eucken pleads for its acknowledgment. "If we consider how
+much is involved in such a change in the position of the spiritual life,
+and if we also present before ourselves what transformations
+civilisation, culture, history, and natural science carry within
+themselves, we see clearly the critical situation in which religion is
+placed, because these surface-changes are not of the essence of
+religion. Through the mighty expansion and the fissures which these
+changes bring about, the old immediacy and intimacy of the soul have
+become lost, and religion has now receded into the distance, and is in
+danger of vanishing more and more. The derangement of things which such
+changes cause occurs [p.224] not only in connection with their own facts
+and material and against their old forms, but the effect proceeds into
+the very character and feelings of man and into his religion. And yet,
+when we examine the matter more closely, we find that such changes cause
+not so much a breach with Christianity as with its traditional form, and
+that they seek to bring about a fundamental renewal of Christianity. For
+when we penetrate beyond the motives and dispositions of men to their
+spiritual basis, all the changes are unable to contradict what is
+essential to Christianity, but they even promise to assist this
+essential element in its new, freer, and more energetic development. But
+we have to bear in mind that all this will not descend upon us like a
+shower of rain, but will have to be brought forth through immense labour
+and toil. It becomes necessary to replace that which must pass away, and
+to reconsolidate the essentials which are threatened. All this cannot
+come about save through an energetic concentration and deepening of the
+spiritual life, save through a struggle against the superficiality of
+Time regardless of all consequences, and save through a vivification and
+integration of all that points in the right direction."[81]
+
+[p.225] This passage illustrates well Eucken's whole attitude regarding
+Christianity. It is evident that much remains to be done within and
+without the Church. Within, radical changes are to take place; but
+always in the light and with the preservation of the spiritual
+substance. Without, the indifference of a vast portion of the civilised
+nations of the world has to be reckoned with. It is an immense problem,
+often enough to dishearten good men and women. How can men be moved from
+their inertia and their resentment against the deeper demands which
+spiritual life makes upon every human being? That is the problem of
+problems and the task of tasks to-day. No clear solution of it is yet
+perceptible. But in the meantime, those who care for Divine things and
+who have experienced some of their power within their own souls must
+hold fast to all they possess, and labour unceasingly to increase the
+spiritual value of their possession. Probably catastrophes have to
+happen in order to bring the world home to religion and God.
+
+Rudolf Eucken's gospel is a proclamation of the necessity of religion
+and the possibility of its possession. This, according to him, is the
+final goal of all knowledge and life. If religion is not this, it is the
+most tragic deception conceivable. "Religion is either merely a
+sanctioned product of human wishes and pictorial ideas brought about by
+tradition and [p.226] the historical ordinance--and, if so, no art,
+power, or cunning can prevent the destruction of such a bungling work by
+the advance of the mental and spiritual movement of the world; or
+religion is founded upon a superhuman fact--and, if so, the hardest
+assaults cannot shatter it, but rather, it must finally prove of service
+in all the troubles and toils of man; it must reach the point of its
+true strength and develop purer and purer its Eternal Truth."[82]
+
+The fact that the influence of Rudolf Eucken's personality and teaching
+is spreading with such rapidity and power from west to east and from
+north to south is a proof that an increasing number of men and women are
+aspiring after a religion of spiritual life such as was presented by the
+Founder of our Christianity. All the Life-systems of our day must
+converge towards such a conception of religion.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII [p.227]
+
+EUCKENS PERSONALITY AND INFLUENCE
+
+
+In this chapter an attempt will be made to present in a brief form some
+of the most important aspects of Eucken's personality and influence. His
+training and the relation of his teaching to the German philosophical
+systems of the present have already been touched upon in some of the
+earlier chapters. But no account of Eucken's teaching is complete
+without a knowledge of his personality.
+
+We cannot understand his personality without bearing in mind Eucken's
+nationality. He is a man of the North. A mere glimpse of the deep blue
+eyes reveals this immediately. His ancestors lived in close contact with
+Nature, and faced the perils of the great deep. The history of the men
+of the North has witnessed, along the centuries, a struggle for
+existence as severe as any struggle known in the history of our world. A
+trait of Eucken's character almost entirely unknown in England is his
+deep sympathy with the small nations [p.228] of Europe, and especially
+with those of the North. He has written and pleaded on behalf of Poland,
+Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. He finds that small nations, when
+their independence is preserved, have the tendency to bring forth
+original characteristics of thought and life, which are only too apt to
+get lost in the bustle and mechanism of the great nations. He has shown
+us on several occasions how much the world is indebted to its small
+nations for the ideas and ideals which have shaped its destiny. He
+believes with his whole soul that _size_ does not necessarily mean
+_greatness_. When we compare the greatness of Palestine and Greece with
+that of the larger countries of the world, the latter sink into
+insignificance when weighed in the balances of the spirit. He has,
+during the past few years, several times pointed out a danger to
+personality and character from the vast organisations which have been
+created in the various departments of life during the latter half of the
+nineteenth century. The deeper personality of man has receded more and
+more into the background through the growth of such organisations. This
+fact is clear in the realms of commerce and of politics. We call a
+nation "great" in the degree in which it succeeds in outstripping other
+nations in its exports and imports, or in forming alliances with its
+neighbouring states or with other nations. A large portion of the gains
+which accrue from such [p.229] unions is purely accidental, and these
+gains cannot possibly touch the essentials of life. The explanation of
+this is the fact that the centre of gravity has been shifted from mental
+and moral racial qualities to qualities which are far inferior in mental
+and moral potency and content. Thus, we witness the painful inversion of
+values which has taken place during the past fifty years. Every "small
+nation" has to take a secondary place, has to become subservient to a
+nation which may possess for its inheritance but few qualities besides
+those of expansiveness and force. The small nation is forced to submit,
+to develop on lines entirely alien to its original potencies, and to
+labour with might and main to fill the coffers of the rich nation. The
+old calm and peace, as well as the originality of the small nations have
+thus too often been cruelly uprooted; the characteristics of working on
+their own original lines, and of producing something of essential value
+in the history of the world, have been largely shorn of their initiative
+and freedom in the case of several of the small nations of Europe.
+Superficiality and indifference to deep national and spiritual traits
+become the primary things, and the life of the small nations, as time
+passes, tends to become mechanical and servile.
+
+When we survey the work of the small nations of the Western world, we
+discover achievements which have been of immense [p.230] value in the
+civilisation, culture, morals, and religion of Europe. And what a
+distressing sight it is to witness the attempts of larger nations to
+crush the spirituality of the smaller ones! The attitude of Russia
+towards Finland and Poland is known to all. A greed for territory and a
+passion for ready-made values are characteristics which are only too
+evident to-day in the case of some of the Great Powers of Europe. We
+need, as Eucken points out,[83] a new standard of valuing the national
+characteristics and the relationship of nation with nation. Such
+standard must include moral judgments and human sympathy. It is the
+presence of spiritual powers such as these which constitute the really
+deep and durable elements in a nation's progress. "When righteousness
+goes to the bottom, then there is nothing more worth living for on the
+earth." Eucken's philosophy cannot be understood apart from his intense
+interest in mankind and its spiritual development. He goes, indeed, so
+far as to say that this is the sole goal of philosophy; its message is
+to create new spiritual values in the life of the individual and of the
+race. Our systems of philosophy are painfully defective in this respect
+to-day. Man, as a being with a soul, is little taken into account in
+most of them. Is it surprising, therefore, that philosophy has not
+succeeded, [p.231] for centuries, in interesting or influencing the
+intelligent world at large?[84] It will not succeed in doing this until
+the deepest needs of mankind are taken to be something more than objects
+of psychological analysis or of logical generalisations.
+
+Eucken's personality is rooted in a deep love for humanity and its
+spiritual qualities; and herein lies the essential reason of his
+championing of weak nations and pleading for the preservation of their
+original spiritual characteristics. These qualities are pearls of too
+great a price to be lost in a world where so much tinsel passes as what
+possesses the highest value.
+
+It is not difficult to see why the small nations of the North feel that
+in Eucken they possess a true friend who sees clearly what they feel
+instinctively, and who points out to them the path of their spiritual
+deliverance.
+
+It is impossible, also, to understand Eucken's system of philosophy
+without taking into account his religious experience. This aspect has
+already been touched upon, but it requires elucidation from a more
+personal point of view. Eucken's philosophy is the result of the
+experience of his own soul. It is something which can never be
+understood until it is lived through. Everything is brought back to its
+roots in the needs, aspirations, and inwardness of the soul. One must
+become "converted" [p.232] before he can understand Eucken's teaching.
+Something has not only to be understood but to be lived through; the
+body and the external world have to be relegated to a subsidiary place;
+the intellect has to merge into the spiritual intuition which is deeper
+than itself. It is after one has been willing to pass through this fiery
+furnace that the great "illumination" begins to appear. And such an
+illumination will increase in the degree that service and sacrifice are
+willingly undertaken for the sake of the infinite spiritual gains which
+remain in store.
+
+This element in Eucken's personality draws him to everybody he comes in
+contact with, and draws everybody to him. He has drunk so deeply of the
+experiences of Plato and Plotinus, of the great Christian mystics and
+moralists of the centuries, that he sees the value of every soul that
+comes to him for help. It is far from Eucken's wish for these matters to
+be published. And the present writer will only state the fact that
+nobody, however ignorant and obscure, has failed in Eucken to find a
+father and guide. Hundreds of men who had either lost or had never found
+their moral and spiritual bearings in life have succeeded in doing so
+through coming into contact with him. The present writer remembers well
+many a conversation among students of six or more different
+nationalities, concerning the secret of Eucken's teaching [p.233] and
+influence. Imagine Servians, Poles, Swedes, Scotch, English, and Welsh
+meeting together after a philosophical lecture to discuss the question
+of the spiritual life and wondering how to discover it! Eucken's
+personality had created in their deepest being a need which could never
+more be filled until the Divine entered into it. In the class-room the
+great prophet makes it impossible for us to content ourselves with
+merely preparing for examinations. The teacher's exposition and
+inspiration are creating a deep uneasiness in us. We feel how limited
+and shallow our nature has been when we are face to face with a man who
+reveals to us the eternal values of the things of the spirit; and who
+reveals them not as they have merely been revealed by the great thinkers
+of the world, but as he himself has felt and lived them. We all become
+impressed with the fact that we are in the presence of a power above the
+world; and the feeling of pain is changed into a feeling of strong
+optimism in regard to the possibilities of our own nature. We feel that
+we, too, in spite of our limitations, can become the possessors of
+something of the very nature akin to that which our great teacher
+possesses. Eucken works a change in every man and woman who remain with
+him for a length of time. Many of us understand something of what Jesus
+Christ meant to his disciples; how he created an affection within their
+souls which all the obstacles of the world [p.234] could never
+obliterate. Eucken has done something of the same kind, on a smaller
+scale, for hundreds of his old pupils.
+
+These pupils are found to-day from Iceland in the North to New Zealand
+in the South, and from Japan in the East to Britain and America in the
+West.[85] Many of them have risen to eminence, and all of them have
+experienced something of a spiritual anchorage in the midst of the
+tempestuous sea of Time; all alike cherish an affection for their old
+[p.235] teacher--an affection which is one of their dearest possessions.
+They have helped to spread his spiritual teaching, and, along with his
+books, have made his name known in all the civilised countries of the
+world. Some of Eucken's most important works have already appeared in
+half a dozen languages. The demand for them increases everywhere. This
+receptivity is a good omen of better days. The world is beginning to get
+tired of the mechanism and shallowness of our age, and is once more on
+the point of turning to the spiritual fountains of life. Where can it
+find a better guide to lead it to the waters of life than in Rudolf
+Eucken?
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV [p.236]
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+It will probably prove helpful at the conclusion to indicate the main
+contents of Eucken's greatest works in order that the reader who turns
+to them for the first time may be able somewhat to find his bearings.
+The whole of Eucken's works turn around the conception of the _spiritual
+life_. This fact must be constantly borne in mind. The term has been
+repeated so often in all the previous chapters that the reader may be
+inclined to think that some other expression might well have been
+exchanged for it. But no other term serves Eucken's meaning, and the
+recurrence of the term has to be endured in order that it may yield of
+its rich content.
+
+It has been shown how Eucken establishes a _new world_ with its own laws
+and values within the spiritual life. The spiritual life possesses
+grades of reality: it reveals itself from the level of connection of
+body and mind and of ordinary life right up to Infinite Love in [p.237]
+the Godhead. Such a reality is created within the total activity of the
+soul; but it is not mere subjectivism by virtue of the fact that its
+material comes to it from without.[86] And Eucken shows that it is thus
+a life partly given to man, and partly created by him. The "given"
+elements have to enter into man's soul. This they cannot do without much
+opposition. With the persistent energy of the total potency of the soul
+a world of independent inwardness is reached--a world which will have an
+existence of its own within the soul, and which will become the standard
+by which to measure the values of all the things which present
+themselves.
+
+It is this superiority of the spiritual life which constitutes the
+essential factor in the evolution of the individual's personality as
+well as in civilisation, culture, morality, and all the rich inheritance
+of the race. Such an inheritance can be developed farther by the [p.238]
+full consciousness of the spiritual life and by the exercising of it
+from its very foundation.
+
+In _The Problem of Human Life_ Eucken sees in the message of every one
+of the great thinkers of the ages, however much he may differ from them,
+the vindication of a life higher than that of sense or even of
+in-intellectualism. In one form or another, they all present some world
+of values which is born and nurtured within the mind and soul. All these
+thinkers stand for something which is great and good. Eucken attempts to
+discover this core in their teaching; and in the midst of all the
+differences some spiritual truth and value make their appearance. This
+volume has undergone many changes, and is now in its ninth edition.
+
+In _The Main Currents of Modern Thought_ Eucken deals, in the first part
+of the book, with _the fundamental concept of spiritual life_ as this
+reveals itself in the meanings of Subjective--Objective,
+Theoretical--Practical, Idealism--Realism. The middle portion of the
+book deals with the _Problem of Knowledge_ as this is shown in Thought
+and Experience (Metaphysics), Mechanical--Organic (Teleology), and Law.
+The third portion of the volume deals with the _Problems of Human Life_
+as these are presented in Civilisation and Culture, History, Society and
+the Individual, Morality and Art, Personality and Character, and the
+Freedom of the Will. The final portion deals [p.239] with _Ultimate
+Problems_; and the two chapters on the Value of Life and the Religious
+Problem bring out the deeper meaning of spiritual life.
+
+This volume has undergone many changes. When it appeared in 1878 it was
+little more than a history of the concepts we have already referred
+to.[87] But at the present time it deals with the history of the
+concepts, a criticism of these, and finally the presentation of the
+author's own thesis regarding the reality of an independent spiritual
+life.
+
+In _Life's Basis and Life's Ideal_ he analyses the various systems of
+thought which have been presented to the world. He finds many of these
+deficient; but although something that is contained in them has to pass
+away, they possess some spiritual element which requires preservation,
+and which is valid for all time. None of these systems is final; they
+have to preserve what is spiritual within them, and also merge it in
+some newer revelation gained for mankind. Every system of the universe
+and of life has to move; it has perpetually to drop something of its
+accidentals, and continually strengthen and increase its essentials.
+Everywhere emphasis is laid on the fact that the spiritual element
+[p.240] must be preserved and increased at whatever cost, for it is an
+element of the highest value for the world, and constitutes the energy
+of the world's upward march.
+
+In the _Einheit des Geisteslebens_, as well as in the _Prolegomena_ to
+this, the necessity of a spiritual conception of knowledge comes to the
+foreground. All systems of Naturalism lack enough spiritual life within
+themselves to meet the deepest needs of the race. Man is _more_ than all
+such systems. Even on the grounds of the Theory of Knowledge itself man
+can be proved to be _more_. Eucken deals in these two books with the
+content of consciousness: that content reveals what is a Whole or
+Totality, what is beyond sense, what includes within itself the isolated
+impressions of the senses or of the understanding, and what is therefore
+_spiritual_ in its nature.
+
+In the _Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_--a book of the greatest
+value--we find Eucken at his best. His attempt here is to deal with the
+struggle for the spiritual life and the certainty of its possession. He
+shows how man has emerged out of Nature, and how he has moved in the
+direction of gaining an inner world during the long course of
+civilisation, culture, morality, and religion. Through titanic struggles
+this inner world becomes man's possession, and constitutes the true
+value and significance of his life. Man now realises that it is this
+world of spirit and values [p.241] which constitutes the only really
+true world. Issuing out of this possession of the ever richer contents
+of this inward, spiritual world, the personality constantly becomes
+something quite other than it was, and its possession adds to the
+inheritance of the spiritual ideals of the world. At this source man is
+in possession of a power of a new kind of creativeness in any field of
+knowledge or life he may be obliged to work. Nothing blossoms or bears
+fruit without the presence and the power of spiritual life in the
+deepest inwardness of the soul.
+
+In _The Truth of Religion_ Eucken roams in a vast territory. All the
+oppositions of the ages to religion are brought on the stage, and are
+made to reveal their best and their worst. He shows how every system of
+thought, devoid of the experience and activity of the deepest soul,
+fails to engender religion. He shows over against all this the
+intellectual warrant for religion, and passes from this to the personal
+search by the soul for what is warranted by the intellect and by the
+deepest needs of one's own being. This has been the meaning of the
+religions of the world, and this meaning finds its culmination in
+Christianity.
+
+Eucken's smaller books, such as _The Life of the Spirit, Christianity
+and the New Idealism, Können wir noch Christen sein?_, and _The Meaning
+and Value of Life_, present certain aspects of the larger volumes in a
+simpler form.
+
+Eucken is at present engaged upon the [p.242] completion of a work of
+great importance dealing with _The Theory of Knowledge_. His system has
+been stated to be in need of this important corner-stone, and he has
+hastened to meet the demand. The book will deal with the "grounds" of
+the life of the spirit in an even more fundamental manner than any of
+his books. A preparatory work, small in bulk--_Erkennen und Leben_--has
+just appeared in German, and will be issued in English in the spring of
+1913.
+
+In _Erkennen und Leben_ Eucken shows the need of clearness in regard to
+the concept of the spiritual life. This work is an introduction to his
+forthcoming work--_The Theory of Knowledge_. He shows that the Problem
+of Knowledge can only be answered through a further clarification of the
+Problem of Life. It is, therefore, necessary to show what such a Life is
+and how it may be lived, and, finally, how it makes Knowledge possible.
+This is the only way by which the final convictions of Life are able to
+possess greater depth and duration.
+
+Knowledge is possible only in so far as man participates in a
+self-subsistent life. Without such a self-subsistent life many
+intellectual achievements are possible, but they do not deserve the name
+of Knowledge.
+
+Such a self-subsistent life must be operative in the foundation of our
+nature, but it must constantly receive its material from the most
+[p.243] important meanings and values of the world. The self-subsistent
+life dare not feed on the mere analysis of consciousness or on the
+material which it already possesses.
+
+History shows how a self-subsistent life is not created through the mere
+succession of events, but is always found as a life which is superior to
+the perpetual changes of Time. Consequently, every real Knowledge has
+something _sub specie aeternitatis_ as its essence, and this
+differentiates it from all mere relativism.
+
+The movement of History culminates alternately in _Concentration_ on the
+one hand, and in _Expansion_ on the other: _Positive_ and _Critical_
+epochs alternate. Both aspects are necessary for the growth of life.
+
+In modern times the growth of the Expansion-side of life has destroyed
+in a large measure the equilibrium of life; and the task to-day is to
+construct a new Concentration-side.
+
+Such a new Concentration is possible: the experience of History
+testifies to its presence in several epochs; and there is a deep longing
+for it in many quarters to-day.
+
+In order to attain to such a Concentration the "dead-level" life of the
+present must be overcome, and a turn must take place towards a new
+Metaphysic of Life.
+
+Such is the problem to-day, and no complete answer is to be found in the
+past systems of Metaphysics. "The possibilities of Life and [p.244] of
+Knowledge are in no way exhausted, but it is only through our own
+courage and actions that the possibilities can become actualities"
+(_Erkennen und Leben_, p. 161).
+
+The various systems of Thought need a synthesis which will include them
+all. It is difficult to-day to obtain a theory of life which does not
+leave out of account some essential elements. Is there a possibility of
+discovering such a synthesis? I believe that Eucken's works answer this
+question. But we wait eagerly for the appearance of his greatest work,
+and I think that, when it appears, he will more than ever deserve
+Windelband's designation of him as "the creator of a new Metaphysic."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+APPENDIX [p.245]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+LIST OF EUCKEN'S WORKS
+
+
+1866. "De Aristotelis docendi ratione."  Pars I. De particularis. This was
+       the Doctor's dissertation at Göttingen University.
+
+1868. "Über den Gebrauch der Präpositionem bei Aristoteles."
+
+1870. "Über die Methode und die Grundlagen der Aristotelischen Ethik"
+       (Separatabdruck aus dem Programm des Frankfurter Gymnasiums von 1870).
+
+1871. "Über die Bedeutung der Aristotelischen Philosophie fur die Gegenwart"
+       (Akademische Antrittsrede gehalten am 21 November, 1871). This was in
+       Basel.
+
+1872. "Die Methode der Aristotelischen Forschung in ihrem Zusammenhang mit
+       den philosophischen Grundprincipien des Aristoteles."
+
+1874. "Über den Wert der Geschichte der Philosophie" (Antrittsrede, Jena,
+       1874).
+
+1878. "Die Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart." This was translated by Stuart
+       Phelps in 1880, and published by Appleton of New York. The fourth
+       edition has been translated  by M. Booth, and has been published by
+       T. Fisher Unwin in 1912. The title of the third German edition was
+       changed to "Geistige Stromungen der [p.246] Gegenwart."
+       The English edition is entitled "The Main Currents of Modern Thought."
+
+1879. "Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie."
+
+1880. "Über Bilder und Gleichnisse in der Philosophie": Eine Festschrift.
+
+1881. "Zur Erinnerung an K.Ch.F. Krausse" (Festrede, gehalten zu Eisenberg
+       am 100 Geburtstage des Philosophen).
+
+1884. "Aristoteles Anschauung von Freundschaft und von Lebensgütern."
+
+1885. "Prolegomena zu Forschungen über die Einheit des Geisteslebens in
+       Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit."
+
+1886. "Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino und die Kultur der Neuzeit."
+
+1886. "Beiträge zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie." (Second edition,
+       1906, under the title "Beiträge zur Einführung in die Geschichte
+       der Philosophie.")
+
+1888. "Die Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit."
+       This will be published by Williams & Norgate.
+
+1890. "Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker." The ninth edition
+       appeared in 1911. Changes and additions have been made in each
+       succeeding edition. English translation (1909) by W.S. Hough and
+       W.R. Boyce Gibson under the title "The Problem of Human Life, as
+       viewed by the Great Thinkers from Plato to the Present Time"
+       (published by Charles Scribners' Sons, New York; and T. Fisher
+       Unwin, London).
+
+1896. "Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt." (Second edition, with
+       many changes, 1907.) A translation of this volume will be published
+       by Williams & Norgate in the spring of 1913.
+
+1901. "Das Wesen der Religion." (First and second editions.) This essay
+       was translated by W. Tudor Jones in 1904, and was published for
+       private circulation. It is now out of print, but will soon reappear
+       together with another essay, "Wissenschaft und Religion."
+
+1901. "Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," 1901. (Second edition, with
+       numerous changes, 1905; third edition, with changes, 1912.) The
+       second edition was translated by W. Tudor Jones, and published by
+       Williams & Norgate in 1911 under the title of "The Truth of Religion."
+       A translation of the third German edition will be published at the
+       close of 1912.
+
+1901. "Thomas von Aquino und Kant: ein Kampf zweier Welten."
+
+1903. "Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Philosophie und Lebensanschauung."
+
+1905. "Was können wir heute aus Schiller gewinnen?" (Kantstudien: Sonderdruck).
+
+1905. "Wissenschaft und Religion." This comprises a chapter in the collection
+       of essays entitled "Beiträge zur Weiterentwickelung der Christlichen
+       Religion."
+
+1907. "Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung." This volume was translated
+       by Alban G. Widgery, and published by A. & C. Black in 1911 under the
+       title of "Life's Basis and Life's Ideal."
+
+1907. "Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der Gegenwart." (First edition,
+       1907; fourth and fifth editions (with additions), 1912.) The first
+       edition was translated by W.R. Boyce Gibson and Lucy Gibson under the
+       title "Christianity and the New Idealism: a Study in the Religious
+       Philosophy of To-day." This is published by Harper & Brothers, London
+       and New York.
+
+1907. "Philosophie der Geschichte."  This is an essay in the volume entitled
+       "Systematische Philosophie" in the series "Kultur der Gegenwart."
+
+1908. "Sinn und Wert des Lebens." Third edition (with many additions), 1911.
+       The first edition was translated by W. R. Boyce Gibson and Lucy Gibson
+       under the title of "The Meaning and Value of Life" (Publishers:
+       A. & C. Black).
+
+1908. "Einführung in eine Philosophie des Geisteslebens." Translated by the
+       late F.L. Pogson under the title of "The Life of the Spirit" (third
+       edition, 1911).
+
+1911. "Religion and Life" (the Essex Hall Lecture for 1911). This is
+       published by the Lindsey Press, London.
+
+1911. "Können wir noch Christen sein?" A translation of this is in
+       preparation.
+
+1912. "Naturalism or Idealism?" (the Nobel Lecture, translated by
+       A.G. Widgery). This is published by Heffer & Sons, Limited,
+       Cambridge.
+
+1912. "Erkennen und Leben." A translation of this work, by W. Tudor Jones,
+       is in preparation, and will be published by Williams & Norgate in
+       the spring of 1913 under the title of "Knowledge and Life: An
+       Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge."
+
+1913. "Erkenntnistlehre." This volume will appear early in 1913. The
+       translation will also appear during 1913, and the book will be
+       published by Williams & Norgate under the title of "The Theory
+       of Knowledge."
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+
+     [1] It is not only in Germany, but also in England, that natural
+     scientists forget this important fact. The Presidential Address of
+     Professor Schäfer at the British Association (September 1912) is an
+     instance of attempting to explain life in terms of its history and
+     of its lowest common denominator. And huge assumptions have to be
+     made in order to explain as little as this.
+
+     [2] A fuller treatment of this subject will be found in my
+     forthcoming volume, _Pathways to Religion_. It is incorrect to
+     state with Professor Sorley (_Recent Tendencies in Ethics_, p. 30)
+     that "her [Germany's] philosophy betrays the dominance of material
+     interests."
+
+     [3] An important article on this book appeared in _Mind_ during
+     1896, and, as far as I can trace, this seems to be the first
+     serious attention which was given to Eucken's writings in England.
+     A translation of the volume will appear shortly by Messrs Williams
+     & Norgate.
+
+     [4] Cf. _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, translated by Dr M.
+     Booth (1912).
+
+     [5] _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, p. 259.
+
+     [6] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 6l.
+
+     [7] _Ibid._, p. 62.
+
+     [8] W. James's _Text-Book of Psychology_, p. 145.
+
+     [9] William Wallace's _Lectures and Essays on Natural Theology and
+     Ethics_, p. 210.
+
+     [10] Edward Caird's Introduction to William Wallace's Gifford
+     Lectures, pp. xxx, xxxi.
+
+     [11] On this conception of the spiritual as _More, cf._ Bosanquet's
+     _Psychology of the Moral Self_.
+
+     [12] _Cf._ Wicksteed's _The Religion of Time and the Religion of
+     Eternity_, in Carpenter and Wicksteed's _Studies in Theology_.
+
+     [13] Eucken's best account of this subject is found in Parts I.,
+     II., and V. of his _Truth of Religion_ and in _Beiträge zur
+     Weiterentwickelung der Religion_, pp. 240-281. This latter is a
+     volume of ten essays by well-known German religious teachers.
+
+     [14] The President of the British Association (1912) states in his
+     address that it is not within his province to touch the question
+     concerning the nature of the soul. I take the report of his address
+     from _Nature_, 5th September. Dr Haldane goes much further in the
+     direction of Vitalism (discussion at British Association on the
+     subject).
+
+     [15] _Cf._ Driesch: _Philosophy of the Organism_; _Vitalismus als
+     Geschichte und Lehre_; his article in _Lebensanschauung_ (a
+     collection of essays by twenty German thinkers, 1911); Reinke's
+     _Philosophie der Botanik_; McDougall's _Body and Mind_; Thomson's
+     _Heredity, Evolution_, and _Introduction to Science_ (the two
+     latter in the Home University Library). Bergson's _Creative
+     Evolution_ deals with the subject, but the value of this book is
+     greater in other directions. T.H. Morgan's _Regeneration_ is a
+     weighty contribution to the subject.
+
+     [16] A revival of the study of Kant's first _Critique_ would be of
+     great value to our natural scientists. Green, in his _Prolegomena
+     to Ethics_, has interpreted this aspect in a manner that ought not
+     to be forgotten. _Cf._ further Edward Caird's _Evolution of
+     Religion_, vol. i.
+
+     [17] Ward's _Naturalism and Agnosticism_, vol. i., is a reply to
+     this important question.
+
+     [18] _Cf._ Münsterberg's _Psychology and Education_, and his
+     _Eternal Values_; also Royce's _The World and the Individual_.
+
+     [19] This trans-subjective aspect has been worked out in an
+     original way by Volkelt in his _Quellen der menschlichen
+     Gewisskeit_.
+
+     [20] The works of Münsterberg and Rickert deal with great clearness
+     on this difference of subject-matter in science and history.
+
+     [21] The main weakness of Bergson's philosophy seems to be in not
+     recognising this problem. Bosanquet, in his _Principle of
+     Individuality and Value_, has very clearly recognised and
+     interpreted it upon similar lines to Eucken.
+
+     [22] In this respect Eucken and Bergson seem to agree, although it
+     is difficult to reconcile this aspect of Bergson's with his
+     statements concerning the grasping of reality in the perceptions of
+     the moment.
+
+     [23] "Hegel To-day," _The Monist_, April 1897.
+
+     [24] _Truth of Religion_, p. 328.
+
+     [25] Green has dealt with this aspect in the first part of his
+     _Prolegomena to Ethics_ in practically the same way as Eucken.
+     _Cf._ also Nettleship's _Life of Green_ and his (Nettleship's)
+     _Philosophical Remains_.
+
+     [26] This need of differentiation has been presented by Münsterberg
+     in a powerful manner in his _Psychology and Life, Eternal Values_,
+     and _Science and Idealism_.
+
+     [27] Münsterberg's _Science and Idealism_, p. 10; _cf._ also his
+     _Grundsuge der Psychologie_, Bd. i., 1900.
+
+     [28] Wundt's _Grundriss der Psychologie_ and the article
+     "Psychologie" in _Philosophie im beginn des Zwanzigsten
+     Jahrhunderts (Festschrift fur Kuno Fischer_, art. 1).
+
+     [29] _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 178 _f_.
+
+     [30] It is a great merit of Bergson, too, to have perceived this
+     fundamental difference. The difference between intellect and
+     intuition, in his larger volumes, is more illuminating on the side
+     of intellect. The relation of both is expressed by him more clearly
+     in his short _Introduction to Metaphysics_ (soon to appear in
+     English).
+
+     [31] Troeltsch, in his _Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie_, has
+     perceived the difference very clearly, but in a manner quite
+     different from Bergson. Troeltsch has dealt with the presence of
+     the content of the over-empirical as something which is higher than
+     any psychology of the soul, and which is at the farthest remove
+     from the percept.
+
+     [32] Richard Kade, in his new book, _Rudolf Euckens noologische
+     Methode_, points out very clearly Eucken's contributions on this
+     point from 1885 downwards. Kade further deals with the later
+     developments of Windelband, Rickert, Troeltsch, and Wobbermin in
+     the same direction.
+
+     [33] _Historical Studies in Philosophy_,1912, p. 176.
+
+     [34] _Cf._ the two remarkable volumes of Baron von Hügel, _The
+     Mystical Elements of Religion_,1908, and especially vol. ii. These
+     books are a mine of rich things, but I have not observed that many
+     in our country have as yet realised this fact.
+
+     [35] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 456.
+
+     [36] _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, p. 353.
+
+     [37] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 59.
+
+     [38] _Cf. Decadence_, Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture, by the Rt.
+     Hon. Arthur James Balfour, M.P., 1908. Mr Balfour has perceived the
+     problem in a more optimistic manner than Professor Eucken; but he,
+     too, is conscious that much is required of the people. "Some kind
+     of widespread exhilaration or excitement is required in order to
+     enable any community to extract the best results from the raw
+     material transmitted to it by natural inheritance" (p. 62).
+
+     [39] _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, p. 398.
+
+     [40] This aspect has been developed in modern times by
+     Schopenhauer, Ed. von Hartmann, and others. Bergson seems to me to
+     be greatly indebted to Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's Will and
+     Bergson's _élan vital_ are practically the same (_cf_.
+     Schopenhauer's _Über den Willen in der Natur,_ and Bergson's
+     _Creative Evolution_). Edward Carpenter, in his _Art of Creation_,
+     has worked out a similar point of view independently of Bergson.
+
+     [41] _Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_, Zweite Auflage,
+     1907, S. 331.
+
+     [42] Sonderdruck, 1905.
+
+     [43] George Meredith, _The Sage Enamoured and the Honest Lady_.
+
+     [44] _Cf._ the closing passages of Bradley's _Appearance and
+     Reality_ for a similar view; also the latter part of Ward's _Realm
+     of Ends_.
+
+     [45] This weakness of Bergson's philosophy is shown in the whole of
+     Bosanquet's _Principle of Individuality and Value_.
+
+     [46] It is a great merit of Windelband to have brought this aspect
+     of the _Ought_ prominently forward in contradistinction to the
+     over-importance attached to the _Will_ alone by the Pragmatists.
+     _Cf._ his _Präludien_.
+
+     [47] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 175.
+
+     [48] Modern psychology would agree with such a view, but probably
+     not with the implications given to it by Eucken. The "faculty"
+     psychology as it was presented by Kant has now disappeared, and
+     consciousness is conceived as a unity in which the three aspects
+     referred to are present, and even the single aspect that is in the
+     foreground of consciousness is influenced by the others which are
+     in the background. Another point made clear by Höffding (_cf_. his
+     _Psychology)_ and others is the difference between the activity of
+     consciousness in the "drifting" process of association of ideas and
+     its power to stem the association current, and to turn it into new
+     directions by means of the reflective power of consciousness
+     itself.
+
+     [49] It is a great merit of Bergson's philosophy to have pointed
+     this out. It is a conception presented several times in the history
+     of philosophy, but there is great need of re-emphasising it to-day,
+     especially as things in space have gripped the soul with such power
+     and disastrous results.
+
+     [50] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 243.
+
+     [51] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 200. _Cf._ also _Können wir noch
+     Christen sein_? pp. 91-141.
+
+     [52] _Cf._ Ward's _The Realm of Ends_, chapters ii. and xx.; also
+     Caird's _Evolution of Religion_ has many valuable hints throughout
+     the two volumes pointing in the same direction.
+
+     [53] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 436.
+
+     [54] Quoted in _The Truth of Religion_, p. 436.
+
+     [55] Cf. _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 429 ff.
+
+     [56] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 430.
+
+     [57] This fact is very clearly interpreted by Rickert in his
+     _Gegenstand der Erkenntnis_.
+
+     [58] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 431.
+
+     [59] I cannot but believe that the supposed proofs brought forward
+     by Sir Oliver Lodge and others are so empirical as to be of very
+     little value to religion.
+
+     [60] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 533.
+
+     [61] _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 367, 368.
+
+     [62] _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 11, 12.
+
+     [63] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 545. It is on this fact that
+     Eucken builds his conception of immortality. Such a conception is
+     not a matter of speculation or of scientific proof, but a matter of
+     an experience born on the summit of the evolution of spiritual life
+     within the soul. It is useless to attempt to press such an
+     experience into a conceptual mould.
+
+     [64] _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 550, 551.
+
+     [65] Driesch is attempting the construction of such a Metaphysic of
+     Nature, and a similar attempt is to be discovered in Bergson's
+     philosophy, especially in its later developments.
+
+     [66] Troeltsch has also emphasised this truth in his _Absolutheit
+     des Christentums und die Religionsgeschichte_ and in his _Bedeutung
+     der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben_. These two small
+     volumes are of great value.
+
+     [67] Cf. _Können wir noch Christen sein_? pp. 150 to 210; _Das
+     Wesen der Religion; Life's Basis and Life's Ideal_, p. 332 ff.;
+     _Christianity and the New Idealism_, chapter iv.; _The Truth of
+     Religion_, pp. 539 to 616.
+
+     [68] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 360.
+
+     [69] _Das Wesen der Religion_, S. 16.
+
+     [70] The closing sections of _The Truth of Religion._ A similar
+     aspect is presented in the final chapter of _Können wir noch
+     Christen sein?_
+
+     [71] _Cf._ J.S. Mackenzie's _Outlines of Metaphysics_ on the
+     various constructions of the Universe and of Life. The whole volume
+     is of the greatest value. _Cf._ also A.E. Taylor's illuminating
+     volume, _Elements of Metaphysics_.
+
+     [72] Cf. _Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_, S. 98 ff.
+
+     [73] _Cf._ Wicksteed's remarkable address _The Religion of Time and
+     the Religion of Eternity_, already referred to. There are some
+     striking similarities between Eucken and Wicksteed, who have,
+     however, worked each quite independently of one another.
+
+     [74] Men of science themselves feel this, and are conscious of the
+     one-sidedness of the results of the scientific side of materialism.
+
+     [75] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 103.
+
+     [76] _Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker_, 9te Auflage,
+     1911, S. 504.
+
+     [77] Liebmann passed away in January 1912. He had been Eucken's
+     colleague in Jena for many years. Windelband designates him as "the
+     truest of Kantians and the Nestor of Philosophy." _Cf._ my article
+     on his life and work in the _Nation_ for February 3, 1912. The best
+     presentation in England of the Kantian philosophy and its
+     development is to be found in Caird's _Critical Philosophy of Kant_
+     and Adamson's _Development of Modern Philosophy. Cf_. also G. Dawes
+     Hicks's valuable articles in the _Proceedings of the Aristotelian
+     Society_ during the past ten years.
+
+     [78] _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_,3te Auflage, 1900, S. vii.
+
+     [79] _Cf._ Dilthey's _Erlebnis und Dichtung_; his article "Die
+     Typen der Weltanschauung und ihre Ausbildung in den metaphysichen
+     Systemen" in _Weltanschauung_; _Philosophie und Religion in
+     Darstellungen_, 1911 also, "Das Wesen der Philosophie" in
+     _Systematische Philosophie_ ("Kultur der Gegenwart").
+
+     [80] _Cf._ Eucken's _Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der
+     Gegenwart_, 5te Auflage, 1912, chapter iv. Also, _Erkennen und
+     Leben_ (1912), ss. 35-51.
+
+     [81] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 574. Many hints in this and other
+     respects may be found in W.R. Boyce Gibson's valuable work, _Rudolf
+     Eucken's Philosophy of Life_(3rd edition, 1912).
+
+     [82] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 71.
+
+     [83] "Gesammelte Aufsätze": _Die Bedeutung der kleiner Nationen_,
+     pp. 47-52.
+
+     [84] This truth is pointed out most forcibly by L.P. Jacks in his
+     _Alchemy of Thought_, chap. i.
+
+     [85] Eucken visited England for the first time during Whitsun-week
+     1911. He had been invited by the Committee of the British and
+     Foreign Unitarian Association to deliver in London the _Essex Hall
+     Lecture_ for the year. A large audience gathered together to see
+     and hear him, and he received a most cordial reception. He spoke in
+     German on _Religion and Life_, and the lecture has since appeared
+     in English. The Rev. Charles Hargrove, M.A., of Leeds (President of
+     the Association) presided over the meeting, and spoke of the great
+     importance of Eucken's growing influence. Interesting addresses
+     were also delivered by Dr J. Estlin Carpenter, Principal of
+     Manchester College, Oxford; and Dr P.T. Forsyth, Principal of
+     Hackney College. At the luncheon which followed, Professor
+     Westermarck, Dr R.F. Horton, and others spoke. The lecture was
+     repeated at Manchester College, Oxford, during the same week. On
+     Whitsunday Eucken preached in the evening at Unity Church,
+     Islington, London, N., at the invitation of the writer of this
+     volume.
+
+     In September 1912 Eucken sailed for the United States of America to
+     deliver a course of lectures at Harvard University covering a
+     period of six months.
+
+     In both countries he was greeted by a large number of his old
+     pupils, many of whom travelled long distances to see and hear him
+     once more.
+
+     [86] Eucken follows Kant in the fact that after the union of
+     subject and object has taken place a _new kind of objectivity_ has
+     to be taken into account. This result has to be admitted before
+     knowledge becomes possible at all. Eucken has not dealt in a
+     thorough manner with this problem, although several hints are given
+     concerning the importance of this transcendental aspect in Kant's
+     philosophy. The implications of such a _new_ kind of objectivity
+     avoid the danger of subjectivism, on the one hand, and of
+     empiricism on the other hand. Eucken's forthcoming _Theory of
+     Knowledge_ will deal with this important matter. In _Erkennen und
+     Leben_ certain aspects of the problem are touched.
+
+     [87] The volume was translated into English and published in the
+     United States of America by Stuart Phelps in 1880. I am not aware
+     that the work exercised any great influence at the time either in
+     England or America. Eucken's "day" had not then dawned.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+INDEX OF NAMES
+
+
+Adamson, R.
+Adickes.
+Aristotle.
+
+Balfour, A.J.
+Bergson.
+Boehme.
+Bosanquet, B.
+Boutroux.
+Bradley, F.H.
+
+Caird, E.
+Carpenter, E.
+Carpenter, J. Estlin.
+Class, G.
+Copernicus.
+
+Darwin.
+Descartes.
+Dilthey, W.
+Driesch, H.
+
+Fichte.
+Fischer, Kuno.
+Forsyth, P.T.
+
+Galileo.
+
+Gibson, W.R.B.
+Goethe.
+Green, T.H.
+
+Haeckel.
+Haldane.
+Hargrove.
+Harnack.
+Hartmann, Ed. von.
+Hegel.
+
+Hicks, G. Dawes.
+Höffding, H.
+Horton, R.F.
+Hügel, F. von.
+Husserl.
+Huxley.
+
+Jacks, L.P.
+James, W.
+Jesus, _cf._ chapters on Historical Religions and Christianity.
+
+Kade, R.
+Kant.
+
+Liebmann, Otto.
+Lipps.
+Lodge, O.
+Lotze.
+Luther.
+
+MacDougall, W.
+Mach, E.
+Mackenzie, J.S.
+Meredith, G.
+Morgan, T.H.
+Münsterberg, H.
+
+Nettleship, R.L.
+Ostwald, W.
+
+Paul.
+Paulsen, F.
+Phelps, Stuart.
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+Taylor, A.E.
+Thomson, J.A.
+Trendelenberg.
+Troeltsch, E.
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+
+
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+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's
+Philosophy, by W. Tudor Jones
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy
+
+Author: W. Tudor Jones
+
+Release Date: October 9, 2005 [EBook #16835]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marc D'Hooghe.
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1>AN INTERPRETATION OF RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY</h1>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+
+<h2>W. TUDOR JONES, Ph.D. (Jena)</h2>
+
+
+<h4>LONDON</h4>
+
+<h4>1912</h4>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p5" id="p5"></a>[p.5]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#7948;&#961;&#945; &#959;&#8022;&#957;, &#7936;&#948;&#949;&#955;&#934;&#959;&#943;, &#8000;&#934;&#949;&#953;&#955;&#941;&#964;&#945;&#953; &#7952;&#963;&#956;&#941;&#957;, &#959;&#8016; &#964;&#8135; &#963;&#945;&#961;&#954;&#8054; &#964;&#959;&#8166; &#954;&#945;&#964;&#8048;
+&#963;&#940;&#961;&#954;&#945; &#950;&#8135;&#957;, &#949;&#7984; &#947;&#8048;&#961; &#954;&#945;&#964;&#8048; &#963;&#940;&#961;&#954;&#945; &#950;&#8134;&#964;&#949; &#956;&#941;&#955;&#955;&#949;&#964;&#949; &#7936;&#960;&#959;&#952;&#8053;&#963;&#954;&#949;&#953;&#957;, &#949;&#7984; &#948;&#8050;
+&#960;&#957;&#949;&#973;&#956;&#945;&#964;&#953; &#964;&#8048;&#962; &#960;&#961;&#940;&#958;&#949;&#953;&#962; &#964;&#959;&#8166; &#963;&#974;&#956;&#945;&#964;&#959;&#963; &#952;&#945;&#957;&#945;&#964;&#959;&#8166;&#964;&#949; &#950;&#8053;&#963;&#949;&#963;&#952;&#949;. &#8005;&#963;&#959;&#953;
+&#947;&#8048;&#961; &#960;&#957;&#949;&#973;&#956;&#945;&#964;&#953; &#952;&#949;&#959;&#8166; &#7940;&#947;&#959;&#957;&#964;&#945;&#953;, &#959;&#8023;&#964;&#959;&#953; &#965;&#7985;&#959;&#8054; &#952;&#949;&#959;&#8166; &#949;&#7984;&#963;&#943;&#957;.<br /><br />
+&mdash;St. Paul (Romans, viii. 12-14).</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p7" id="p7"></a>[p.7]</span></p>
+<h3>PREFACE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The personality and works of Professor Rudolf Eucken are at the present
+day exercising such a deep influence the world over that a volume by one
+of his old pupils, which attempts to interpret his teaching, should
+prove of assistance. It is hoped that the essentials of Eucken's
+teaching are presented in this book, in a form which is as simple as the
+subject-matter allows, and which will not necessitate the reader
+unlearning anything when he comes to the author's most important works.
+The whole of the work is expository; and an attempt has been made in the
+footnotes to point out aspects similar to those of Eucken's in English
+and German Philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>It is encouraging to find at the present day so much interest in
+religious idealism, and it is proved by Eucken beyond the possibility of
+doubt that without some form of such idealism no individual or nation
+can realise its deepest potencies. But with the presence of such
+idealism as a conviction in the mind and life, history teaches us that
+the seemingly impossible <span class="pagenum"><a name="p8" id="p8"></a>[p.8]</span> is partially realised, and that a new
+depth of life is reached. All this does not mean that the individual is
+to slacken his interests or to lose his affection for the material
+aspects of life; but it does mean that the things which appertain to
+life have different values, and that it is of the utmost importance to
+judge them all from the highest conceivable standpoint&mdash;the standpoint
+of spiritual life. This is Eucken's distinctive message to-day. The
+message shows that an actual evolution of spirit is taking place in the
+life of the individual and of human society; and that this evolution can
+be guided by means of the concentration of the whole being upon the
+reality of the norms and standards which present themselves in the lives
+of individuals and of nations. No one particular science or philosophy
+is able to grant us this central standpoint for viewing the field of
+knowledge and the meaning of life. The answer to the complexity of the
+problem of existence is to be found in something which gathers up under
+a larger and more significant meaning the results of knowledge and life.
+This volume will attempt to elucidate this all-important point of
+view&mdash;a point of view which is so needful in our days of specialisation
+and of material interests. It may be, and Eucken and his followers
+believe it is, that the destiny of the nations of the world depends in
+the last resort upon a conception and conviction of <span class="pagenum"><a name="p9" id="p9"></a>[p.9]</span> the reality of
+a life deeper than that of sense or intellect, although both these may
+become tributaries (and not hindrances) to such a spiritual life.</p>
+
+<p>I have to thank Professor Eucken himself for allowing me access to
+material hitherto unpublished, and for encouraging me in the work. I am
+bold enough to be confident that could I say half of what our revered
+teacher has meant for me and for hundreds of others of his old pupils,
+this volume would be the means of helping many who are drifting from
+their old moorings to find an anchorage in a spiritual world.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 35em;">W. TUDOR JONES.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Highbury, London, N.,</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>November</i> 1, 1912.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="content">
+Preface                                                 <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p7">7</a></span><br />
+
+1. Introduction                                         <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p13">13</a></span><br />
+
+2. Religion and Evolution                               <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p26">26</a></span><br />
+
+3. Religion and Natural Science                         <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p57">57</a></span><br />
+
+4. Religion and History                                 <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p70">70</a></span><br />
+
+5. Religion and Psychology                              <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p87">87</a></span><br />
+
+6. Religion and Society                                 <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p108">108</a></span><br />
+
+7. Religion and Art                                     <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p119">119</a></span><br />
+
+8. Universal Religion                                   <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p128">128</a></span><br />
+
+9. Characteristic Religion                              <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p151">151</a></span><br />
+
+10. The Historical Religions                            <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p166">166</a></span><br />
+
+11. Christianity                                        <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p180">180</a></span><br />
+
+12. Present-Day Aspects of Philosophy and Religion      <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p206">206</a></span><br />
+
+13. Eucken's Personality and Influence                  <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p227">227</a></span><br />
+
+14. Conclusion                                          <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p236">236</a></span><br />
+
+List of Eucken's Works                                  <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p245">245</a></span><br />
+
+Index                                                   <span class="cnr"><a class="a" href="#p249">249</a></span><br />
+
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<h3>AN INTERPRETATION OF RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p13" id="p13"></a>[p.13]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+
+<p>Rudolf Eucken was born at Aurich, East Frisia, on the 5th of January
+1846. He lost his father when quite a child. His mother, the daughter of
+a Liberal clergyman, was a woman of deep religious experience and of
+rich intellectual gifts. When quite a boy he came at school under the
+influence of the theologian Reuter, a man of wonderful fascination to
+young men. The questions of religion and the need of religious
+experience interested Eucken early, and these have never parted from him
+during the long years which have since passed away.</p>
+
+<p>At an early age he entered the University of G&ouml;ttingen and attended the
+philosophical classes of Hermann Lotze. Lotze interested him in
+philosophical problems, but did not <span class="pagenum"><a name="p14" id="p14"></a>[p.14]</span> satisfy the burning desire
+for religious experience which was in the young man's soul. Lotze looked
+at religion and all else from the intellectual point of view. His main
+business was to discover proofs for the things of the spirit, and the
+value of his work in this direction cannot be over-estimated. Hermann
+Lotze's works are with us to-day; and he has probably made more
+important contributions to philosophy and religion from the scientific
+side than any other writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century.
+But he seems to have been a man who was inclined to conceive of reality
+as something which had value only in so far as it was <i>known</i>, and left
+very largely out of account the inchoate stirrings and aspirations which
+are found at a deeper level within the human soul than the <i>knowing</i>
+level. Life is larger and deeper than logic, and is something, despite
+all our efforts, which resists being reduced to logical propositions. It
+is quite easy to understand how a young man of Eucken's temperament and
+training should acquiesce in all the logical treatment of Lotze's
+philosophy, and still find that <i>more</i> was to be obtained from other
+sources which had quenched the thirst of the great men of the past.</p>
+
+<p>When Eucken entered the University of Berlin he came into contact with a
+teacher who helped him immensely in the quest for religion, and in the
+interpretation of religion as the <span class="pagenum"><a name="p15" id="p15"></a>[p.15]</span> issue of that
+quest. Adolf Trendelenburg was a great teacher as well as a noble
+idealist, and his influence upon young Eucken was very great. Indeed, it
+seems that Trendelenburg's influence was great on the life of every
+young man who was fortunate enough to come into contact with him. The
+late Professor Paulsen, in his beautiful autobiography, <i>Aus meinem
+Leben</i> (1909), presents us with a vivid picture of Trendelenburg and his
+work. Under him the pupils came into close touch not only with the
+<i>meaning</i> but also with the <i>spirit</i> of Plato and Aristotle. The pupils
+were made to see the ideal life in all its charm and glory. The great
+Professor had all his lifetime lived and meditated in this pure
+atmosphere, and possessed the gift of infusing something of his own
+enthusiasm into the minds and spirits of his hearers. Eucken has stated
+on several occasions his indebtedness to Trendelenburg. The young
+student entered the temple of philosophy through the gateways of
+philology and history. This was a great gain, for the barricading of
+these two gateways against philosophy has produced untold mischief in
+the past. At present men are beginning to see this mistake, and we are
+witnessing to-day the phenomenon of the indissoluble connection of
+language and history with philosophy. In fact, the new meanings given to
+language and history are meanings of things which happened in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="p16" id="p16"></a>[p.16]</span>
+culture and civilisations of individuals and of nations, and such a
+material casts light on the processes, meaning, and significance of the
+human mind and spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken learnt this truth in Berlin at a very early age, and his life and
+teaching ever since have been a further development of it. This fact has
+to be borne in mind in order that we may understand the prominence he
+gives to religion, religious idealism, spiritual life, and other similar
+concepts&mdash;concepts which are largely foreign to ordinary philosophy and
+which are only to be found in that mysterious, all-important borderland
+of philosophy and religion.</p>
+
+<p>After graduating as Doctor of Philosophy in the University of G&ouml;ttingen,
+we find him preparing himself as a High School teacher, in which
+position he remained for five years.</p>
+
+<p>In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in the University of
+Basel. In 1874 he received a "call" to succeed the late Kuno Fischer as
+Professor of Philosophy in the renowned University of Jena. It is here,
+in the "little nest" of Goethe and Schiller, that Eucken has remained in
+spite of "calls" to universities situated in larger towns and carrying
+with them larger salaries. It is fortunate for Jena that Eucken has thus
+decided. He, along with his late colleague Otto Liebmann, has kept up
+the philosophical tradition of Jena. In spite of modern developments and
+the presence of <span class="pagenum"><a name="p17" id="p17"></a>[p.17]</span> new university buildings, Jena still remains an
+old-world place. To read the tablets on the walls of the old houses has
+a fascination, and brings home the fact that in this small
+out-of-the-way town large numbers of the most creative minds of Europe
+have studied and taught. The traditions of Goethe and Schiller still
+linger around the old buildings and in the historical consciousness of
+the people. Here Fichte taught his great idealism&mdash;an idealism which has
+meant so much in the evolution of the Germany of the nineteenth century;
+here Hegel was engaged on his great <i>Phenomenology of Spirit</i> when
+Napoleon's army entered the town; here Schopenhauer sent his great
+dissertation and received his doctor's degree <i>in absentia</i>; here too,
+the Kantian philosophy found friends who started it on its "grand
+triumphant march"&mdash;a philosophy which raised new problems which have
+been with us ever since, and which gave a new method of approaching
+philosophical questions; here Schelling revived modern mysticism and
+attempted the construction of a great <i>Weltanschauung.</i> But only a small
+portion of the greatness of Jena can be touched on. Eucken has nobly
+upheld the great traditions of the place, not only as a philosophical
+thinker but also as a personality.</p>
+
+<p>What is the secret of Eucken's influence? It is due greatly, it is true,
+to his writings and their original contents, for it is not possible for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p18" id="p18"></a>[p.18]</span> a man to hide his inner being when he writes on the deepest
+questions concerning life and death. A great deal of Eucken's
+personality may be discovered in his writings. Opening any page of his
+books, one sees something unique, passionate, and somehow always deeper
+than what may be confined within the limits of the understanding, and
+something which has to be lived in order to be understood. And to know
+the man is to realise this in a fuller measure than his writings can
+ever show. He has to be seen and heard before the real significance of
+his message becomes clear. His personality attracts men and women of all
+schools of thought, from all parts of the world, and they all feel that
+his message of a reality which is beyond knowledge&mdash;though knowledge
+forms an integral part of it&mdash;is a new revelation of the meaning of life
+and existence. Professor Windelband, in his <i>History of Philosophy</i> and
+elsewhere, describes Eucken as the creator of a new Metaphysic&mdash;a
+metaphysic not of the Schools but of Life. This aspect will be discussed
+at fuller length in later pages, so that it may be passed over for the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken believes in the reality and necessity of his message. He is aware
+that that message is contrary to the current terminology and meaning of
+the philosophy of our day. Some of his great constructive books were
+written as far back as 1888, and have remained, almost until our own
+day, in a large measure unnoticed. <span class="pagenum"><a name="p19" id="p19"></a>[p.19]</span> The <i>Einheit des Geisteslebens
+in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit</i> is a case in point. It is one of
+his greatest books, and its value was not seen until the last few years.
+But the philosophy of the present day in Germany is tending more and
+more in the direction of Eucken's. Writers such as the late Class and
+Dilthey, Siebeck, Windelband, M&uuml;nsterberg, Rickert, Volkelt,
+Troeltsch&mdash;naming but a small number of the idealistic thinkers of the
+present&mdash;are tending in the direction of the new Metaphysic presented by
+Eucken in the book already referred to as well as in the <i>Kampf um einen
+geistigen Lebensinhalt</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The philosophy of Germany at the present day is making several attempts
+at a metaphysic of the universe. Much critical and constructive work has
+been done during the past quarter of a century and is being done to-day.
+The attempts to construct systems of metaphysics may be witnessed on the
+sides of natural science and of philosophy. Haeckel, Ostwald, and Mach
+have each given the world a constructive system of thought. But these
+three systems have not, except in a secondary way, attempted a
+metaphysic of human life. Haeckel's system is mainly poetico-mythical,
+chiefly on the lines of some of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Ostwald's
+attempt is to show the unity of nature and life through his principle of
+Energetics; and Mach's may be described as an inverted kind <span class="pagenum"><a name="p20" id="p20"></a>[p.20]</span> of
+Kantianism in regard to the problem of subject and object.</p>
+
+<p>None of these has attempted a reconstruction of philosophy from the side
+of the content of consciousness; in fact, they all find their
+explanation of consciousness in connection with physical and organic
+phenomena observed on planes below those of the mental and ideal life of
+man. Such work is necessary; but if it comes forward as a <i>complete</i>
+explanation of man, it is, as Eucken points out again and again, a
+wretched caricature of life. To know the connection of consciousness
+with the organic and inorganic world is not to know consciousness in
+anything more than its history. It may have been similar to, or even
+identical with, physical manifestations of life, but it is not so <i>now</i>.
+Eucken admits entirely this fact of the history of mind; but the meaning
+of mind is to be discovered not so much in its <i>Whence</i> as in its
+present potency and its <i>Whither</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> A philosophy of science is bound
+to recognise this difference, or else all its constructions can
+represent no more than a torso. Physical impressions enter into
+consciousness, <span class="pagenum"><a name="p21" id="p21"></a>[p.21]</span> and doubtless in important ways condition it,
+but they are <i>not physical</i> once man becomes <i>conscious</i> of them. A union
+of subject and object has now taken place, and consequently a new beginning&mdash;a
+beginning which cannot be interpreted in terms of the things of
+sense&mdash;starts on its course. This is Eucken's standpoint, and it is no
+other than the carrying farther of some of the important results Kant
+arrived at.</p>
+
+<p>This difference between the natural and the mental sciences has been
+emphasised, at various times, since the time of Plato. But the
+difference tended to become obliterated through the discoveries of
+natural science and its great influence during the latter half of the
+nineteenth century. The key of evolution had come at last into the hands
+of men, and it fitted so many closed doors; it provided an entrance to a
+new kind of world, and gave new methods for knowing that world. But, as
+already stated, evolution is capable of dealing with what <i>is</i> in the
+light of what <i>was</i>, and the <i>Is</i> and the <i>Was</i> are the physical
+characteristics of things. In all this, mind and morals, as they are in
+their own intrinsic nature operating in the world, are left out of
+account. A striking example of this is found in the late Professor
+Huxley's Romanes Lecture&mdash;<i>Evolution and Ethics</i>. In this remarkable
+lecture it is shown that the cosmic order does not answer all our
+questions, and is indifferent <span class="pagenum"><a name="p22" id="p22"></a>[p.22]</span> and even antagonistic to our
+ethical needs and ideals. Huxley's conclusion may be justly designated
+as a failure of science to interpret the greatest things of life. Before
+culture, civilisation, and morality become possible, a new point of
+departure has to take place within human consciousness, and the attempt
+to move in an ethical direction is as much hindered as helped by the
+natural course of the physical universe. This lecture of Huxley's runs
+parallel in many ways with Eucken's differentiation of Nature and
+Spirit, and Huxley's "ethical life" has practically the same meaning as
+Eucken's "spiritual life" on its lower levels.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous instances are to be found in the present-day philosophy of
+Germany of the need of a Metaphysic of Life, and of the impossibility of
+constructing such from the standpoint of the results of the natural
+sciences either singly or combined.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Rickert's investigations are having important effects in this
+respect. In his works he has made abundantly clear the difference
+between the methods and results of the sciences of Nature and the
+sciences of Mind. And even amongst the mental sciences themselves,
+all-important aspects of different subject-matters present themselves,
+and render themselves as of different <i>values</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Professor M&uuml;nsterberg has worked on a similar path, and has insisted
+once more on the nature of reality as this expresses itself in <span class="pagenum"><a name="p23" id="p23"></a>[p.23]</span> a
+meaning which is over-individual. Professor Windelband's writings (<i>cf.
+Pr&auml;ludien, Die Philosophie im XX. Jahrhundert</i>, etc.) have emphasised
+very clearly the need of the presence and acknowledgment of norms in
+life, and of the meaning of life realising itself in the fulfilment of
+these norms.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>When we turn to the great neo-Kantian movement, we find alongside of
+discussions concerning psychological questions important ethical aspects
+presenting themselves. The works of the late Professor Otto Liebmann of
+Jena (<i>cf</i> the last part of his <i>Analysis der Wirklichkeit</i>) and of the
+late Professor Dilthey and Dr. G. Simmel point in the same direction.
+Professors Husserl, Lipps, and Vaihinger, as their most recent important
+books show, work on lines which insist on bringing life as it is and as
+it ought to be into their systems. The same may be said of Professor
+Wundt's works in so far as they present a constructive system.</p>
+
+<p>But the ground was fallow twenty-five years ago when some of Eucken's
+important works made their appearance. Even as late as 1896 he complains
+of this in the preface of his <i>Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt</i>:"I
+am aware that the explanations offered in this <span class="pagenum"><a name="p24" id="p24"></a>[p.24]</span> volume will prove
+themselves to be in direct antagonism to the mental currents which
+prevail to-day."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> He states that his standpoint is different from that
+of the conventional and official idealism then in vogue. By this he
+means, on the one hand, the "absolute idealism" which constructed
+systems entirely unconnected with science or experience&mdash;systems whose
+Absolute had no direct relationship with man, or which made no appeal to
+anything of a similar nature to itself in the deeper experience of the
+soul; and, on the other hand, the degeneration of the neo-Kantian
+movement to a mere description of the relations of bodily and mental
+processes.</p>
+
+<p>Probably enough has been said to show that the idealistic systems of
+Germany are tending more and more in the direction of a philosophy which
+attempts to take into account not only the results of the physical
+sciences and psychology, but also those of the norms of history and of
+the over-individual contents of consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>It has been stated by several critics in England, Germany, and America,
+that Eucken has ignored the results of physical science and psychology.
+This was partially true in the past, when his main object was to present
+his <span class="pagenum"><a name="p25" id="p25"></a>[p.25]</span> own metaphysic of life. The problems of science and
+psychology had to take a secondary place, but it is incorrect to state
+that these problems were ignored. It is remarkable how Eucken has kept
+himself abreast of these results which are outside his own province.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
+But he has been all along conscious of the limitations of these results
+of natural science and psychology. The results fail to connote the
+phenomena of consciousness and its meaning. While Eucken has accepted
+these results, I have not seen any evidence that any of his conceptions
+concerning the main core of his teaching&mdash;the spiritual life&mdash;are
+disproved by any of them. He shows us, as will be elucidated later, that
+as sensations point in the direction of percepts, and percepts in the
+direction of concepts, so concepts point in the direction of something
+which is beyond themselves. And as the meaning of reality reveals itself
+the more we pass along the mysterious transition from sensation to
+concept, so a further meaning of reality is revealed when concepts
+search for a depth beyond themselves. This is the clue to Eucken's
+teaching in regard to spiritual life. It is a further development of the
+nature of man&mdash;a development beyond the empirical and the mental. And
+the object of the following chapters will be to show this from various
+points of view.</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p26" id="p26"></a>[p.26]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h2>RELIGION AND EVOLUTION</h2>
+
+
+<p>Eucken accepts gladly the theory of descent in Darwinism, but insists
+that the theory of selection must be clearly distinguished from it. He
+agrees with Edward von Hartmann that the doctrine of selection is
+inadequate to explain the phenomena of life. But, as he points out,
+there is much which is true and helpful in the theory of selection even
+in regard to human life. "In all quarters there is a widespread
+inclination to go back to the simplest possible beginnings, which
+exhibit man closely related to the animal world, to trace back the
+upward movement not to an inner impulse, but to a gradual forward thrust
+produced by outward necessities, and to understand it as a mere
+adaptation to environment and the conditions of life. It seems to be a
+mere question of natural existence, of victory in the struggle against
+rivals."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> But he is not satisfied that such an explanation covers the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p27" id="p27"></a>[p.27]</span> phenomena of consciousness. If there were no more than this at
+work in the higher forms of life, the things of value&mdash;the things which
+have meant so much in the upward development of humanity&mdash;would be
+reduced to mere adjuncts of physical existence. If mental and moral
+values mean no more than this, they are simply annihilated. But the
+values of life are something quite other than any physical manifestion;
+and however much they are conditioned by physical changes it is
+inconceivable that what is purely physical should be the sole cause of
+them. Man would never have risen so far above Nature, and become able to
+be conscious of his own personality and of the meaning of the world, had
+there not been present from the very beginning some spiritual potency
+which could receive the impressions of the external world and bind them
+together into some kind of connected Whole. This connected Whole may be
+no more in the beginning than a potency without any content, and its
+roots may be discerned in the world below man; but without such a
+potency, different in its nature from physical things, the whole meaning
+of the evolution of mind and spirit is utterly unintelligible. But what
+can this potency mean but something which includes within itself the
+germ of that which later comes out in the form of the values which have
+been gained in the life of the individual and of the race?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p28" id="p28"></a>[p.28]</span> In order to understand Eucken's conceptions concerning Spirit,
+Whole, Totality, and other similar terms, this fact has to be borne in
+mind. The capacity for <i>more</i> is present in man's nature. It may remain
+dormant in a large measure, but it is not entirely so, as witnessed by
+the fact that men have scaled heights far above Nature and the ordinary
+life of the day. And humanity, on the whole, has climbed to a height to
+give some degree of meaning to the life of the day&mdash;a meaning superior
+to physical impressions, and which is able to see somewhat behind,
+around, and beyond itself. Wherever this happens, it comes about through
+the presence and activity of the life of the spirit within man. The
+spiritual life is, then, a possession of man, but it is a possession
+only in so far as it is used. It is subject to helps and hindrances from
+the world; it is not freed from its own content; it can never say, "So
+far and no further according to the bond and the duty"; it has to
+undergo a toilsome struggle before it can ever become the possessor of
+the new kind of world to which it has a right.</p>
+
+<p>In all this we notice something in the <i>new world of consciousness</i>
+similar to what happens within the physical world. In the world of
+nature no animate (and probably no inanimate) thing has received a
+<i>donum</i> which it may preserve as its own without effort. Everything that
+has value has to be preserved through <span class="pagenum"><a name="p29" id="p29"></a>[p.29]</span> struggles necessitated by
+the changing conditions of the impinging environment as well as
+struggles between contrary characteristics within the nature of the
+thing itself. Otherwise nothing could maintain its identity and
+individuality at all. There must be some core in everything which exists
+as an individual thing. This individuality is seen more clearly as the
+scale of existence is mounted. In the organic world each thing lives in
+a more or less degree its own life, however much that life is
+conditioned and even hindered by the environment. What is it, then, that
+keeps the thing together? It is some point of union of elements
+otherwise scattered. When we come to man we see this more clearly than
+in the world below him. This core is a kind of Whole made up of isolated
+impressions mingling with a potency different in nature from themselves,
+and transmuting them to its own nature in the forms of
+self-consciousness, meanings, values. This potency&mdash;this Whole&mdash;although
+present from the very beginning as the condition of becoming conscious
+of anything, yet remains in constant change. Impressions pour in through
+the senses, enter the Whole that is already present; they drop their
+content into that Whole by means of the senses, and the miracle of
+transmutation, entirely mysterious, takes place.</p>
+
+<p>This point is not new. It is a fact well <span class="pagenum"><a name="p30" id="p30"></a>[p.30]</span> known in the history of
+psychology, and played a very prominent part in the psychology of Kant.
+But Eucken has deepened the conception in such a way as to be able to
+rid himself of the postulates of Kant concerning God, Freedom, and
+Immortality. The germs of these, according to the meaning of Eucken, are
+within the spiritual life itself, and not transcendent in the form
+presented by Kant or external as presented by Hegel. There is, then,
+within consciousness a process in many respects analogous to the natural
+process. And as the meaning of the physical universe has become clearer
+through the conception of evolution, so the meaning of consciousness,
+originating in a higher world than Nature, will become clearer if viewed
+in a similar manner. Let us then turn to one of the most important
+aspects of Eucken's work, Evolution and Religion.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken's deepest, and consequently the most difficult, account of the
+meaning of religion is to be found in his <i>Truth of Religion</i> and his
+<i>Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt.</i> It is important to deal with
+the concept of the spiritual life at this stage of our inquiry, for it
+is the pivot around which the whole of Eucken's philosophy turns.</p>
+
+<p>The essence of religion is conceived by him as the possession by man of
+an eternal existence in the midst of time; of the presence of an
+over-world in the midst of this world&mdash;guiding <span class="pagenum"><a name="p31" id="p31"></a>[p.31]</span> man to the
+revelation of a Divine Will.</p>
+
+<p>This is Eucken's main thesis, and connected with this thesis is the fact
+that religion can come to birth in the soul of man only through a
+conquest of the ordinary, natural world which surrounds him. The world
+which surrounds him hinders more than it helps the birth of religion in
+the soul. The aim of religion is therefore not the perfecting of man in
+a natural sense, but the bringing about of a union of human nature and
+the Divine. Religion must therefore include a "world-denial and a
+world-renewal." There is not enough for man's deeper nature either in
+the physical world or in the ordinary life of the hour. The natural
+world knows of no complete self-subsistence, for everything is connected
+with its environment, and it is in this connection with its environment
+that life below man largely obtains its existence. But in man we
+discover a transition stage from the sensuous to the non-sensuous, and
+it is in the latter that the meaning of the former can be obtained. The
+history of civilisation and culture is a history of this all-important
+fact. The meaning of man is, therefore, not to be found in his
+relationship to the physical world, but in his own consciousness.
+Although we may not be aware of it, consciousness is the power which, in
+the long and slow progress of the ages, has overcome the sensuous and
+made it subservient to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="p32" id="p32"></a>[p.32]</span> meaning and value which its own
+content of experience has presented. The necessity and proof of religion
+are not then discovered in anything in the external world, but in the
+realisation of the fact that we are meant to be citizens of a world
+higher in its nature, the birthright of which is to be found within our
+own nature. The conquest of nature and the growth of culture are proofs
+to man of his superiority to the world of sense impressions. This denial
+of the sufficiency of the world of sense in the evolution of the human
+soul, on the one hand, and the affirmation of the potentiality of a
+higher world of spirit on the other hand, constitute the nucleus of the
+Christian religion. Its superiority consists in giving their rights to
+both worlds, and also in showing that they do not possess the same
+value. This essential nature of Christianity will be demonstrated later.</p>
+
+<p>We must return, then, to consciousness itself and see what may be
+discovered within it concerning the meaning of religion. The great
+thinkers of the ages have all been agreed as to the impossibility of
+finding sufficient proofs and meanings of religion either from Nature or
+from some supernatural source flowing in a miraculous manner towards our
+earth. The growth and interpretation of natural science in modern times
+have rendered it impossible to find proofs of religion in any external
+mode. Yet the problems of man's <span class="pagenum"><a name="p33" id="p33"></a>[p.33]</span> Whence and Whither raise
+themselves with energy and even tragedy in our own day. These, as Eucken
+points out, are "problems concerning our Whence and Whither, our
+dependence upon strange powers, the painful antitheses within our own
+soul, the stubborn barriers to our spiritual potencies, the flaws in
+love and righteousness, in Nature and in human nature; in a word, the
+apparent total loss of what we dare not renounce&mdash;our best and most real
+treasures."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> The loss takes place because we have been looking outward
+instead of inward for support, and prop after prop has given way. This
+is the situation to-day, and it has been brought about by no evil power,
+but by the gradual dawning of the meaning of things. Still, it is not
+the whole meaning of things, for, as Eucken points out: "But we are now
+experiencing what mankind has so often experienced, viz. that at the
+very point where the negation reaches its climax and the danger reaches
+the very brink of a precipice, the conviction dawns with axiomatic
+certainty that there lives and stirs within us something which no
+obstacle or enmity can ever destroy, and which signifies against all
+opposition a kernel of our nature that can never get lost."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>The religio-philosophical problem is, then, a return to <i>the Whole of
+Life</i>. It is here that any satisfactory answer can be found if found
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p34" id="p34"></a>[p.34]</span> at all. It is necessary to investigate the final grounds as well
+as the most complete structure of Life; it is further necessary to
+discover whether the movement of Life necessarily leads to religion. As
+Eucken invariably presents the truth of religion, the meaning and
+significance of religion are to be found through self-consciousness.
+This meaning of consciousness is twofold in nature. On the one hand, it
+is something that may be <i>known</i>, and, on the other hand, it is
+something that is <i>active</i> through its own inherent energy. Here we find
+a difference between what we may <i>know</i> we are and what we <i>are</i>. Our
+knowledge of what we are, the conditions of what we are, the history of
+what we are&mdash;all these are a help for us to be what we are capable of
+becoming. But all these are not the very movement of the becoming
+itself. That movement is the resultant of the spiritual potency after
+experiences in the form of cognition have marked out the path for
+conation. This conation is an inheritance; it is present in the form of
+dissatisfaction with the present situation; it moves in the direction of
+a goal which is marked out by intellect. Now, however much this conation
+may be analysed, it resists being decomposed into a number of elements
+which make it up, for any such number, except in the very manner they
+are united, could not produce the situation. In other words, whatever
+the history of this conation may be, it is now a unity or whole. <span class="pagenum"><a name="p35" id="p35"></a>[p.35]</span>
+Conditioned as it is by the surrounding world and by its own history, in
+so far as it is this, it is <i>determined</i>; but it is still <i>free</i> in so
+far as it is capable of becoming a new point of departure for life and
+of proceeding on its way in a world of spirit. Unless man's nature
+contained within itself some unity or whole of the kind already referred
+to, it would mean no more than a receptacle of momentary impressions
+which would vanish as soon as their physical effects had passed away.
+But man is in reality more than all this. In the form of memory and
+experience he is able to hold together in a core of his being the
+<i>meaning</i> of these impressions after they have filtered into his
+consciousness. That is what we find, in however obscure a way, as the
+very beginning of every human life. This unity or whole, as already
+stated, may be no more than a potency in the beginning of life, but it
+gains in content and depth as it passes from impression to impression,
+and from experience to experience. And all further impressions and
+experiences have to be referred to this nucleus of the nature in order
+that they may be used and may prove themselves helpful. It is in this
+nucleus of the nature that everything obtains its meaning and value.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Whole</i> consequently grows, and gradually man becomes conscious of
+his personality as over against the environing world and even his own
+body. This consciousness of <span class="pagenum"><a name="p36" id="p36"></a>[p.36]</span> <i>inwardness</i> is of slow growth,
+because the natural tendency of life is to give a primary place to the
+world from which we have emerged&mdash;the world of physical existence, and
+also because much of that physical world reigns powerfully within our
+nature. But when reflection turns into itself, it becomes aware that the
+inwardness constitutes the kernel of a reality higher in its nature than
+anything either in the physical world or in the physical life which the
+man has to lead.</p>
+
+<p>Two modes of reality now present themselves to the life, neither of
+which allows itself to be conceived of as an illusion. On the one hand,
+we find the physical world and our own physical nature. We discover that
+we cannot jump out of these without destroying all we possess; we have
+to come to some kind of understanding with the physical world and our
+own physical existence. Yet, on the other hand, the consciousness of a
+kernel of our being, non-sensuous and spiritual in its nature, has for
+ever broken our satisfaction with the physical world and our own
+physical existence. There are only two alternatives on which we can act.
+Either we are to conceive of our spiritual personality as something
+secondary and subsidiary to the natural world, or we are to insist on
+its independence, and acknowledge it as the beginning of <i>a new mode of
+existence.</i> If the former alternative is chosen, the personality can
+never pass to a state of self-subsistence, <span class="pagenum"><a name="p37" id="p37"></a>[p.37]</span> but will conceive of
+reality as something which is mainly physical. The consequence is that
+the personality will suffer seriously in its evolution, for such an
+evolution is brought about through the recognition and willing
+acknowledgment of the breaking forth of <i>a new kind of reality</i> within
+the spiritual nucleus of life. If the latter alternative is chosen, this
+nucleus of life is now seen as something quite other than a quality
+entirely dependent upon the physical or than a mere flowering of the
+physical; it is seen as a reality higher in its nature than the physical
+or even than the ordinary life of the individual. Such a situation is
+forced on man when once he reflects upon the inward meaning of the
+content of his consciousness. It is true that such questions may be
+thrust into the background, and consequently inhibited from presenting
+us with their full value and significance. And it is this which happens
+only too often in daily life. The constant need of attention to external
+things, the absorption of the mind in conventionality and custom as
+these present themselves in the form of a ready-made inheritance&mdash;all
+these occupy so much of the attention as to prevent man from knowing and
+experiencing what <i>his own life</i> is or what it is capable of becoming.
+Man has penetrated into the secrets of Nature as well as into the past
+of human society through close and constant attention to external
+things. <span class="pagenum"><a name="p38" id="p38"></a>[p.38]</span> He has been able to gather fragments together, piece them
+into each other, and through this frame laws concerning them. It is thus
+that the external world and society have come to mean more to a human
+being than to an animal. The animal is probably almost entirely the
+creature of its instincts and of the percepts which present themselves
+to it from moment to moment, and which largely disappear. But man rises
+above this situation. The external world and everything that has ever
+happened on its face are not merely objects external to himself, which
+contain all their qualities in themselves. Somebody has to experience
+all this, and that somebody that experiences all this is <i>mental</i> in his
+nature, however much this nature has been conditioned by <i>physical</i>
+things in the past or present.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken emphasises this fundamental fact in all his books. Wherever a
+being is capable of <i>experiencing</i> impressions and of giving <i>meanings</i>
+to these, we are bound to conclude that the power which does this is
+something quite other than physical in its nature. It may be that such a
+power has never been known except in connection with what is physical;
+it may be that various chemical changes give the truer and clearer
+explanation of its origin, as far as its origin can be known at all; it
+may be that there was nothing of the <i>mental</i> visible in the early
+stages of its development; but all this is very different from stating
+that <span class="pagenum"><a name="p39" id="p39"></a>[p.39]</span> no potentiality for mental evolution was there. And it is
+this potentiality which is the issue at stake. We have no warrant for
+stating that it does not exist because it does not lend itself to be
+verified by the senses. Where does <i>mind</i> manifest itself to the senses?
+It is something which does not exist in space as a horse or a tree. It
+may be that consciousness has emanated from simple chemical beginnings
+and combinations, but it is not a simple or a chemical thing <i>now</i>. We
+divide worlds into inorganic and organic. The main principle of division
+is necessitated on account of the fact that some characteristics are
+present in the former which are absent in the latter. It is precisely
+the same between Body and Mind, with one difference. Body and Mind are
+indissolubly connected, but one cannot be reduced into the other.
+However much the connection on one side may influence the other side,
+the difference between a <i>meaning</i> and a <i>thing</i> remains. And it is this
+fundamental difference which makes it absolutely necessary to
+acknowledge <i>a world</i> of consciousness in contradistinction to a world
+of matter and its behaviour, whether such matter is to be found in the
+human body with its mechanical and chemical changes and transformations
+or in the physical universe outside our body.</p>
+
+<p>It is only when the mind becomes aware of its own existence&mdash;an
+existence not to be established as being in Space (or entirely in <span class="pagenum"><a name="p40" id="p40"></a>[p.40]</span>
+Time) but as a reality subsisting in itself and in will-relations&mdash;that
+the efforts and fruitions of the spirit of man become intelligible at
+all. But such an awareness has become a permanent possession in a
+greater or less degree within the life of man. Whenever he becomes
+conscious of the fact that in his own soul a new phenomenon has made its
+appearance, he begins, after the willing acknowledgment of the reality
+of such a phenomenon, to exercise its potency over against the external
+world and over against much that is present in his own psychical life. A
+Higher and a Lower present themselves to him. The two alternatives force
+themselves, and there is no third: either this deeper kernel of his life
+must mean the possibility and, in a measure, the presence of <i>a new land
+of reality</i>; or, on the other hand, it means no more than a mere
+epiphenomenon and blossoming of the merely <i>natural</i> life. If the latter
+view is adopted, the spiritual nucleus of man's nature obtains but
+slight attention except on the side of its connection with the
+surrounding organic world, and consequently what this nucleus is in
+itself as an experience recedes into the background, and descriptions
+and explanations in scientific or philosophical form step into the
+foreground. But a contradiction is imbedded in this very account. Some
+kind of experience of life, apart from, and higher in its nature than,
+the connection of the spiritual nucleus with its <span class="pagenum"><a name="p41" id="p41"></a>[p.41]</span> physical
+history, persists in the life. The man of science is generally a good
+and worthy man. He believes in the moral life, and he does not throw the
+values of the centuries overboard. Such belief and valuation are not
+made up of the content of the explanation of life from its physical
+side, but are an unconscious acknowledgment of the presence of <i>truths
+and values as experiences and as now subsisting in themselves</i>, however
+much they are caused by physical things.</p>
+
+<p>If, on the other hand, an acknowledgment of the reality of this
+spiritual life is made, new questions immediately arise. And the most
+fundamental of these questions have always been those farther removed
+from any sensuous or physical domain. They are questions concerning the
+value and meaning of life. It is a deep conviction of the reality of the
+deeper kernel of our being that alone constitutes the entrance to a <i>new
+kind of world</i>. But to acknowledge the presence of such a new world does
+not signify the possession of it simultaneously with the acknowledgment.
+The new world is discovered, but it is not yet possessed. There are
+terrible obstacles in the way; there are enemies without and within to
+be conquered. It is of little use entering into this struggle without an
+acknowledgment&mdash;born of an inward necessity&mdash;of the spiritual nucleus of
+our nature. Unless man has accustomed himself to hold fast to this
+"subtle thing termed spirit" <span class="pagenum"><a name="p42" id="p42"></a>[p.42]</span> he will soon be swamped in the
+region of the natural life once more; and when this happens the
+spiritual nucleus loses the consciousness of its own real subsistence as
+something higher in its nature than physical things or than the body and
+the ordinary life of the day. If the enterprise is to issue in anything
+that is great and good&mdash;into a spiritual world with an ever-growing
+content here and now&mdash;an insistence upon the reality of this deeper life
+coupled with the highest end which presents itself to the life must be
+made. Something is now seen in the distance as the meaning and value of
+life&mdash;something which our deeper nature longs for, and which has created
+a cleft within the soul between the ordinary things of sense and time
+and that which "never was on sea or land." It is something of this
+nature which Eucken discovers as the germ of all the spiritual ideas of
+religion as well as of the essence of religion itself. The Godhead,
+Eternity, Immortality, are concepts which arise within the soul through
+a consciousness of the inadequacy of all natural things and of even
+mental descriptions and explanations to answer and to satisfy the
+potency and longing of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the great thinkers of the ages have insisted on the necessity of
+the recognition and acknowledgment of this deeper life which is in dire
+need of a content. If man is not to be swamped by the external and
+become the <span class="pagenum"><a name="p43" id="p43"></a>[p.43]</span> mere sport of the "wind and wave" of the environment,
+he has to enter somehow into the very centre of his being and become
+convinced that the dictates which proceed from that centre are the most
+fundamental things in life. This has always formed the kernel of
+religion, however often men, failing to reach that kernel, have lived on
+the husks. But even this very sham notifies some small attempt in the
+right direction. In modern times&mdash;in the various forms of Idealism and
+Pragmatism&mdash;such a need of getting at the core of being and of being
+convinced that the effort is worth while, has been emphasised again and
+again. "<i>Launch yourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as
+possible</i>. Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall
+re-enforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions
+that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old;
+take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your
+resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning
+such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon
+as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is
+postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>"The Stoic and Butler also said, 'Follow God.' In each case you must
+realise that, whatever you do, you take your life in your <span class="pagenum"><a name="p44" id="p44"></a>[p.44]</span> hands;
+you enter on a grand enterprise, a search for the Holy Grail, which will
+bring you to strange lands and perilous seas. For you cannot say,
+interpreting, 'Thus far and no further, merely according to the bond and
+the duty.' In following God, you follow by what has been, what is ruled
+and accomplished, but you follow after what is not yet. 'It may be that
+the gulfs will wash us down'; it may be that the gods of the past will
+rain upon us brimstone and horrible tempest. But he that is with us is
+more than all that are against us. Whoever keeps his ear ever open to
+duty, always forward, never attained, is not far from the kingdom. The
+gods may be against him, the demi-gods may depart; but he, as said
+Plotinus, 'if alone, is with the Alone.'"<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is impossible for us, as Eucken constantly insists, to stop short of
+this. Who can prescribe limits to the capability of consciousness when
+it is focussed, in the form of a conviction, on the deepest problems
+which press themselves upon it? There is only one objection that the
+empiricist can bring forward, and that is that all such ideals can never
+be proved to exist as things exist in space. But, as already hinted, is
+existence in space the only form of existence? Is it not necessary for
+something which is <i>not</i> in space to make us aware of what is in space?
+"If not as men of science, yet as <span class="pagenum"><a name="p45" id="p45"></a>[p.45]</span> men, as human beings, we have
+to put things together, to form some total estimate of the drift of
+development, of the unity of nature."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>If the deepest core of consciousness is acknowledged and the vague
+ideals and ends which present themselves are attended to, <i>something new
+happens</i> in the life. Life now starts on the great enterprise referred
+to by William Wallace. It finds its highest reality in an experience
+born within itself and differentiated for ever from the natural and even
+the intellectual life. To such a conclusion man is forced; and if the
+situation is evaded, something within his soul never comes to birth. It
+is seen at once that in order to know the content of this <i>new world</i>,
+it is necessary for a long series of struggles to take place. And to
+this point we now turn.</p>
+
+<p>The deeper consciousness has relegated the natural world to a secondary
+place, and has further shown man that the main object of life includes
+not only finding a footing against the dangers of natural things, but to
+plant oneself within a spiritual world of meanings and values. This
+cannot be done without <i>an independent and decisive act of the soul</i>. A
+meaning of life has now revealed itself beyond that of the "small self."
+This meaning can be reached only through this decisive act of the soul.
+This meaning is <i>over-individual</i> in its nature; <span class="pagenum"><a name="p46" id="p46"></a>[p.46]</span> it is a truth,
+goodness, or beauty, which presents itself as an idea and ideal formed
+by the experiences of many individuals, at different epochs and in
+different circumstances. Thus the individual, in order to realise his
+own life, must work with material presented in the community. Such
+material has been found helpful in the life of the community. It
+consists of collective results made up of large numbers of single
+factors. These have been tied together in the form of various syntheses.
+Such various syntheses comprise a larger meaning than what ordinarily
+happens from moment to moment in connection with the relation of the
+individual to the external world or, indeed, within the individual's own
+ordinary life. Many of the isolated, fragmentary experiences of the
+individual have to give way when tested in the light of any larger
+synthesis. If this were not so, no commercial, social, civilised life
+would be possible at all. The more real life is now perceived to be that
+of the larger meaning and value. The individual, solitary experiences
+may be legitimate, for they often express wants and needs of the
+individual which have a certain right to obtain satisfaction. But the
+extent and limits of these rights have to be measured by some norm or
+standard other than themselves, or else each individual will proceed on
+his own course regardless of the rights of others. It is the presence of
+various syntheses which express the <span class="pagenum"><a name="p47" id="p47"></a>[p.47]</span> collective life of the
+whole&mdash;of each and every individual&mdash;that makes civilisation possible.
+Thus, in the very process of civilisation itself, as Eucken points out,
+there is present a factor which is termed Spiritual, and which is not to
+be mistaken for a mere flow of cause and effect, or for one mere event
+following another. Eucken emphasises this all-important element of the
+over-individual qualities present in human history. There is here much
+which resembles Hegel's Absolute. But there is a great difference
+between the two in the sense that Eucken shows the constant need of
+spiritual activism on the part of individuals in order to realise and
+keep alive the norms and standards which have carried our world so far;
+and there is also the need of contributing something to the values of
+these through the creation of new qualities within the souls of the
+individuals themselves.</p>
+
+<p>But the problems of civilisation and morality are not the only, or the
+highest, problems which present themselves. But even such problems have
+partially been the means of drawing man outside himself, and of enabling
+him to see that his self can only be realised in connection with the
+common good and demands of the community. He now feels the necessity of
+living up to that standard. This is an important step in the direction
+of the moral and religious life. It reveals the presence of a spiritual
+nucleus of our being obtaining a content beyond the needs <span class="pagenum"><a name="p48" id="p48"></a>[p.48]</span> of the
+moment; it shows life as realising itself in wide connections; and the
+individual becomes the possessor of a certain degree of spiritual
+inwardness in the process. Even as far as this level we find the deeper
+life&mdash;the spiritual life&mdash;insisting on the validity of its mental and
+moral conclusions over against the objects of sense. Without this
+insistence no knowledge would progress and be valid. The macrocosm is
+mirrored and coloured in a mental and moral microcosm. A replica of the
+external world has a reality in consciousness, and this reality is not a
+mere photograph of the external, but it is the external as it appears to
+the meaning it has obtained in consciousness. The meaning of the world
+is thus something beyond the world itself; it is more than appears at
+any one moment. If the world were less than this, if the percept could
+not somehow become a concept, all progress would come to a standstill,
+and we should be no more than creatures of sensations and percepts which
+vanished as soon as they appeared. But these do not vanish; they persist
+in various ways, as after-images, concepts, memory. Thus, in the very
+act of knowing anything at all, something greater than the physical
+object known is present. And Eucken would insist, therefore, that the
+mental and spiritual are present from the very beginning and bring to a
+mental focus the impressions of the senses. In the interpretation of
+Eucken's philosophy several writers <span class="pagenum"><a name="p49" id="p49"></a>[p.49]</span> have missed the author's
+meaning here. They have, through the ambiguity of the term "spiritual"
+in English, conceived of "spiritual life" as something entirely
+different from the mental life. It is different, but only in the same
+way as the bud is different from the blossom; it means at the religious
+level a greater unfolding of a life which has been present at every
+stage in the history of civilisation and culture.</p>
+
+<p>But, as already noticed, the mental life is passed when we enter the
+life of a community. The norms and standards, already referred to, make
+their appearance and persist in demanding obedience to themselves even
+at the expense of much within consciousness that points in another
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>But even such a stage as this does not give satisfaction to man. Much
+effort and sacrifice are needed to live up to the life of the community.
+And such effort and sacrifice are often the best means of calling into
+activity a still deeper, reserved energy of the soul. The soul now
+recognises a value beyond the values of culture and civilisation. The
+Good, the True, and the Beautiful appear as the sole realities by the
+side of which everything that preceded, if taken as complete in itself,
+appears as a great shadow or illusion. Here we are reminded of Eucken's
+affinity with Plato's Doctrine of Ideas, as well as of his attachment to
+the revival of Platonism by Plotinus. Values for life, subsisting in
+themselves, become objects <span class="pagenum"><a name="p50" id="p50"></a>[p.50]</span> of meditation, of "browsing," and of
+the deepest activity of the soul. Life is now viewed as consisting in a
+great and constant quest after these religious ideals. It sees its
+meaning beyond and above the range of mentality or even morality, though
+it is well that it should pass as often as possible through the gate of
+the former, and is bound to pass always through the gate of the latter.
+A break takes place with the "natural self"; the mental life of
+concepts, though necessary, is now seen as insufficient; and life is now
+viewed as having a "pearl of great price" before its gaze. Here the
+<i>stirb und werde</i> of Paul and Goethe becomes necessary. The real
+education of man now begins. His life becomes guided and governed by
+norms whose limits cannot be discovered, and which have never been
+realised in their wholeness on the face of our earth. What can these
+mean? They cannot be delusions or illusions, for they answer too deep a
+need of the soul to be reduced to that level. If we blot them out of our
+existence, we sink back to a mere natural or mechanical stage. When the
+soul concentrates its deepest attention on these norms or ideals they
+fascinate it, they draw hidden energies into activity, they give
+inklings of immortality. Is it not far more conceivable that such a
+vision of meaning, of beauty, and of enchantment is a new kind of
+reality&mdash;cosmic in its nature and eternal in its duration? Man has to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p51" id="p51"></a>[p.51]</span> come to a decision concerning this. There is no half-way house
+here possible without the deepest potencies of human nature suffering
+and failing to transform themselves from bud to blossom and fruit.</p>
+
+<p>At a later stage in our inquiry this question will recur in connection
+with the conception of the Godhead. But here it may be observed that to
+decide on the affirmative side that somehow such norms and ideals which
+mean so much are cosmic realities, is simply to state no more than that
+an evolutionary process is taking place towards a new kind of world as
+well as a new kind of existence. No outsider is competent to pronounce
+judgment on the validity of the proofs possessed within this spiritual
+realm. The qualifications here are beyond the range of knowledge,
+although knowledge does not cease to act within such a realm. The
+experiences here cannot be measured or weighed; and that a certain
+obscurity is present in them is only what may be expected, considering
+that the spiritual nature is farther removed from the region of nature
+with its physical existence than when it deals with problems on the
+intellectual level. But such spiritual proofs are found in the fact that
+these realities present themselves only at the height of spiritual
+development, and in the fact that they produce an <i>inversion</i> of the
+nature of man, and change the centre of gravity of his life to a more
+inward recess of his being <span class="pagenum"><a name="p52" id="p52"></a>[p.52]</span> than is open on the natural or
+intellectual side.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, once more, the soul is driven forward by its own necessities to a
+religious reality. What can it do but grant cosmic origin and validity
+to such ideals? If these ideals are not this, then, as Eucken points
+out, they are the most tragic illusions conceivable.</p>
+
+<p>When they are acknowledged as cosmic realities, man is in the midst of a
+religion of a <i>universal</i> kind. But the acknowledgment of these as
+cosmic realities is something more than a concept. The men who have come
+to this conclusion required something more than logical arguments in
+order to establish this truth. The conclusions were based upon a
+<i>specific (characteristic)</i> religious experience of their own. And such
+a religious experience was larger and more real than anything that could
+be established in the form of concepts concerning it. As we shall notice
+in a later chapter, it is somewhat on this account that Eucken
+differentiates between <i>universal</i> and <i>specific (characteristic)</i>
+religion.</p>
+
+<p>It becomes evident that such contents of the new spiritual world cannot
+be utilised by man without effort. These realities have to pass from the
+region of ideas to the region of actual experiences. In other words,
+they must become man's own religion. Man has now become convinced of the
+reality of a universal spiritual life as constituting, in a measure, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p53" id="p53"></a>[p.53]</span> foundation of the evolution of the soul, and as the goal towards
+which he must for ever move. Eucken is unwilling to speculate as to the
+origin or the goal of this. The centre of gravity of life must be laid
+in what may be known and experienced between these two poles. There is a
+certainty which is <i>intermediate</i> between man and the Godhead. It is
+when this certainty is realised as an actual portion of the soul that
+man becomes competent to carry farther&mdash;backward and forward&mdash;the
+implications of this certainty. And implications of a new kind of
+<i>Weltanschauung</i> result from the spiritual experiences of the
+<i>Lebensanschauung</i> of the spiritual life. On this matter we shall touch
+at a later stage in the inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>At present let us confine our attention to the <i>intermediate</i> reality
+which presents itself in a form that is over-individual. It is only when
+we pass out of the psychology of the subject&mdash;a matter that deals with
+the <i>history</i> of mental processes&mdash;that we are able to view the meaning
+of the realities which are over-individual. As already pointed out,
+these realities are not the creations of man's fancy or imagination
+after reason has been switched off. They are non-sensuous realities
+which have moulded and shaped the lives of individuals and nations in
+varied degrees. These ideals are not to remain merely objects of
+knowledge; they are to become portions of the inmost experiences of the
+soul. This they cannot become without the <span class="pagenum"><a name="p54" id="p54"></a>[p.54]</span> calling out of the
+deepest energy of the individual. His fragmentary spiritual life&mdash;small
+as it is&mdash;still calls for <i>more</i> of its own nature, and this <i>more</i> has
+been seen in the distance as something of infinite value.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> A
+mountain, as it were, has to be climbed; dark ravines have to be gone
+through; and rivers have to be swum across. The whole vision means no
+less than an entrance into <i>a new kind of world</i>, the scaling to a new
+kind of existence, and a conquest which will make the pilgrim a
+participator in that which is Divine. A struggle has to take place,
+because so much that belongs to the life, on the level where it now
+stands, belongs to a world <i>below</i> it. Impulses and passions, the narrow
+outlook, the timidity and hollowness of the "small self"&mdash;all these,
+which have previously remained at the centre of life, have to be thrust
+to the periphery of existence. So that an entrance into the highest
+spiritual world is not merely something to <i>know</i>, but far rather
+something to <i>do</i> and to <i>be</i>. This is the meaning of Eucken's activism.
+It is not the busying of ourselves over trifles; there is no need of
+encouragement in that direction. It is rather the inward glance on the
+nature of the over-individual ideals; it is a deep and constant
+concentration upon their value and significance, in order that the soul
+may plant itself on the shores of the <i>over-world</i>. It is in granting a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p55" id="p55"></a>[p.55]</span> higher mode of existence to these ideals, and in preserving them
+as the possession of the soul, that man finds the ever greater meaning
+of that spiritual life which was present within him from the very
+beginning of his enterprise. The process of forcing an entrance into
+this over-world has to be repeated time after time. There are no enemies
+in front, but the man is surrounded by them from around and behind him.
+The indifference, in a large measure of the natural process, the rigid
+instincts of mere self-preservation, the temptation to smugness and
+ease, the cold conclusions of the understanding when satisfied with
+explanations from the physical world, the hardness of the heart&mdash;these
+and many other enemies fight for supremacy, and the soul is often torn
+in the struggle. The struggle continues for a great length of time; but
+the history of the world testifies to an innumerable host of individuals
+who scaled and fell, who started again and again, until at last their
+conceptions of the Highest Good became a permanent experience and
+possession of their deepest being.</p>
+
+<p>And when the spiritual life creates an entrance into this <i>over-world</i>
+something happens which makes a fundamental difference in the life. The
+life may again and again sink back to its old level, but what has
+happened will never allow it to remain satisfied on that level. "We fall
+to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake" (Browning). Life
+now becomes <span class="pagenum"><a name="p56" id="p56"></a>[p.56]</span> alternately <i>a quest and a fruition</i>.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The
+individual has to gather his whole energies together because something
+great is at stake. This is nothing less than the possession of a new
+kind of reality. The struggle has yielded a conquest for the time being.
+He tastes and "eats his pot of honey on the grave" of enemies within and
+without. This fruition means no less than a taste of "eternal life in
+the midst of time" (Harnack), and the relegating of the whole world of
+phenomena to a subsidiary place.</p>
+
+<p>This is the kernel of Eucken's <i>Truth of Religion</i>. The book deals with
+the most subtle psychological problems of the soul, and reaches the
+conclusion of an entrance by man into a divine world. All this is far
+removed from the ordinary traditional conception either of God or of
+religion. Perhaps the majority of mankind is not as yet ready for such a
+presentation of religion. But I think it may be safely said that it is
+through some such mode of conceiving religion as this that the "great
+and good ones" of the world found an entrance into a divine world and
+grasped the conception of the evolution of the soul as a process which
+begins where organic evolution ends.</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p57" id="p57"></a>[p.57]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h2>RELIGION AND NATURAL SCIENCE</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the previous chapter we have noticed how man is able to reach an
+over-world which will grant him a new kind of reality over against the
+whole remaining domain of existence. But the evidence hitherto brought
+forth has been that of the nature of man himself. We have in this
+chapter to inquire whether there is a warrant for such a conclusion
+within the realm of natural science. Does science give any hint of the
+presence of spiritual life anywhere in the universe? Eucken answers
+distinctly in the affirmative.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>The conclusions of natural science have, in modern times, come into
+direct conflict with religion. Traditional religion has grown up on a
+view of the universe which has been <span class="pagenum"><a id="p58"></a>[p.58]</span> utterly
+discarded by modern knowledge. Religious leaders have often had to be
+dragged to see the truth of this statement, and, as Eucken points out,
+many are still far from realising the seriousness of the cleft between
+knowledge and religion. The theology of the Middle Ages has not yet
+disappeared, although fortunately there are some signs of a great
+reconstruction going on in our midst. Fortunately, this naive view of
+the universe is a theology and not a religion; but doubtless even the
+religion of the soul suffers when its <i>knowing</i> aspect is perpetually
+contradicted by scientific knowledge. There is such a close connection
+between "head" and "heart"&mdash;even closer than between body and mind&mdash;that
+the use of discarded theories of the universe and of life cannot but
+prove injurious to the deepest source of life.</p>
+
+<p>The mental conceptions of religion have, in the course of the ages,
+undergone many transformations, and there is no reason why another
+transformation should gradually not come about in the present. In Hebrew
+and Greek times we discover a polytheism, after a long course of
+development, emerging into henotheism, and finally, here and there, into
+monotheism. The old conceptions of gods and spirits present in trees and
+wells, mountains and air, are overcome. They are not so much destroyed
+as supplanted by higher conceptions. In pre-Socratic philosophy we find
+the gods and <span class="pagenum"><a name="p59" id="p59"></a>[p.59]</span> spirits relegated to a secondary
+place, and Nature is conceived as a system of inner energies and
+strivings. In these conceptions Man is drawn closer to Nature, and the
+connection of his life is shown to be closely interwoven with the life
+of Nature. But the empirical aspect of this teaching was pushed into the
+background through the teachings of Socrates and Plato. The "myth"
+regained some of its pristine power in a new kind of way; and "God
+transcendent of the world and immanent in the world" came prominently
+forward as a doctrine of the universe and of life. This is the kernel of
+the Christian theology, constructed through the blending of Hebrew and
+Greek philosophies. Such a conception remained very largely the
+philosophy as well as the theology of the Christian Church until the
+seventeenth century. During this long interval hardly any progress was
+made in the investigation of Nature, so that such a theology proved
+rather a help than a hindrance to the religion of those who understood
+it. But such a theology has been destroyed, however unwilling many
+people are to acknowledge the fact. But until this fact is acknowledged,
+there is very little hope, in Eucken's opinion, of the Christian
+religion gaining many adherents from the side of those who understand
+the modern meaning and significance of natural science. The physical
+universe has become a problem; and the old solution was a matter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p60" id="p60"></a>[p.60]</span> of speculation based upon scarcely any observation
+and experiment. Eucken marks the stages which have brought about a
+revolution in our conceptions of the universe as consisting of the
+change brought about in the science of astronomy through Copernicus in
+the sixteenth century, the founding of exact science through Galileo in
+the seventeenth century, and the theory of evolution propounded by
+Darwin and his followers in the nineteenth century. The whole tendency
+has been to describe and explain Nature in terms of mechanism, and to
+extend such mechanism into the life of man. Proof after proof has poured
+upon us, and has been the means, on the whole, of establishing a kingdom
+of mechanism within the realm of Nature and of human nature. Theology
+and speculative philosophy went on their courses unheedful of these
+developments of physical science, until in our day both have had to
+reconsider the tenableness of their position, and to see that Nature and
+its physical manifestations have to enter as all-important factors into
+their reconstructions. Miracle is now relegated to a secondary place in
+theology, and it has disappeared altogether from science; a Supreme
+Being transcendent of, and immanent in, the world is not known to
+science, however far it reaches into the secrets of Nature. Doubtless
+the loss to religion has been here incalculable; for although the
+natural scientist was able to destroy the old building,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p61"></a>[p.61]</span> he was unable to construct a new one. And Eucken
+shows that the natural scientist will remain unable to accomplish this,
+because the material with which he deals is physical in its nature and
+constitutes no more than a part&mdash;a secondary part&mdash;of what is found in
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>The old mode of conceiving the universe, when driven from its citadel by
+the new conceptions of physics and astronomy, turned for refuge to the
+mystery of Life itself. Here it supposed itself to be safe. But the
+development of modern chemistry and biology shows how dangerous it is to
+base a theological and religious superstructure on the unfilled clefts
+of natural science. The lesson here during the past hundred years ought
+to be a grave warning against its repetition in the future. These clefts
+have been filled more and more by the investigations and results of
+modern chemistry and biology, so that the theologian is constantly kept
+in a state of panic, and has to shift his camp and run away when the
+tide of knowledge sweeps in with its newly discovered results. The whole
+situation seems serious, but it is not so disastrous as it appears at
+first sight. Doubtless the gains of science have been numerous, and have
+shaken and practically ruined the old theological and metaphysical
+foundations; but a halt has now been called on science itself, and its
+limitations have become perceptible even to its own <span class="pagenum"><a name="p62" id="p62"></a>[p.62]</span>
+leaders. It is not quite so certain that the problem
+of organic life can be settled in terms of chemical combinations and
+mechanism. Many scientists<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> are agreed on this point, although they
+repudiate the claims of neo-vitalists such as Driesch and Reinke.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> No
+judgment can be pronounced on this subject at the present day, and
+probably the problem will take a long time before any important results
+will accrue. And even these results will not solve the problem of
+organic life, for the manifestations of life, the higher we mount the
+scale of being, are not things visible to the senses but express
+themselves in the forms of meanings and will-relations.</p>
+
+<p>The limits of natural science become clearly perceptible when we enter
+into the complex problem of the relation of subject and object, <span class="pagenum"><a name="p63" id="p63"></a>[p.63]</span>
+or of mind and body. The final tribunal in regard to
+the great questions of life and religion is not natural science. This is
+not a matter of a mere wish that it should be so on the part of
+religious teachers who ignore the findings of science, but is a
+conviction of the scientists themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Natural science has been so busy with the investigation of the physical
+world that it has had time to remember but little besides objects in the
+external world. And yet what are objects in the external world without a
+subject to know them?<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> And what are the hypotheses which science
+frames in order to explain phenomena but syntheses of factors framed in
+consciousness?<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> What are laws of Nature but mental constructions
+framed concerning similar ways of behaviour on the part of a large
+number of objects? What are the fundamental conceptions which serve as
+the very groundwork of the whole of science but concepts which are
+explanations of phenomena and not themselves phenomena?<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>Wherever we look, we find that our view <span class="pagenum"><a name="p64" id="p64"></a>[p.64]</span> of Nature
+is in the first place a result as well as a conviction of the content of
+consciousness; that we do not perceive things and their qualities in a
+form of immediacy, but only after they have entered into consciousness
+are we able to know what external objects really are. The constructions
+of science in the form of hypotheses and laws are a proof that the
+reality of the physical world and its meaning are known only in so far
+as they are known by mind, and in so far as the <i>universal</i> (which is a
+mental content) explains the <i>particular</i> (which may or may not be an
+object in the external world).</p>
+
+<p>Eucken emphasises this truth in several of his books, and whenever the
+truth is borne in mind the scientist becomes aware of the existence of a
+reality beyond that of the objects of sense. And even when the scientist
+is unaware of the mental qualities which operate in perceiving external
+objects and of the generalisations formed as the result of the
+impressions left by the objects in the mind, he uses these all the same.
+Professor Haeckel (one of Professor Eucken's colleagues in Jena) starts
+out in <i>The Riddle of the Universe</i> with the strong hope of reducing the
+whole universe (including God) into a state of material substance, and
+ends with a kind of peroration on the virtues of the new goddesses, the
+True, the Good, and the Beautiful.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p65" id="p65"></a>[p.65]</span> But an increasing number of scientists to-day are
+aware of the limits of science. They know that the mental models which
+they have to frame in order to interpret phenomena are not material
+things, and exist nowhere except in a world of mind and meaning.
+Eucken's conclusion then is that what knows and interprets is a mental
+quality. He would rather call it the life of the spirit of man, or the
+spiritual life. A non-sensuous power has to operate in order that the
+physical world may be known at all; that power has, further, in a manner
+unknown, to gather the fragmentary impressions of the senses, turn them
+into that which is mental, combine them into what is termed meaning.</p>
+
+<p>We are led back to the point made so clear by Descartes&mdash;to his
+insistence on the presence of a thinking subject as the starting-point
+for the knowledge of all existence. This truth was elucidated later by
+Kant in a manner which the world can probably never get rid of.
+Therefore, if so much happens in the mind in connection with the
+knowledge and interpretation of the world, our view of the world <i>after</i>
+this happens in the mind is entirely different from the view which
+exists <i>before</i> it happens. Thought stands over against the sensuous
+object, transforms the object into a logical construction of meaning.
+When one becomes aware of this, not only do the objects themselves
+become most problematic <span class="pagenum"><a id="p66"></a>[p.66]</span> in their relation to
+consciousness, but the very tools with which the scientist works&mdash;<i>e.g.</i>
+space and time&mdash;become so puzzling that only by a return to a metaphysic
+do they become partially explainable. And thus we are landed in a region
+of idealism in the very midst of the work of natural science. Naturalism
+has arisen only because the subject was forgotten in the enchantment of
+the object. The attention has been turned so long on the object that the
+nature and the results of the attention itself are quite left out of
+account. We can all believe in what naturalism has to say concerning
+organic and inorganic objects; but it has not said enough when it leaves
+the power that knows the meaning of what it says out of account.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion Eucken arrives at is, then, that we must ascribe reality
+to the quality that knows and interprets as well as to the thing that is
+known. He ascribes reality to the physical world, but this is not the
+whole of reality. This cannot be so, simply because we could not know
+that the physical world was real had it not been that there was
+implanted in us a mental organisation to know all this. The other
+reality is that of consciousness and the meanings it formulates. Thus
+natural science itself announces the presence of <i>more</i> than sensuous
+nature. This <i>more</i> which knows the external world is the <i>more</i> which
+has constructed civilisation, culture, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="p67"></a>[p.67]</span>
+religion. This <i>more</i> has formed an independent inner life over against
+the natural world. Had it not been for this power of the <i>more</i> to
+construct its inner world, Life would have been no more than the life of
+sensuous nature&mdash;shifting from point to point, and entirely at the mercy
+of a physical environment. But the progress of mankind shows everywhere
+the growth of a life higher in nature than that of physical or animal
+existence. Some kind of total-life has been formed in which the
+individual can participate; and in the participation of which he can be
+carried far beyond physical things and beyond his own individual
+interests. Mankind has striven after truth, and has discovered something
+that is beyond the opinions of individuals, that does not serve his own
+petty interests, but overcomes them and reaches out after truths which
+are valid and good for all.</p>
+
+<p>What is all this that has happened? What has brought it about? What is
+the individual potency that knows the world and passes beyond it? What
+are the ideals and norms which revealed themselves in the co-operative
+movements of humanity, and only revealed themselves when humanity was at
+its highest attainable level? Enough has been said to show that it is
+<i>more</i> than Nature, that characteristics are found within it entirely
+unknown in Nature. We are bound to take this <i>more</i> into account, for it
+has constructed all the gains of mankind. <span class="pagenum"><a id="p68"></a>[p.68]</span> What
+can it be, in the individual efforts of the soul and in the ideal
+constructions of science and the higher ethical and religious
+constructions of life, but a reality higher than sense and outside the
+categories of space and time? What better name can be given to it than a
+Spiritual Life in contradistinction to the life of Nature?</p>
+
+<p>When this life of the mind and spirit of man is acknowledged, it is seen
+to be the beginning of a new order of existence. There appears within it
+a new kind of reality. It is the standpoint from which natural science
+itself has arisen. Such an acknowledgment of life as a new kind of
+reality alters in an essential manner the whole view of the world.
+Nature now signifies not the whole of things, but only a step beyond
+which the cosmic process progresses. Two worlds, instead of one world,
+now appear&mdash;one growing out of the other, but keeping a connection still
+with the other. Nature consequently gains a deeper significance of
+meaning when we recognise that it gives birth to mind and
+spirit&mdash;characteristics which merge into consciousness, values, and
+ideals. Nature is not discarded in our new view, but it takes a
+secondary place. The primary place must be given to the spiritual
+life&mdash;the life which is active as an organisation in knowing and being
+and doing. And when this truth is realised, this life of mental and
+spiritual activity becomes the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p69"></a>[p.69]</span> centre from which
+the new reality will obtain an ever greater content. The deepest aspect
+of reality is then discovered, not without but within. This reality is
+now conceived as something which belongs to a new kind of world, and
+this new world stands above the physical world. Man, when he conceives
+of things in this manner, will be able to bear the indifference of the
+physical course of existence towards the spiritual potencies of his
+being. The natural process may seem to harass and even destroy him; it
+matters not, for he has been led to a conviction of the possession of
+qualities which have not come into activity and power in any world
+<i>below</i> him, and which have laws of their own and goals spiritual in
+their nature. But all this will not come about as a shower of rain
+descends. The spiritual life has to insist on its superiority to the
+natural process, and to construct, with the deepest energy of its being,
+ever richer moral and spiritual contents for itself; for it is these
+contents which constitute the growth of the meaning and value of the new
+world, as well as of its indestructible reality beyond the process of
+Nature.</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p70" id="p70"></a>[p.70]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h2>RELIGION AND HISTORY</h2>
+
+
+<p>The subject of history has obtained a most prominent position in the
+whole of Eucken's philosophy. All his books deal with the subject, and
+in a manner resembling one another, whatever the particular subject
+dealt with may be. But the most exhaustive treatment of history
+presented in his volumes is to to be found in the chapter on history in
+<i>Systematische Philosophie</i>("Kultur der Gegenwart," Teil I., Abteilung
+VI.), and in the latter half of <i>The Truth of Religion</i>. In the former
+volume Eucken deals with history in its relation to civilisation and
+culture, and in the latter the place of history in the religions of the
+world is strikingly expressed.</p>
+
+<p>We have already noticed in the previous chapter how he set out to
+discover the presence of a mental or spiritual life in the very act of
+knowing the physical world and in the constructions which form both the
+basis and the apex of physical science. It was shown <span class="pagenum"><a name="p71" id="p71"></a>[p.71]</span> here that a
+life higher than the physical was present in order to be able to read
+the meaning of the world. Such a life became a standpoint to view
+Nature, and is the possession, more or less, of each individual. But
+although the possession of individuals and <i>above</i> Nature, the
+consciousness that knows Nature is still carried beyond its own
+individual life. The meaning of the physical world appears in
+consciousness, through the syntheses it forms, as objective, although it
+is not an object of sense but of thought; and, further, this very
+objectivity subsists in the form of generalisations and meanings which
+create standards for each individual in his relations with the physical
+world. Eucken then concludes that there is a trans-subjective aspect
+present in the conclusions of physical science itself.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> And it is on
+this fact that he bases the presence of a mental or spiritual life in
+the very act of knowing at all. But it is evident that the whole of
+man's potencies and relations are not confined to the knowing of Nature
+and framing interpretations concerning it. There are other provinces to
+which man is related&mdash;other objects besides physical ones to which his
+attention is called to frame interpretations concerning them also.
+History is one of these provinces. The subject-matter here is entirely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p72" id="p72"></a>[p.72]</span> different from the subject-matter of physical science. In the
+latter the objects are physical; in the former the objects are not
+things, but <i>will-relations.</i><a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> We are in history dealing with the
+effects of heredity and physical environment upon all organic life&mdash;man
+included. But it has been already shown that man, though rooted in the
+natural world and dependent upon it, is still the possessor of a world
+which is above the physical. Man's roots in Nature have been unearthed
+in a large measure; and his dependence on the world from which he has
+emerged is greater than was suspected, and probably it will be
+discovered in the future that he is still more dependent on what is
+below him. But however deep his connection with Nature may prove itself
+to be, he will still remain an unsolved problem if he is coolly stripped
+of all the qualities he has gained since he emerged from the bosom of
+Nature.</p>
+
+<p>We are consequently led to the higher aspects of history where the
+centre of gravity of the matter lies in the <i>relations of wills</i>.</p>
+
+<p>By will-relations is meant the impact of individuals upon one another
+from the side of <i>meaning</i>. It is through the expressions of the meaning
+of our concepts that we are able to construct an intelligible world. The
+individual's <span class="pagenum"><a id="p73"></a>[p.73]</span> deeper reality does not consist in the percept we
+obtain of him, but in the mental attitude he has expressed towards a
+mental attitude of ours. The <i>clothing</i> of meaning is certainly
+physical; there is our friend's physical body in front of us, and his
+speech is audible in a physical sense to physical ears. But neither body
+nor speech is absolutely necessary for the expression of meaning to
+another. We have neither seen nor heard many of the individuals who have
+exercised great influence over our lives. Words have answered the
+purpose. By this is not meant that we have not lost something of great
+value in having to depend on print alone. Something of every individual
+reveals itself in his body and speech which is missed when we have to
+depend on paper and ink as mediums of meaning. But meaning is something
+other than its medium; it is a mental or spiritual content. This content
+has to be classified and interpreted. The interpretation forms here
+again, as on the level of natural science, syntheses and generalisations
+larger than any one individual. These are the resultants of mind with
+mind and will with will. When human beings come into contact with each
+other, there originates a state of things in which something is
+<i>thought</i> and <i>done.</i> What is thought and done deals with situations
+outside the situation of each individual. The interpretation of these
+situations is, therefore, an objective reality which becomes a <span class="pagenum"><a name="p74" id="p74"></a>[p.74]</span>
+norm for each individual. Mankind has thus created a reality which is
+beyond that of the content of each individual's experience <i>as an
+individual</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We thus see that there are presented in such norms two aspects of a very
+different nature. On the one hand, we discover the contribution of each
+individual, and witness events dealing with situations which succeed one
+another with greater or less rapidity. This aspect is in constant flux.
+It constitutes the capability of meeting the needs of the moment. All
+this works well so long as the needs of the moment involve no great
+complexities. But immediately the situation becomes complex there is a
+turn to something besides this mere flow of things.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> To what? It is a
+turn to something whose nucleus of meaning and value has persisted in
+the midst of all the flow. This is no other than one or other of the
+highest of the ideal constructions which formed the basis of the life of
+the community. The community had been unconsciously garnering something
+over-individual and over-historical for its future use. Thus, in history
+itself there is the presence of a reality higher than the individual,
+and higher than the ordinary meaning of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p75"></a>[p.75]</span> hour. This
+becomes the standard by which everything has to be measured. Of course,
+this norm does not remain static in regard to its own content. But its
+growth of content depends upon the contributions made to it by
+individuals in their will-relations. Something over-individual issues
+out of all these relations, and this enters into the still higher
+over-individual norms which are the heritage of society. Eucken
+consequently shows that history itself is dependent upon something which
+works within it&mdash;interpreting its events, and absorbing into itself
+something that is of value. What other can this be but a spiritual life
+higher not only than physical things but even than the will-relations
+which accrue from moment to moment? It has already been noticed that on
+these lower levels the spiritual life is ever present&mdash;present as a
+potency and experience when viewed from the standpoint of the
+individual's creativeness, and present as norms and values when viewed
+as an object of thought brought forth through general conclusions
+founded on situations beyond any single situation of the individual.
+Thus, we get in Eucken's teaching the over-historical as the power which
+operates within the events of history. It is what philosophy has termed
+the Ideal, and what religion has termed the revelation of God. It is not
+correct, then, to say that we are dependent upon the content of the
+moment apart from the presence of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="p76" id="p76"></a>[p.76]</span> content of the past in that
+moment in order to grasp reality. The Past does not mean a mere series
+of events which occurred some hundreds or thousands of years ago, and
+before which we bend and towards which we try to turn back the world,
+for that would mean what Eucken terms "mere historism." The Past has
+rolled its meaning down to the Present: the Past mingled with the
+content of the Present is at each point of its course something other
+than it was before.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> But in any case this aspect of the Past as
+presented by Eucken shows that human life requires a great span of time
+which has already run in order to create its ideals and to be raised
+from the triviality of the mere moment. Goethe perceived the importance
+of the same truth:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Wer nicht von drei tausend Jahren sich weiss<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Rechenschaft zu geben,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bleib' im Dunkeln unerfahren, mag von Tag</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Zu Tage leben!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>At certain epochs in the history of the world great events have
+happened. Often such epochs are followed by epochs of inertia. Men bask
+in the sunlight of the glory that was revealed to humanity; they receive
+help and strength from what had been. But the greater the interval
+between the occurrence <span class="pagenum"><a id="p77"></a>[p.77]</span> of that greatness and the contemplation of
+it, the more difficult does it become to grasp and to possess something
+of the true meaning, value, and significance of such greatness. The
+greatness, as the interval grows, becomes something to be known,
+something which is believed to fall upon us in an external, miraculous
+manner; and finally it often becomes an object of wordy dispute and
+strife. Certain periods in the history of the Christian Church give
+abundant evidence of the truth of this statement. Eucken points out in
+his <i>Problem of Human Life</i> how barren in creative power, for instance,
+was the fourth century. Why? An interval of nearly three centuries had
+passed away since the Master and his followers had proclaimed truths and
+experiences which were the burning convictions of their deepest being.
+Gradually, and often unconsciously, men glided down an inclined plane,
+until at last the spiritual nucleus of Christianity had largely
+disappeared and little more than the husks remained. At the close of
+such intervals religion becomes a number of conflicting intellectual
+theories, and the worst passions are called to its support. Dogmatism
+and intolerance prevail, and a blight comes over the choicest potencies
+of the soul. All this happens because certain great events and
+experiences of the past are conceived of as marking a terminus in the
+history of the moral and spiritual evolution of the world. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="p78"></a>[p.78]</span>
+soul is not stirred to its depth to preserve such experiences and, if
+possible, enhance them. Thus the world leaves such a rich spiritual
+content largely behind itself; and when this happens, it becomes a
+matter of the greatest difficulty to recover it. And even when it is
+recovered, something of infinite value has been for ever lost. The
+present moment of the soul has to live on itself; and such a life
+remains alien to depths of reality which have been plumbed by the great
+personalities of history in the past. It is a want of conviction in
+truth and reality that makes us seek finality in the past. It may be
+that the highest personalities of our day are not able to scale such
+spiritual heights as were scaled by the Christians of the primitive
+Church; but unless they believe that the same power is present in their
+souls they will never have courage even to make the attempt. It is a
+vision of the nature of the reality which was climbed by the
+personalities of the past, coupled with the consciousness of the same
+spiritual power in the present, that will enable Christianity to be
+lived on such a "grand scale" in the present and the future. The
+spiritual experiences of the past have become over-individual and
+over-historical norms for our lives; but such norms are no more than
+ideas until the will enters into a relation with them. When this
+happens, the individual does not only observe a goal in the distance but
+also starts to move towards such <span class="pagenum"><a name="p79" id="p79"></a>[p.79]</span> a goal with the whole spiritual
+energy of his nature. And every individual who moves in the direction of
+such norms brings some contribution of value from the present to be
+added to the norms of the past. The spiritual life is thus individual
+and over-individual, historical and over-historical, transcendent and
+immanent.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken has worked for many years at this difficult problem&mdash;a problem so
+important in the life of civilisation and religion. It has already been
+hinted that the conception bears striking resemblances to aspects of
+Hegel's philosophy. But there are differences. One of these was pointed
+out long ago by Eucken: "The gist of religion is with Hegel nothing but
+the absorption of the individual in the universal intellectual process.
+How such a conception can be identified with moral regeneration of the
+Christian type, with purification of the heart, is unintelligible to
+us."<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Eucken's philosophy, on the other hand, is pre-eminently a
+spiritual activism. The life-process is shaped by the collective
+activity of individuals; and when this activity slackens the ideals of
+the over-world suffer. Man is thus called to be what he <i>ought to be</i>;
+and in the process he heightens something of the value of the Ought. An
+Ought and a Will are involved in the creativeness of the individual life
+and of the Life-process; so that it is a mistake to conceive <span class="pagenum"><a id="p80"></a>[p.80]</span> of
+Eucken's activism as some stirring of the individual to realise merely
+his own needs as these present themselves to him from moment to moment.
+He is called and destined to do infinitely more; he is to be a creator
+of the Life-process and a carrier in the making of a new world; but all
+this can be done only from the standpoint of a vision of a spiritual
+life superior to history and to the individual himself. Vision and
+action are to be ever present. In the light of the vision man becomes
+more than he now is; through action the vision increases in depth and
+value.</p>
+
+<p>What relation this has to the conception of the Godhead will be dealt
+with in a later chapter. It is enough at present to bear in mind that,
+as far as we have gone, a reality above sense, time, history, and the
+content of the individual life has become evident. And it is such a
+reality which gives meaning to the events of history.</p>
+
+<p>It has to be borne in mind that much which is natural and of the earth
+enters into history. Such effects have become clearly discernible in
+modern times. Physical conditions do exercise an influence, and hem the
+course of the spiritual life. The indifference of the physical order of
+things to the ethical values of history is a problem which constantly
+perplexes every thinking mind. No solution to the puzzles of life is to
+be found in Nature. What do we discover there? "We discover enchainments
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p81"></a>[p.81]</span> of phenomena which seem to conduct to the creation of great
+misery and which, with unmerciful callousness, drive man over the brink
+of an abyss. The faintest hint would have sufficed to hold him back from
+such a catastrophe; but this is not given, and consequently destruction
+takes its course. Petty accidents destroy life and happiness; a moment
+annihilates the most toilsome work. Often, also, we discover a chaotic
+medley, a sudden overthrow of all potency, a seeming indifference
+towards all human weal and woe, a blind groping in the dark; we discover
+gloomy possibilities constantly sweeping as dark clouds over man and
+occasionally descending as a crashing tempest."<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Hundreds of similar
+examples may be found in Eucken's books, and all point to the
+insufficiency of the natural process for satisfying the deepest needs of
+our being. But in spite of the fact that the natural process accompanies
+Life everywhere, man has built a world beyond the world of sense.</p>
+
+<p>With the entrance of the spiritual life a new mode of history makes its
+appearance. This fact is to be witnessed in the tools invented by man in
+order to overcome physical barriers. The growth of technics in our own
+day is a proof of Nature yielding here and there to the demands of life
+and intellect. This has all been brought about by mentality, and new
+modes of living are the result.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p82"></a>[p.82]</span> And when we enter the domain of human society the superiority of
+the spiritual life becomes evident here as well. It is true that we are
+as yet far from any ideals of human society which include the good of
+all, and which bind all together in spite of radical differences that
+will continue to persist. Systems of various kinds are presented&mdash;often
+at variance with one another; but even these are evidence of a spiritual
+life far above the achievements of any single individuals. What must we
+do? We must all work on in the direction of the highest: and the higher
+we mount the nearer we are to a point of convergence of all the
+different syntheses; and out of the union there will be born a synthesis
+which will include the whole family of man. We possess already such a
+synthesis partially realised here and there in the lives of the greatest
+personalities of history; but to the mass of mankind such a synthesis is
+little more than a name, even though that name be God or Infinite Love.
+The content of the name has to be realised: and this can never come
+about except through a deep stirring and longing, through enormous
+sacrifices, painful and recurring failures, to issue finally in a
+conquest&mdash;a height attained by mankind on which the content of God and
+Infinite Love will be born in the soul as a living, personal, and
+durable experience. When this comes to be&mdash;and every genuine effort in
+the movement of our higher being brings us nearer to it&mdash;there issues
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p83"></a>[p.83]</span> an incomparably higher mode of life. Thus a new history is framed
+through the spiritual activities of individuals; and something of its
+very nature and of the mode by which such a reality can be reached will
+become an atmosphere into which future generations will be born, as well
+a higher condition than has ever previously existed to hail the entrance
+of human souls into the world.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken insists that it is not the movement of democracy towards better
+social conditions that will be effective in bringing about such a
+change. Much, of course, can be effected by better social conditions.
+There are needs to-day in connection with labour which ought to be met.
+But at the best they can do no more than touch the periphery of human
+existence. A poverty in the "inward parts" will still exist in the midst
+of external plenty. But if men and women could be brought to the
+consciousness of spiritual ideals and their efficacy, a disposition of
+soul and character would be created which would rapidly change the evil
+conditions of life and the perplexing problems of capital and labour.
+Several writers have gone astray when they have imagined that Eucken has
+but scant sympathy with the social needs of our times. It would be
+difficult to find anywhere a man of a more tender heart. But he sees
+deeper than the level of material and social needs and their fulfilment.
+He sees that it is only by a change <span class="pagenum"><a id="p84"></a>[p.84]</span> of disposition and attitude
+of the soul that permanent changes in the material well-being of the
+world can come about. For it is in the soul's relation with its
+over-individual and over-historical ideals that permanent qualities can
+be created and preserved: it is in our own deepest being, through a
+conviction of the values of sympathy, sacrifice, and love that any
+genuine history can find its birth and nurture. We require to pay no
+less attention to the things of the body; but the things of the spirit
+must step into the foreground of life once again. Then we are working at
+the heart of the Life-process&mdash;a Life-process which is the beginning of
+a new cosmic process; and what will issue out of such a result will
+probably be greater and better than anything we can dream of. Men are
+called to this work to-day. They understand but little its significance
+and its trend; they must be willing to learn from those who have lived
+through these problems, and who see ramifications of the problems into a
+soil deeper than is perceptible by the masses. The masses must be
+willing to be taught in the things of the spirit. Hence we see the need
+of great personalities who will combine in their own souls a penetrating
+knowledge and an intense enthusiasm for the real welfare of mankind. A
+true history can never be born outside this region; the world, without
+such a conviction, can only wander out of one morass into <span class="pagenum"><a id="p85"></a>[p.85]</span>
+another; and failure after failure will be the inevitable result of all
+the attempts. Movements will have value and duration only in so far as
+they are the outcome of a need of a spiritual life which includes
+demands of intellect, morality, and religious idealism.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken shows at the close of his remarkable article in <i>Beitr&auml;ge zur
+Weiterentwickelung der Religion</i> that some form or other of the Eternal
+must enter into time and its changes, and become a norm towards which
+mankind will move. When this happens, mankind will not be content to
+look merely beyond the grave for the redemption of the race and the
+annihilation of sin. The very world in which we live is surrounded by an
+over-world of ideal truth and goodness. Why should we live on "hope and
+tarrying" when there is so much to be done and gained? The energies of
+men run on such lines into "sickly sentimentalism" and "watery wishes,"
+and nothing great issues out of our activities on the surface of life.
+History becomes no more than a succession of changes of which the later
+are of no more value than the earlier. All this happens, because there
+is no Eternal&mdash;no over-world of over-individual and over-historical
+values&mdash;present. In a large measure our very religion grants us here but
+little help. It is either a contemplation of certain events in the past
+which were delivered for once and for all or an immersion in the social
+environment. <span class="pagenum"><a id="p86"></a>[p.86]</span> We remain aliens to the truth that these events can
+be repeated to-day. We are not convinced as to the possibilities of our
+own nature and of the realisation of the Divine in the making of
+history. Our age is an age of stripping things of their connections and
+qualities and of finding their essence in what they <i>were</i> and not in
+what they <i>are</i> and <i>ought to be</i>. Even history is brought back to its
+origin from savagery; and its explanation is sought in its <i>beginnings</i>
+and not in its <i>ends</i>; the aspirations of the soul are supposed to be
+explained in their totality when biological and psychological names are
+given them; enthusiasm and conviction, which leave the level of the
+daily rut and the conventionalities of society, are branded as signs of
+shallowness and even of insanity. We are in the midst of plenty, and
+feed on husks. The situation will not be altered until we turn from
+intellect to intuition&mdash;which is no other than a turn from the mere way
+in which things are put together to what the things essentially are and
+ought to be in their meaning and value. When this happens, a new meaning
+will be given to history, and the events of the day will be illumined
+and valued in the light of the standard of spiritual ideals. Can we then
+doubt that there works in history a Divine element which is
+over-historical, and which alone gives their meanings and values to the
+events of history itself?</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p87" id="p87"></a>[p.87]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h2>RELIGION AND PSYCHOLOGY</h2>
+
+
+<p>It has been noticed in the two previous chapters how Eucken discovered
+the presence of a mental or spiritual life in the very act of knowing
+any object in the physical world. And the presence of such a life
+enables the percept to turn into a concept. Such a concept is something
+far removed from the level of the sensuous object or of its mere
+perception. We are in this very act in a world of <i>meaning</i>. When such a
+meaning comes to be acknowledged, it forms a kind of standard which
+interprets any future facts that enter into it. The further the progress
+of the knowledge of physical objects advances the more the concepts
+become removed from the level of the sensuous; as is witnessed, for
+instance, in the forms of laws and hypotheses, which constitute the very
+groundwork of physical science. The physical scientist, whether he is
+conscious of it or not, has constructed an ideal world of <i>meaning</i>
+which constitutes the explanation <span class="pagenum"><a name="p88" id="p88"></a>[p.88]</span> of the external world. This is
+a fact so familiar that it needs no further elucidation here. But there
+is great need for calling attention to the power which <i>does</i> all this
+as well as to the reality of the interpretation which that power, in its
+contact with physical phenomena, has brought forth. That such a power of
+the mind is connected with physical existence does not in the least
+explain its nature. It is not physical <i>now</i>; it is meaning and value,
+and there is no such thing as meaning or value in the nature of physical
+objects in themselves. Their meaning and value come into being when they
+serve a purpose which the mind has framed concerning them. Eucken
+insists that a reality must be ascribed to so much as all this&mdash;to that
+which knows and interprets Nature. However much Nature and Spirit
+resemble one another, however much the latter is dependent on the
+former, Nature must be conceived as exhibiting a lower grade of reality
+than mind. Indeed, Nature could not exist for mind unless there were a
+mind to know it; and this fact inevitably leads us to ask the question,
+whether Nature could exist at all.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>Eucken maintains that the insufficient attention paid to this priority
+of the subject is the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p89"></a>[p.89]</span> defect of all the systems which have
+reduced life and all its values to their lowest denominator. A naive
+realism is a relic of past ancestry; it is a failure to conceive
+anything as reality unless it lends itself to the senses. Had men not
+grasped a higher order of reality than that of the external object, none
+of the mental and moral gains of the world would ever have been
+realised. Hence, man has to insist that the mental or spiritual life is
+the possessor of a reality of its own, although much of the material
+comprising that reality has been drawn from the physical world through
+the senses. But the spiritual life has proceeded far beyond these
+initial stages of knowing the world. Material of a kind other than the
+physical has presented itself to it. Thus, in will-relations we find the
+material itself belonging to a higher order of existence than the
+material of the physical world. It is then what might be expected when
+the spiritual life, within the domain of events of human history, forms
+a Life-system higher in its nature than the natural process.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken then concludes that Nature and History require for their
+interpretation the presence of a spiritual life. Nature involves the
+spiritual in the very power of mind in knowing external things. He would
+not state that the physical course of things is enough in itself to
+prove the existence of spiritual life. We are uncertain of any working
+towards <span class="pagenum"><a id="p90"></a>[p.90]</span> definite ends in Nature. The whole matter belongs to the
+region of speculation; and speculation based on something other than
+observation and experiment has greatly retarded progress in connection
+with the truest interpretation of the highest things. Eucken would
+really agree here with the physical scientist pure and simple that,
+however far back the investigations of the physical world are carried,
+the scientist does not seem to come to anything at the furthest point
+which bears more affinity to what is mental than was to be discovered at
+the point from which he set out.</p>
+
+<p>But in History it is different. We are here dealing with material which
+is not in space, and which has not resulted through any mere succession
+in time. The material, in fact, is timeless, because it is a synthesis
+of factors which cannot be reckoned mechanically, and which requires a
+great span of time in order to be constructed by the spirit of man. At
+this level the spiritual life has gained a reality which is
+over-personal as well as personal. It is true that this over-personal
+reality is in the <i>mind</i> of the individual; but that does not mean that
+the reality is no more than a private experience. Its content is clearly
+now higher and more significant than the individual's own life. That we
+cannot locate in space this over-personal aspect of the ideal is
+probably a disadvantage. But this cannot be helped; and <span class="pagenum"><a id="p91"></a>[p.91]</span> it cannot
+possibly be otherwise, simply because the over-personal reality is not a
+spatial thing. The same may be said of the content of individual
+experience, even when it does not for the time being hold before itself
+any ideal. But such over-personal elements mean more than was to be
+found on the level of <i>knowing</i> the world. A further development of
+spiritual life has taken place; and reality has become <i>objective</i> in
+its nature and <i>subjective</i> in its apprehension and appropriation by the
+individual. Reality has, through the over-personal which has evolved in
+history, obtained <i>a cosmic significance</i>; and it is out of this region
+that a <i>Lebensanschauung</i> as well as a true <i>Weltanschauung</i> have
+developed.</p>
+
+<p>This digression from the subject of this chapter has probably prepared
+us to see that the potentiality of consciousness and the presence of
+over-personal elements presenting themselves to consciousness are the
+two main elements in the construction of the several grades of reality
+which present themselves on the lower level of Nature and on the higher
+level of History.</p>
+
+<p>But our question now is, Does the nature of man himself confirm such
+statements as have already been made? And it is to man's own nature and
+its content we now turn, as these are presented in Eucken's teaching.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that Eucken has done less justice to psychology from the
+side of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="p92" id="p92"></a>[p.92]</span> connection of consciousness with the external world.
+He is aware, and points out the fact in several of his books, of the
+close connection between mind and body; but seems to think that the fact
+is sufficiently brought out by text-books on psychology that some kind
+of dualism or parallelism is absolutely necessary to be held in order to
+account for the content of consciousness. What exact meaning and
+province should be assigned to psychology is to-day a matter of serious
+dispute. Textbooks of the nature of William James's <i>Principles of
+Psychology</i> present a double aspect of the subject-matter as well as of
+its mode of treatment. It is often difficult to differentiate in James's
+works where one aspect ends and another begins. Psychology is presented
+by him as a natural science on one page, and on the opposite page we
+discover ourselves in the region of ethics and even of metaphysics and
+religion. On the one side, we find the <i>connection</i> of consciousness and
+its mode of operation with the physical organism presented in terms
+which emphasise the mechanical and chemical sides. On the other side,
+the <i>content</i> of consciousness itself, <i>after</i> the connection has taken
+place, is presented as a psychology as well. So that several important
+writers on psychology have emphasised the need of differentiating one
+aspect from the other, and of confining the meaning of psychology to the
+description and explanation of the <i>connection</i> <span class="pagenum"><a name="p93" id="p93"></a>[p.93]</span> of mind and
+body.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> But when we pass to the content of consciousness, something
+more than a mere connection of mind and body is discovered. The content
+of consciousness includes the <i>Will</i>&mdash;the unrest of consciousness in its
+actual situation, a dissatisfaction with its state of inertia, and a
+movement towards some End. When the Will operates with the content of
+consciousness we are in a realm which is beyond the physical&mdash;a realm,
+too, which is other than a passive, descriptive attitude of a spectator
+of things. The realm of <i>values</i> has now been reached; and a content,
+different in its nature from any account it is able to give of itself or
+of its connection with the physical, starts on its own independent
+course. The psychologist is "right in insisting that the atoms do not
+build up the whole universe of science. There are contents in
+consciousness, sensations and perceptions, feelings and impulses, which
+the scientist must describe and explain too. But if the psychologist is
+the real natural scientist of the soul, this whole interplay of ideas
+and emotions and volitions appears to him as a world of causally
+connected processes which he watches and studies as a spectator. However
+rich the manifold of the inner experience, everything, seen from a
+strictly psychological standpoint, <span class="pagenum"><a name="p94" id="p94"></a>[p.94]</span> remains just as indifferent
+and valueless as the movement of the atoms in the outer experience.
+Pleasures are coming and going; but the onlooking subject of
+consciousness has simply to become aware of them, and has no right to
+say that they are better or more valuable than pain, or that the
+emotions of enjoyment or the ideas of wisdom or the impulses of virtue
+are, psychologically considered, more valuable than grief or vice or
+foolishness. In the system of physical and psychical objects, there is
+thus no room for any possible value; and even in the thought and idea of
+value there is nothing but an indifferent mental state produced by
+certain brain excitement. For as soon as we illuminate and shade and
+colour the world of the scientist in reference to man's life and death,
+or to his happiness and pain, we have carelessly destroyed the pure
+system of science, and given up the presupposition of the strictly
+naturalistic work."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Wundt presents a standpoint not quite so
+pronounced, but which looks in the same direction.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>This fundamental difference has been recognised by Eucken, and forms an
+important contribution on his part towards elucidating <span class="pagenum"><a id="p95"></a>[p.95]</span> the
+meaning of spiritual life not only in the process of knowing but in its
+new beginning in its creation of an "inner world of values." The content
+present in the construction of this "new world" is other than a mental
+content expressing connection of psychical and physical. Eucken
+differentiates between the two aspects already referred to, and
+designates the difference by the terms <i>Noological and Psychological
+Methods</i>. These methods are most clearly presented in <i>The Truth of
+Religion</i>. He says: "To explain <i>noologically</i> means to arrange the
+whole of spiritual life [including mental life] as a special spiritual
+activity, to ascertain its position and problem, and through such an
+adaptation to illumine the whole and raise its potencies. To explain
+<i>psychologically,</i> on the contrary, means to investigate <i>how</i> man
+arrives at the apprehension and appropriation of a spiritual content and
+especially of a spiritual life, with what psychic aids is the spiritual
+content worked out, how the interest of man for all this is to be
+raised, and how his energy for the enterprise is to be won. Here one has
+to proceed from an initial point hardly discernible, and step by step,
+discover the way of ascent; thus the psychological method becomes at the
+same time a psychogenetic method. The main condition is that both
+methods be held sufficiently apart in order that the conclusions of both
+may not flow together, and yet may form a fruitful completion."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p96"></a>[p.96]</span> "Such separation and union of both methods and their
+corresponding realities make it possible to understand how to overcome
+inwardly the old antithesis between Idealism and Realism. The
+fundamental truth of Idealism is that the spiritual contents establish
+an independence and self-value over against the individual, that they
+train him with superior energy, and that they are not material for his
+purely human welfare. In the <i>noological method</i> this truth obtains a
+full recognition. Realism, however, has its rights in the forward sweep
+of the specifically human side of life with all its diversions, its
+constraints, and its preponderantly natural character. Viewed from this
+standpoint, the main fact is that life is raised out of the idle calm of
+its initial stages, and is brought into a current; in order to bring
+this about, much is urgently needful by man, which cannot originate,
+prior to the appearance of the spiritual estimation of values, but which
+becomes his when he is set in a strong current; then, on the one hand,
+anxiety for external existence, division into parties, ambition, etc.,
+and, on the other hand, the mechanism of the psychic life with its
+association, reproduction, etc., are all seen in a new light. These
+motive powers would certainly never produce a spiritual content out of
+man's own ability; such a content is only reachable if the movement of
+life raises man out of and above the initial performances and the
+initial motives. No mechanism, <span class="pagenum"><a id="p97"></a>[p.97]</span> either of soul or of society, is
+able to accomplish this; it can be accomplished alone by an inward
+spirituality in man. Through such a conception, Realism and Idealism are
+no longer irreconcilable opponents, but two sides of one encompassing
+life; one may grow alongside the other, but not at the expense of the
+other. Indeed, the more the content of the spiritual life grows, the
+more becomes necessary on the side of psychic existence; the more we
+submerge ourselves in this psychic existence, the greater appears the
+superiority of the spiritual life."<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> This difference between n&ouml;ology
+and psychology is pointed out by Eucken in his delineation of spiritual
+life along the whole course of its development. The insistence on the
+reality of life within the region of values, brought forth through the
+activity of the Will, is shown to be absolutely necessary in order that
+life may not sink into the level of the mere physical object on the one
+hand, and into mere subjectivity and momentary changes of consciousness
+on the other hand. It is a decision at this point which constitutes the
+great turn to a life of the spirit and to the granting to it of a
+<i>self-subsistence</i> as real as objects in the external world; it is a
+turn which includes, further, a new beginning of a remove from the
+content of the moment and from the impinging of the environment upon the
+subject; it is a realisation by the mind and <span class="pagenum"><a id="p98"></a>[p.98]</span> soul that its own
+content is now on a path which has to be carved out, step by step, by
+its own spiritual potency. It is in the light of what is attempted and
+accomplished in this respect that the external world and all its
+ramifications into the soul are in the last resort to be interpreted.
+When the foundation of life is thus placed upon a spiritual content of
+meaning and value, norm and end, the <i>first impressions</i> of things are
+seen as nothing more than preparatory stages and conditions to a life
+beyond themselves. To come to a decision, insisted on again and again,
+in regard to the reality of life and its content is not possible without
+the deepest act of the whole of the soul. Such a conviction concerning
+the spiritual kernel of our being is not a mere matter either of thought
+or feeling or will. The three make their contribution towards the great
+affirmation which takes place, but they are united at a depth in
+consciousness which has no psychological name; they come to a kind of
+focus within the blending of the over-individual norms and the need and
+capacity of the soul for such norms. When this happens, the individual
+has created a cleft in his own nature which renders it forever
+impossible for him to be satisfied with the mere external aspect
+produced by the first impressions of things. An inverted order of things
+has come about: the sensuous world is relegated to the circumference,
+and a spiritual world <span class="pagenum"><a id="p99"></a>[p.99]</span> dawns within the content of the soul. This
+is the deepest meaning of religion; and, as we shall see at a later
+stage, it constitutes the very nucleus of Christianity with its
+announcement of conversion, the regeneration of the soul, and the union
+and communion of man with the Divine.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless all this is difficult of apprehension, mainly on account of
+the fact that there is no proof for it in a manner that can be made
+intelligible. But the question arises, What is the power that acts and
+brings forth proofs concerning anything? It is evidently not the whole
+of the potentialities of man's nature: it is no more than the
+understanding dealing with the evidence of impressions. But the
+understanding, when dealing with the content of the union of individual
+potency and over-individual norms, is dealing with a content infinitely
+larger and more complex than itself; the material is too great and
+intricate for the understanding to handle; it is a fruitless attempt of
+the Part to monopolise the meaning and value of the Whole. The proof
+rather lies within the domain of the soul itself, and is not something
+which may be tacked on to any kind of external, spatial existence; it is
+the emergence of a <i>new kind</i> of existence or <i>self-subsistence.</i> The
+proof (if we designate it by such an insufficient term) is <i>within</i> the
+experience and not <i>without</i>; it is the spiritual experience itself and
+not merely an account, <span class="pagenum"><a name="p100" id="p100"></a>[p.100]</span> in the form of even valid logical
+concepts, concerning such experience.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>The space devoted to this subject may be justified on account of the
+fact that Eucken's meaning of the evolution of spiritual life towards
+higher levels cannot be understood without an understanding of the
+distinction between <i>knowledge</i> about experience and the <i>content</i> of
+experience itself, as this latter reveals itself in the ways
+mentioned.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Eucken has lately paid great attention to this matter in
+the new edition (1912) of <i>Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der
+Gegenwart</i>, especially in the chapter on the "Philosophy of Religion and
+the Psychology of Religion."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p>
+
+<p>The root of the matter here seems to be the ready acknowledgment of the
+content of <span class="pagenum"><a id="p101"></a>[p.101]</span> spiritual life as well as of the fact that it
+possesses a higher grade of existence than anything in the world without
+or even within the psychic life. This is granting the manifestation of
+spiritual life a foundation deeper than nature, culture, civilisation,
+and even morality; for it is the norms of the over-world uniting with
+the spiritual nature of man which have brought forth all these. This
+willing acknowledgment becomes ever necessary, because something of <i>two
+worlds</i> is now present in the life of the man. On the one hand, the
+natural world, with its material elements and its instincts and
+impulses, is present in the soul. But, on the other hand, all these
+cannot be torn away from the life. They constitute a great deal of the
+vitality and the pleasure which are the legitimate possessions of man.
+How cold and soulless would life be without these! But the danger arises
+when there is not present a Standard sufficiently high and powerful to
+govern these, and to make them serve the higher interests of the soul.
+In other words, they must be melted in the contents and values of the
+over-individual ideals; they must be sanctified to subserve the higher,
+absolute ends and demands of the spirit. What can we say, then, of Life
+when the natural assists the spiritual and when the individual passes
+out to the realm of the over-individual save that a real point of
+departure into <i>a new kind of world</i> has actually taken <span class="pagenum"><a id="p102"></a>[p.102]</span> place?
+Even this interpretation is insufficient to explain what happens,
+although it happens within ourselves; far less, as we have seen, will
+any other interpretation which explains life in lowest terms suffice. We
+are then, says Eucken, driven to the conclusion that such a state is
+either the breaking forth of a new kind of reality or the worst of all
+possible illusions. And this great and inexorable <i>Either</i>&mdash;<i>Or</i>
+presents itself in every decision taken towards what is higher than the
+level we are standing on. The matter here does not belong to any
+speculative domain, and is not the result of fancy or imagination out of
+which reason has taken its flight. The matter is concrete&mdash;tangible
+through and through. The history of mankind bears witness to the
+validity of it; the experience of each individual in the deepest moments
+of life echoes the experience of the race. The superiority of this <i>new
+beginning in the over-world</i> has to be established over and over again
+by each individual on account of the danger of sinking back to a lower
+level where the main power of spiritual life is not in action. A
+certainty is therefore requisite in the very beginning of the
+enterprise&mdash;an enterprise which is absolute and eternal. No limits are
+perceptible to the possibilities of spiritual life when the fullest
+conceivable content of the soul is seated at the centre of life, and
+when every outward is interpreted and governed by an inward. This
+experience is <span class="pagenum"><a id="p103"></a>[p.103]</span> far removed from all attempts to found religion on
+speculation drawn either from the physical world or from the
+generalisations of logic. These have their value&mdash;they point to the
+presence of some degree of spiritual life when the human mind has worked
+upon the material presented to it. But the matter at this highest level
+does <i>not</i> deal with the <i>relations</i> of life but with <i>life itself</i> in
+the light of an over-world.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken is nowhere finer than when he detects the necessity for the
+acknowledgment of such a spiritual foundation of life. It is not a mere
+individual need, but the union of an individual need with a reality
+objective to the need. If the reality were already the possession of
+man, no such need could arise. Still, the reality is present in his mind
+as an idea and ideal; it is present to the individual, but it is not as
+yet the possession of the individual except in a measure at the best. So
+that the certainty includes within itself a <i>realisation</i> and a further
+<i>quest</i>. And the very nature of the quest involves a <i>struggle</i> of the
+whole nature. The certainty has gone so far as to show that the highest
+good which presents itself to the soul is the "one thing needful," and
+is possible of partial attainment. When all this burns within the soul,
+something of the norm or ideal gets fixed within it, and the individual
+starts to conquer more and more the new world into which he is now
+landed. <span class="pagenum"><a id="p104"></a>[p.104]</span> Often the life is driven out of its course by alien
+currents; a great deal of what the man has now left behind himself still
+clings tenaciously to the new life, and the whole soul becomes an arena
+often of a terrible conflict. The spiritual life and its content of a
+new reality may be temporarily beaten in this warfare; but the battle is
+finally won if ever the deepest within the soul has been touched by a
+conviction of the eternal value and significance of the new life. The
+conquest is followed by periods of calm and fruition. Here the deeper
+energies gather themselves together; they grant a peace which the world
+cannot give and cannot take away; they create new certainties, new
+demands, and new attempts for the possession of a reality which is still
+higher in its nature than anything that previously revealed itself.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the soul is forced more than ever to the conviction that the
+whole matter is too serious to be of less than of <i>cosmic</i> significance.
+And it is out of this that the idea of the Godhead arises. It is not a
+speculative dream but a conclusion forced upon the man by the actual
+situation; the material for the conclusion is not anything which
+descends into the soul with a ready-made content. Eucken states that
+such a view of revelation belongs to the past history of the race. It is
+now no less than a revelation springing from the very nature of the soul
+at its highest possible level. <span class="pagenum"><a name="p105" id="p105"></a>[p.105]</span> It occurs only when a foundation,
+a struggle, and a conquest have been worked out by the soul in the
+manner already depicted. No close determinations, as we shall see later,
+are made concerning the meaning and nature of the Godhead. The man is
+here at an altitude so rare and pure that it forbids any logical or
+psychological analysis. God is not something to be explained, but to be
+possessed. When the attempt is made to explain Him, He is very soon
+explained away; when he is possessed, He becomes not something other
+than was present before, but <i>more</i> than was present before; a cosmic
+significance is given to the universe and to man's struggle to scale the
+heights of the over-world with all its momentous values.</p>
+
+<p>Here, again, the spiritual life has landed us out of psychology into the
+deepest experiences of religion and into the consciousness that the
+<i>intermediate</i> realities which presented themselves as over-individual
+norms and ideals are realities of cosmic significance. The Godhead is
+now <i>possessed</i>. As Jacob Boehme presents it: "From my youth up I have
+sought only one thing: the salvation of my soul, the means of gaining
+possession of the Kingdom of God." Here, as Professor Boutroux<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a>
+points out, "Jacob Boehme learnt from the mystics what it means to
+possess God. One must take care, so these masters <span class="pagenum"><a name="p106" id="p106"></a>[p.106]</span> teach, not to
+liken the possession of God to the possession of anything material. God
+is spirit, <i>i.e.</i> for the man who understands the meaning of the term, a
+generating power previous to all essence, even the divine. God is
+spirit, <i>i.e.</i> pure will, both infinite and free, with the realisation
+of its own personality as its object. Henceforward, God cannot be
+accepted by any passive operation. We possess Him only if He is created
+within us. To possess God is to live the life of God." This is on lines
+precisely those of Eucken, and something of this nature seems to be
+gaining ground to-day in a strong idealistic school in Germany. We may
+soon discover that a true mysticism is the flowering of the bud of
+knowledge; that true knowledge constitutes a tributary which runs into
+the ocean of the Infinite Love of the Divine and becomes the most
+precious possession of the soul.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>Eucken touches on this subject in an extremely interesting chapter in
+his <i>Truth of Religion</i>. "This is a question of fact, and not of
+argument.... Because we convinced ourselves that things were so, we
+gained the standpoint of spiritual experience over against a merely
+psychological standpoint. For the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p107"></a>[p.107]</span> latter standpoint occupies
+itself with purely psychic processes, and in the province of religion
+especially it occupies itself with the conditions of the stimulations of
+will and feeling, which are not able to prove anything beyond
+themselves. The spiritual experience, on the contrary, has to do with
+life's contents and with the construction of reality; it need not
+trouble itself concerning the connections of the world except in a
+subsidiary manner, because it stands in the midst of such connections,
+and without these it cannot possibly exist. Man never succeeds in
+reaching the Divine unless the Divine works and is acknowledged in his
+own life; what is omitted here in the first step is never again
+recovered and becomes more and more impossible as life proceeds on its
+merely natural course. If, however, the standpoint of spiritual
+experience is gained, then religion succeeds in attaining entire
+certainty and immediacy; then the struggles in which it was involved
+turn into a similar result, and its own inner movements become a
+testimony to the reality of the new world which it represents."<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p108" id="p108"></a>[p.108]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<h2>RELIGION AND SOCIETY</h2>
+
+
+<p>Eucken shows that the problems of history are closely allied with those
+of society. The best accounts of the meaning he attaches to human
+society are to be found in <i>The Main Currents of Modern Thought, Der
+Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt</i>, and <i>Life Basis and Life Ideal</i>.
+The conclusions reached in these three books are the same&mdash;they are an
+insistence on the need of spiritual life as a creative power in the
+utilisation of norms and ideals as well as in the creation of further
+norms and ideals. He points out the devious paths which human society
+has travelled over: all these, in the case of society and of the
+individual, are shown to lead to disaster when they depend merely upon
+the environment or upon the ideals of a utilitarian mode of a
+historico-social construction.</p>
+
+<p>Society has gained much through the necessity of emphasising some
+aspects of a Whole&mdash;of thinking and acting collectively&mdash;instead <span class="pagenum"><a id="p109"></a>[p.109]</span>
+of emphasising merely the Parts. The history of human society, in a very
+large measure, is the history of shifting the centre of gravity of life
+alternately from the Whole to the Parts and <i>vice versa</i>. When the
+centre of gravity remains in some kind of Whole, a number of individuals
+move towards the same goal, and much that is subjective has to be
+shifted to the background of life. Now, this is a gain, and it is the
+only path on which a corporate life becomes possible. Men (and women
+too) stand shoulder to shoulder when some kind of Whole or Ideal seems
+to them to be a necessity of their nature. But progress is brought about
+not only through cementing human beings together in order to move
+towards <i>any kind</i> of ideal. The energy is in the right place, but the
+question has to arise as to the <i>nature</i> of the over-personal ideal
+itself. All over-personal ideals cannot connote the good of <i>all</i>, but
+the good of all must be present as possessing a validity of its own
+before any lower over-personal ideal can prevent landing men in
+disaster. The over-personal ideals which do not include the good of all
+often represent the good of a section alone, and all other sections have
+to become convinced that this is a good. Thus many Life-systems present
+themselves. Each of these includes a good. The problem is, How is each
+section to realise that there is a good present in what each other
+section presents? <span class="pagenum"><a id="p110"></a>[p.110]</span> There must be some common standard by which
+the ideal of each section of the community can be measured, for it is in
+the light of such a standard alone that the lower good receives its true
+place, meaning, and value. There are, beyond all sectional over-personal
+ideals, values which connote the highest welfare of everyone "who
+carries a human face." These values are the results of the partially
+collective experiences of the deepest in life, and have been gained in
+the history of the race. They are the values which are the needs and
+rights of all. Justice, Sympathy, Love&mdash;these and others are the highest
+syntheses. They have, as yet, been only partially reached; and this
+partial realisation is the possession of a few, and has not yet
+succeeded in becoming the necessary standard which shall pass judgment
+on all lower ideals. "Rights are rights," we are told. This may be true,
+but something higher has to interpret them, or else one set of rights
+comes into conflict with other sets and stands but little chance of
+realisation. And even if realised, a whole series of complexities
+immediately arises. This has been, in the main, the history of human
+society. And are we able to say that society has progressed much during
+the past century in this direction of illuminating lower needs in the
+light of higher ones which include the good of all? Eucken doubts
+whether the progress has been great. And here once more, <span class="pagenum"><a id="p111"></a>[p.111]</span> in
+connection with the deepest meaning of society and the individual, he
+sees the need of ideals which are universally true and universally
+valid. This means that the spiritual life as it presents itself in the
+universally true, good, and beautiful, must become the sun which will
+shine upon all that is below it; it is the Whole in which the Parts must
+find their function and meaning. If the life of society relates itself
+to anything lower than this, the best within it cannot come to flower
+and fruit. In other words, society will have to return to a conception
+and utilisation of an <i>absolute spiritual life</i> before it can gain any
+new territory of eternal value. Probably quite as much attention will
+have to be devoted to the Parts&mdash;to the environment, the needs of the
+hour, the material comforts and happiness of life. But granting that the
+possession of all these will come about, what then? We are still
+wretchedly poor in the "inward parts." What we have won has not within
+itself sufficient spirituality to touch the deepest recesses of the
+soul. Material plenty and pleasure are a good when they are used as they
+ought to be used. Where is that "something" that teaches us this? Where
+is the Ought? The Ought is something outside and infinitely higher than
+all the gains which the environment or the group is ever able to bring
+forth. "Life," says Eucken,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>
+"cannot be made simply <span class="pagenum"><a id="p112"></a>[p.112]</span> a
+question of relationship to environment and of the development of mutual
+relationships (as this tendency would have it) without the independence
+of the isolated factor [spiritual life] being most seriously reduced.
+And it must not be forgotten that the individual is the sole source of
+original spiritual life; corporate social life can do no more than unite
+and utilise. The maintenance of the strength and freedom of this
+original life would be less important, and its limitation would be more
+easily endurable, if human life stood upon a firm foundation and needed
+only to follow quietly in a naturally appointed direction. In reality,
+life is not only full of separate problems, but being situated (as it
+is) between the realm of mere Nature and the spiritual world, must begin
+by systematically directing itself aright and ascending from the
+semi-spiritual to the truly spiritual construction of life. It is hence
+called upon to perform great tasks, which cannot be carried out without
+serious efforts and the mobilisation of all our spiritual forces. This
+necessarily leads us back to the original sources of strength, and hence
+to the individual."</p>
+
+<p>This passage represents well Eucken's main teaching in regard to our
+social problems. We shall ever fail in the highest sense if the
+spiritual content of life is no more than a <i>means</i> to reach material
+ends, however necessary such ends may be. For in such a <span class="pagenum"><a id="p113"></a>[p.113]</span> manner
+spiritual life&mdash;the universally true and valid&mdash;is reduced to a lower
+plane; it becomes entangled in lower stages, and thus ceases to be a
+"light on the hill" illumining the steep upward path. Convictions of a
+spiritual nature&mdash;the very forces which have moulded society&mdash;are absent
+from such a system of life which has no more than the day or the hour to
+look forward to. Individual and society become the creatures of mere
+impulses and passions, stimulated to activity by a "dead-level"
+environment. Something of value is gained when even this kind of
+environment is a good; but the response is quite as readily given to
+that which is injurious, simply because the "universally true and good"
+is absent as an inwardness and conviction in the soul.</p>
+
+<p>Without such an inwardness and its content the deeper energy of life is
+not touched, and men drift with the tide of the environment. Without the
+ideals or syntheses which are, in their very nature, universal and
+absolute, progress comes to a standstill, and degeneration soon sets in.
+The ordinary situation, apart from the presence of the content of the
+over-world within the life of the soul, swings like a pendulum between a
+shallow optimism and a blind pessimism. There is no power present in the
+soul to come to any fundamental decision, but life drifts on a river
+between Yea and Nay; a failure to penetrate beneath the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p114"></a>[p.114]</span> crust of
+chance and circumstance becomes evident, and the deeper values and
+meanings of life disappear.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken's only solution for our present-day troubles is a return to our
+own deeper nature as this was depicted in previous chapters. The signs
+of the times, he tells us, are encouraging; the utilitarian mode of life
+is wearing itself out; the tastes of material comforts have been with us
+long enough to experience the poverty of their quality; and the mad
+gamble for the "things which perish" is gradually weeding out its
+devotees. Eucken's solution to the problems of society is a <i>religious</i>
+one. Where is the conception of religion as the solution of the
+momentous and intricate problems of our day to be found in the teachings
+and writings of our economists? It is not to be found. These deal either
+with petty details or with laws which have no spiritual content whatever
+in them. Society may proceed with various Life-systems&mdash;individualism,
+socialism, or any other, but until it gets into touch with its deepest
+soul, each such system of life is hastening towards its own destruction
+and towards the injury of progress.</p>
+
+<p>The conception of the State is presented by Eucken in a similar manner.
+He points out how we stop short in our politics of dealing with the
+universally true and good. Party strives against party, and nation
+against nation. <span class="pagenum"><a id="p115"></a>[p.115]</span> Groups of all hues and cries propound their own
+particular ideals as the all-important ones. Higher ideals are left out
+of account, so that we find the world to-day spending its energies in
+warfare concerning many things of minor importance. How can we expect
+fruition and bliss to follow on such lines?</p>
+
+<p>Eucken presents in a convincing manner the danger of resting upon the
+external in Society and State. "We are experiencing to-day a remarkable
+entanglement. The older forms of Life, which had hitherto governed
+history and its meaning, have become too narrow, petty, and subjective
+for human nature. Through emancipation from an easy-going subjectivity
+and through the positing of life upon external things and, indeed, upon
+the whole of the great universe, Life, it was believed, would gain more
+breadth and truth; and in a noteworthy manner man undertook a struggle
+against the pettiness of his own nature and for the drawing out of all
+that was merely human and trivial. A great deal has been gained through
+such a change and new tendency of life. In fact we have discovered far
+more than we had hoped for. But, at the same time, we have lost
+something&mdash;a loss which at the outset occasions no anxiety, but which,
+however, through painful experience, proves itself to have been the 'one
+thing needful.' Through its own development the work has destroyed its
+own vehicles; it has <span class="pagenum"><a id="p116"></a>[p.116]</span> undermined the very ground upon which it
+stood; it has failed, notwithstanding its infinite expansion, through
+its loss of a fundamental and unifying Life-process; and in the entire
+immersion of man into activity his deepest being has been sacrificed.
+Indeed, the more exclusively Life transforms itself into external work,
+the more it ceases to be an inner personal experience, and the more
+alien we become to ourselves. And yet the fact that we can be conscious
+of such an alienation&mdash;an alienation that we cannot accept indifferently
+&mdash;is a proof that more is firmly implanted in us than the modern
+direction of life is able to develop and satisfy. We acknowledge
+simultaneously that we have gained much, but that the loss is a painful
+one. We have gained the world, but we have lost the soul; and, along
+with this, the world threatens to bring us to nought, and to take away
+our one secure foothold in the midst of the roaring torrent of material
+work."<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>Eucken shows that the individual will obtain his true place in Society
+and the State only when spiritual ideals have become fixed norms -norms
+which form the highest synthesis to be conceived of. And Society and the
+State will discover their vocations in precisely the same manner. It is
+impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that things are not well with
+the world to-day. The growth of the material <span class="pagenum"><a id="p117"></a>[p.117]</span> interests of the
+world and of life has become a menace on a scale unknown in the previous
+history of civilisation. There is only one refuge in the midst of all
+this welter and chaos. That indestructible refuge is "an inner synthesis
+and spiritual elevation of life." It is this alone which can prevent the
+disintegration that is bound to follow in its absence. The petty human
+element cannot be eliminated from this; and the mere life of the
+hour&mdash;the life that has no substance of duration within itself&mdash;cannot
+be stopped on its reckless career without the presence of spiritual
+ideals within and without. If the world proceeds in its denial of the
+reality and need of spiritual life and its over-world, the negation,
+when it reaches its climax of disaster and despair, will "turn again
+home"&mdash;to the necessity of spiritual values&mdash;and out of the ruins a new
+humanity will emerge.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, once more we are landed into the province of a religion of
+spiritual life as a necessity in the affairs of the world and of the
+State. Eucken's great plea is that the civilised nations of the world
+should become aware of all this before it is too late to turn
+back&mdash;before the boat has reached too near the rapids to avoid disaster.
+The remedy is in our own hands. How to create the consciousness of the
+situation is the problem of problems, and all individuals are called to
+bring the whole of their energies to its solution.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p118" id="p118"></a>[p.118]</span> It is evident that some kind of uneasiness has to take place in
+the deepest recess of the human soul, but the best ways and means of
+doing this are not yet quite evident.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> We know what we need and what
+prevents decadence of individuals and nations. "If ye know these things,
+blessed are ye if ye <i>do</i> them" (Gospel of John). The bridge between a
+knowledge of the Ought and its possession is difficult to construct, but
+its importance is necessary to be brought constantly before the people.
+The majority of the people have thought fit to leave almost the only
+place where such an obligation was presented&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> the Christian
+Church. Until they return, or some other institution higher than the
+Church is brought into existence, the peril will remain. No individual
+conviction, based on anything less than spiritual ideals, will suffice.
+What we are looking for is in our midst; it is and has been from the
+very beginning, in spite of an "existential form," largely archaic,
+present in the spiritual nucleus of the Christian religion.</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p119" id="p119"></a>[p.119]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<h2>RELIGION AND ART</h2>
+
+
+<p>Eucken has written less on this subject than on any of those which
+constitute the headings of the chapters of this book. But he has treated
+art in precisely the same manner as he has treated all other important
+problems: he has shown that no great art is possible unless it is rooted
+in a creativeness which is <i>spiritual</i>. In his <i>Main Currents of Modern
+Thought</i> we get an instructive account of art and its relation to
+morality. His account of the development of art in modern times, from
+the Renaissance to the present day, shows the ebb and flow of the
+conception of the Beautiful. The check which the Renaissance received
+through the Reformation in relation to art had its good as well as its
+evil side. Intense scorn arose in the Protestant world for every kind of
+image and decoration, because these were supposed to posit life on what
+was purely sensuous and natural, and so bar the way to the Divine.
+Still, the obstruction <span class="pagenum"><a name="p120" id="p120"></a>[p.120]</span> created by Protestantism in this
+direction opened a door in quite another direction. Art of a higher kind
+than picture or statue arose, which was far removed from the sensuous
+level and which emerged from a deeper soil within the soul. The whole
+series of musical composers produced by Germany is a proof of this. The
+period of the <i>Aufkl&auml;rung</i> viewed art with scant favour, but with the
+rise of the New Humanism a change in favour of art took place.</p>
+
+<p>The origin of this change is to be found where one might least expect
+it&mdash;in the soul of the sage of K&ouml;nigsberg. Kant's <i>Critique of Judgment</i>
+is unanimously allowed to be the greatest book ever produced on the
+subject. Goethe and Schiller were influenced by it&mdash;the latter in a
+remarkable manner. We find in these writers an effort to unite the Good
+and the Beautiful. It is impossible to read the poetry of Goethe without
+finding that great moral problems are imbedded in his conceptions of the
+Beautiful. His poetry is an attempt to bridge the chasm between the
+external world and the soul. His nature was too deep to remain satisfied
+with the mere impressions of the senses. The union of the world
+<i>without</i> with the world <i>within</i> gave him a view of the universe and of
+human life full of originality and suggestiveness.</p>
+
+<p>Schiller worked in practically the same direction. A moral standpoint of
+a high order <span class="pagenum"><a name="p121" id="p121"></a>[p.121]</span> is to be discovered in his writings, and he
+believed this standard to be possible of preservation alongside of a
+legitimate "freedom granted in the phenomenon." "Then the two tendencies
+again became divided. Romanticism gave a peculiar definite and
+self-conscious expression to the priority of art and the aesthetical
+view of life, while Fichte and the other leaders of the national
+movement exerted a powerful influence in the direction of strengthening
+morality. The social and industrial type of civilisation, which became
+more and more powerful during the course of the nineteenth century, was
+inclined, with its tendency towards social welfare and utility, to
+assign a subordinate part to art. Modern art arises in protest against
+this and is ambitious to influence the whole of life; in opposition to
+morality it holds up an aesthetic view of life as being alone
+justifiable. Hence at the present time the two spheres stand wide
+apart."<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p>
+
+<p>Eucken shows how such an antithesis between morality and art has
+partially existed for thousands of years. But whenever a cleavage takes
+place both morality and art suffer. On the one hand, morality tends to
+become a system of rules for the performance of which a reward is
+promised either in this world or in the world to come. On the other
+hand, art is stripped of the distinction between the values of sensuous
+things as these express</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p122"></a>[p.122]</span> Themselves in their relation to human life. In the former case,
+insistence on morality (even on morality alone) has deepened human life;
+it has given it a more strenuous tone; and it has created a scale of
+values which alters the whole meaning of life. But morality conceived as
+a system of regulations and laws has always the tendency to harden and
+narrow the life, and to posit the individual too much upon himself. Any
+justification from without&mdash;from the physical side&mdash;consequently fails
+to give any help or satisfaction. And man needs this help. As it is
+impossible for him to fly out of the world to some region where mind or
+spirit alone reigns, he has to do the best he can with the physical
+world in the midst of which he exists. It is within such a world that he
+has to cultivate the spiritual potencies of his own being. It is true
+that the spiritual potencies of his own being are higher and of more
+value than anything in Nature. Still, that does not mean that Nature has
+to be discarded or condemned before the potencies of his own being can
+develop. Nature is not a mere blind machine; it has produced
+all&mdash;including man and his potencies&mdash;that is to be found on the face of
+it. It is therefore not entirely meaningless, and the meaning it
+possesses is a necessary element in the evolution of personal spiritual
+life. Man must enter into some relation with Nature. But such a relation
+produces even more than all this. When viewed in a friendly mood,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p123" id="p123"></a>[p.123]</span> Nature herself wears an aspect higher than a materialistic or
+intellectual one. It calls forth the best in imagination; it enables us
+to feel that something of the power that dwells within the soul dwells
+also in all the manifestations of phenomena.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> This fact is evident in
+all the poetry of the world, and without the perpetual presence of
+Nature to the soul in the form of wonder, reverence, and admiration, no
+poetry worthy of the name is possible. Nature thus is of value in the
+fact that when its phenomena present themselves to a consciousness aware
+not only of its <i>knowing</i> aspect but also of its <i>feeling</i> aspect, the
+union of Nature and soul produces a feeling of reality which creates an
+ideal nature. "The light that never was on sea or land" becomes now on
+sea and land; it illuminates the whole scene with a "halo and glory"
+which was concealed before. But there must be present "an eye of the
+soul" united with the physical impressions before all this is possible.
+Indeed, the effect of all this is nothing less than an ideal creation of
+a world consisting of Nature and the spiritual potencies of man. It is
+evident that if the <i>internal</i> <span class="pagenum"><a id="p124"></a>[p.124]</span> factor, which represents itself
+in the form of morality or value, is absent, the picture of Nature is
+quite different. And this is Eucken's complaint in regard to much of the
+art of the present day: the internal factor is absent. Seriousness is
+not blended with freedom in it; or, in other words, the <i>inward</i> has no
+power to pass its quality into the <i>outward</i>. But when the <i>inward</i> is
+present in the form of morality or value, then art becomes joyous,
+serious, helpful, and disinterested. This last aspect of the
+disinterestedness of art was perceived clearly by Kant, and has formed
+an important contribution to the philosophy and even to the religion of
+the nineteenth century. When a potency of the soul, gained in a province
+outside art (as is the case with morality or value), operates, there is
+no danger of art degenerating into mere subjectivism; otherwise there is
+a very grave danger. Loosened from morality it becomes a mere play of
+decoration and fancy&mdash;a mere superficial embroidery of an empty life;
+it can look on the human world and all its struggles with an indifferent
+and often cynical mood. Why has all this happened? Because the inward
+factor of the "strenuous mood" has been replaced by a sentimental factor
+based on nothing deeper than the satisfaction of the senses; and the
+result of this is found in feelings which are more psychical than
+spiritual in their nature.</p>
+
+<p>But that art is necessary for any completion <span class="pagenum"><a id="p125"></a>[p.125]</span> of life is seen by
+the fact that its contribution to the soul is more than a <i>thought</i>
+contribution. For the deeper life of the spirit of man is more than
+thought, although thought forms an essential element of it; this deeper
+life has wider demands than can be expressed in the form of logical
+propositions. Eucken shows how true art is therefore indissolubly
+connected with spiritual life. "Without the presence of a spiritual
+world [the resultant of the union of the spiritual potencies and
+external objects], art has no soul and no secure fundamental
+relationship to reality, and in no way can it develop a fixed style. We
+hear to-day of a 'new style,' and are in the saddle after such a
+conception. But shall we find it so long as the whole of life does not
+fasten itself upon simple fundamental lines and does not follow the main
+path in the midst of all the tangle of effort? How is it possible to
+attain to a unity of interpretation where our life itself fails in the
+possession of a governing unity? We discover ourselves in the midst of
+the most fundamental transformations of life; old ideals are vanishing,
+and new ones are dawning on the horizon. But as yet they are all full of
+unrest and unreadiness; and the situation of man in the All of things is
+so full of uncertainty that he has to struggle anew for the meaning and
+value of his life. If art has nothing to say to him and no help to
+offer&mdash;if it relegates these questions far from itself&mdash;then art itself
+must sink to the level of a <span class="pagenum"><a id="p126"></a>[p.126]</span> subsidiary play the more these
+problems win the mind and spirit of man. But if art is capable of
+bringing a furtherance of values to man in his needs and sorrows, it
+will have to recognise and acknowledge the problems of spiritual life as
+well as participate in the struggle for the vindication and formation of
+a spiritual world. When art does this, these questions which engage our
+attention are also its questions."<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p>
+
+<p>In spite of the contradictions of life, in spite of much which seems
+indifferent to human weal and woe within the physical universe, the
+contradictions may be surmounted by the union of man's spirit with other
+aspects of existence which look in an opposite direction. The ideal
+world of art is not to be discovered by ignoring these contradictions,
+but by acknowledging them to the full, and by seeing that Nature is
+supplemented by man and his soul. Such a union, as has already been
+pointed out, will create an earnestness and joyousness of life; it will
+enable man, when any teleology of Nature herself fails to give him
+satisfaction, to realise a teleology within the <i>substance</i> of his own
+life&mdash;spiritual in its essence, infinite in its duration, and the
+flowering of a bud which has grown with the help of the natural cosmos.
+When Nature is thus viewed as a preparatory stage for spirit, it will
+wear an aspect very different from the mechanical one. Its real
+teleology <span class="pagenum"><a name="p127" id="p127"></a>[p.127]</span> will be seen: there can be no dispute about it; it has
+actually produced man, and man has now to carry farther the evolutionary
+process. Eucken has presented this aspect in a fine manner in his
+article on Schiller in <i>Kantstudien</i><a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> (Band X., Heft 3), <i>Festschrift
+zu Schillers hundertstem Todestage</i>. No one in modern times discovered
+the contradictions of the world in regard to the needs of man more than
+Schiller. And yet no one led a more joyous life than this "half-poet,
+half-thinker." Pressed from within and without by many alien elements,
+he overcame them all and found, despite his physical weakness, what a
+gift life is. It is in the direction of a great synthesis of spiritual
+life and natural phenomena that true art will discover the qualities for
+a permanent duration. Such a synthesis will enrich the spiritual life,
+and will grant it something of higher construction concerning the
+meaning and value of the union of Nature and Man. So Eucken has once
+more landed us into the spiritual life as the source and goal of all
+true Art.</p>
+
+<p>
+"Only the rooted knowledge to high sense<br />
+Of heavenly can mount, and feel the spur<br />
+For fruitfullest achievement, eye a mark<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond the path with grain on either hand,</span><br />
+Help to the steering of our social Ark<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Over the barbarous waters unto land."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p128" id="p128"></a>[p.128]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<h2>UNIVERSAL RELIGION</h2>
+
+
+<p>We have followed Eucken's system developing step by step from the stage
+of knowing the world up through the evolution of spiritual life in
+history, in the soul, in art, and in society. Everywhere the
+investigation has revealed a progressive autonomy and duration of
+spiritual life in the midst of all the kaleidoscopic aspects of the
+objects which presented themselves to consciousness. Something spiritual
+has persisted and evolved in the midst of all the changes, and the
+changes have been utilised by this deeper potency of the soul. Through
+the evolution of this spiritual potency changes have been brought about
+in the external world, in human society, and in the individual soul.
+This spiritual potency has bent things to subserve its own inherent
+demands. The union of conation and cognition within the soul has brought
+forth everything that has happened outside the natural process of the
+physical world, and much even of that world <span class="pagenum"><a id="p129"></a>[p.129]</span> has been made
+subservient to man. When the attention is turned to this "fact of facts"
+concerning the work of spiritual life, individually and collectively, it
+is impossible to consider it as a mere addendum to the natural process,
+however closely connected it may be with that process. Sufficient has
+been said to prove the superiority of spiritual life over the whole
+aspects and manifestations of Nature. The question, then, cannot be laid
+aside concerning the nature of the life of the spirit in itself. What is
+it now? What is it capable of becoming? Why should its evolution snap at
+its highest point? Why cannot the power that has accomplished so much in
+the history of our world, and has always done this the more efficiently
+the more a remove from the realm of the sensuous took place&mdash;why cannot
+such a power proceed farther on its course? And what limits can be set
+to it? The pertinency of such and other questions cannot be doubted. The
+spiritual life has ascended too high and accomplished too much to be
+treated with indifference. And yet that is the way it is being treated
+only too widely to-day. Men hesitate to grant to it a reality of its own
+because of its close connection with mechanical and chemical elements.
+They half affirm and half deny its reality. The question arises, What is
+reality? Eucken agrees with the great idealists of the world that
+reality in its highest manifestation is <span class="pagenum"><a name="p130" id="p130"></a>[p.130]</span> something that pertains
+to spirit and meaning rather than to matter and its behaviour.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> Our
+rigid clinging to a meaning of reality from the side of its physical
+history is doubtless a remnant of a race&mdash;memory which may be largely
+physical in its nature. We find a difficulty in conceiving as yet a
+reality existing in itself&mdash;existing in itself though material elements
+have helped it on its upward course. But even here it is not at all
+certain that nothing but material elements have operated in this
+fundamental process. Men have by now known enough of the connection of
+mind with lower processes in order to be aware of a mystery present in
+the whole operation&mdash;a mystery which does not yield itself to the
+senses.</p>
+
+<p>But even such a past history of the spiritual life is not all that can
+be said concerning it. It is <i>now</i> in process of evolution, and its
+greatest work is always accomplished not by looking backward but
+forward. The whole universe has operated in bringing spiritual life into
+existence. Are there any reasons whatever for concluding that the whole
+universe is not co-operating <i>now</i> in its further development? Life,
+civilisation, culture, morality, and religion are proofs that this life
+of the spirit is moving onward and upward. It does not move without
+checks and entanglements <span class="pagenum"><a name="p131" id="p131"></a>[p.131]</span> from without and within, but in every
+"long run" it is gaining some new ground and tilling it as its own. It
+dare not turn back; it dare not throw away the pack of the <i>Sollen</i> (the
+Ought) off its shoulders. The over-individual norms have planted
+themselves too strongly in the heart of humanity to be ever uprooted.
+The meaning and value of life now lie in a <i>beyond</i>. It is not a
+<i>beyond</i> within any physical region that <i>was</i>; neither is it, so far as
+we know, a <i>beyond</i> in any physical region that <i>is to be</i>. It is a
+<i>beyond of the spirit</i>; and as it is the most real and most requisite
+possession of man, how can it have anything less than a <i>cosmic</i>
+significance? The future of spiritual life is therefore governed not by
+something that is <i>to be</i> in the cosmos, but by something that is <i>now</i>
+present in it&mdash;by the acknowledgment, assimilation, and appropriation by
+man and humanity of spiritual norms which are far beyond their present
+actual situation.</p>
+
+<p>The whole meaning here is that something <i>sub specie aeternitatis</i> has
+to take the foremost place in life. We are beings who perpetually
+<i>move</i>. Eucken and Bergson are both emphasising this to-day. But the
+latter deals with the movement alone; he has no notion whither we are
+going, nor can he possibly have until he revises very largely his
+conception of the function and meaning of intellect in life.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> But
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p132" id="p132"></a>[p.132]</span> Eucken states that we do know whither we are going. What are the
+over-personal spiritual norms and standards but stars by which to steer
+the direction of our course over the tempestuous sea of time? Everyone
+who guides his life in connection with reason guides it by means of some
+norm or other. Even the daily avocation requires this in order to be
+fulfilled. And the norms which furnish guidance to the spiritual life
+have originated and are utilised in precisely the same manner as those
+of the daily avocation. The only difference is that there is more
+meaning and value in the former than in the latter. But each is a
+<i>Sollen</i> and constitutes a <i>beyond</i>. This <i>Sollen</i> is a certainty; it
+exists, and its existence is <i>in itself.</i> It is the star for the
+<i>Wollen.</i><a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> The Will is our own; the Ought is not our own; the fact
+that we possess it as an idea is no proof that it has become a
+possession of the whole of life. In this sense the Ought has an
+objectivity and a subsistence of its own. The Will has to travel in the
+direction of the Ought, and its course is mapped out by this Ought at
+every step of its progress. Hence, in order to reach towards the
+<i>Sollen</i> the nature of the <i>Sollen</i> must become known. As noticed in
+previous chapters, such a movement towards so high <span class="pagenum"><a id="p133"></a>[p.133]</span> a goal
+becomes a difficult task&mdash;a task which demands the activity of the whole
+spiritual nature. Man's dependency and the meaning of his life are thus
+set before his eyes, and the aspects of momentary existence are valued
+as of secondary importance. Unless this meaning of the norm becomes
+clear, life will revolve around the reality nearest-at-hand, and will
+consequently fail to unfold the deeper spirituality of its nature. "And
+if all depended on the brief flash of the moment, which endures but the
+twinkling of an eye, only to vanish into the dark of nothingness, then
+all life would mean a mere exit into death. Thus, without eternity there
+is no spirituality, and without connection there is no content of life.
+But what is enthroned in itself above Time becomes for the man who wins
+such a spirituality, first of all, an immense task which allows itself
+to be grasped on the field of Time alone; and, also, the Eternal which
+works within us and which hovers before us on the horizon of Eternity
+can become our full possession only through the movement of Time. To
+wish to check the course of Time means not to serve Eternity, but to
+ascribe to Time what belongs to Eternity."<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is not said by Eucken anywhere in his writings that the <i>natural</i>
+sources at which Life drinks must be abandoned. These remain with us as
+long as we are in this world of space and <span class="pagenum"><a id="p134"></a>[p.134]</span> time. But these are
+not found in the same place, neither is the same importance attached to
+them, once the meaning and value of the over-personal norms and the
+potency of spiritual creativeness have come into union with one another.</p>
+
+<p>What Eucken means by universal religion is the establishment of this
+independency and supremacy of spiritual life over all else in the world.
+We have already dealt with this aspect in former chapters; the
+conclusion was reached that everywhere the presence of a life of the
+spirit made itself felt, and gave a meaning and interpretation to all
+life and existence. That is the conclusion Eucken arrives at in his
+<i>Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt.</i> The problem of religion <i>qua</i>
+religion is hardly touched. But, indeed, what other than religion can
+all these conclusions mean? Norm and potency are emphasised. An
+elevation above the world and above the "small self" has taken place.
+But something still has to be done before we have entered into the very
+heart of the matter. The problems which arise after all the conclusions
+previously arrived at are acknowledged must be taken into account.
+Having come so far in regard to the value and meaning of spiritual life,
+we are bound to go <i>farther</i>. No point occurs where we can find a
+terminus. Though we have already been constrained to grant the norms a
+reality of their own, we have only just touched, here and there, <span class="pagenum"><a id="p135"></a>[p.135]</span>
+upon their <i>cosmic</i> significance. The matter thus reaches a further
+point than we have yet touched. What justification is there for granting
+spiritual life this cosmic significance?</p>
+
+<p>Attention has already been called to the fact of a distinction between
+nature and spirit. But attention has now to be directed to the necessity
+of emphasising the reality of spirit. The nature of spirit is revealed
+most clearly in the life and content of human consciousness. No
+anthropomorphic standard from without can come to our aid to establish
+the existence of spirit. The standard is to be found within the
+consciousness itself. A distinction has to be made between <i>nature and
+spirit</i>. However much they resemble each other in the beginnings of
+life, spirit has travelled far beyond nature or matter. It has developed
+for itself an essence which may be designated as <i>substance</i>. The chief
+characteristic of matter is that it occupies space; but spirit, though
+connected with, and largely conditioned by, matter as it exists in
+space, is now something quite other&mdash;something which has to be granted
+an existence of its own, and which forms the beginning of a <i>new kind of
+world</i> and unfolds a <i>new kind of reality</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The reality of spiritual life is not discovered in anything which is
+external to life; it is to be found in life itself. The reality is
+revealed and, indeed, created by an act of the spirit of man. Such an
+act must be the act of one's <span class="pagenum"><a id="p136"></a>[p.136]</span> own deepest being. But although
+such a new reality is not to be found in anything external to life, yet
+the very revelation points, as we have already observed, to something
+which is over-individual. Even the meaning of the reality itself, from
+its <i>immanent</i> side, is something quite other than the natural life and
+its contents. It is something revealed, but not as yet possessed; it is
+hard to be reached; and even within the man's own nature obstacles and
+hindrances of various kinds are to be found. But the new reality
+persists in the midst of the hindrances; the man discovers himself as
+the possessor of a deeper kind of truth than was present and operative
+in the ordinary life. A cleavage is therefore made between the "small
+self" and the spiritual life. In the degree the former wins through the
+calling forth of the deepest activities of the soul, in that degree does
+the transcendent aspect of the new reality urge itself upon man. And
+when the two aspects&mdash;immanent and transcendent&mdash;of the reality are
+firmly grasped by the soul, the soul moves upward in the exploration and
+possession of its new world.</p>
+
+<p>The failure to enter into this region of religion is due to the fact
+that men often attempt to construct religion on certain so-called
+faculties of the soul. Some attempt to discover and establish religion
+through the power and conclusions of the intellect. It is evident that
+when the knowing aspect of consciousness <span class="pagenum"><a name="p137" id="p137"></a>[p.137]</span> takes such a leading
+part, and deliberately ignores the affective and active aspects, no more
+than a segment of the reality can be discovered, and such a segment
+leaves out of account important elements of human nature. If the
+affective aspect takes the lead at the expense of the other two aspects,
+we are here again in a region where only certain fragments of our nature
+are touched. If the active aspect busies itself without carrying along
+with itself the content of meaning and value to be discovered in
+consciousness, the true element of the greatness of the reality is
+missing. Eucken shows in his <i>Truth of Religion</i> that there must be a
+point in the soul, at some deeper level than any of the three, where the
+three are working conjointly.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> It must be so, because what is now at
+stake is more than knowing a thing; it is to <i>be</i> the thing we know we
+<i>ought to be.</i> It is unfamiliarity with such a truth that brings a
+difficulty into the mind when face to face <span class="pagenum"><a name="p138" id="p138"></a>[p.138]</span> with the problem of
+religion. The mind has not learned how to attend to the truth in its own
+self-subsistence, but posits this truth in its relation to the
+conditions in the external world which brought it forth.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> Thus the
+conception of truth is made up very largely of its history on its
+physical side, and this history of the truth comes to possess the entire
+meaning of the truth itself! The road to religion, in its deepest sense,
+is barred to everyone who fails or refuses to grant the deeper reality
+which presents itself within the soul <i>a self-subsistence.</i> The only
+existence of such a reality can be its own self-subsistence. The reality
+is now conceived as something quite other than an existence in space; it
+exists for consciousness and can persist within consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>When reality is conceived as a substance subsisting in itself, the
+passage to the Absolute is opened. This Absolute is the most universal
+and complete meaning and value which the soul is capable of possessing;
+its very nature forces itself upon man as being true; and its value has
+revealed itself in its being the only power which will carry farther the
+spiritual evolution of the soul. If such an Absolute is left out of
+account, it is evident that the most universal <span class="pagenum"><a id="p139"></a>[p.139]</span> truth which
+presents itself to life as absolutely necessary cannot enter into the
+deepest recesses of the soul; it cannot be more than a subsidiary
+element accompanying lower intellectual elements of life, which are more
+closely allied on such a lower level with physical processes of the body
+and with the physical world. And when truth is treated in this manner,
+it cannot possibly make its abode and become a power in the soul.
+Consciousness hesitates to create a further cleft within itself because
+the evidence of truth at such a height as this does not lend itself to
+the senses. The result is that the full power of the truth fails to
+produce effects on the consciousness, and thus keeps it on practically
+the same level as that on which it has been accustomed to work. The
+higher truth&mdash;the higher spiritual life&mdash;has not become anything more
+than a fact of knowledge or a probability. It has not become one's own
+life. It is only when this higher aspect of spiritual life becomes
+<i>one's own life</i>, and is acknowledged and used, that it is ever possible
+for man to become the possessor of an original energy, of an independent
+governing centre, and so to realise himself as a co-carrier of a cosmic
+movement. This is the presupposition of religion: it testifies that
+within man's soul there appears something higher than sense or
+intellect, but which remains surrounded by alien elements which impose
+checks to its further development. It is quite evident that the
+appearance of <span class="pagenum"><a id="p140"></a>[p.140]</span> truths which are absolute and complete within the
+life is in direct antagonism to much that was previously present within
+it. This fundamental fact, however, is not evident without a great deal
+of attention paid to the nature of the higher elements which present
+themselves. Without comparing the values of the higher and the lower
+elements, how is it ever possible to know what they are and what they
+mean? When the whole being attends to both elements&mdash;higher and
+lower&mdash;there is no possibility of making a mistake concerning the
+<i>different</i> values of what are presented. A higher grade of reality
+reveals itself over against all that had been previously gained. The
+soul is forced to admit that something of a higher nature than it
+hitherto possessed seeks admission. And this Higher, if it enters into
+the whole of life, so far from revealing itself as a continuation of
+what had already happened, reveals itself as something which is
+discontinuous with the ordinary life, and superior even to the highest
+attainments of the intellectual life. And it is this aspect which
+produces the conviction of such a revelation as being <i>objective</i> in its
+very nature. It belongs to something or somebody outside our own
+individual experience or achievement. That there is much which is
+mysterious in all this, is only what might be expected. But the very
+fact that the Higher comes with such power when the soul expects,
+assimilates, and appropriates it <span class="pagenum"><a id="p141"></a>[p.141]</span> is a proof of its existence
+somewhere at the core of the universe. It cannot mean an illusion; it
+brings changes of too fundamental a nature to be no more than that. Its
+very value and the enormous difficulty of turning it from being an idea
+into being a possession demand too much energy of the soul to allow of
+its being dismissed without any more ado. It contains elements so
+different in their nature from the ordinary life of the hour as to
+render it impossible to be considered of no more than of subsidiary
+importance. For it has to be borne in mind that the values and norms
+farthest removed from the regions of sense and intellect appear only
+when man follows the drift of his own higher being; it is not when he
+remains effortless and satisfied with the life of the hour that such
+values and norms appear. They appear when the ordinary life is seen
+through as no more than a stage for the further evolution of the soul
+through the grasping of a higher kind of reality than has as yet
+presented itself to it. As Eucken says: "Religion proves itself a
+kingdom of opposites. When it steps out of such opposites, it destroys
+without a doubt the turbidity and evanescence of ordinary commonplace
+life, and separates clearly the lights and shadows from one another. It
+sets our life between the sharpest contrasts, and engenders the most
+powerful feelings and the most mighty movements; it shows the dark abyss
+in our nature, but also <span class="pagenum"><a id="p142"></a>[p.142]</span> shows illumined peaks; it opens out
+infinite tasks, and brings ever to an awakening a new life in its
+movement against the ordinary self. It does not render our existence
+lighter, but it makes it richer, more eventful, and greater; it enables
+man to experience cosmic problems within his own soul in order to
+struggle for a new world, and, indeed, in order to gain such a genuine
+world as its own proper life."<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p>
+
+<p>All this is not a matter of speculation, but of fact. And it is in the
+recognition of this fact that Eucken's philosophy of religion
+constitutes a new kind of idealistic movement&mdash;a movement tending more
+and more in the direction of Christianity. But he differs here again
+from the absolute idealists and the pragmatists. The former base their
+Absolute upon the demands of logic, whilst Eucken bases all upon the
+demands and potencies of life; the pragmatists emphasise the primary
+place of the will in the development of the inner life, but they have
+certainly ignored the presence of over-individual norms, as the goal of
+volition, whilst Eucken holds to the necessity of both. With the
+absolutists the relation of the Absolute with the will is not clearly
+perceived, and consequently the Absolute becomes merely an object of
+thought and contemplation; and in all this the individual does not
+become aware of a burning desire to move in the direction of the goal.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p143"></a>[p.143]</span> The pragmatist leaves the individual at the mercy of the
+momentary content of consciousness; this content is quite as likely to
+be trivial as to be great; and hence there is no absolute standard
+present to determine the nature and value of this content of the moment,
+and consequently no more than a life of effortless drifting can issue
+out of all this.</p>
+
+<p>This blend of absolutism and pragmatism is richer in its content than
+either of the two. Each has missed something of importance, and it is
+here supplied by Eucken.</p>
+
+<p>Norms and potency become two indissoluble factors in the evolution of
+the higher life. As already stated, the norms have an objectivity of
+their own, and consequently when they enter into life, life becomes
+conscious of their being something <i>given</i> and not brought into
+existence by its own potency. It is out of this conclusion to which life
+is forced that the doctrine of Grace, found in some way or other in all
+religions, is to be accounted for. And it is out of the consciousness of
+the interval between norm and achievement that the sense of <i>guilt</i>
+follows man whenever he penetrates deeply into the deeper experiences of
+the soul. Grace and guilt&mdash;naming only two experiences of the soul&mdash;are
+not remnants of a traditional theology, but essential elements which
+accompany the deepest experience of the soul. When they are wanting, it
+is most probable that the soul has not plumbed its own <span class="pagenum"><a id="p144"></a>[p.144]</span> existence
+to its very depths, but has rather chosen to be satisfied with what lies
+but a little way beneath the surface&mdash;with what does not cause too much
+uneasiness, but is sufficient for a life to persist as a good member of
+the society by which it is surrounded. Only half a religion can become
+the possession of any individual who does not at least pay as much
+attention to the nature and value of over-individual norms as he pays to
+the nature of the environment and of the ordinary life. It is always a
+sign that humanity is drifting to the shallows of life when it looks
+upon religion as the flowering of the mere natural life of good custom,
+earthly happiness, and ease. Whenever the tragedy born in the conflict
+between norms and ordinary life is absent, the very elements which
+constitute greatness and the "taste of eternity" are also absent. It is
+on account of this fact that Eucken insists that no individual or nation
+that loses its own deeper religious experience can be really great or
+true; for the purest spring of human life and conduct is wanting, and
+the whole life issues from a shallower stream. It is impossible here to
+enter into the truth of this matter; but our individual observation
+concerning men and communities is almost enough of itself to verify the
+statement. That such a higher spiritual life is a reality may be
+evidenced further through its effects. It changes the whole relationship
+of the man <span class="pagenum"><a id="p145"></a>[p.145]</span> who has experienced it to everything he comes in
+contact with. New convictions and new points of view have now actually
+occurred within his soul; man has become conscious of a spiritual
+inwardness, brought forth through the presence of an over-personal
+spiritual life coupled with his own spiritual needs. With the possession
+of such spiritual elements, how is it possible for him any more to look
+upon the world and human life with the same eyes as before? The dawning
+of a new reality has made him a new creature; he is now compelled by his
+own deeper nature to preserve and to reflect the light which is within
+him; and all this brings prominently forward the need of something other
+for the progress of the world than the first look of things is able to
+show. It is in such manner as this that we must account for all the
+ideals which have moved mankind from the level of animalism and greed to
+the level of civilisation, culture, morals, and religion. The work is
+far from being completed: the world still clings to the old level of
+ordinary life, and is so slow to grasp the value of the life of
+spiritual ideals. Still, something has been accomplished in the course
+of the ages; and although, probably, the progress has not been
+continuous, there has been a gain in the "long run." But the point to
+bear in mind is that it is the power of the over-individual ideal which
+has carried the race along. Ideals have been perverted, it is true; they
+have been <span class="pagenum"><a id="p146"></a>[p.146]</span> drawn down and mixed with what was inferior in its
+nature, yet they have never been completely destroyed in this evil
+process. They have still a marvellous power of disentangling themselves
+from human perversions, and of revealing themselves once more in their
+pristine power and glory. "But the spiritual life declares its ability
+also positively within the human province through a persistent effort to
+move outside the 'given' situation, through a tracing out and a holding
+forth of ideals, through a longing after a more complete happiness and a
+more complete truth. Why is not man satisfied with the relativity which
+so obstinately clings to his existence? Why has he a longing for the
+Absolute in opposition to such relativity, and through this plunges
+himself into the deepest sorrows and distractions? This has happened not
+only in special situations of individuals, but in the whole process of
+culture; indeed, the upward march of culture would have been impossible
+without a striving of man from a level above his 'given' position and
+even above himself. Was not subjective satisfaction more easily reached
+by him in the semi-animal stages of his existence than in culture and
+civilisation with all their toils and tangles, and does the progress of
+culture and civilisation with all their mechanical appliances make him
+in the merely human sense happier? What else could compel him to step
+into this perilous track but the necessity of his own nature <span class="pagenum"><a id="p147"></a>[p.147]</span>
+revealing to him the presence of a new order of things?"<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p>
+
+<p>The whole of this movement is from within without. Even the physical
+world has to enter into consciousness before it can be known and
+interpreted; even the over-individual norms have to be accepted and
+interpreted by the spiritual potency before the reality which they
+possess in themselves can become our own personal reality. We receive
+from without on the plane of Nature and on the planes of mentality and
+spirituality. The consciousness does not evolve its content on any level
+of its progress from itself alone. Material from without has to enter
+into it. But the whole of this material will become one's own possession
+in the degree it is attended to after it has entered consciousness;
+something has to happen to the material <i>within</i> consciousness; it has
+to awaken a potency, and has to distil its own content within that
+potency. But as this potency is not of the same nature entirely as what
+presents itself as possessing value, it is clear that the higher element
+which presents itself has to enter into a struggle for the throne of
+life with elements of a lower order. As this all-important fact has been
+dealt with in a previous chapter, there is no need to dwell on it again;
+but it is well to bear in mind that the fact <span class="pagenum"><a id="p148"></a>[p.148]</span> constitutes an
+important element in Eucken's conception of "universal" religion.</p>
+
+<p>"Universal" and "Characteristic" religion do not constitute two
+different religions, but two grades of the one religion. In "Universal"
+religion Eucken deals very largely with the intellectual grounds of
+religion. He is aware that it is necessary for us to carry our whole
+potencies into religion. Intellect is one of these, and we cannot afford
+to construct our religion on what comes into perpetual conflict with
+intellectual conceptions. Eucken has shown that intellectual
+conclusions, if they are carried far enough and include the whole of
+their own meaning, lead us into religion. We have already noticed how
+the presence of norms and standards were necessitated by the very theory
+of knowledge itself. It is a great gain for man to know that this is
+so&mdash;that in so far as knowledge testifies anything in regard to religion
+and spiritual life it affirms more than it negates. It is of enormous
+advantage to be assured that knowledge is on our side in the quest for
+something that is deeper than itself.</p>
+
+<p>Further, Eucken conceives it as the function of religion on this
+"Universal" level to present, on the other hand, the actual situation.
+What but knowledge can reveal to us the difference between spiritual
+norms and ordinary life, between intellect working alone and intellect
+merged with the spiritual potency of one's <span class="pagenum"><a id="p149"></a>[p.149]</span> being? We are bound
+to know these and a hundred other things. They all go to prove that
+there is justification for the movement of spiritual life in the
+direction of an over-world, and in its hope for the possession of a new
+grade of reality. It is well and necessary to affirm all this before we
+enter on the "grand enterprise." When an affirmation, based upon
+insight, is made, there will be present within the soul a greater power
+to resist hunting after shadows or slipping to a lower level when we are
+in the very midst of the quest. And, indeed, on this very level of
+"Universal" religion something besides the mere knowledge of religion
+has taken place. Values which are intellectually true are bound to
+exercise some influence on the life. Thus, something of the nature of
+the higher reality has touched the soul and will of man. We <i>know</i> in
+what we have believed. This is a stage which must be passed through, for
+we can never feel certain upon a higher altitude unless we are certain
+of what had led to it. And although, on the higher altitude, there is
+the merging of intellectual truth in something higher than itself, still
+what is discovered on this higher level is richer in content if we can
+call up at times intellectual affirmations for its support.</p>
+
+<p>But "Universal" religion has its limitations, and has to pass into
+something more characteristic, specific, and personal. The over-personal
+norms, which are spiritual in their very nature, <span class="pagenum"><a id="p150"></a>[p.150]</span> have not only
+to be interpreted, they have also to be appreciated and reverenced. The
+<i>How</i> of their appearance, after it is settled, takes a secondary place,
+and the norms in their own value and subsistence are attended to. Thus,
+they become not merely ideas having some kind of reality of their own,
+but also become revelations of the very nature of the world; they become
+the source of all creation; the one spring of all being. In other words,
+they are made to mean the Godhead; they mean the creation and sustaining
+power of all life. A communion with the Godhead now takes place, and man
+finds himself in possession of experiences brought about without the
+intervention of the world. Thus "Universal" religion culminates in a
+"Characteristic" or personal religion. And to this culmination, as it is
+presented by Eucken, we now turn.</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p151" id="p151"></a>[p.151]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<h2>CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION</h2>
+
+
+<p>On the level of "Universal" religion great changes have taken place in
+life. The consciousness and conviction of the reality of a new kind of
+world have arisen; the sensuous, and even partially the intellectual,
+domains have been relegated to a secondary place: other values, higher
+in their nature and more universal in their scope, have attracted the
+attention of mind and soul. In all this a change has taken place in the
+disposition as well as in the will. Prior to this change the character
+had not become conscious of its own inwardness, but remained subservient
+to the norms of social and moral inheritance. Some amount of morality
+and good will have issued forth in this manner, and, indeed, the gain
+cannot be over-estimated. But it is evident that something further has to
+happen if the movement of society is to proceed onward and upward, and
+if the energy for such a movement is to be discovered within the soul.
+The whole material which enters into consciousness has to obtain a
+deeper meaning <span class="pagenum"><a id="p152"></a>[p.152]</span> than it hitherto possessed. And this happens on
+the level of "Universal" religion. The <i>spiritual</i> is now recognised as
+the highest manifestation of life; and this spiritual is seen to be
+something which has to be gained through a struggle which calls the
+whole nature into activity. Such a movement from the less to the more
+spiritual proceeds side by side with the <i>freedom</i> of the individual.
+Freedom has now taken a new meaning. Hitherto it meant little more than
+the consciousness of the individual moving along the line of least
+resistance. The effort to move in such a direction is generally
+pleasurable; and when it tends to become painful the individual gives up
+the effort. The highest norms were not present with a categorical
+affirmation of their reality and value. But when they are present, the
+will is turned from the direction of ordinary life and its ease to the
+conception of the meaning and value of the highest norms. Something,
+appearing as of intrinsic value, now makes itself felt, and stirs the
+whole nature. Thus, a <i>new movement</i> begins; the <i>passive</i> attitude of
+the soul gives way to an <i>autonomous</i> attitude and movement. The will,
+consequently, is conscious of a deeper need than any hitherto
+experienced, and therefore calls into being some deeper elements of its
+own in order to reach its goal. The whole nature has now affirmed the
+<i>idea of the good</i>, which had dawned upon it as an imperative. It is in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p153"></a>[p.153]</span> such a moment that the real nature becomes free&mdash;it becomes
+conscious, through and through, of the possibility of leaving its old
+world and of ascending into a new one. This is, in Eucken's words, the
+real spiritual evolution (<i>Wesensbildung</i>) of human nature. This
+evolution, which, prior to this, was considered very largely as a kind
+of gift of the environment, is now perceived as capable of realisation
+only in so far as the spiritual norms are willed. When we examine the
+progress of humanity, we discover that it has taken place in this
+manner; a task had to be set and the whole nature had to be called forth
+to realise it. The result is that a new creation takes place in the
+history of the world. Such a creation becomes a new norm in the moral
+world, as well as a possession in the life of the individual who has
+struggled to realise it.</p>
+
+<p>Such a spiritual process, after something of its nature has been
+realised, finds necessities laid upon it on all hands. Once we have
+stepped into the very centre of spiritual norms and ideals they begin to
+reveal with a wonderful rapidity and impressiveness their own intrinsic
+content and value. "Universal" religion has enabled us to realise that
+we are dealing with "grounds" which are a demand of the deepest nature,
+and with convictions which seem, without a doubt, "to ring true." The
+man has found a shelter in the midst of all the chaos and welter of the
+natural process, <span class="pagenum"><a id="p154"></a>[p.154]</span> and his deepest reason has not failed to come
+to the assistance of his spiritual need. He now becomes conscious of
+security and even of victory in the enterprise before the battle has
+really begun on an arena outside his own nature; a conviction is being
+brought into being within his deepest soul that the best and strongest
+elements in the universe are on his side. Although hindrances and
+entanglements of all kinds increase in number, the increase in spiritual
+certainty, and faith in the final issue of his life, have grown at a
+greater ratio. Such a man has settled his destiny; he has come to the
+great spiritual affirmation of life&mdash;an affirmation which has to be
+repeated so often, and which each time distils something of a higher
+order within the soul.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident that such an affirmation of the reality of spiritual
+ideals, which have now an existence of their own, should lead us
+farther. If they mean so much, why cannot they mean more? If they
+subsist in themselves, they must be what they <i>are</i>. They are to us
+meaning and value of infinite significance. But such and other spiritual
+characteristics are <i>not things</i>, and, as we have seen, not mere
+projections of our own individual selves. There is nothing short of
+personality and over-personality by which they can be even partially
+designated and determined. We are forced to this conclusion if they are
+to be objects of communion and union: and we are forced <span class="pagenum"><a name="p155" id="p155"></a>[p.155]</span> further
+to gather the Many into the One. That was what was done on all lower
+planes. Why stop short here, because infinitely much happens when the
+Many find their points of union and meaning in the One?<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> We have said
+that infinitely much happens when the Many find their meaning in the
+One. A need of the nature has arisen which demands this, and it has
+arisen at its <i>highest possible level alone</i>. Such a nature will never
+become absolutely certain of the meaning and value of all that has led
+up to this until the One obtains a self-subsistence. If this effort
+fails, the whole effort of development towards unity and inwardness
+fails. And when such a chain of effort snaps at its highest link of
+spiritual development, everything that had entered into the process at
+all the levels below it snaps along with it in so far as it had any
+validity whatever in the light of what is higher than itself.</p>
+
+<p>But the fact that this conception of the One, conceived as Absolute
+Spiritual Life, has produced so many effects of the highest kind is a
+proof of its existence. Qualities come into being which can never come
+with such power in any other way. The spiritual experiences, revealed at
+such a level, have something to say on this matter. These experiences,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p156"></a>[p.156]</span> although aware of the meaning of universal concepts, have become
+aware of something higher still: Knowledge has given place to Love; a
+region has been reached beyond all the contradictions of the world and
+beyond all the dialectics of knowledge. It is a region which includes
+the good of all without injuring the good of any; and all the meaning of
+the world and of life is interpreted from this highest standpoint. This
+is the essence of "characteristic" or specific religion. On the level of
+"universal" religion, God was seen from the standpoint of the world; in
+"characteristic" religion the world is seen from the standpoint of God.
+The appearance of the world is consequently different from each
+standpoint. All must now be viewed and valued from the standpoint of
+"characteristic" religion, from the standpoint of the One&mdash;the Godhead;
+and if humanity is ever to be brought to this standpoint, the nature and
+the meaning of the One have to be presented to it. And it is this, as
+Eucken shows, which has been partially accomplished by the religions of
+the world. Their founders were personalities who had scaled the heights
+towards the "holy of holies" of the One; they descended into the plains
+to reveal what they had seen and heard and experienced on the heights.
+They had been able to commune with the Alone, and their natures had been
+completely transformed. In passing thus from the stage of "universal"
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p157"></a>[p.157]</span> religion to the higher stage of "characteristic," men have
+discovered a further security and spiritual evolution of their whole
+being. Their views of man and the world have become changed; they now
+long to make mankind the possessor of the "vision splendid" which has
+meant all for them. Communion with the One as Infinite Love has revealed
+to them a peace and a power which are far beyond all the lower unities.</p>
+
+<p>It is of value, in the midst of all the complexities of life, of the
+partial interpretations of the various branches of knowledge, to have
+passed through the several stages below the One. Some must guard the
+highest citadel of religion and keep open the avenues to Infinity,
+Eternity, and Immortality. And the greater the number who are able to do
+this, the better for the world and for the individual. But a taste of
+this Infinite Love can be obtained without all this. Just as some of us
+are able to walk without a knowledge of the bodily mechanism and to eat
+and digest without a knowledge of the history of our bread, so the
+deeper spiritual potencies inherent in man are able to find a vast
+amount of satisfaction by resting upon and trusting in a Love Absolute,
+Eternal, and Infinite. Here, man is in a region of infinite calm beyond
+the distractions of the world and of knowledge. He cannot remain here
+for any great length of time; he has to return to the world, but he is
+never <span class="pagenum"><a name="p158" id="p158"></a>[p.158]</span> again the same being after having scaled the "mount of
+transfiguration." "Religion holds as certain and conclusive that this
+new inner foundation is the greatest thing of all and the wonder of
+wonders, because it carries within itself the power and certainty of the
+overcoming of the old world and the creation of a new one; it is on
+account of this that religion longs for the conviction of the whole man,
+and brands the denial of this as pettiness and unbelief. The world may
+therefore remain to the external view as it appeared before&mdash;a kingdom
+of opposition and darkness; its hindrances within and without may seem
+to nullify everything else; they may contract and even seemingly destroy
+man and his spiritual potencies; all his acts may seem fruitless and
+vain, and his whole existence may seem to sink into nothingness and
+worthlessness. Yet, through the entrance of the new life and a new
+world, everything is transformed from within, and the clearness of the
+light appears all the more by contrast with all the depth of the
+darkness. Indeed, in the midst of all the mysteries of existence, hope
+and conviction and certainty will consolidate our experience, so that
+ultimately evil itself must serve the development of the good."<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> Or
+in the words of Luther: "This is the spiritual power which reigns and
+rules in the midst of enemies, and is powerful in the midst <span class="pagenum"><a id="p159"></a>[p.159]</span> of
+all oppression. And this is nothing other than that strength is
+perfected in weakness, and that in all things I can gain life eternal,
+so that cross and crown are compelled to serve and to contribute towards
+my salvation."<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
+
+<p>Eucken shows how this idea of God comes from the Life-process itself.
+The Godhead is present, not as an external revelation but as the ever
+fuller meaning and experience which have been carried along in the soul
+in its passage from the natural level to the highest spiritual plane. At
+its summit the development unfolds its true spiritual content of Love.
+The Highest Power&mdash;however much there still remains dark concerning
+it&mdash;has had communication with man, is present within his soul, has
+become his own life and nature, as well as his self-subsistence over
+against the order of the world. Here Love is raised up into an image of
+the Godhead&mdash;Love as a self-communication and as an essential elevation
+of the nature, and as an expression of inmost fellowship.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> "There
+originates a mutual intercourse of the soul and God as between an I and
+a Thou." It has already been stated that Eucken insists that no close
+determination, in an intellectual form, should be given to this
+conception and experience of God. The idea of a personality of God is
+not an intellectual idea presented in any doctrinal form; it is an idea
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p160" id="p160"></a>[p.160]</span> born <i>within</i> the <i>Life-process</i> on its highest levels. On such
+levels it becomes obvious and indispensable. Man may be clearly
+conscious of the symbolism of the idea, and yet, at the same time, grasp
+in it an incontestable intrinsic truth which he knows to be far above
+all mere anthropomorphism. Eucken shows that it is not merely a human
+greatness that has been transferred to the Divine, but that the whole
+meaning here is a return to the source of a Divine Life and its mutual
+communication with man; and therefore the whole process is not an
+argument of man concerning the Divine, because the Divine has to be
+apprehended through the Divine within us. "All opposition to the idea of
+the Divine personality is ultimately explained by the fact that an
+energetic Life-process is wanting&mdash;a Life-process which entertains the
+question not so much from without as from within. Whenever such a
+Life-process is found, there is simultaneously found, often in overt
+contradiction to the formal doctrinal statement, an element of such a
+personal character of God."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> But this <i>immanent</i> aspect of the idea
+of God is accompanied by a <i>transcendent</i> aspect. We have noticed
+already that the very nature of the <i>Ought</i> included a transcendent and
+objective aspect.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a>
+The same fact becomes evident in <span class="pagenum"><a id="p161"></a>[p.161]</span> religious
+experience. The two poles&mdash;immanence and transcendence&mdash;are
+complementary. The former shows that something of the Divine nature has
+been implanted within human nature; the latter shows that more is in
+existence than we have already possessed. Spiritual norms never decrease
+but increase in splendour the nearer man is to their attainment.
+Something is here discovered which is not found in the world; it is a
+kind of transcendent summit, a mysterious sublimity. And an approach
+towards this summit produces experiences never to be possessed in any
+other kind of way. As Eucken himself puts it: "If this sublimity
+superior to the world secures an abode in the soul, and, indeed, becomes
+the inmost and most intimate part of our being, and enables us to
+participate in the self-subsistence of infinity, it opens up within us a
+fathomless depth, in which the existence that lies nearest to our hands
+is swallowed up, and it makes us a problem to ourselves&mdash;a problem which
+transforms the whole of life&mdash;whilst it enables us to understand and to
+handle what at the outset appeared to be its whole life as a mere phase
+and appearance. Thus it is the same religion which opens out from God to
+man and which simultaneously opens itself out in man himself and becomes
+a great mystery to him. Therefore, in the idea of God the intimate and
+the ultimate must both be present if religion is to reach its full
+development and to <span class="pagenum"><a id="p162"></a>[p.162]</span> avoid the dangers which everywhere threaten
+it."<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> Both these aspects interlace in one Life-process; the unity is
+present in the manifold, and the ultimate present in the intimate.</p>
+
+<p>According to Eucken, it is out of such an experience as we have noticed
+that the idea of immortality becomes a firm belief and faith within the
+soul. The idea cannot be proved scientifically, simply because its
+spiritual content is greater than anything which is <i>below</i> it. The
+whole proof lies within the experience itself at this, its highest
+summit. "The Infinite Power and Love that has grounded a new spontaneous
+nature in man, over against a dark and hostile world, will conserve such
+a new nature and its spiritual nucleus, and shelter it against all
+perils and assaults, so that life as the bearer of life eternal can
+never be wholly lost in the stream of time." We are here in a region
+farthest removed from sense and understanding; but the remarkable thing
+is that the conviction of immortality does not dawn on any lower level;
+it is not on the lower levels a portion of spiritual experience. It
+seems as if an element of immortality is only to be gained at a certain
+height of the spiritual life. On all levels below, men seek for proofs
+in the analogies of Nature, in the supposed return of the spirits of the
+dead, and in the craving found in their own lives. All these proofs have
+one thing in common: they <span class="pagenum"><a name="p163" id="p163"></a>[p.163]</span> are all of a lower order of value than
+the meaning which the content of experience gives to immortality on its
+highest level. For at this highest level the proof is not something
+happening outside the man; it is the deepest part of his own being which
+now actually possesses a taste of life eternal. It seems, then, that
+there is no answer to the problem outside ourselves, because it is not
+something to be known, but something to be experienced after long toil
+and a stirring of the nature to its lowest depths in the drift of all
+that is highest and best.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> It is sufficient for us to possess a life
+which is spiritual and timeless in its nature: and when such a life is
+possessed, empirical proofs are neither demanded nor desired. It is
+within one's own new and spiritual world that proofs are now discovered,
+and they are timeless and spaceless in their own intrinsic nature. "Do
+this, and thou shalt live." If the man has to negate all concerning the
+preservation of his natural individuality, the new world he has gained
+for his soul will have abundant affirmation within itself, without the
+support of any earthly props. It is his own highest life which testifies
+to him that "death does not count" at all.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken's whole plea is that spiritual life at the point of its highest
+manifestation should not be interpreted by anything below itself.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p164"></a>[p.164]</span> We have already noticed how, on lower levels, spiritual life was
+even there interpreted by its <i>norms</i>, and not by its connections with
+what was <i>below itself</i>. The disappearance of miracle in religion is an
+indispensable stage which must be passed over. It is necessary only on a
+mid-level of religion, and has really been far more of the nature of a
+symbol than of a fact. It is at our peril that in religion we give up
+such a symbol until a more "inward wonder" has happened within our own
+soul. When the self-subsistence of the spiritual life and the reality of
+the norms of the over-world, now all united in God, are experienced, all
+miraculous manifestations of the Divine, imaginary or real, are
+relegated to a secondary place. They all belong to a point which the man
+has passed; they are milestones to which he can never return. "An evil
+and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign
+be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet." As Eucken points out,
+"This is no other than the sign of spiritual power and of a Divine
+message and greatness." The movement from signs and miracles is a
+movement from the outward to the inward, from percept to spirituality;
+and the essence of religion, as a reality in itself and as an experience
+of the soul, is to be found by taking such a step. The centre of gravity
+of life has now been shifted from the outward to the inward. To
+accomplish this means nothing less than a <span class="pagenum"><a id="p165"></a>[p.165]</span> struggle for <i>the
+governing centre of life</i>. Unless we succeed in this struggle, the inner
+life will reach no independence and subsistence of its own. Even when
+the struggle succeeds in gaining its longed-for depth, it has not
+removed for once and for all the contradictions from without and within.
+Difficulties, from the lower side, will accompany the spiritual life in
+its higher evolution, but once it has become conscious of its own Divine
+nature and certainty it will gain sufficiently in content and power to
+relegate them all to the periphery. Something has happened within the
+soul which can never be obliterated. As Eucken says: "The contradiction
+is now removed from the centre to the periphery of life; it can
+therefore only touch us from without, and is not able to overthrow what
+is within; it will not so much weaken as strengthen the certainty,
+because it calls life to a perpetual renewal and brings to fruition the
+greatness of the conquest."<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p166" id="p166"></a>[p.166]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<h2>THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS</h2>
+
+
+<p>We have noticed in the two preceding chapters how Eucken distinguished
+the two stages of religion&mdash;the "Universal" and the
+"Characteristic"&mdash;and how he showed the necessity of both stages. As man
+cannot escape from the conclusions of his intellect, it becomes
+necessary for him to come to an understanding with those conclusions;
+and although such conclusions do not form a complete account of life in
+its deepest aspects, still they are indispensable for him in order to
+know that he is on the path towards a further development of his
+spiritual nature. Hence the grounds of religion have to be emphasised by
+the conclusions of the intellect. But though intellectual conclusions,
+as we have already seen, warrant us in holding fast to the presence and
+reality of a life of the spirit and to the possibility of an evolution
+of such a life, all this does not mean that such an evolution is
+actually reached through the affirmations of <span class="pagenum"><a id="p167"></a>[p.167]</span> the intellect. The
+road of spiritual development is marked out, but we have to travel over
+that road ourselves. Something more than an intellectual acknowledgment
+of the existence of such a road is necessary before the actual movement
+takes place. When the actual movement does take place, when the
+intellectual conclusions come in contact with a will arising from our
+deepest needs, the matter becomes personal&mdash;it becomes something that
+has to be affirmed by the blending of intellect with the deeper
+spiritual potencies. The vision at this higher stage constitutes not
+only the certainty of a path for man&mdash;a path which leads to higher
+regions&mdash;but brings forth hidden energies in order to start him on the
+enterprise. The whole vision is now seen to be possible of realisation
+only through personal decisions of the whole nature in the direction of
+the over-personal values which present themselves. These over-personal
+values increase as the soul passes along the upward path and as it
+grants a self-subsistence and unconditional significance to these
+values. There follows here an increase of spiritual reflection; the
+content of the vision is loosened from sense and time; its
+self-subsistence becomes more and more real and more and more and more
+different from all that was experienced on any level below; knowledge
+steps into the background, and love and appreciation now guide the whole
+movement of <span class="pagenum"><a id="p168"></a>[p.168]</span> the soul. As we have already seen, when this
+happens, the idea of God as Infinite Love presents itself, and the
+soul's main task is to climb to the summits "where on the glimmering
+limits far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn." Religion
+is at such a level more than an intellectual insistence upon its
+grounds; the soul looks now rather to its summits. Hence the two stages
+of Universal and Characteristic religion become necessary. And it is not
+always true that the Universal mode ceases once the Characteristic mode
+is partially realised. The soul has to descend from the heights into the
+ordinary world below. And as it now sees the world with new eyes, it
+sees much more to be condemned than was previously possible for it to
+see. There comes the constant need of certifying the validity of its
+experience on the heights, and of getting others who have never
+attempted the experiment to do so. The man possessed of something of the
+vision within his own soul proclaims his "gospel," and conceives of all
+kinds of ways and means by which humanity can be drawn towards the same
+goal.</p>
+
+<p>This is the meaning which Eucken attaches to the origin and development
+of the union of universal and specific religions as these have been
+revealed in human history. The intellectual grounds of religion as well
+as something of the actual spiritual experiences are presented by the
+founders. Every kind of <span class="pagenum"><a id="p169"></a>[p.169]</span> religion has originated in this manner.
+They are all attempts at showing that a <i>here and now</i> and a <i>beyond</i>
+have united and become potencies of life, and can become actualities.
+The <i>here and now</i> always points to a <i>beyond</i>, and the <i>beyond</i>, when
+it is realised, returns to the <i>here and now</i> and always transforms it.
+Thus, we are in the midst of two worlds which are continuous with one
+another just as the valley is continuous with the base of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Such historical religions do not, then, originate in the collective
+experiences of humanity, but in what has actually happened in the life
+of unique personalities. These personalities have become, as it were,
+mediators between God and man. Such religions adopt the most diverse
+forms, because the personalities have given of the content of their own
+personal experiences, and no two experiences view anything from
+standpoints precisely identical. The historical religions may
+consequently be narrow in their outlook. The personalities are dependent
+upon their race, place, training, and inheritance for the particular
+intellectual presentation of their religion. Thus, each historical
+religion has its own view of the universe and its own morality. But the
+value of no historical religion is to be judged from this standpoint
+alone. Such views of the universe and such morality must have appeared
+to them somehow as a good&mdash;as <span class="pagenum"><a id="p170"></a>[p.170]</span> ways and means to what lay
+<i>beyond</i>. We may have outgrown such ways and means; other ways and means
+higher in their nature may have become our inheritance. But these higher
+ways and means could not have evolved out of their lower stages had not
+some element of the <i>beyond</i> instilled itself into them. The historical
+religions could never have flourished on immorality and superstition,
+however much of these we may discover in them. It is the <i>beyond,
+over-personal</i> element which has kept them alive, and this element has
+always had a hard struggle to overcome and transform <i>the here-and-now</i>
+elements. Whenever the historical religions are traced back to their
+sources, there is discovered an element <i>above</i> the world in the souls
+of their founders and of their immediate followers. As Eucken puts it:
+"To these founders the new kingdom was no vague outline and no feeble
+hope, but all stood clear in front of them; the kingdom was so real to
+their souls and filled them so exclusively that the whole sensuous world
+was reduced by them to a semblance and a shadow if they could not
+otherwise gain a new value from a superior power. The new world could
+attain to such immediacy and impressiveness only because a regal
+imagination wrestled for a unique picture in the tangled heap of life,
+and because it invested this picture with the clearest outlines and the
+most vivid colours. Thus the new world dawns on humanity with <span class="pagenum"><a id="p171"></a>[p.171]</span>
+fascinating power, rousing it out of the sluggishness of daily routine,
+binding it through a corporate aim, raising inspiring ardour through
+radiant promises and terrible threats, and creating achievements
+otherwise impossible. This prepared road into the kingdom of the
+invisible, this creation of a new reality which is no merely serene kind
+of play but a deep seriousness, this inversion of worlds which pushes
+sensuous existence down into a distance and which prepares a home for
+man within the kingdom of faith&mdash;all this is the greatest achievement
+that has ever been undertaken and that has ever worked upon human soil.
+... Their works seemed to carry within them Divine energies; wonders
+surrounded their paths; their life and being bridged securely the gulf
+between heaven and earth."<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> Now, Eucken shows that it is of great
+importance to acknowledge these personalities in order that life may be
+brought into a safe track. Enough has already been said of the
+impossibility of finding a sufficiency for life and death within the
+span of ordinary existence. And as this is so, a whole span of past and
+present has to be taken into account. The world cannot move a step
+towards the heights of the future without this. The real future is the
+blend of what <i>was</i> and <i>is</i> forming the standard and the receptacle for
+what is <i>to be.</i> We have already noticed how such a standard <span class="pagenum"><a id="p172"></a>[p.172]</span>
+evolves; and how, when it is followed to its utmost limits, it merges
+into the conception of God. But as all this is a conception spiritual in
+its nature&mdash;devoid of flesh and blood as its clothing&mdash;it becomes
+extremely difficult for the majority of mankind to hold fast to its
+reality in a world where flesh and blood mean so much. Something more
+tangible is craved for by man as a proof of an over-world and of an
+over-personal life. Such proof men are able to obtain in the great
+religious personalities of the world without having to go through the
+intellectual processes of discovering the grounds of religion. Men are
+able to view this spiritual truth as they view a picture. It becomes
+easy to understand how such personalities have been raised beyond all
+human valuations to a likeness to God and even to an equality with God.
+Such personalities were the highest conceptions which men could possess
+of the Godhead. This seems to have been a necessary stage in the
+evolution of the religious life as well as of religious conceptions. And
+even to-day attention is not to be diverted from such personalities. The
+question whether they were or were not gods has become meaningless. What
+psychology is able to fathom the soul of any individual? Every attempt
+at doctrinal formulation states less than was present within the souls
+of such personalities. But, on the other hand, it does seem necessary,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p173"></a>[p.173]</span> according to Eucken's teaching, to avoid confusing such
+personalities with the All. They were great; they possessed elements
+above the world; but none of them possessed the whole that is in
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>The truth concerning these founders of religion seems to lie in the fact
+that they realised a depth of life beyond the world, the intellect, and
+the span of ordinary life. It is this fact that needs to be brought
+prominently forward in our day. And such a fact becomes an experimental
+proof of the presence and efficacy of the Divine within the soul and
+points to an upward direction the total-movement of the world. If such a
+fact does not succeed in holding for itself a primary place, other
+subsidiary facts will colour and weaken its true spiritual content and
+value. This is the road on which speculative and superstitious ideas
+have found an entrance into the historical religions. When such is the
+case, the spiritual reality is gradually weakened, is lowered to the
+level of intellectualistic dogma, until it ultimately becomes, though in
+the guise of religion, the worst enemy which spiritual religion has to
+encounter. All hard and fixed dogmatic settings of religion usurp the
+supremacy of the spiritual life itself.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken shows this in connection with religious
+institutions&mdash;institutions which were meant by their founders to be
+essential but <span class="pagenum"><a id="p174"></a>[p.174]</span> still subservient to the needs and aspirations of
+spiritual life. Thus, genuine religion is measured by a doctrinal
+standard or by a sacrament. These may possess an incalculable value in
+religion, when used as means and not as ends; but they may, and often
+do, issue in its degradation to a stage which is hardly a spiritual one.
+Every historical religion possesses some absolute truth, but does not
+possess the whole truth; and also each historical religion possesses
+some elements which have to pass away. But this matter will be dealt
+with in a later chapter.</p>
+
+<p>The main service of the historical religions is to bring home to us the
+fact that in the course of human history a spiritual life above the
+world has again and again dawned on mankind through the experiences and
+works of great personalities. To realise intensely such a fact is to
+realise the fact that all this can happen again in a more concentrated
+form than is actually presented in the slow and toilsome effects of the
+results of the collective life of the community.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well to refer here to Eucken's classification of the religions
+of the world. This classifications consists of <i>the Religions of Law and
+the Religions of Redemption</i>. The Religions of Law maintain that the
+kernel of religion lies in "the announcement and advocacy of a moral
+order which governs the world from on high." God has revealed His will
+to man; <span class="pagenum"><a id="p175"></a>[p.175]</span> if man obeys, rich rewards await him in a future life;
+if he disobeys, painful punishment is sure to follow. Man himself has to
+select one of the two alternatives, and he believes himself able to
+choose. The Religions of Redemption consider such a view false and
+superficial. Now, there is no doubt that the Religions of Law are stages
+which are of value when men are incapable of grasping the difficulties
+and complexities of religion. The whole of religion on this level of Law
+is a replica of the relations which obtain on a smaller scale between a
+sovereign and his subjects, or between a master and his slave. Authority
+is something purely external. The two Religions of Redemption&mdash;the
+Indian and the Christian&mdash;seek the meaning of religion in a very
+different manner. They both agree that human capability, which seems so
+evident to the Religions of Law, is the most difficult and important of
+all questions. They agree further that the essence of religion does not
+consist in guiding life for the sake of something that life is to
+participate in or to avoid in the future; they agree that a change must
+happen within the soul in this world, and that this change only comes
+about through the aid of a supernatural power. But these two religions
+differ fundamentally in their different ways of looking at the world. To
+the Indian religions, the existence of the world is an evil; the world
+is itself a kingdom of illusions. "All in it is transient <span class="pagenum"><a id="p176"></a>[p.176]</span> and
+unreal; nothing in it has duration; happiness and love are merely
+momentary, and men are as two pieces of wood floating on the face of an
+infinite ocean which pass by one another, never to meet again. Fruitless
+agitation and painful deception have fallen upon him who mistakes such a
+transient semblance for a reality and who hangs his heart upon it.
+Therefore it behoves man to free himself from such an unholy arena. This
+emancipation will take place when the semblance is seen through as
+semblance, and when the soul has gained an insight right into the
+foundation of things. Then the world loses its power over man; the whole
+kingdom of deception with its evanescent values goes to the bottom, all
+the excited affections caused by the world are extinguished, and life
+becomes a still and holy calm; it reaches the depth of a dreamless
+sleep, enters, through its immersion into an eternal essence, beyond the
+shadows; it passes, according to Buddhism in its most definite
+interpretation, into a state of entire unconsciousness."<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p>
+
+<p>How different a spirit from all this breathes in Christianity! In
+Christianity the world is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far
+enough. Something of the revelation of the Divine may be discovered
+within it, but this is only a segment of a greater whole which comes to
+realisation within the soul. Here, the world is not cast away, despite
+all its limitations, but <span class="pagenum"><a id="p177"></a>[p.177]</span> is perceived as the only sphere where
+spiritual experience may exercise itself and draw out its own hidden
+potencies. Tribulation is to be found in the world; but a standpoint
+<i>above</i> the world, gained by cutting a path right through the world, is
+possible. When such a standpoint is reached, the world is seen as it
+ought to be seen and used as it ought to be used. But this aspect of the
+meaning of the world in the Christian religion will be dealt with later.
+It is sufficient to state here that Eucken considers Christianity
+superior to all other religions by virtue of the fact that it overcomes
+the world, not by fleeing from it, but by transforming it. It views the
+physical world as a stage upon which the life of the spirit has to
+realise all its possibilities; the world and all that is within it take
+a secondary place: the primary place is now accorded to the world of
+ideals and values as these merge into love and the conception of the
+Godhead.</p>
+
+<p>The question of the finality of the Christian religion in its purely
+historical sense has been discussed by Eucken in his <i>Truth of Religion,
+Christianity and the New Idealism</i>, and <i>K&ouml;nnen wir noch Christen sein</i>?
+In these three works he arrives at the conclusion that no one religion
+has a claim to the name "absolute religion," because even Christianity
+itself cannot be more than a partial, though the highest, manifestation
+of the Divine. And what Christianity has been and is in <span class="pagenum"><a id="p178"></a>[p.178]</span> itself
+as a force in the history of the Western world cannot be the same as
+what it was in the personal experience of its Founder. It is not
+something which descended once and for all into the world, and so
+remains its permanent inheritance. It is the most priceless inheritance
+we possess; but such an inheritance has to be discovered again and
+again. All this cannot come about without calling up to-day the same
+spiritual energies as were needful for the tasks that were present when
+Christianity started to conquer the world. Its aspects of "world-denial
+and world-renewal" render Christianity the very religion we need. "It is
+the religion of religions," but a statement of this fact does not mean
+the realisation of the fact. The same energy and aspiration are needful
+to-day as in the days of yore. Christianity, whenever it has lived on
+its highest levels, has struggled for two tremendous facts at least: the
+insufficiency of the world and the regeneration of the world in the
+light of the Divine. It is not a repetition of what the Founder said
+concerning religion. What the Founder said cost him enormous labour to
+discover and to possess. We shall gain so much and no more of the same
+spiritual substance as we put the same kind of energy in motion. In
+order that we may unravel the complexities of our day, a spirit similar
+to his spirit must become ours. When such a spirit ceases to exist,
+Christianity will become merely a <span class="pagenum"><a id="p179"></a>[p.179]</span> name; its power will have
+disappeared, and men can delude themselves into believing that they
+possess it when in fact they are the possessors of but little of its
+spirit and of much of its form. But the possession of the same spirit as
+that of Jesus constitutes the further development of Christianity, and
+this further development is nothing other than what we have already
+seen&mdash;the experience and efficacy of an eternal order of things in the
+midst of all the changes of time. Thus we are thrown back once more, not
+upon our bare individual selves, but upon the presence of the Divine
+within the spiritual life itself. Christianity is therefore not
+something that has been completed in the past, but the highest mode of
+conceiving and of experiencing Life in the present; it becomes an
+inward, personal and spiritual experience; and its duration and
+expansion depend upon the increase and depth of such a spiritual
+inwardness.</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p180" id="p180"></a>[p.180]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<h2>CHRISTIANITY</h2>
+
+
+<p>It has been noticed how "Characteristic" or "Specific" religion means
+the carrying farther of the implications of "Universal" religion. It is
+not only necessary to know the "grounds" of religion, as these reveal
+themselves within the conclusions of the intellect: we have to plant
+ourselves upon these "grounds"; we must <i>be</i> what they <i>mean</i>. Thus,
+religion becomes a personal task&mdash;something that can never be realised
+until the whole nature comes to constant decisions of its own and acts
+upon those decisions in the light of what has expressed itself in the
+form of those over-personal norms which have further developed into a
+conception of, and communion with, the Godhead. We have noticed further,
+how this essence of religion was realised in the lives of great
+personalities in history, as well as in the religions which they helped
+to found.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken does not hesitate to affirm that the highest of these religions
+is the Christian <span class="pagenum"><a id="p181"></a>[p.181]</span> religion. The core of the Christian religion
+consists, as we have already noticed, in its presentation of "a
+world-denial and world-renewal" in a far higher degree than any of the
+other religions, and also in the fact that it presents the union of the
+human and the Divine in a clearer light than before. We have noticed,
+too, how the Indian religions had to condemn the world in order to
+penetrate to the very essence and bliss of religion. Mohammedanism
+affirmed the world in too strong a manner, and its eternal world
+constituted a kind of replica of the present material world on an
+enlarged scale. The Jewish religion evolved through a series of stages
+which finally culminated in Christianity. The Roman and the Greek
+religions presented too many pluralistic aspects to be able ever to
+reach the highest synthesis whereby the Many found their meaning,
+interpretation, and value in the One.</p>
+
+<p>Although the Christian religion cannot be designated as absolute
+religion, still it may be designated as the highest and most perfect
+manifestation of the Divine. The meaning of the term "absolute religion"
+involves a conception impossible to maintain, on account of the fact
+that in all religions some spiritual truth is discerned and realised.
+The term "absolute religion" is also false on account of the fact that
+no religion can contain the whole that is to be revealed and
+experienced. Christianity <span class="pagenum"><a id="p182"></a>[p.182]</span> is best valued when it is seen, not as
+a completion of the revelation of the Divine to man, but as a revelation
+which has to be preserved, deepened, and carried farther. In the soul of
+the Founder of Christianity there was doubtless present far more than is
+expressed in the Biblical records, and far more than actually filtered
+into the individual and collective consciousness of the earliest
+Christian communities. But we cannot live on what has occurred in the
+life of any other individual or community except in so far as this
+enters also into our own individual and the collective consciousness. We
+have already touched on this aspect of the impossibility of obtaining
+sufficient strength for the warfare of the present in anything that
+occurred in the past. Some measure of strength&mdash;and no psychology is
+able to say how much&mdash;can be obtained from a vision of the spiritual
+meaning and significance of the life of the Founder. But there is very
+great danger in looking here alone for the sole source of all the help
+we need. The spiritual principles of Christianity have been operating in
+the world ever since the Master presented the Gospel which he lived and
+died for. The problem of Christianity is thus a twofold problem. On the
+one hand, we have constantly to go back to the Fountain-head, because it
+is here that the stream is purest. But we have, on the other hand, to
+enter into the religious current which surrounds us; and this may be not
+so <span class="pagenum"><a id="p183"></a>[p.183]</span> pure as it was at its source. Alien waters have entered into
+the current&mdash;waters of very different taste from those which even the
+Founder expected. These have doubtless polluted the stream. But, on the
+other hand, good elements&mdash;primary and secondary&mdash;have entered into the
+deepest nature of Christianity itself. These have to be taken into
+account. They have been necessitated by the new and ever more complex
+situations and conditions into which Christianity has had to enter from
+generation to generation. It was comparatively easy for Christianity in
+its early beginnings to include within its compass the whole of life.
+But by to-day life has branched off in so many new directions;
+perplexing problems of knowledge and life have made their appearance. We
+dare not dismiss these to a region outside the sphere of influence of
+Christianity. Christianity, if it is to remain and increase as a living
+force, has to interpret these problems; it has to help us to distinguish
+between the chaff and the wheat.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is the true meaning of Christianity? Eucken shows that it is
+not possible to determine the nature of Christianity without realising
+that the nucleus common to all religions lies in the fact "that they
+manifest and represent a Divine Life, and that such a Life in its inmost
+foundation is superior to its external configuration and activity, and
+is able to withstand all the changes of time, and to <span class="pagenum"><a id="p184"></a>[p.184]</span> maintain
+within itself, in spite of all its curtailment through the human
+situation, <i>an eternal truth</i>." This nucleus lies deeper in Christianity
+than in any other religion. But even Christianity itself is not a pure
+spiritual nucleus. Much, as we have already noticed, has gathered around
+it&mdash;much that reveals a lower grade of spirituality. All this
+constitutes the clothing of Christianity. The clothing has been changed
+again and again in the past. What reason is there for affirming that it
+cannot be changed again? It is therefore necessary to differentiate
+between the <i>Substance</i> of Christianity and its <i>Existential-form</i>. The
+Substance constitutes the fundamental Life superior to the world, and
+has been present throughout the whole of the Christian era; and it is
+this Substance which has raised men beyond the merely human situation;
+it is the Substance that has enabled men to overcome the world, and
+afterwards to see the world from the standpoint of the Divine. In this
+work of differentiation we are dependent in a very large measure upon
+the results of knowledge. Such results do not grant us the Substance of
+Christianity, because this is something which has to be lived into in
+order to be possessed. The transformation which occurs on account of a
+change in the Existential-form may indeed prove helpful to the spiritual
+nucleus itself, because it represents a truth of the intellect-a truth
+which does not conflict with any <span class="pagenum"><a id="p185"></a>[p.185]</span> knowledge outside its own
+sphere. There are many dangers to be discovered in this process of
+interpreting the spiritual nucleus. A mode of interpretation whose
+meaning has very largely passed away is bound to prove injurious,
+because it comes into sharp conflict with a newer and more comprehensive
+meaning, and consequently Christianity fails to win the support of those
+who are acquainted with the new Existential-form. And even the
+individual who retains the old clothing, and looks upon it as being
+something of the same nature as the spiritual nucleus, is in danger of
+basing a portion of his religion on a foundation of sand. But, on the
+other hand, he who is aware of the flaws of the old Existential-form
+without having assimilated the Spiritual Substance which lies beneath
+it, is in danger of drifting from religion altogether. The only way of
+serving best and carrying farther the development of the Christian
+religion is to grasp and experience deeply the fact that the Spiritual
+Substance is something entirely different from its form of existence.
+Its form of existence is an attempt to account for the Substance; it
+consists of intellectual concepts. And as with everything else in this
+world so with religion; mere intellectual concepts change, and cannot be
+more than receptacles used by the human mind to enshrine the things
+which are presented as meanings and values within the soul.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p186"></a>[p.186]</span> Eucken pays great attention to the necessity of this process of
+differentiation between the two elements in Christianity. There is a
+need to-day of a new form of existence for Christianity; but the
+satisfaction of this need will not grant us the spiritual nucleus
+itself. The spiritual nucleus is something to be gained not by means of
+knowledge, but by means of love. Eucken goes so far as to state that the
+idea of love and love of one's enemy as presented in Christianity forms
+a new element for the redemption of the individual and of the race. To
+grasp this idea and to penetrate into its nature is to solve all the
+problems of life and death. This is the Eternal element in the Christian
+religion. It is found, it is true, in other religions; but why should we
+look for it elsewhere when it blossomed with such divine glory in the
+life of the Founder? This is the highest spiritual synthesis
+conceivable. The world has known nothing greater, and nothing greater is
+to be known. This is the Eternal element in Christianity which has to be
+possessed and preserved and furthered. If we ask the question concerning
+the success or failure of Christianity in the future, the answer is to
+be found by answering the question, Is Love to God and Love to man found
+within it to-day? If we are able to answer in the affirmative, we are
+thereby answering the question in regard to the future duration and
+conquests of Christianity. And if it possesses <span class="pagenum"><a id="p187"></a>[p.187]</span> this element
+deeply enough, it can adopt any existential-form which appears true
+without any kind of alarm. If we have to answer in the negative, there
+is no guarantee as to persistence of Christianity in the future.
+Anything less than the spiritual nucleus of Love is lacking in strength
+necessary to withstand the storms of the future.</p>
+
+<p>We thus see that the essence of Christianity and its durability do not
+lie in any kind of theology: it lies within the Spiritual Substance
+which has abode within it throughout the centuries. Here will the world
+find its peace and power; here will all social complexities be solved;
+here will the meanings and blessings of the spiritual over-world of
+goodness and love become the possession of man. This is what Eucken
+means by contending that it is not the business of Christianity to deal
+with social problems in any light but the light of Infinite Love.
+Without an experience of this deepest source of Christianity, we do not
+possess the equipment for doing anything more than patching and
+re-patching the evils of the world. And all our patching, when but a
+small span of time has passed away, will leave the situation just as it
+was, or probably worse. Every solution will give birth to a new
+complexity; the world may be incessantly active in connection with the
+betterment of the social situation,'but we shall never heal the wounds
+of individuals and of nations until they are <span class="pagenum"><a name="p188" id="p188"></a>[p.188]</span> brought to the
+depth of the spiritual life revealed in Christianity as Eternal Love. "A
+warm love towards all humanity runs through Christianity; it longs to
+redeem every individual; it gives man a value beyond all special
+achievements and on the other side of all mental and moral deeds; it has
+been the first to bring the pure inwardness of the soul to a clear
+expression. But it has also, through the linking of the human to a
+Divine and Eternal Order, raised life beyond all that is trivial and
+merely human with its civic ordinances and social interests. He who,
+with the best intention, views Christianity as a mere means for the
+betterment of the social situation, draws it from the heights of its
+nature, and deprives it of the main constituent of its greatness&mdash;the
+emancipation from the petty-human within the depths of the human itself.
+It is essentially the nature of Christianity that it transplants man
+into a new world over against the world that is nearest to our hands; it
+has planted the fundamental conviction of Platonism of the existence of
+an Eternal Order over against the world of Time amongst a great portion
+of the human race, and has given a mighty impetus to all effort. But it
+has, though it separated the Eternal from Time, brought it back again
+into Time; and through the presence of the Eternal it has, for the first
+time, proposed to mankind and to each individual a fundamental inner
+renewal, <span class="pagenum"><a id="p189"></a>[p.189]</span> and through this has inaugurated a genuine
+history."<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p>
+
+<p>Acknowledging such a nucleus as constituting the very substance of
+Christianity, Eucken proceeds to show the necessity of preserving and
+unfolding the nucleus against the changes of Time. The nucleus has to be
+preserved over against Nature. It has been noticed in previous chapters
+how modern science has presented us with a view of Nature immensely
+vaster than that presented in Christian theology. Such a view has
+destroyed for ever a large number of the theological conceptions of the
+past. The earth has been reduced to a subsidiary place within the
+cosmos; and any attempt to return to the old conceptions is bought at
+too high a price. A new mode of thought in regard to the interpretation
+of the physical universe has come to stay, and the sooner the Christian
+Church comes to an understanding with it the better for the Church
+itself. And this new mode may be gladly accepted, because it cannot
+touch the nature and destiny of the <i>soul</i> of man. We are not able to
+view the perfect circle of things, but we are able to <span class="pagenum"><a id="p190"></a>[p.190]</span> trace a
+segment of it in the fact of the unmistakably cosmic character of the
+spiritual life. The progressive intensifying of the Life-process has
+made the fact abundantly clear that Nature is not the final reality it
+was supposed to be by the scientific mode of the past, but that it
+signifies no more than a "human vista of reality." And, as we have
+already observed in connection with the Theory of Knowledge, the nature
+of that "vista" is determined by a mental process and a construction
+beyond Nature. Nature appears as no more than an environment when once
+the power of Eternal Life has appeared within the soul. An insistence on
+this power and <i>its</i> capacity has raised man to a level from which he
+recognises the "priority of spirit" in spite of all the "palpableness of
+sensuous impressions." Man thus appears great as against Nature; but
+there is more than enough to make him humble when he views himself in
+the light of that truth which constitutes the Spiritual and Eternal
+Substance of Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>Not only do we find the two different elements present in the
+Christianity of our day; they are also apparent in the presentation of
+Christianity found within the Gospels themselves. The miraculous
+elements in the Gospels exhibit a number of contradictions; and an even
+more serious objection to them is the fact that they come into direct
+conflict <span class="pagenum"><a id="p191"></a>[p.191]</span> with the scientific interpretation of Nature. As Eucken
+says: "To place a miracle in that one situation would mean an overthrow
+of the total order of Nature, as this order has been set forth through
+the fundamental work of modern investigation and through an incalculable
+fulness of experiences. What would justify such a breach with the total
+mode of reality ought to appear to us with overwhelming, indisputable
+clearness. Has the traditional fact this degree of certainty, and cannot
+it be explained in any other way? Who is able to assert this with entire
+assurance? If the superiority of the Divine was, on this particular
+occasion, to be proclaimed in a tangible manner, why did all this happen
+for a small circle of believers alone, and why did it not happen to
+others? There seems, however, to have been necessary a certain state of
+the souls of the disciples to make them see what they thought they saw;
+but in all this there is found a psychic and subjective factor in
+operation&mdash;a factor whose potency is very difficult to define and to
+mark its boundaries. It would have been a fact of a wonderful nature if
+the souls of the disciples, from within, became suddenly and without
+intermediary convinced of the continuation of the life and the presence
+of the Master: all this would have been no sensuous miracle&mdash;no break in
+the course of Nature. But we have to bear in mind how times of strong
+religious agitation and <span class="pagenum"><a name="p192" id="p192"></a>[p.192]</span> convulsion are so little qualified to
+judge concerning external phenomena, and how easily a psychic state
+solidifies into a supposed percept! Within and without Christianity
+there are numerous examples of the sensuous appearance of a dead person
+being considered to be fully authenticated by the narrower circle of
+friends. Savonarola appeared more than a hundred times after his death,
+but always to those whose hearts clung to him; and to fifteen nuns of
+the convent of St Lucia he gave the consecrated wafer through the
+opening in their <i>grille</i>."<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p>
+
+<p>Eucken shows that an inability to accept the miraculous element in the
+Gospels need not prevent anyone from being the possessor of the
+Spiritual Substance. The spiritual content of Christianity is a content
+which lies beyond the region of physical phenomena, whether those
+phenomena are natural or are supposed to be supernatural. Christianity
+is dragged down to a lower level by confusing its mode of existence with
+its spiritual kernel. Religion is able to subsist without such aids
+simply because it has discovered the true wonder within the spiritual
+life itself. We do not know what future investigations may reveal from
+the scientific side. It may be that Nature will appear more and more
+mechanical in many of its manifestations; but even if this should prove
+to be the case, it can produce no injury whatever to the nature <span class="pagenum"><a name="p193" id="p193"></a>[p.193]</span>
+and content of spiritual life. It may be, on the other hand, that the
+scientific movement now proceeding in the direction of neo-Vitalism will
+produce results which will modify and even overthrow the mechanical
+conceptions of life, and thus enable the future to construct a
+Metaphysic of Nature.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> The battle between these two schools of
+science is proceeding to-day. But even if the final issue should be a
+decision in favour of mechanism, the destiny of Christianity or of the
+human soul does not depend upon such a decision. If the issue should
+turn in favour of the vitalistic conception, great gains are bound to
+accrue to religion; for thus a warrant for a belief in a reality higher
+in nature than what is termed physical will be established and shown to
+be at work in the origin and constant "becoming" of physical phenomena.
+The main point for us to-day is to hold fast to the superiority of
+spiritual life to all that we know concerning the physical universe.
+Unless this is done, we shall lose the deeper inward connections of
+life, and shall be in danger of sinking back to the level of
+naturalism&mdash;a level from which the culture and religion of the Western
+world have partially emerged. Further, the spiritual nucleus of
+Christianity <span class="pagenum"><a name="p194" id="p194"></a>[p.194]</span> must be preserved over against the changes of
+history. Changes in human society threaten Christianity more directly
+than even the changes of Nature. These changes, in so far as they are
+judged by a spiritual standard to be good, can be accepted by
+Christianity, but only on the presupposition that Christianity has
+learned how to differentiate between its Eternal Substance and its
+temporal form of existence. The mere flow of the events of Time is
+insufficient to produce a religion of substance and duration, for here
+we are dependent upon the content of the moment. This aspect has been
+already dealt with in the chapter on Religion and History.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> A similar
+necessity for differentiating between the Eternal and the temporary
+which Eucken enforced in regard to Christianity applies in his view to
+all the movements of the world. Whatever form&mdash;scientific,
+philosophical, social, theological&mdash;these movements may take, they have
+all to find their meaning in a Standard which is Eternal. Whenever such
+a Standard has been recognised, mankind was able to move in an upward
+direction; whenever it was absent, the complexities of knowledge and
+life increased and had no light to reflect upon themselves, and no power
+to <span class="pagenum"><a id="p195"></a>[p.195]</span> raise themselves to a higher plane. When the Eternal and
+Substantial is present at the governing centre of life, all of reality
+that can possibly present itself to man is viewed in an entirely
+different light. Great spiritual movements cannot possibly arise from
+any shallower source. There must be present in all such movements a
+consciousness of something of Eternal value, and a faith in the
+possibility of attaining a higher grade of reality in the midst of all
+the fragmentary factors which present themselves. Religion is thus
+viewed as a movement which takes place not by the side of life, but
+within life itself. A power of immediacy grows within the soul; it is
+now able to sift and winnow, to select and to reject; it is able to
+penetrate into the difference between first and second things, and to
+relegate all minor things to their lower sphere.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is of no avail to ignore this difference; and neither is it of any
+avail to ignore the difference between the <i>old</i> and the <i>new</i>
+existence-forms of Christianity. The old and the new conceptions cannot
+possibly flow together. One mode has to take a primary place, and the
+other a secondary place. The old intellectual presentation of
+Christianity has, in many ways, become inadequate. But <span class="pagenum"><a id="p196"></a>[p.196]</span> still it
+cannot be thrown overboard in any light-hearted manner, if for no other
+reason than that it has grown along with the growth of the Spiritual
+Substance itself. Some kind of shock, and even loss, may be temporarily
+experienced in parting with it; but this is a process that has to be
+passed through; and once it is passed through, the new clothing of
+Christianity cannot but help man to see a richer meaning in the Eternal.
+It may not fit quite so compactly for a time; it may not merge easily
+with the Spiritual Substance. We are far less comfortable in a new suit
+of clothes than in an old one; but comfort is not the only criterion in
+regard to the things of the body or of the soul. There may be a need for
+a change, and our needs are of more significance than our comforts. The
+change from old to new can be accomplished when the difference of
+Substance and Form is clearly perceived, and when the Substance is
+preserved in the midst of the change. This is one of the greatest tasks
+set to the Christian Church to-day, and no one is competent to undertake
+it if he has not experienced in the very depth of his own soul the
+meaning of the Eternal as the essence of the Christian religion. Eucken
+has grasped this truth in an unmistakable manner; and he sees nothing
+but disaster for religion in any attempt to present a new clothing at
+the expense of ejecting the Eternal kernel. But still he insists that in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p197"></a>[p.197]</span> theology the claims of the new forms are overwhelmingly
+necessary and just.</p>
+
+<p>When we turn to Eucken's conception in connection with the place of the
+personality of the Founder in the Christianity of the present, we are
+treading on very difficult ground. This is a question which cannot be
+decided by the cold, calculating intellect. Without a doubt, there is
+here something unique in the history of the world&mdash;something which no
+psychology can fathom and no logic can construct into exact
+propositions. But here once again, the two elements&mdash;the Spiritual
+Substance and its Form&mdash;are apparent in the life of the Founder, and in
+our conceptions concerning his life and death. But we need not fear that
+any real loss will accrue if we hold fast to the indisputable fact of
+the presence of a divinity within his life&mdash;a divinity which has to be
+repeated on a smaller scale in our own lives before we are ever able to
+have even a glimmer of it. It is out of such a spiritual experience that
+the life of the Master can gain its real value and significance for us.
+But in the past there has been a tendency to see a good deal of this
+significance in theological constructions which have now ceased to
+contain any genuine meaning. At the best these constructions could never
+mean more than the best intellectual presentations of good men.
+Something besides them&mdash;deeper than them all&mdash;had to appear before any
+soul could be <span class="pagenum"><a id="p198"></a>[p.198]</span> converted to the things of Eternal Life. Here
+Eucken shows that metaphysical concepts such as the Trinity have tended
+to become purely anthropomorphic and mythological, probably necessary at
+a certain level of religion, but which have now been superseded by truer
+conceptions of life and existence. There is no longer any meaning in
+asking whether the Founder was a "mere man" or a God. He was an
+intermediate reality between the two. To measure the depth and content
+of his soul is a presumption of shallow minds; to determine in a
+speculative manner the exact nature of his divinity, and to formulate
+imposing doctrines out of all this is quite as presumptuous. It is
+sufficient for us to know that he overcame the world, that the Godhead
+dwelt in a form of immediacy within his soul. All this is an
+experimental proof of the working of the Divine upon the plane of Time.
+But such Divine breaks in pieces if it is subjected to exact
+determinations. Some account of it we must have: the understanding
+demands this; but that account must include what the best light of
+knowledge has to throw on the subject. But when all is said, something
+infinitely greater remains unsaid, and yet to be experienced&mdash;something
+that requires the soul to exert itself in order to experience what all
+this means. When face to face with the meaning and value of the life and
+death and spiritual resurrection <span class="pagenum"><a id="p199"></a>[p.199]</span> of the Founder of our
+Christianity, we are face to face with an eternal reality revealed
+within the soul of the "son of man." At such a depth of our nature, the
+petty questions concerning how much or how little was present disappear
+into the background of life, and we are able through such a vision to
+pass to the Father. When emphasis is laid on such a fact as this,
+Christianity will again become a religion of the spirit&mdash;a religion
+which will unite all mankind at a point of unity beneath all close
+intellectual determinations and differences. And Eucken points out that
+it is not in the life of Jesus alone that we can obtain such a vision.
+But we do not gain the vision by merely <i>saying</i> this. If we know of any
+other character who <i>was</i> so much and who <i>did</i> so much, probably we
+shall obtain there what we need. But in the Western world at least we do
+<i>not</i> know any such character; the essence of his life and personality
+has been always connected with the conception of God. But this is not
+the sole conception and, as Eucken says, we cannot bind ourselves
+entirely to this one point in Christianity. The narrow paths which lead
+to religion are many; we have to draw help from all quarters where the
+Divine has been revealed. But the danger lies in merely knowing so many
+such paths while walking on none of them. The personality of Jesus will
+remain in Christianity, and the world in its darkness will turn again
+and <span class="pagenum"><a id="p200"></a>[p.200]</span> again to that palpable proof of the Divine seen on such a
+summit, and endeavour to scale the same everlasting hill of God. "Here
+we find a human life of the most homely and simple kind, passed in a
+remote corner of the world, little heeded by his contemporaries, and,
+after a short blossoming life, cruelly put to death. And yet, this life
+had an energy of spirit which filled it to the brim; it had a Standard
+which has transformed human existence to its very root; it has made
+inadequate what hitherto seemed to bring entire happiness; it has set
+limits to all petty natural culture; it has stamped as frivolity, not
+only all absorption in the mere pleasures of life, but has also reduced
+the whole prior circle of man to the mere world of sense. Such a
+valuation holds us fast and refuses to be weakened by us when all the
+dogmas and usages of the Church are detected as merely human
+organisations. That life of Jesus establishes evermore a tribunal over
+the world; and the majesty of such an effective bar of judgment
+supersedes all the development of external power."<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p>
+
+<p>We may bring this chapter to a close by once more pointing out Eucken's
+insistence on the Spiritual Substance of Christianity and the need of a
+new Existential-form. The Substance was present in the life of the
+Founder; mankind has to turn to that fact for one of <span class="pagenum"><a id="p201"></a>[p.201]</span> the
+experimental proofs of the Divine. But such a fact is not sufficient. It
+is something which happened in <i>someone else</i>, and not in ourselves. The
+fact is to serve as an inspiration that something similar shall and can
+happen <i>in ourselves</i>. When this is realised, we become conscious of the
+power of the Divine within the soul; and the problems of our own day are
+seen and interpreted in the same spirit as that in which Jesus faced and
+interpreted the problems of his day. Such a spiritual experience will
+become a power to use all the good of life, and thus sanctify it in the
+very using of it. The over-personal norms and standards have now become
+our own possession; they enable us to see the world as it ought to be
+seen and to work for the realisation of the vision; and the norms mean
+even more than this, for we have already seen that they point to
+something <i>beyond</i> themselves and yet continuous with themselves. They
+point to Infinite Love as the very essence of the Godhead. The reality
+of the over-individual norms and the conception of the Divine as
+Infinite Love thus induce in us a conviction of the possibility of an
+evolution of the spirit and of a reality beyond sense and time. The
+Eternal thus enters into Time and overcomes Time. This is Eucken's final
+conclusion in regard to the Christian religion and the destiny of man.
+But all this has to be experienced before it <span class="pagenum"><a name="p202" id="p202"></a>[p.202]</span> can be realised.
+"The task to-day is to work energetically, to labour with a free mind
+and a joyful courage, so that the Eternal may not lose its efficient
+power by our rigid clinging to temporal and antiquated forms, so that
+what we have recognised as human may not bar the way to the Divine as
+that Divine is revealed in our own day. The conditions of the present
+time afford the strongest motives for such work. For once again, in
+spite of all the contradictions which appear on the surface of things,
+the religious problem rises up mightily from the depth of life; from day
+to day it moves minds more and more; it induces endeavour and kindles
+the spirit of man. It becomes ever plainer to all who are willing to see
+that mere secular culture is empty and vain, and is powerless to grant
+life any real content or fill it with genuine love. Man and humanity are
+pressed ever more forcibly forward into a struggle for the meaning of
+life and the deliverance of the spiritual self. But the great tasks must
+be handled with a greatness of spirit, and such a spirit demands
+freedom&mdash;freedom in the service of truth and truthfulness. Let us
+therefore work together, let us work unceasingly with all our strength
+as long as the day lasts, in the conviction that 'he who wishes to cling
+to the Old that ages not must leave behind him the old that ages'
+(<i>Runeberg</i>), and that an Eternal of the real kind cannot <span class="pagenum"><a id="p203"></a>[p.203]</span> be
+lost in the flux of Time, because it overcomes Time by entering into
+it."<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p>
+
+<p>Eucken is aware of the various Life-systems which present themselves on
+every side as all-inclusive. But he sees no hope for a real spiritual
+education of mankind until every Life-system shall seek for a depth
+beyond the <i>natural</i> man and all his wants. And such a movement is
+visible amongst us to-day. It needs to be possessed and proclaimed. The
+redemption of the world depends upon its success. The Christian religion
+is such a Gospel. "But a movement towards a more essential and
+soul-stirring culture&mdash;to a progressive superiority of a complete life
+beyond all individual activities&mdash;cannot arise without bringing the
+problem of religion once more to the foreground. Our life is not able to
+find its bearings within this deep or to gather its treasures into a
+Whole unless it realises how many acute opposites it carries within
+itself. Life will either be torn in pieces by these opposites, or it
+must somehow be raised above them all. It is the latter alone that can
+bring about a thorough transformation of our first and shallow view of
+the universe as well as the inauguration of a new reality. Man has
+emerged out of the darkness of nature and remains afflicted with the
+afflictions of nature; yet at the same time, with his appearance upon
+the earth the darkness begins to illumine, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="p204" id="p204"></a>[p.204]</span> 'nature kindles
+within him a light' (Schopenhauer); he who is a mere speck on the face
+of a boundless expanse can yet aspire to a participation in the whole of
+Infinity; he who stands in the midst of the flux of time yet possesses
+an aspiration after infinite truth; he who forms but a mere piece of
+nature constructs at the same time a new world within the spiritual life
+over against it all; he who finds himself confined by contradictions of
+all kinds, which immediate existence in no way can solve, yet struggles
+after a further depth of reality and after the 'narrow gate' which opens
+into religion. Through and beyond all the particular problems of life
+and the world, it behoves us to raise the spiritual life to a level of
+full independence, to make it simultaneously superior to man as an
+individual and to bring it back into his soul. When this comes to be
+there is at the same time a transformation of his inmost being, and for
+the first time he becomes capable of genuine greatness.... These final
+conclusions strengthen the aspiration after a religion of the spiritual
+life.... Such a religion is in no way new, and Christianity has
+proclaimed it and clung to it from the very beginning. But it has been
+interwoven with traditional forms which are now seen through by so many
+as pictorial ideas of epochs and times. Earlier times could allow the
+Essence and the Form to coalesce without discovering any incongruity in
+this. But the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p205"></a>[p.205]</span> time for doing this has irrevocably passed away.
+The human which once seemed to bring the Spiritual and Divine so near to
+man has now become a burden and a hindrance to him. A keener analysis, a
+more independent development of the Spiritual and Divine, and, along
+with this, the truth of religion, do not succeed in reaching their full
+effects if religion is looked upon as merely something to protect
+individuals, instead of as that which furthers the whole of humanity
+&mdash;as that which is not merely a succour in times of trouble and sorrow
+but also as that which guarantees an enhancement in work and
+creativeness. The situation is difficult and full of dangers, and small
+in the meantime is the number of those who grasp it in a deep and free
+sense, and who yet are determined to penetrate victoriously into it, so
+that the inner necessities of the spiritual life may awaken within the
+soul of man. Whatever new tasks and difficulties lie in the lap of the
+future, to-day it behoves us before all else to proceed a step upward in
+the direction of the summits and to draw new energies and depths of the
+spiritual life into the domain of man; for this kind of work will
+prevent the coming of an 'old age' upon humanity and will breathe into
+its soul the gift of Eternal Youth."<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p206" id="p206"></a>[p.206]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<h2>PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION</h2>
+
+
+<p>In this chapter some of the most important problems of the present day
+will be touched upon in the light of Eucken's Philosophy of Religion.
+Reference has already been made to Eucken's account of the limitations
+of various Life-systems, of their struggle with one another, and of the
+necessity for a religious synthesis which will include their most
+important results within itself.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> The answer as to the possibility
+and necessity of such a synthesis constitutes the kernel of Eucken's
+Philosophy of Religion. He has succeeded in a remarkable manner in
+assessing the results of science, philosophy, sociology, art, and
+religion. In them all he has discovered the presence of a reality which
+is non-sensuous in its nature, and, which reveals itself <span class="pagenum"><a id="p207"></a>[p.207]</span> in
+judgments of value that carry within themselves their own <i>necessity</i>
+and <i>self-subsistence</i>. This is his conclusion in regard to the work of
+the spirit of man on whatever plane of knowledge or experience that
+spirit works. Man's spirit has to carry all its knowledge and experience
+into its own conative spiritual potencies. We thus see that everything
+becomes an aid to the unfolding of an ever greater degree of reality
+within the spirit of man. It is then within the <i>spirit</i> of man that
+everything finds its interpretation and value. Whatever interpretation
+is given to anything apart from the union of the <i>whole</i> potency and
+cognition of man's spirit is only a partial interpretation. And it is in
+the failure to recognise this truth that so many Life-systems have set
+themselves against the higher aspects of philosophy and religion. The
+most important question has not been asked: What is the relation and
+value of all results in connection with the deepest potency and
+necessity of man's spirit? Are these results capable of enriching that
+spirit of man when he becomes conscious of them? These are the questions
+which Eucken continually asks and answers in his great works; and it is
+this fact which makes his teaching so valuable and superior to all the
+Life-systems of our day. It is difficult to think of any aspect of
+experience which Eucken has left out of account. He has not, indeed,
+interpreted <span class="pagenum"><a name="p208" id="p208"></a>[p.208]</span> in detail all the Life-systems in vogue, and no
+human being is capable of achieving such a task; but he has clearly
+perceived the flaws which lie in them all. And this discovery of his has
+revealed a flaw common to them all. That flaw consists in ignoring the
+presence of a spiritual life as the great workshop where every form of
+reality finds its truest meaning. This flaw is so serious in that
+several Life-systems have thus over-estimated the importance of their
+results by neglecting to take into account the potentialities and
+necessities of man's spirit. Let us, then, try to trace this defect in
+connection with some of the most important Life-systems in vogue to-day.
+When the various systems of <i>Idealism</i> are estimated, they seem to
+present aspects of reality with vast portions of human potencies and
+experiences left out of account. <i>Absolute Idealism</i> is based upon the
+demands and implications of logic. Its doctrines would have taken a very
+different colouring had it considered that the necessities of Logic have
+to be adjusted to the necessities of Life. Such systems are of little
+value to the soul, because the needs of the soul were not taken into
+account when they were formulated. This fact was the main cause of the
+late Professor James's rebellion against all forms of Absolute Idealism.
+He felt that they bore no relationship to human life and its needs, and
+consequently could not exercise any important <span class="pagenum"><a id="p209"></a>[p.209]</span> influence on life;
+they could not move the will, for no possibility of reaching the
+Absolute was offered to man. All the conclusions were in the realm of an
+<i>intellectual universal</i> and not in the realm of <i>spirit</i>. They must be
+unreal in the highest sense on account of this very failure. They have
+presented their half-gods as realities outside Nature, human nature, the
+pressing ideals of life, and even God Himself.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken shows that any true Life-system has to start with Life itself.
+There may be interpretations needful which have no implications for
+Life, and these have a right of their own; but when such interpretations
+are carried further, when the subject who <i>knows</i> such interpretations
+and who <i>uses</i> them is taken into account, then the interpretations
+found on this level are something quite different from what they were
+when the whole spirit of man was not taken into account. Eucken
+consequently comes to the conclusion that philosophy has not completely
+fulfilled its vocation until it has become a philosophy of <i>Life</i>&mdash;until
+the truest meaning of every object is discovered in its relation to all
+the necessities of the spirit. And it is here that his teaching comes
+into conflict with so much that goes by the name of Idealism. How can
+any system be more than a half-truth when its final meaning is presented
+with but little attention to the highest aspect we know in the world
+&mdash;to human life in its struggles and conquests, <span class="pagenum"><a id="p210"></a>[p.210]</span> in its living
+and loving, and its forward movement towards some distant goal? The
+special value of Eucken's teaching lies, then, in the fact that it
+interprets what happens, can happen, and ought to happen within life
+itself. No system which leaves out the soul with its possibilities is
+complete. This has been done too often in the past, and is being done
+to-day. Is it, then, a wonder that philosophy has given so very little
+help to Life in its complex problems without and its sharp opposites and
+contradictions within? Life is more and needs more than a philosophy of
+words, devoid of power, can offer it. Life, when at its best, believes
+in the all-power of its own spiritual potency; it has faith in the
+possibility of ascent from height to height, as well as in the
+possibility of an incessant progress not only of individuals but of the
+whole of mankind.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> A System stands or falls according as it is able
+to conceive of Life in such a manner. And Eucken has done this as
+probably no other living philosopher has done it.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn to <i>Immanent Idealism</i>, we discover the same failure. It
+emphasises the presence within consciousness of what is idealistic and
+noble, but it leaves out the objective and imperative character of what
+is present. It also forgets that the possession of ideals as ideas is
+only the initial stage of such ideals becoming a very portion <span class="pagenum"><a name="p211" id="p211"></a>[p.211]</span> of
+the deepest substance of soul itself. We may deceive ourselves even with
+the contemplation of the best ideals; they can never become truly ours
+until the will is set in motion and the whole nature is stirred to its
+depths in order to press forward to what it perceives as having infinite
+value. Something has inevitably to happen within the depth of the soul
+before its real creation can advance. Eucken here, again, has perceived
+this truth and presents it everywhere with great power. His Philosophy
+is an <i>Activism</i> of the most powerful type. He is aware that to <i>know</i>
+and to <i>be</i> are so far apart. But his Activism is not a mere movement of
+the individual's will, brought forth by anything that has grown within
+it as a private inheritance. The Activism is started and kept going on
+its course by the over-personal norms and values already referred to. It
+is the union of norm and will that constitutes the full action. Life's
+greater meaning and value is, therefore, not a ready-made possession; it
+is rather something already possessed, and a vision of something <i>more</i>
+in the distance to be possessed.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> The presence of the Divine within
+the soul is not the same prior to the search and after the search. This
+is <span class="pagenum"><a name="p212" id="p212"></a>[p.212]</span> one of the most distinctive features of Eucken's teaching,
+and constitutes a necessary supplement to certain presentations of
+Immanent Idealism prevalent in various forms to-day.</p>
+
+<p>When we pass to <i>Materialism</i> in its various forms, we find Eucken
+conscious of its poverty and its caricature of life. It is caused by
+excessive absorption in the sensuous object with all its manifold
+relations. But it is possible to believe in all that it states; for it
+can never really say anything concerning the deeper meaning of spiritual
+life if for no other reason than that it cannot penetrate into life's
+deeper experiences. It is a stage in human thought which is passing
+away. What will become of it after Professor Haeckel's passing is
+difficult to imagine. One thing at least is certain: as a complete
+system of the universe or of life it is doomed.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> A mechanical
+interpretation of the universe is legitimate: we may have to adopt more
+of such interpretations in the future. But there is no need for any
+alarm from the sides of philosophy and religion. Their citadel is not
+built upon a <i>thing</i>, but upon a <i>thought</i>; and the gap between the two
+increases in the degree in which our knowledge of Nature and Man
+increases. Eucken has many great things to say on this subject in his
+larger works. Doubtless he would agree with some of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p213"></a>[p.213]</span>
+advocates of <i>Naturalism</i> in regard to the meaning of the physical
+universe, but such agreement would not be an admission that <i>all</i> had
+been said that could be said concerning the need and the possibility of
+a <i>Metaphysic of Life</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The one word <i>More</i> constitutes all the difference. This <i>More</i>, with
+Eucken, is the beginning of a new order of existence and of value where
+the physical order ends. His work consists in interpreting this <i>More</i>,
+and we have already seen whither the <i>More</i> leads us: it leads us into
+spiritual norms and their values, and these in their turn led us into
+Infinite Love in the Godhead. The failure to see the value of all this
+is due to the inattention of the advocates of Naturalism in regard to
+the non-sensuous structure of mind: the <i>Thing and its relations</i>
+monopolise them so completely that they are blind to every reality
+non-sensuous in its nature, although they possess some amount of such
+reality in their very knowledge and adoration of the <i>Thing</i>. Our
+troubles will continue to accumulate, and the prospect of the future
+will grow extremely dark, if the grip which physical things have on the
+world to-day be not relaxed. The very physical powers which we have
+helped to create, and which hitherto have proved of service to men, will
+mean our destruction unless something of the <i>More</i> which is beyond them
+be found as a possession and an activity within the governing centre of
+life. This is Eucken's <span class="pagenum"><a id="p214"></a>[p.214]</span> plea over against the various forms of
+the Naturalism and Materalism of our day. These are not enough for man.
+But man is so slow in recognising this fact. The appeal of Spiritual
+Idealism is considered to be something which is vague and useless. Our
+deepest reality and the source of all true energy have been robbed of
+their efficacy by our absorption in scraping together physical elements
+of chaff and dust. How often does Eucken show our dire poverty in the
+midst of all this external plenty! The all-sufficiency of all forms of
+Naturalism condemns itself through its failure to pass beyond itself.
+Had there not been some who did pass beyond the <i>Thing and its
+relations</i> the spiritual values of the race would have been annihilated.
+"As soon as we demand to pass beyond mere awareness to a genuine
+knowledge, we discover our deplorable poverty, and must confess that
+what is termed certain seems on clearer investigation to rest upon a
+totally insecure foundation."<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> "It is not natural science itself
+which leads to naturalism, for, indeed, no natural science could arise
+if reality exhausted itself in the measurements of naturalism; but it is
+rather the weakness of the conviction of the spiritual life; it is the
+failure of certitude in regard to the presence of a spiritual existence;
+it is the unclearness concerning the <i>inner</i> conditions of all mental
+and spiritual activity which a shallow and popular philosophy <span class="pagenum"><a id="p215"></a>[p.215]</span>
+presents&mdash;it is all this which turns natural science into a
+materialistic naturalism."<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> The strength of materialistic <i>monism</i>
+does not lie in any proof of there being nothing but mechanism in this
+wide universe, but in its energetic propaganda against certain
+traditional theological forms of ecclesiastical religion&mdash;forms which
+are rapidly being disowned by the leaders of religious thought. Even
+monism concedes that "it is better being good than bad, better being
+sane than mad." This concession, and the attempt to live according to
+it, constitute a proof of the presence in some form of a non-sensuous
+reality and value in the constructions of materialistic monism itself.
+Hence, Eucken's conception of spiritual life cannot be got rid of after
+all. It will remain so long as men live above the animal level and
+strive to ascend to something higher still.</p>
+
+<p>When the <i>neo-Kantian</i> movement is examined, we find that its long and
+honourable history presents us with gains which cannot be measured. But
+we have already noticed that in so far as this movement has specialised
+within the domain of the connections of mind and body, and has attempted
+to reduce psychology to the limits of the relations between the two, it
+is largely outside the <i>inner</i> meaning and value of the life of
+consciousness. <span class="pagenum"><a name="p216" id="p216"></a>[p.216]</span> Its work has proved useful in many important
+respects. It has made man realise that the connection of body and mind
+is not so simple a matter as materialistic naturalism would lead us to
+suppose; and it has shown, on the whole, the impossibility of reducing
+consciousness to mechanical elements. Even in the various forms of
+psycho-physical parallelism the factor of mind and meaning stands apart
+in its origin from the factors of bodily movement. But neo-Kantianism
+has developed on higher lines than those of physiological psychology. It
+has dealt with the presence of an inner world of thought&mdash;a world of
+values and judgments of values, of norms, imperatives, and
+ideals&mdash;realities which are not presented in any scheme of natural
+science. It is impossible to read such a great book as the late
+Professor Otto Liebmann's <i>Analysis der Wirklichkeit</i><a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> without
+discovering this truth. In this great work, as well as in his <i>Gedanken
+und Thatsachen</i>, Liebmann shows how man is more than a natural product.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p217" id="p217"></a>[p.217]</span> "Natural science," he tells us, "is a very useful, and, indeed,
+an indispensable handmaid to philosophy, but it is in no manner the
+first, the deepest, the most original basis of philosophy."<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>
+Liebmann's successors, especially Windelband, Rickert, M&uuml;nsterberg,
+Adickes, and Vaihinger, work on similar lines. And there is a great deal
+in Eucken's teaching which tends in the same direction. But he goes a
+step further than all the neo-Kantians. We have already noticed how he
+gives judgments of value and spiritual norms a <i>cosmic</i> significance. He
+finds that when these norms and values have awakened with great
+clearness within man's spirit they inevitably lead to the conception of
+the Godhead. And it is in this work that Eucken's Metaphysic of Life
+becomes a <i>religious metaphysic</i>. As values and norms mean so much when
+a reality is granted them by the truest of the neo-Kantians, they come
+to mean infinitely more when they are acknowledged as somehow
+constituting the foundation and the acme of all existence. Eucken's main
+desire is to establish such norms and values beyond the possibility of
+dispute and beyond the constant changes of Life-systems. They mean for
+him what is present within their spiritual content as a realisation as
+well as the <i>More</i> to which they still point. His teaching is not
+contradicted by anything in the neo-Kantian movement;<span class="pagenum"><a id="p218"></a>[p.218]</span> he accepts
+its transcendental reality and lifts it out of the realm of
+individuality and of history into a cosmic realm. After having followed
+the implications of the neo-Kantian movement so far, he feels compelled
+to take the next step. For unless that next step is taken, some of the
+deepest potencies of human nature fail to come to flower and fruit. When
+the step is taken, they do blossom and bear fruit. Is not this a
+sufficient justification for taking the "next step"? It is; for man
+cannot allow any potency of his being to remain dormant without
+suffering a loss; and on this highest level of all the loss must be
+incalculable. "Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart will
+never find its rest until it rests on Thee." That confession of
+Augustine is Eucken's confession also; and it is the implication which
+such a confession contains that constitutes the significance of his
+message to the world. He is in the line not only of the philosophers but
+of the prophets and the mystics. The ladder of knowledge reaches, like
+Jacob's ladder, up to heaven itself&mdash;to that pure atmosphere where
+knowledge, merged in a deeper reality, becomes something so different
+from what it was before. An eternal blessedness has now become the
+possession of man.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken has a great deal to say regarding the <i>Historical</i> Life-systems
+of the present day. <span class="pagenum"><a name="p219" id="p219"></a>[p.219]</span> He is aware that the neglect by German
+thinkers of the fundamental importance of Hegel's teaching on this
+question has meant a heavy loss. That loss is already perceived, and
+Hegel's value in the realm of the Philosophy of History is being
+rediscovered. Men are more and more feeling the necessity of conceding a
+validity and objectivity to the concepts of History. The work of the
+late Professor Dilthey<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> in this respect is of great importance, and
+has strong affinities with Eucken's teaching on the same subject. But
+Dilthey's objectivity and validity stopped short of religion in the
+sense in which religion is presented by Eucken. Dilthey gave the norms
+of History a transcendental objectivity and considered them sufficient
+for man. But Eucken, as already stated, while granting all this and even
+insisting upon it, finds that the norms of History do not include the
+whole that human nature needs. The "next step" has to be taken whereby a
+reality is revealed beyond the confines of the best collective
+experiences of the human race. Once more, we are landed in the
+conception of the Godhead. The step became inevitable, because the best
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p220" id="p220"></a>[p.220]</span> historical concepts, in their totality, pointed to something
+still beyond themselves.</p>
+
+<p>During the past few years Eucken has devoted much attention to the
+Life-system presented in <i>Pragmatism</i>. He is alive to the value of much
+of the work of the late Professor William James and of Dr F.C.S.
+Schiller. He feels that Absolute Idealism is too abstract and too remote
+from life to move the human will. It is too much like placing a man
+before a mountain, and asking him to remove it. The very magnitude of
+the object weakens instead of strengthening the will. Pragmatism has the
+merit of insisting that the task be done piecemeal, so that man may not
+lose heart at the very outset. And some kind of goal is present in
+Pragmatism. But Eucken's main objection to Pragmatism is that, however
+adequate it may be at the beginning of the enterprise, it will tend, as
+time passes, to turn man in the direction of the line of least
+resistance, and so be degraded to the level of the ordinary life and its
+petty demands.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> His Activism is entirely different from James's
+Pragmatism. James depended too much upon the "span of the moment" and
+its immediate experience. There is in this "span" often no cosmic
+conviction present in consciousness to proclaim that the action is
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p221"></a>[p.221]</span> "worth while" at all costs. While constantly demanding the need
+of effort in order to experience the deeper potencies of spiritual life,
+Eucken insists that such effort can enter into a current only in so far
+as norms and values are clearly perceived as the meaning and goal of
+spiritual life. A <i>universal</i> of meaning and value must be perceived,
+however imperfectly it may be, before the individual can call his
+deepest nature into activity. And what is such a <i>universal</i> but
+something beyond the flow of the moment and beyond the realm of ordinary
+daily life? Such a <i>universal</i>, too, must have an existence of its
+own&mdash;an existence and a value which are beyond the opinions of any
+individual or of any group of individuals, even if such a group were to
+include the whole human race. It is clear, then, why Eucken parts
+company with Pragmatism.</p>
+
+<p>If, finally, we view his attitude towards the <i>Religious</i> Life-systems
+of our generation, we find words of warning and of encouragement. His
+whole work culminates in religion. But he teaches us that we have to
+learn from the sides of knowledge already presented in this chapter. And
+it may be said that the Christian Church (or any other Church) has yet
+to learn this lesson. It still seeks to find its revelation in what
+<i>was</i>, and in modes which come constantly into direct conflict with the
+results of the various Life-systems already referred to. It wants the
+fruits of religion without tilling <span class="pagenum"><a id="p222"></a>[p.222]</span> the ground and nurturing its
+plants. Its insistence on placing the basis of religion in myth and
+miracle dooms it to a greater disaster in the future than even in the
+past. Eucken sees no hope for a "revival" of religion in the soul until
+an inverted order of conceiving reality takes place. The religious
+synthesis from the intellectual side is to be obtained by passing
+through the grades of reality explicit in the various Life-systems, and
+by abstaining from the imposition of barriers which forbid anyone
+roaming and "ruminating" within these. If one condition is obeyed, this
+is the most fruitful way to construct a new religious metaphysic which
+will supplant traditional theology. That condition is that the various
+Life-systems form a kind of scale which extends from Matter up to the
+Godhead. The new religious metaphysic will then mean a real philosophy
+of values.</p>
+
+<p>Does this constitute an impossible task for the Christian Church? It
+will remain impossible so long as we look upon the essence of
+Christianity as something which descends upon us apart from the exertion
+of our own spiritual potencies. It is a consolation to know that the
+highest reality may be experienced without having to undergo a training
+in the methods and implications of science, history, or metaphysics. But
+the experience here cannot possibly mean so much as the experience which
+passes through and beyond the implications of knowledge to the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p223"></a>[p.223]</span>
+Divine. Such an experience as the latter must be richer in content. And
+even apart from this, it produces something of value on the intellectual
+side&mdash;something which grants religion a security in the eyes of the
+world. When the Church tends in this direction, its faith will come into
+comradeship with the various branches of human knowledge as these reveal
+themselves on level above level. Christianity has nothing to fear, but
+everything to gain, from the development of all the branches of human
+knowledge. Its source being Spiritual and Eternal, why should opposition
+be presented to any development of the lower realities in science,
+Biblical criticism, history, and philosophy? This lesson is not yet
+learned, and Eucken pleads for its acknowledgment. "If we consider how
+much is involved in such a change in the position of the spiritual life,
+and if we also present before ourselves what transformations
+civilisation, culture, history, and natural science carry within
+themselves, we see clearly the critical situation in which religion is
+placed, because these surface-changes are not of the essence of
+religion. Through the mighty expansion and the fissures which these
+changes bring about, the old immediacy and intimacy of the soul have
+become lost, and religion has now receded into the distance, and is in
+danger of vanishing more and more. The derangement of things which such
+changes cause occurs <span class="pagenum"><a name="p224" id="p224"></a>[p.224]</span> not only in connection with their own facts
+and material and against their old forms, but the effect proceeds into
+the very character and feelings of man and into his religion. And yet,
+when we examine the matter more closely, we find that such changes cause
+not so much a breach with Christianity as with its traditional form, and
+that they seek to bring about a fundamental renewal of Christianity. For
+when we penetrate beyond the motives and dispositions of men to their
+spiritual basis, all the changes are unable to contradict what is
+essential to Christianity, but they even promise to assist this
+essential element in its new, freer, and more energetic development. But
+we have to bear in mind that all this will not descend upon us like a
+shower of rain, but will have to be brought forth through immense labour
+and toil. It becomes necessary to replace that which must pass away, and
+to reconsolidate the essentials which are threatened. All this cannot
+come about save through an energetic concentration and deepening of the
+spiritual life, save through a struggle against the superficiality of
+Time regardless of all consequences, and save through a vivification and
+integration of all that points in the right direction."<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p225"></a>[p.225]</span> This passage illustrates well Eucken's whole attitude regarding
+Christianity. It is evident that much remains to be done within and
+without the Church. Within, radical changes are to take place; but
+always in the light and with the preservation of the spiritual
+substance. Without, the indifference of a vast portion of the civilised
+nations of the world has to be reckoned with. It is an immense problem,
+often enough to dishearten good men and women. How can men be moved from
+their inertia and their resentment against the deeper demands which
+spiritual life makes upon every human being? That is the problem of
+problems and the task of tasks to-day. No clear solution of it is yet
+perceptible. But in the meantime, those who care for Divine things and
+who have experienced some of their power within their own souls must
+hold fast to all they possess, and labour unceasingly to increase the
+spiritual value of their possession. Probably catastrophes have to
+happen in order to bring the world home to religion and God.</p>
+
+<p>Rudolf Eucken's gospel is a proclamation of the necessity of religion
+and the possibility of its possession. This, according to him, is the
+final goal of all knowledge and life. If religion is not this, it is the
+most tragic deception conceivable. "Religion is either merely a
+sanctioned product of human wishes and pictorial ideas brought about by
+tradition and <span class="pagenum"><a id="p226"></a>[p.226]</span> the historical ordinance&mdash;and, if so, no art,
+power, or cunning can prevent the destruction of such a bungling work by
+the advance of the mental and spiritual movement of the world; or
+religion is founded upon a superhuman fact&mdash;and, if so, the hardest
+assaults cannot shatter it, but rather, it must finally prove of service
+in all the troubles and toils of man; it must reach the point of its
+true strength and develop purer and purer its Eternal Truth."<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p>
+
+<p>The fact that the influence of Rudolf Eucken's personality and teaching
+is spreading with such rapidity and power from west to east and from
+north to south is a proof that an increasing number of men and women are
+aspiring after a religion of spiritual life such as was presented by the
+Founder of our Christianity. All the Life-systems of our day must
+converge towards such a conception of religion.</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p227" id="p227"></a>[p.227]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<h2>EUCKENS PERSONALITY AND INFLUENCE</h2>
+
+
+<p>In this chapter an attempt will be made to present in a brief form some
+of the most important aspects of Eucken's personality and influence. His
+training and the relation of his teaching to the German philosophical
+systems of the present have already been touched upon in some of the
+earlier chapters. But no account of Eucken's teaching is complete
+without a knowledge of his personality.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot understand his personality without bearing in mind Eucken's
+nationality. He is a man of the North. A mere glimpse of the deep blue
+eyes reveals this immediately. His ancestors lived in close contact with
+Nature, and faced the perils of the great deep. The history of the men
+of the North has witnessed, along the centuries, a struggle for
+existence as severe as any struggle known in the history of our world. A
+trait of Eucken's character almost entirely unknown in England is his
+deep sympathy with the small nations <span class="pagenum"><a id="p228"></a>[p.228]</span> of Europe, and especially
+with those of the North. He has written and pleaded on behalf of Poland,
+Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. He finds that small nations, when
+their independence is preserved, have the tendency to bring forth
+original characteristics of thought and life, which are only too apt to
+get lost in the bustle and mechanism of the great nations. He has shown
+us on several occasions how much the world is indebted to its small
+nations for the ideas and ideals which have shaped its destiny. He
+believes with his whole soul that <i>size</i> does not necessarily mean
+<i>greatness</i>. When we compare the greatness of Palestine and Greece with
+that of the larger countries of the world, the latter sink into
+insignificance when weighed in the balances of the spirit. He has,
+during the past few years, several times pointed out a danger to
+personality and character from the vast organisations which have been
+created in the various departments of life during the latter half of the
+nineteenth century. The deeper personality of man has receded more and
+more into the background through the growth of such organisations. This
+fact is clear in the realms of commerce and of politics. We call a
+nation "great" in the degree in which it succeeds in outstripping other
+nations in its exports and imports, or in forming alliances with its
+neighbouring states or with other nations. A large portion of the gains
+which accrue from such <span class="pagenum"><a id="p229"></a>[p.229]</span> unions is purely accidental, and these
+gains cannot possibly touch the essentials of life. The explanation of
+this is the fact that the centre of gravity has been shifted from mental
+and moral racial qualities to qualities which are far inferior in mental
+and moral potency and content. Thus, we witness the painful inversion of
+values which has taken place during the past fifty years. Every "small
+nation" has to take a secondary place, has to become subservient to a
+nation which may possess for its inheritance but few qualities besides
+those of expansiveness and force. The small nation is forced to submit,
+to develop on lines entirely alien to its original potencies, and to
+labour with might and main to fill the coffers of the rich nation. The
+old calm and peace, as well as the originality of the small nations have
+thus too often been cruelly uprooted; the characteristics of working on
+their own original lines, and of producing something of essential value
+in the history of the world, have been largely shorn of their initiative
+and freedom in the case of several of the small nations of Europe.
+Superficiality and indifference to deep national and spiritual traits
+become the primary things, and the life of the small nations, as time
+passes, tends to become mechanical and servile.</p>
+
+<p>When we survey the work of the small nations of the Western world, we
+discover achievements which have been of immense <span class="pagenum"><a id="p230"></a>[p.230]</span> value in the
+civilisation, culture, morals, and religion of Europe. And what a
+distressing sight it is to witness the attempts of larger nations to
+crush the spirituality of the smaller ones! The attitude of Russia
+towards Finland and Poland is known to all. A greed for territory and a
+passion for ready-made values are characteristics which are only too
+evident to-day in the case of some of the Great Powers of Europe. We
+need, as Eucken points out,<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> a new standard of valuing the national
+characteristics and the relationship of nation with nation. Such
+standard must include moral judgments and human sympathy. It is the
+presence of spiritual powers such as these which constitute the really
+deep and durable elements in a nation's progress. "When righteousness
+goes to the bottom, then there is nothing more worth living for on the
+earth." Eucken's philosophy cannot be understood apart from his intense
+interest in mankind and its spiritual development. He goes, indeed, so
+far as to say that this is the sole goal of philosophy; its message is
+to create new spiritual values in the life of the individual and of the
+race. Our systems of philosophy are painfully defective in this respect
+to-day. Man, as a being with a soul, is little taken into account in
+most of them. Is it surprising, therefore, that philosophy has not
+succeeded, <span class="pagenum"><a name="p231" id="p231"></a>[p.231]</span> for centuries, in interesting or influencing the
+intelligent world at large?<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> It will not succeed in doing this until
+the deepest needs of mankind are taken to be something more than objects
+of psychological analysis or of logical generalisations.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken's personality is rooted in a deep love for humanity and its
+spiritual qualities; and herein lies the essential reason of his
+championing of weak nations and pleading for the preservation of their
+original spiritual characteristics. These qualities are pearls of too
+great a price to be lost in a world where so much tinsel passes as what
+possesses the highest value.</p>
+
+<p>It is not difficult to see why the small nations of the North feel that
+in Eucken they possess a true friend who sees clearly what they feel
+instinctively, and who points out to them the path of their spiritual
+deliverance.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible, also, to understand Eucken's system of philosophy
+without taking into account his religious experience. This aspect has
+already been touched upon, but it requires elucidation from a more
+personal point of view. Eucken's philosophy is the result of the
+experience of his own soul. It is something which can never be
+understood until it is lived through. Everything is brought back to its
+roots in the needs, aspirations, and inwardness of the soul. One must
+become "converted" <span class="pagenum"><a id="p232"></a>[p.232]</span> before he can understand Eucken's teaching.
+Something has not only to be understood but to be lived through; the
+body and the external world have to be relegated to a subsidiary place;
+the intellect has to merge into the spiritual intuition which is deeper
+than itself. It is after one has been willing to pass through this fiery
+furnace that the great "illumination" begins to appear. And such an
+illumination will increase in the degree that service and sacrifice are
+willingly undertaken for the sake of the infinite spiritual gains which
+remain in store.</p>
+
+<p>This element in Eucken's personality draws him to everybody he comes in
+contact with, and draws everybody to him. He has drunk so deeply of the
+experiences of Plato and Plotinus, of the great Christian mystics and
+moralists of the centuries, that he sees the value of every soul that
+comes to him for help. It is far from Eucken's wish for these matters to
+be published. And the present writer will only state the fact that
+nobody, however ignorant and obscure, has failed in Eucken to find a
+father and guide. Hundreds of men who had either lost or had never found
+their moral and spiritual bearings in life have succeeded in doing so
+through coming into contact with him. The present writer remembers well
+many a conversation among students of six or more different
+nationalities, concerning the secret of Eucken's teaching <span class="pagenum"><a id="p233"></a>[p.233]</span> and
+influence. Imagine Servians, Poles, Swedes, Scotch, English, and Welsh
+meeting together after a philosophical lecture to discuss the question
+of the spiritual life and wondering how to discover it! Eucken's
+personality had created in their deepest being a need which could never
+more be filled until the Divine entered into it. In the class-room the
+great prophet makes it impossible for us to content ourselves with
+merely preparing for examinations. The teacher's exposition and
+inspiration are creating a deep uneasiness in us. We feel how limited
+and shallow our nature has been when we are face to face with a man who
+reveals to us the eternal values of the things of the spirit; and who
+reveals them not as they have merely been revealed by the great thinkers
+of the world, but as he himself has felt and lived them. We all become
+impressed with the fact that we are in the presence of a power above the
+world; and the feeling of pain is changed into a feeling of strong
+optimism in regard to the possibilities of our own nature. We feel that
+we, too, in spite of our limitations, can become the possessors of
+something of the very nature akin to that which our great teacher
+possesses. Eucken works a change in every man and woman who remain with
+him for a length of time. Many of us understand something of what Jesus
+Christ meant to his disciples; how he created an affection within their
+souls which all the obstacles of the world <span class="pagenum"><a name="p234" id="p234"></a>[p.234]</span> could never
+obliterate. Eucken has done something of the same kind, on a smaller
+scale, for hundreds of his old pupils.</p>
+
+<p>These pupils are found to-day from Iceland in the North to New Zealand
+in the South, and from Japan in the East to Britain and America in the
+West.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> Many of them have risen to eminence, and all of them have
+experienced something of a spiritual anchorage in the midst of the
+tempestuous sea of Time; all alike cherish an affection for their old
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p235"></a>[p.235]</span> teacher&mdash;an affection which is one of their dearest possessions.
+They have helped to spread his spiritual teaching, and, along with his
+books, have made his name known in all the civilised countries of the
+world. Some of Eucken's most important works have already appeared in
+half a dozen languages. The demand for them increases everywhere. This
+receptivity is a good omen of better days. The world is beginning to get
+tired of the mechanism and shallowness of our age, and is once more on
+the point of turning to the spiritual fountains of life. Where can it
+find a better guide to lead it to the waters of life than in Rudolf
+Eucken?</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p236" id="p236"></a>[p.236]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<h2>CONCLUSION</h2>
+
+
+<p>It will probably prove helpful at the conclusion to indicate the main
+contents of Eucken's greatest works in order that the reader who turns
+to them for the first time may be able somewhat to find his bearings.
+The whole of Eucken's works turn around the conception of the <i>spiritual
+life</i>. This fact must be constantly borne in mind. The term has been
+repeated so often in all the previous chapters that the reader may be
+inclined to think that some other expression might well have been
+exchanged for it. But no other term serves Eucken's meaning, and the
+recurrence of the term has to be endured in order that it may yield of
+its rich content.</p>
+
+<p>It has been shown how Eucken establishes a <i>new world</i> with its own laws
+and values within the spiritual life. The spiritual life possesses
+grades of reality: it reveals itself from the level of connection of
+body and mind and of ordinary life right up to Infinite Love in <span class="pagenum"><a id="p237"></a>[p.237]</span>
+the Godhead. Such a reality is created within the total activity of the
+soul; but it is not mere subjectivism by virtue of the fact that its
+material comes to it from without.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> And Eucken shows that it is thus
+a life partly given to man, and partly created by him. The "given"
+elements have to enter into man's soul. This they cannot do without much
+opposition. With the persistent energy of the total potency of the soul
+a world of independent inwardness is reached&mdash;a world which will have an
+existence of its own within the soul, and which will become the standard
+by which to measure the values of all the things which present
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It is this superiority of the spiritual life which constitutes the
+essential factor in the evolution of the individual's personality as
+well as in civilisation, culture, morality, and all the rich inheritance
+of the race. Such an inheritance can be developed farther by the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p238"></a>[p.238]</span>
+full consciousness of the spiritual life and by the exercising of it
+from its very foundation.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>The Problem of Human Life</i> Eucken sees in the message of every one
+of the great thinkers of the ages, however much he may differ from them,
+the vindication of a life higher than that of sense or even of
+in-intellectualism. In one form or another, they all present some world
+of values which is born and nurtured within the mind and soul. All these
+thinkers stand for something which is great and good. Eucken attempts to
+discover this core in their teaching; and in the midst of all the
+differences some spiritual truth and value make their appearance. This
+volume has undergone many changes, and is now in its ninth edition.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>The Main Currents of Modern Thought</i> Eucken deals, in the first part
+of the book, with <i>the fundamental concept of spiritual life</i> as this
+reveals itself in the meanings of Subjective&mdash;Objective,
+Theoretical&mdash;Practical, Idealism&mdash;Realism. The middle portion of the
+book deals with the <i>Problem of Knowledge</i> as this is shown in Thought
+and Experience (Metaphysics), Mechanical&mdash;Organic (Teleology), and Law.
+The third portion of the volume deals with the <i>Problems of Human Life</i>
+as these are presented in Civilisation and Culture, History, Society and
+the Individual, Morality and Art, Personality and Character, and the
+Freedom of the Will. The final portion deals <span class="pagenum"><a name="p239" id="p239"></a>[p.239]</span> with <i>Ultimate
+Problems</i>; and the two chapters on the Value of Life and the Religious
+Problem bring out the deeper meaning of spiritual life.</p>
+
+<p>This volume has undergone many changes. When it appeared in 1878 it was
+little more than a history of the concepts we have already referred
+to.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> But at the present time it deals with the history of the
+concepts, a criticism of these, and finally the presentation of the
+author's own thesis regarding the reality of an independent spiritual
+life.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Life's Basis and Life's Ideal</i> he analyses the various systems of
+thought which have been presented to the world. He finds many of these
+deficient; but although something that is contained in them has to pass
+away, they possess some spiritual element which requires preservation,
+and which is valid for all time. None of these systems is final; they
+have to preserve what is spiritual within them, and also merge it in
+some newer revelation gained for mankind. Every system of the universe
+and of life has to move; it has perpetually to drop something of its
+accidentals, and continually strengthen and increase its essentials.
+Everywhere emphasis is laid on the fact that the spiritual element
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p240"></a>[p.240]</span> must be preserved and increased at whatever cost, for it is an
+element of the highest value for the world, and constitutes the energy
+of the world's upward march.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Einheit des Geisteslebens</i>, as well as in the <i>Prolegomena</i> to
+this, the necessity of a spiritual conception of knowledge comes to the
+foreground. All systems of Naturalism lack enough spiritual life within
+themselves to meet the deepest needs of the race. Man is <i>more</i> than all
+such systems. Even on the grounds of the Theory of Knowledge itself man
+can be proved to be <i>more</i>. Eucken deals in these two books with the
+content of consciousness: that content reveals what is a Whole or
+Totality, what is beyond sense, what includes within itself the isolated
+impressions of the senses or of the understanding, and what is therefore
+<i>spiritual</i> in its nature.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt</i>&mdash;a book of the greatest
+value&mdash;we find Eucken at his best. His attempt here is to deal with the
+struggle for the spiritual life and the certainty of its possession. He
+shows how man has emerged out of Nature, and how he has moved in the
+direction of gaining an inner world during the long course of
+civilisation, culture, morality, and religion. Through titanic struggles
+this inner world becomes man's possession, and constitutes the true
+value and significance of his life. Man now realises that it is this
+world of spirit and values <span class="pagenum"><a id="p241"></a>[p.241]</span> which constitutes the only really
+true world. Issuing out of this possession of the ever richer contents
+of this inward, spiritual world, the personality constantly becomes
+something quite other than it was, and its possession adds to the
+inheritance of the spiritual ideals of the world. At this source man is
+in possession of a power of a new kind of creativeness in any field of
+knowledge or life he may be obliged to work. Nothing blossoms or bears
+fruit without the presence and the power of spiritual life in the
+deepest inwardness of the soul.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>The Truth of Religion</i> Eucken roams in a vast territory. All the
+oppositions of the ages to religion are brought on the stage, and are
+made to reveal their best and their worst. He shows how every system of
+thought, devoid of the experience and activity of the deepest soul,
+fails to engender religion. He shows over against all this the
+intellectual warrant for religion, and passes from this to the personal
+search by the soul for what is warranted by the intellect and by the
+deepest needs of one's own being. This has been the meaning of the
+religions of the world, and this meaning finds its culmination in
+Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken's smaller books, such as <i>The Life of the Spirit, Christianity
+and the New Idealism, K&ouml;nnen wir noch Christen sein?</i>, and <i>The Meaning
+and Value of Life</i>, present certain aspects of the larger volumes in a
+simpler form.</p>
+
+<p>Eucken is at present engaged upon the <span class="pagenum"><a id="p242"></a>[p.242]</span> completion of a work of
+great importance dealing with <i>The Theory of Knowledge</i>. His system has
+been stated to be in need of this important corner-stone, and he has
+hastened to meet the demand. The book will deal with the "grounds" of
+the life of the spirit in an even more fundamental manner than any of
+his books. A preparatory work, small in bulk&mdash;<i>Erkennen und Leben</i>&mdash;has
+just appeared in German, and will be issued in English in the spring of
+1913.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Erkennen und Leben</i> Eucken shows the need of clearness in regard to
+the concept of the spiritual life. This work is an introduction to his
+forthcoming work&mdash;<i>The Theory of Knowledge</i>. He shows that the Problem
+of Knowledge can only be answered through a further clarification of the
+Problem of Life. It is, therefore, necessary to show what such a Life is
+and how it may be lived, and, finally, how it makes Knowledge possible.
+This is the only way by which the final convictions of Life are able to
+possess greater depth and duration.</p>
+
+<p>Knowledge is possible only in so far as man participates in a
+self-subsistent life. Without such a self-subsistent life many
+intellectual achievements are possible, but they do not deserve the name
+of Knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Such a self-subsistent life must be operative in the foundation of our
+nature, but it must constantly receive its material from the most
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="p243"></a>[p.243]</span> important meanings and values of the world. The self-subsistent
+life dare not feed on the mere analysis of consciousness or on the
+material which it already possesses.</p>
+
+<p>History shows how a self-subsistent life is not created through the mere
+succession of events, but is always found as a life which is superior to
+the perpetual changes of Time. Consequently, every real Knowledge has
+something <i>sub specie aeternitatis</i> as its essence, and this
+differentiates it from all mere relativism.</p>
+
+<p>The movement of History culminates alternately in <i>Concentration</i> on the
+one hand, and in <i>Expansion</i> on the other: <i>Positive</i> and <i>Critical</i>
+epochs alternate. Both aspects are necessary for the growth of life.</p>
+
+<p>In modern times the growth of the Expansion-side of life has destroyed
+in a large measure the equilibrium of life; and the task to-day is to
+construct a new Concentration-side.</p>
+
+<p>Such a new Concentration is possible: the experience of History
+testifies to its presence in several epochs; and there is a deep longing
+for it in many quarters to-day.</p>
+
+<p>In order to attain to such a Concentration the "dead-level" life of the
+present must be overcome, and a turn must take place towards a new
+Metaphysic of Life.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the problem to-day, and no complete answer is to be found in the
+past systems of Metaphysics. "The possibilities of Life and <span class="pagenum"><a id="p244"></a>[p.244]</span> of
+Knowledge are in no way exhausted, but it is only through our own
+courage and actions that the possibilities can become actualities"
+(<i>Erkennen und Leben</i>, p. 161).</p>
+
+<p>The various systems of Thought need a synthesis which will include them
+all. It is difficult to-day to obtain a theory of life which does not
+leave out of account some essential elements. Is there a possibility of
+discovering such a synthesis? I believe that Eucken's works answer this
+question. But we wait eagerly for the appearance of his greatest work,
+and I think that, when it appears, he will more than ever deserve
+Windelband's designation of him as "the creator of a new Metaphysic."</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="p245" id="p245"></a>[p.245]</span></p>
+<h3>APPENDIX </h3>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<p><b>LIST OF EUCKEN'S WORKS</b></p>
+
+
+<p>1866. "De Aristotelis docendi ratione."  Pars I. De particularis. This was<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">the Doctor's dissertation at G&ouml;ttingen University.</span></p>
+
+<p>1868. "&Uuml;ber den Gebrauch der Pr&auml;positionem bei Aristoteles."</p>
+
+<p>1870. "&Uuml;ber die Methode und die Grundlagen der Aristotelischen Ethik"<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">(Separatabdruck aus dem Programm des Frankfurter Gymnasiums von 1870).</span></p>
+
+<p>1871. "&Uuml;ber die Bedeutung der Aristotelischen Philosophie fur die Gegenwart"<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">(Akademische Antrittsrede gehalten am 21 November, 1871). This was in Basel.</span></p>
+
+<p>1872. "Die Methode der Aristotelischen Forschung in ihrem Zusammenhang mit den<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">philosophischen Grundprincipien des Aristoteles."</span></p>
+
+<p>1874. "&Uuml;ber den Wert der Geschichte der Philosophie" (Antrittsrede, Jena, 1874).</p>
+
+<p>1878. "Die Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart." This was translated by Stuart Phelps in 1880,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">and published by Appleton of New York. The fourth edition has been translated</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">by M. Booth, and has been published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1912. The title of the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">third German edition was changed to "Geistige Stromungen der [p.246] Gegenwart."</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">The English edition is entitled "The Main Currents of Modern Thought."</span></p>
+
+<p>1879. "Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie."</p>
+
+<p>1880. "&Uuml;ber Bilder und Gleichnisse in der Philosophie": Eine Festschrift.</p>
+
+<p>1881. "Zur Erinnerung an K. Ch. F. Krausse" (Festrede, gehalten zu Eisenberg am 100<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Geburtstage des Philosophen).</span></p>
+
+<p>1884. "Aristoteles Anschauung von Freundschaft und von Lebensg&uuml;tern."</p>
+
+<p>1885. "Prolegomena zu Forschungen &uuml;ber die Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">und Tat der Menschheit."</span></p>
+
+<p>1886. "Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino und die Kultur der Neuzeit."</p>
+
+1886. "Beitr&auml;ge zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie." (Second edition, 1906, under the<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">title "Beitr&auml;ge zur Einf&uuml;hrung in die Geschichte der Philosophie.")</span><br />
+
+<p>1888. "Die Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit." This will be<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">published by Williams &amp; Norgate.</span></p>
+
+<p>1890. "Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker." The ninth edition appeared in 1911.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Changes and additions have been made in each succeeding edition. English translation</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">(1909) by W.S. Hough and W.R. Boyce Gibson under the title "The Problem of Human Life,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">as viewed by the Great Thinkers from Plato to the Present Time" (published by Charles</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Scribners' Sons, New York; and T. Fisher Unwin, London).</span></p>
+
+<p>1896. "Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt." (Second edition, with many changes, 1907.)<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">A translation of this volume will be published by Williams &amp; Norgate in the spring of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">1913.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[p.247]</span></p>
+
+<p>1901. "Das Wesen der Religion." (First and second editions.) This essay was translated by W.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Tudor Jones in 1904, and was published for private circulation. It is now out of print,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">but will soon reappear together with another essay, "Wissenschaft und Religion."</span></p>
+
+<p>1901. "Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," 1901. (Second edition, with numerous changes, 1905;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">third edition, with changes, 1912.) The second edition was translated by W. Tudor</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Jones, and published by Williams &amp; Norgate in 1911 under the title of "The Truth</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">of Religion." A translation of the third German edition will be published at the close</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">of 1912.</span></p>
+
+<p>1901. "Thomas von Aquino und Kant: ein Kampf zweier Welten."</p>
+
+<p>1903. "Gesammelte Aufs&auml;tze zur Philosophie und Lebensanschauung."</p>
+
+<p>1905. "Was k&ouml;nnen wir heute aus Schiller gewinnen?" (Kantstudien: Sonderdruck).</p>
+
+<p>1905. "Wissenschaft und Religion." This comprises a chapter in the collection of essays<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">entitled "Beitr&auml;ge zur Weiterentwickelung der Christlichen Religion."</span></p>
+
+<p>1907. "Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung." This volume was translated by Alban G.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Widgery, and published by A. &amp; C. Black in 1911 under the title of "Life's Basis and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Life's Ideal."</span></p>
+
+<p>1907. "Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der Gegenwart." (First edition, 1907; fourth<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">and fifth editions (with additions), 1912.) The first edition was translated by W.R.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Boyce Gibson and Lucy Gibson under the title "Christianity and the New Idealism: a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Study in the Religious Philosophy of To-day." This is published by Harper &amp; Brothers,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">London and New York.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[p.248]</span></p>
+
+<p>1907. "Philosophie der Geschichte."  This is an essay in the volume entitled "Systematische<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Philosophie" in the series "Kultur der Gegenwart."</span></p>
+
+<p>1908. "Sinn und Wert des Lebens." Third edition (with many additions), 1911. The first<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">edition was translated by W. R. Boyce Gibson and Lucy Gibson under the title of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">"The Meaning and Value of Life" (Publishers: A. &amp; C. Black).</span></p>
+
+<p>1908. "Einf&uuml;hrung in eine Philosophie des Geisteslebens." Translated by the late F.L. Pogson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">under the title of "The Life of the Spirit" (third edition, 1911).</span></p>
+
+<p>1911. "Religion and Life" (the Essex Hall Lecture for 1911). This is published by the Lindsey<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Press, London.</span></p>
+
+<p>1911. "K&ouml;nnen wir noch Christen sein?" A translation of this is in preparation.</p>
+
+<p>1912. "Naturalism or Idealism?" (the Nobel Lecture, translated by A.G. Widgery). This is<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">published by Heffer &amp; Sons, Limited, Cambridge.</span></p>
+
+<p>1912. "Erkennen und Leben." A translation of this work, by W. Tudor Jones, is in preparation,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">and will be published by Williams &amp; Norgate in the spring of 1913 under the title</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">of "Knowledge and Life: An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge."</span></p>
+
+<p>1913. "Erkenntnistlehre." This volume will appear early in 1913. The translation will also<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">appear during 1913, and the book will be published by Williams &amp; Norgate under the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">title of "The Theory of Knowledge."</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> It is not only in Germany, but also in England, that
+natural scientists forget this important fact. The Presidential
+Address of Professor Sch&auml;fer at the British
+Association (September 1912) is an instance of attempting
+to explain life in terms of its history and of its lowest
+common denominator. And huge assumptions have to be
+made in order to explain as little as this.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> A fuller treatment of this subject will be found in my
+forthcoming volume, <i>Pathways to Religion</i>. It is incorrect
+to state with Professor Sorley (<i>Recent Tendencies in
+Ethics</i>, p. 30) that "her [Germany's] philosophy betrays the
+dominance of material interests."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> An important article on this book appeared in <i>Mind</i>
+during 1896, and, as far as I can trace, this seems to be the
+first serious attention which was given to Eucken's writings
+in England. A translation of the volume will appear
+shortly by Messrs Williams &amp; Norgate.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Cf. <i>Main Currents of Modern Thought</i>, translated by
+Dr M. Booth (1912).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Main Currents of Modern Thought</i>, p. 259.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 6l.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 62.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> W. James's <i>Text-Book of Psychology</i>, p. 145.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> William Wallace's <i>Lectures and Essays on Natural
+Theology and Ethics</i>, p. 210.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Edward Caird's Introduction to William Wallace's
+Gifford Lectures, pp. xxx, xxxi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> On this conception of the spiritual as <i>More, cf.</i>
+Bosanquet's <i>Psychology of the Moral Self</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Wicksteed's <i>The Religion of Time and the Religion
+of Eternity</i>, in Carpenter and Wicksteed's <i>Studies in Theology</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Eucken's best account of this subject is found in Parts
+I., II., and V. of his <i>Truth of Religion</i> and in <i>Beitr&auml;ge zur
+Weiterentwickelung der Religion</i>, pp. 240-281. This latter
+is a volume of ten essays by well-known German religious
+teachers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The President of the British Association (1912) states
+in his address that it is not within his province to touch
+the question concerning the nature of the soul. I take the
+report of his address from <i>Nature</i>, 5th September. Dr
+Haldane goes much further in the direction of Vitalism
+(discussion at British Association on the subject).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Driesch: <i>Philosophy of the Organism</i>; <i>Vitalismus als
+Geschichte und Lehre</i>; his article in <i>Lebensanschauung</i> (a
+collection of essays by twenty German thinkers, 1911);
+Reinke's <i>Philosophie der Botanik</i>; McDougall's <i>Body and
+Mind</i>; Thomson's <i>Heredity, Evolution</i>, and <i>Introduction to
+Science</i> (the two latter in the Home University Library).
+Bergson's <i>Creative Evolution</i> deals with the subject, but
+the value of this book is greater in other directions.
+T.H. Morgan's <i>Regeneration</i> is a weighty contribution
+to the subject.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> A revival of the study of Kant's first <i>Critique</i> would be
+of great value to our natural scientists. Green, in his
+<i>Prolegomena to Ethics</i>, has interpreted this aspect in a
+manner that ought not to be forgotten.  <i>Cf.</i> further
+Edward Caird's <i>Evolution of Religion</i>, vol. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Ward's <i>Naturalism and Agnosticism</i>, vol. i., is a reply to
+this important question.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> M&uuml;nsterberg's <i>Psychology and Education</i>, and his
+<i>Eternal Values</i>; also Royce's <i>The World and the Individual</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> This trans-subjective aspect has been worked out in an
+original way by Volkelt in his <i>Quellen der menschlichen
+Gewisskeit</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The works of M&uuml;nsterberg and Rickert deal with
+great clearness on this difference of subject-matter in
+science and history.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The main weakness of Bergson's philosophy seems to
+be in not recognising this problem. Bosanquet, in his
+<i>Principle of Individuality and Value</i>, has very clearly
+recognised and interpreted it upon similar lines to
+Eucken.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> In this respect Eucken and Bergson seem to agree,
+although it is difficult to reconcile this aspect of Bergson's
+with his statements concerning the grasping of reality in
+the perceptions of the moment.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> "Hegel To-day," <i>The Monist</i>, April 1897.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Truth of Religion</i>, p. 328.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Green has dealt with this aspect in the first part of
+his <i>Prolegomena to Ethics</i> in practically the same way as
+Eucken. <i>Cf.</i> also Nettleship's <i>Life of Green</i> and his
+(Nettleship's) <i>Philosophical Remains</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> This need of differentiation has been presented by
+M&uuml;nsterberg in a powerful manner in his <i>Psychology and
+Life, Eternal Values</i>, and <i>Science and Idealism</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> M&uuml;nsterberg's <i>Science and Idealism</i>, p. 10; <i>cf.</i> also his
+<i>Grundsuge der Psychologie</i>, Bd. i., 1900.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Wundt's <i>Grundriss der Psychologie</i> and the article
+"Psychologie" in <i>Philosophie im beginn des Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts
+(Festschrift fur Kuno Fischer</i>, art. 1).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, pp. 178 <i>f</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> It is a great merit of Bergson, too, to have perceived
+this fundamental difference.  The difference between
+intellect and intuition, in his larger volumes, is more
+illuminating on the side of intellect. The relation of
+both is expressed by him more clearly in his short <i>Introduction
+to Metaphysics</i> (soon to appear in English).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Troeltsch, in his <i>Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie</i>, has
+perceived the difference very clearly, but in a manner quite
+different from Bergson. Troeltsch has dealt with the
+presence of the content of the over-empirical as something
+which is higher than any psychology of the soul, and which
+is at the farthest remove from the percept.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Richard Kade, in his new book, <i>Rudolf Euckens noologische
+Methode</i>, points out very clearly Eucken's contributions
+on this point from 1885 downwards. Kade further
+deals with the later developments of Windelband, Rickert,
+Troeltsch, and Wobbermin in the same direction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Historical Studies in Philosophy</i>,1912, p. 176.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> the two remarkable volumes of Baron von H&uuml;gel,
+<i>The Mystical Elements of Religion</i>,1908, and especially
+vol. ii. These books are a mine of rich things, but I have
+not observed that many in our country have as yet
+realised this fact.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 456.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Main Currents of Modern Thought</i>, p. 353.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Cf. Decadence</i>, Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture,
+by the Rt. Hon. Arthur James Balfour, M.P., 1908. Mr
+Balfour has perceived the problem in a more optimistic
+manner than Professor Eucken; but he, too, is conscious
+that much is required of the people. "Some kind of widespread
+exhilaration or excitement is required in order to
+enable any community to extract the best results from the
+raw material transmitted to it by natural inheritance"
+(p. 62).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <i>Main Currents of Modern Thought</i>, p. 398.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> This aspect has been developed in modern times by
+Schopenhauer, Ed. von Hartmann, and others. Bergson
+seems to me to be greatly indebted to Schopenhauer.
+Schopenhauer's Will and Bergson's <i>&eacute;lan vital</i> are practically
+the same (<i>cf</i>. Schopenhauer's <i>&Uuml;ber den Willen in der Natur,</i>
+and Bergson's <i>Creative Evolution</i>). Edward Carpenter, in
+his <i>Art of Creation</i>, has worked out a similar point of view
+independently of Bergson.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt</i>, Zweite
+Auflage, 1907, S. 331.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Sonderdruck, 1905.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> George Meredith, <i>The Sage Enamoured and the Honest
+Lady</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> the closing passages of Bradley's <i>Appearance and
+Reality</i> for a similar view; also the latter part of Ward's
+<i>Realm of Ends</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> This weakness of Bergson's philosophy is shown in
+the whole of Bosanquet's <i>Principle of Individuality and Value</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> It is a great merit of Windelband to have brought
+this aspect of the <i>Ought</i> prominently forward in contradistinction
+to the over-importance attached to the <i>Will</i>
+alone by the Pragmatists. <i>Cf.</i> his <i>Pr&auml;ludien</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 175.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Modern psychology would agree with such a view, but
+probably not with the implications given to it by Eucken.
+The "faculty" psychology as it was presented by Kant has
+now disappeared, and consciousness is conceived as a unity
+in which the three aspects referred to are present, and even
+the single aspect that is in the foreground of consciousness
+is influenced by the others which are in the background.
+Another point made clear by H&ouml;ffding (<i>cf</i>. his <i>Psychology)</i>
+and others is the difference between the activity of consciousness
+in the "drifting" process of association of ideas
+and its power to stem the association current, and to turn
+it into new directions by means of the reflective power of
+consciousness itself.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> It is a great merit of Bergson's philosophy to have
+pointed this out. It is a conception presented several times
+in the history of philosophy, but there is great need of
+re-emphasising it to-day, especially as things in space have
+gripped the soul with such power and disastrous results.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 243.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 200. <i>Cf.</i> also <i>K&ouml;nnen wir noch
+Christen sein</i>? pp. 91-141.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Ward's <i>The Realm of Ends</i>, chapters ii. and
+xx.; also Caird's <i>Evolution of Religion</i> has many valuable
+hints throughout the two volumes pointing in the same
+direction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 436.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Quoted in <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 436.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Cf. <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, pp. 429 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 430.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> This fact is very clearly interpreted by Rickert in his
+<i>Gegenstand der Erkenntnis</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 431.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> I cannot but believe that the supposed proofs brought
+forward by Sir Oliver Lodge and others are so empirical as
+to be of very little value to religion.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 533.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, pp. 367, 368.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, pp. 11, 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 545. It is on this fact that
+Eucken builds his conception of immortality. Such a
+conception is not a matter of speculation or of scientific
+proof, but a matter of an experience born on the summit
+of the evolution of spiritual life within the soul. It is
+useless to attempt to press such an experience into a
+conceptual mould.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, pp. 550, 551.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Driesch is attempting the construction of such a
+Metaphysic of Nature, and a similar attempt is to be
+discovered in Bergson's philosophy, especially in its later
+developments.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Troeltsch has also emphasised this truth in his <i>Absolutheit
+des Christentums und die Religionsgeschichte</i> and in his <i>Bedeutung
+der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu f&uuml;r den Glauben</i>. These two small
+volumes are of great value.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Cf. <i>K&ouml;nnen wir noch Christen sein</i>? pp. 150 to 210; <i>Das
+Wesen der Religion; Life's Basis and Life's Ideal</i>, p. 332 ff.;
+<i>Christianity and the New Idealism</i>, chapter iv.; <i>The Truth
+of Religion</i>, pp. 539 to 616.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 360.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> <i>Das Wesen der Religion</i>, S. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> The closing sections of <i>The Truth of Religion.</i> A
+similar aspect is presented in the final chapter of <i>K&ouml;nnen
+wir noch Christen sein?</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> J.S. Mackenzie's <i>Outlines of Metaphysics</i> on the
+various constructions of the Universe and of Life. The
+whole volume is of the greatest value. <i>Cf.</i> also A.E.
+Taylor's illuminating volume, <i>Elements of Metaphysics</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Cf. <i>Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt</i>, S. 98 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Wicksteed's remarkable address <i>The Religion of
+Time and the Religion of Eternity</i>, already referred to. There
+are some striking similarities between Eucken and Wicksteed,
+who have, however, worked each quite independently
+of one another.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Men of science themselves feel this, and are conscious
+of the one-sidedness of the results of the scientific side
+of materialism.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> <i>Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker</i>, 9te Auflage,
+1911, S. 504.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Liebmann passed away in January 1912. He had
+been Eucken's colleague in Jena for many years. Windelband
+designates him as "the truest of Kantians and the
+Nestor of Philosophy." <i>Cf.</i> my article on his life and work
+in the <i>Nation</i> for February 3, 1912. The best presentation
+in England of the Kantian philosophy and its development
+is to be found in Caird's <i>Critical Philosophy of Kant</i> and
+Adamson's <i>Development of Modern Philosophy. Cf</i>. also G.
+Dawes Hicks's valuable articles in the <i>Proceedings of the
+Aristotelian Society</i> during the past ten years.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> <i>Analysis der Wirklichkeit</i>,3te Auflage, 1900, S. vii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Dilthey's <i>Erlebnis und Dichtung</i>; his article "Die
+Typen der Weltanschauung und ihre Ausbildung in den
+metaphysichen Systemen" in <i>Weltanschauung</i>; <i>Philosophie
+und Religion in Darstellungen</i>, 1911 &gt; also, "Das Wesen
+der Philosophie" in <i>Systematische Philosophie</i> ("Kultur
+der Gegenwart").</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Eucken's <i>Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der
+Gegenwart</i>, 5te Auflage, 1912, chapter iv. Also, <i>Erkennen
+und Leben</i> (1912), ss. 35-51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 574. Many hints in this and
+other respects may be found in W.R. Boyce Gibson's
+valuable work, <i>Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy of Life</i>(3rd
+edition, 1912).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, p. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> "Gesammelte Aufs&auml;tze": <i>Die Bedeutung der kleiner
+Nationen</i>, pp. 47-52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> This truth is pointed out most forcibly by L.P. Jacks
+in his <i>Alchemy of Thought</i>, chap. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Eucken visited England for the first time during
+Whitsun-week 1911. He had been invited by the
+Committee of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association
+to deliver in London the <i>Essex Hall Lecture</i> for the
+year. A large audience gathered together to see and hear
+him, and he received a most cordial reception. He spoke
+in German on <i>Religion and Life</i>, and the lecture has since
+appeared in English. The Rev. Charles Hargrove, M.A.,
+of Leeds (President of the Association) presided over the
+meeting, and spoke of the great importance of Eucken's
+growing influence. Interesting addresses were also delivered
+by Dr J. Estlin Carpenter, Principal of Manchester
+College, Oxford; and Dr P.T. Forsyth, Principal of
+Hackney College. At the luncheon which followed, Professor
+Westermarck, Dr R.F. Horton, and others spoke.
+The lecture was repeated at Manchester College, Oxford,
+during the same week. On Whitsunday Eucken preached
+in the evening at Unity Church, Islington, London, N.,
+at the invitation of the writer of this volume.
+</p><p>
+In September 1912 Eucken sailed for the United
+States of America to deliver a course of lectures at Harvard
+University covering a period of six months.
+</p><p>
+In both countries he was greeted by a large number
+of his old pupils, many of whom travelled long distances
+to see and hear him once more.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Eucken follows Kant in the fact that after the union
+of subject and object has taken place a <i>new kind of objectivity</i>
+has to be taken into account. This result has to be admitted
+before knowledge becomes possible at all. Eucken
+has not dealt in a thorough manner with this problem,
+although several hints are given concerning the importance
+of this transcendental aspect in Kant's philosophy.
+The implications of such a <i>new</i> kind of objectivity avoid
+the danger of subjectivism, on the one hand, and of empiricism
+on the other hand. Eucken's forthcoming <i>Theory
+of Knowledge</i> will deal with this important matter. In
+<i>Erkennen und Leben</i> certain aspects of the problem are
+touched.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> The volume was translated into English and published
+in the United States of America by Stuart Phelps in
+1880. I am not aware that the work exercised any great
+influence at the time either in England or America.
+Eucken's "day" had not then dawned.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<p><b>INDEX OF NAMES</b> <span class="pagenum"><a name="p249" id="p249"></a>[p.249]</span></p>
+
+
+<p>Adamson, R., <a class="a" href="#p216">216</a>.<br />
+Adickes, <a class="a" href="#p217">217</a>.<br />
+Aristotle, <a class="a" href="#p15">15</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Balfour, A.J., <a class="a" href="#p118">118</a>.<br />
+Bergson, <a class="a" href="#p62">62</a>, <a class="a" href="#p74">74</a>, <a class="a" href="#p76">76</a>, <a class="a" href="#p100">100</a>,
+<a class="a" href="#p123">123</a>, <a class="a" href="#p131">131</a>, <a class="a" href="#p138">138</a>, <a class="a" href="#p193">193</a>.<br />
+Boehme, <a class="a" href="#p105">105</a>.<br />
+Bosanquet, B., <a class="a" href="#p8">8</a>, <a class="a" href="#p54">54</a>, <a class="a" href="#p74">74</a>, <a class="a" href="#p131">131</a>.<br />
+Boutroux, <a class="a" href="#p105">105</a>.<br />
+Bradley, F.H., <a class="a" href="#p130">130</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Caird, E., <a class="a" href="#p45">45</a>, <a class="a" href="#p63">63</a>, <a class="a" href="#p155">155</a>, <a class="a" href="#p216">216</a>.<br />
+Carpenter, E., <a class="a" href="#p123">123</a>.<br />
+Carpenter, J. Estlin, <a class="a" href="#p234">234</a>.<br />
+Class, G., <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>.<br />
+Copernicus, <a class="a" href="#p60">60</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin, <a class="a" href="#p60">60</a>.<br />
+Descartes, <a class="a" href="#p65">65</a>.<br />
+Dilthey, W., <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>, <a class="a" href="#p219">219</a>.<br />
+Driesch, H., <a class="a" href="#p62">62</a>, <a class="a" href="#p193">193</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fichte, <a class="a" href="#p17">17</a>, <a class="a" href="#p121">121</a>.<br />
+Fischer, Kuno, <a class="a" href="#p16">16</a>.<br />
+Forsyth, P.T., <a class="a" href="#p234">234</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Galileo, <a class="a" href="#p60">60</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Gibson, W.R.B., <a class="a" href="#p224">224</a>.<br />
+Goethe, <a class="a" href="#p16">16</a>, <a class="a" href="#p17">17</a>, <a class="a" href="#p50">50</a>, <a class="a" href="#p76">76</a>.<br />
+Green, T.H., <a class="a" href="#p63">63</a>, <a class="a" href="#p88">88</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Haeckel, <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>, <a class="a" href="#p64">64</a>, <a class="a" href="#p212">212</a>.<br />
+Haldane, <a class="a" href="#p62">62.</a><br />
+Hargrove, C, <a class="a" href="#p234">234</a>.<br />
+Harnack, A., <a class="a" href="#p56">56</a>.<br />
+Hartmann, Ed. von, <a class="a" href="#p26">26</a>, <a class="a" href="#p123">123</a>.<br />
+Hegel, <a class="a" href="#p17">17</a>, <a class="a" href="#p30">30</a>, <a class="a" href="#p47">47</a>, <a class="a" href="#p79">79</a>,
+<a class="a" href="#p219">219</a>.<br />
+Hicks, G. Dawes, <a class="a" href="#p216">216</a>.<br />
+H&ouml;ffding, H., <a class="a" href="#p137">137</a>.<br />
+Horton, R.F., <a class="a" href="#p234">234</a>.<br />
+H&uuml;gel, F. von, <a class="a" href="#p106">106</a>.<br />
+Husserl, <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>.<br />
+Huxley, <a class="a" href="#p21">21</a>, <a class="a" href="#p22">22</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Jacks, L.P., <a class="a" href="#p231">231</a>.<br />
+James, W., <a class="a" href="#p43">43</a>, <a class="a" href="#p92">92</a>, <a class="a" href="#p208">208</a>, <a class="a" href="#p220">220</a>.<br />
+Jesus, <i>cf.</i> chapters on <a class="a" href="#p166">Historical Religions</a> and <a class="a" href="#p180">Christianity</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Kade, R., <a class="a" href="#p100">100</a>.<br />
+Kant, <a class="a" href="#p30">30</a>, <a class="a" href="#p63">63</a>, <a class="a" href="#p65">65</a>, <a class="a" href="#p120">120</a>,
+<a class="a" href="#p216">216</a>, <a class="a" href="#p217">217</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Liebmann, Otto, <a class="a" href="#p16">16</a>, <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>, <a class="a" href="#p216">216</a>, <a class="a" href="#p217">217</a>.<br />
+Lipps, <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>.<br />
+Lodge, O., <a class="a" href="#p163">163</a>.<br />
+Lotze, <a class="a" href="#p13">13</a>, <a class="a" href="#p14">14</a>.<br />
+Luther, <a class="a" href="#p158">158</a>.</p>
+
+<p>MacDougall, W., <a class="a" href="#p62">62</a>.<br />
+Mach, E., <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>.<br />
+Mackenzie, J.S., <a class="a" href="#p206">206</a>.<br />
+Meredith, G., <a class="a" href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Morgan, T.H., <a class="a" href="#p62">62</a>.<br />
+M&uuml;nsterberg, H., <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>, <a class="a" href="#p22">22</a>, <a class="a" href="#p63">63</a>,
+<a class="a" href="#p72">72</a>, <a class="a" href="#p93">93</a>, <a class="a" href="#p94">94</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Nettleship, R.L., <a class="a" href="#p88">88</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Ostwald, W., <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Paul, <a class="a" href="#p5">5</a>, <a class="a" href="#p50">50</a>.<br />
+Paulsen, F., <a class="a" href="#p15">15</a>.<br />
+Phelps, Stuart, <a class="a" href="#p239">239</a>.<br />
+Plato, <a class="a" href="#p15">15</a>, <a class="a" href="#p49">49</a>, <a class="a" href="#p59">59</a>, <a class="a" href="#p188">188</a>.<br />
+Plotinus, <a class="a" href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[p.250]</span></p>
+
+<p>Reinke, <a class="a" href="#p62">62</a>.<br />
+Reuter, <a class="a" href="#p13">13</a>.<br />
+Rickert, H., <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>, <a class="a" href="#p22">22</a>, <a class="a" href="#p72">72</a>,
+<a class="a" href="#p160">160</a>, <a class="a" href="#p217">217</a>.<br />
+Royce, J., <a class="a" href="#p63">63</a>.<br />
+Runeberg, <a class="a" href="#p202">202</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Savonarola, <a class="a" href="#p192">192</a>.<br />
+Sch&auml;fer, E.A., <a class="a" href="#p20">20</a>, <a class="a" href="#p62">62</a>.<br />
+Schelling, <a class="a" href="#p17">17</a>.<br />
+Schiller, <a class="a" href="#p16">16</a>, <a class="a" href="#p17">17</a>, <a class="a" href="#p120">120</a>, <a class="a" href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Schiller, F.C.S., <a class="a" href="#p220">220</a>.<br />
+Schopenhauer, <a class="a" href="#p17">17</a>, <a class="a" href="#p123">123</a>, <a class="a" href="#p204">204</a>.<br />
+Siebeck, H., <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>.<br />
+Simmel, G., <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>.<br />
+Socrates, <a class="a" href="#p59">59</a>.<br />
+Sorley, W.R., <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Taylor, A.E., <a class="a" href="#p206">206</a>.<br />
+Thomson, J.A., <a class="a" href="#p62">62</a>.<br />
+Trendelenberg, <a class="a" href="#p15">15</a>.<br />
+Troeltsch, E., <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>, <a class="a" href="#p100">100</a>, <a class="a" href="#p194">194</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Vaihinger, <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>, <a class="a" href="#p217">217</a>.<br />
+Volkelt, <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>, <a class="a" href="#p71">71</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wallace, W., <a class="a" href="#p44">44</a>, <a class="a" href="#p45">45</a>.<br />
+Ward, J., <a class="a" href="#p63">63</a>, <a class="a" href="#p130">130</a>, <a class="a" href="#p155">155</a>.<br />
+Westermarck, E., <a class="a" href="#p234">234</a>.<br />
+Wicksteed, P.H., <a class="a" href="#p56">56</a>, <a class="a" href="#p211">211</a>.<br />
+Windelband, W., <a class="a" href="#p18">18</a>, <a class="a" href="#p19">19</a>, <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>,
+<a class="a" href="#p132">132</a>, <a class="a" href="#p216">216</a>, <a class="a" href="#p217">217</a>.<br />
+Wundt, W., <a class="a" href="#p23">23</a>, <a class="a" href="#p94">94</a>.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's
+Philosophy, by W. Tudor Jones
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy
+
+Author: W. Tudor Jones
+
+Release Date: October 9, 2005 [EBook #16835]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marc D'Hooghe.
+
+
+
+
+AN INTERPRETATION OF RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY
+
+By
+
+W. TUDOR JONES, Ph.D. (Jena)
+
+
+LONDON
+
+1912
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+     [Greek: Hara ohyn, hadelphoi, hopheiletai hesmen, ou te sarki tou
+     kata sarka zen, ei gar kata sarka zete meggete hapothneskein, ehi
+     de pneumati tas praxeis tou somatos thanatoute zesesthe. hosoi gar
+     pneumati theou hagontai, outoi uioi theou ehisin.]--St. Paul
+     (Romans, viii. 12-14).
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+PREFACE [p.7]
+
+
+The personality and works of Professor Rudolf Eucken are at the present
+day exercising such a deep influence the world over that a volume by one
+of his old pupils, which attempts to interpret his teaching, should
+prove of assistance. It is hoped that the essentials of Eucken's
+teaching are presented in this book, in a form which is as simple as the
+subject-matter allows, and which will not necessitate the reader
+unlearning anything when he comes to the author's most important works.
+The whole of the work is expository; and an attempt has been made in the
+foot-notes to point out aspects similar to those of Eucken's in English
+and German Philosophy.
+
+It is encouraging to find at the present day so much interest in
+religious idealism, and it is proved by Eucken beyond the possibility of
+doubt that without some form of such idealism no individual or nation
+can realise its deepest potencies. But with the presence of such
+idealism as a conviction in the mind and life, history teaches us that
+the seemingly impossible [p.8] is partially realised, and that a new
+depth of life is reached. All this does not mean that the individual is
+to slacken his interests or to lose his affection for the material
+aspects of life; but it does mean that the things which appertain to
+life have different values, and that it is of the utmost importance to
+judge them all from the highest conceivable standpoint--the standpoint
+of spiritual life. This is Eucken's distinctive message to-day. The
+message shows that an actual evolution of spirit is taking place in the
+life of the individual and of human society; and that this evolution can
+be guided by means of the concentration of the whole being upon the
+reality of the norms and standards which present themselves in the lives
+of individuals and of nations. No one particular science or philosophy
+is able to grant us this central standpoint for viewing the field of
+knowledge and the meaning of life. The answer to the complexity of the
+problem of existence is to be found in something which gathers up under
+a larger and more significant meaning the results of knowledge and life.
+This volume will attempt to elucidate this all-important point of
+view--a point of view which is so needful in our days of specialisation
+and of material interests. It may be, and Eucken and his followers
+believe it is, that the destiny of the nations of the world depends in
+the last resort upon a conception and conviction of [p.9] the reality of
+a life deeper than that of sense or intellect, although both these may
+become tributaries (and not hindrances) to such a spiritual life.
+
+I have to thank Professor Eucken himself for allowing me access to
+material hitherto unpublished, and for encouraging me in the work. I am
+bold enough to be confident that could I say half of what our revered
+teacher has meant for me and for hundreds of others of his old pupils,
+this volume would be the means of helping many who are drifting from
+their old moorings to find an anchorage in a spiritual world.
+
+                                                W. TUDOR JONES.
+
+  Highbury, London, N.,
+
+        _November_ 1, 1912.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+Preface                                                   7
+
+1. Introduction                                          13
+
+2. Religion and Evolution                                26
+
+3. Religion and Natural Science                          57
+
+4. Religion and History                                  70
+
+5. Religion and Psychology                               87
+
+6. Religion and Society                                 108
+
+7. Religion and Art                                     119
+
+8. Universal Religion                                   128
+
+9. Characteristic Religion                              151
+
+10. The Historical Religions                            166
+
+11. Christianity                                        180
+
+12. Present-Day Aspects of Philosophy and Religion      206
+
+13. Eucken's Personality and Influence                  227
+
+14. Conclusion                                          236
+
+List of Eucken's Works                                  245
+
+Index                                                   249
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AN INTERPRETATION OF RUDOLF EUCKEN'S PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTION [p.13]
+
+
+Rudolf Eucken was born at Aurich, East Frisia, on the 5th of January
+1846. He lost his father when quite a child. His mother, the daughter of
+a Liberal clergyman, was a woman of deep religious experience and of
+rich intellectual gifts. When quite a boy he came at school under the
+influence of the theologian Reuter, a man of wonderful fascination to
+young men. The questions of religion and the need of religious
+experience interested Eucken early, and these have never parted from him
+during the long years which have since passed away.
+
+At an early age he entered the University of Goettingen and attended the
+philosophical classes of Hermann Lotze. Lotze interested him in
+philosophical problems, but did not [p.14] satisfy the burning desire
+for religious experience which was in the young man's soul. Lotze looked
+at religion and all else from the intellectual point of view. His main
+business was to discover proofs for the things of the spirit, and the
+value of his work in this direction cannot be over-estimated. Hermann
+Lotze's works are with us to-day; and he has probably made more
+important contributions to philosophy and religion from the scientific
+side than any other writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century.
+But he seems to have been a man who was inclined to conceive of reality
+as something which had value only in so far as it was _known_, and left
+very largely out of account the inchoate stirrings and aspirations which
+are found at a deeper level within the human soul than the _knowing_
+level. Life is larger and deeper than logic, and is something, despite
+all our efforts, which resists being reduced to logical propositions. It
+is quite easy to understand how a young man of Eucken's temperament and
+training should acquiesce in all the logical treatment of Lotze's
+philosophy, and still find that _more_ was to be obtained from other
+sources which had quenched the thirst of the great men of the past.
+
+When Eucken entered the University of Berlin he came into contact with a
+teacher who helped him immensely in the quest for religion, and in the
+interpretation of religion as the [p.15] issue of that quest. Adolf
+Trendelenburg was a great teacher as well as a noble idealist, and his
+influence upon young Eucken was very great. Indeed, it seems that
+Trendelenburg's influence was great on the life of every young man who
+was fortunate enough to come into contact with him. The late Professor
+Paulsen, in his beautiful autobiography, _Aus meinem Leben_ (1909),
+presents us with a vivid picture of Trendelenburg and his work. Under
+him the pupils came into close touch not only with the _meaning_ but
+also with the _spirit_ of Plato and Aristotle. The pupils were made to
+see the ideal life in all its charm and glory. The great Professor had
+all his lifetime lived and meditated in this pure atmosphere, and
+possessed the gift of infusing something of his own enthusiasm into the
+minds and spirits of his hearers. Eucken has stated on several occasions
+his indebtedness to Trendelenburg. The young student entered the temple
+of philosophy through the gateways of philology and history. This was a
+great gain, for the barricading of these two gateways against philosophy
+has produced untold mischief in the past. At present men are beginning
+to see this mistake, and we are witnessing to-day the phenomenon of the
+indissoluble connection of language and history with philosophy. In
+fact, the new meanings given to language and history are meanings of
+things which happened in the [p.16] culture and civilisations of
+individuals and of nations, and such a material casts light on the
+processes, meaning, and significance of the human mind and spirit.
+
+Eucken learnt this truth in Berlin at a very early age, and his life and
+teaching ever since have been a further development of it. This fact has
+to be borne in mind in order that we may understand the prominence he
+gives to religion, religious idealism, spiritual life, and other similar
+concepts--concepts which are largely foreign to ordinary philosophy and
+which are only to be found in that mysterious, all-important borderland
+of philosophy and religion.
+
+After graduating as Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Goettingen,
+we find him preparing himself as a High School teacher, in which
+position he remained for five years.
+
+In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in the University of
+Basel. In 1874 he received a "call" to succeed the late Kuno Fischer as
+Professor of Philosophy in the renowned University of Jena. It is here,
+in the "little nest" of Goethe and Schiller, that Eucken has remained in
+spite of "calls" to universities situated in larger towns and carrying
+with them larger salaries. It is fortunate for Jena that Eucken has thus
+decided. He, along with his late colleague Otto Liebmann, has kept up
+the philosophical tradition of Jena. In spite of modern developments and
+the presence of [p.17] new university buildings, Jena still remains an
+old-world place. To read the tablets on the walls of the old houses has
+a fascination, and brings home the fact that in this small out-of-the-way
+town large numbers of the most creative minds of Europe have studied and
+taught. The traditions of Goethe and Schiller still linger around the
+old buildings and in the historical consciousness of the people. Here
+Fichte taught his great idealism--an idealism which has meant so much in
+the evolution of the Germany of the nineteenth century; here Hegel was
+engaged on his great _Phenomenology of Spirit_ when Napoleon's army
+entered the town; here Schopenhauer sent his great dissertation and
+received his doctor's degree _in absentia_; here too, the Kantian
+philosophy found friends who started it on its "grand triumphant
+march"--a philosophy which raised new problems which have been with us
+ever since, and which gave a new method of approaching philosophical
+questions; here Schelling revived modern mysticism and attempted the
+construction of a great _Weltanschauung._ But only a small portion of
+the greatness of Jena can be touched on. Eucken has nobly upheld the
+great traditions of the place, not only as a philosophical thinker but
+also as a personality.
+
+What is the secret of Eucken's influence? It is due greatly, it is true,
+to his writings and their original contents, for it is not possible for
+[p.18] a man to hide his inner being when he writes on the deepest
+questions concerning life and death. A great deal of Eucken's
+personality may be discovered in his writings. Opening any page of his
+books, one sees something unique, passionate, and somehow always deeper
+than what may be confined within the limits of the understanding, and
+something which has to be lived in order to be understood. And to know
+the man is to realise this in a fuller measure than his writings can
+ever show. He has to be seen and heard before the real significance of
+his message becomes clear. His personality attracts men and women of all
+schools of thought, from all parts of the world, and they all feel that
+his message of a reality which is beyond knowledge--though knowledge
+forms an integral part of it--is a new revelation of the meaning of life
+and existence. Professor Windelband, in his _History of Philosophy_ and
+elsewhere, describes Eucken as the creator of a new Metaphysic--a
+metaphysic not of the Schools but of Life. This aspect will be discussed
+at fuller length in later pages, so that it may be passed over for the
+present.
+
+Eucken believes in the reality and necessity of his message. He is aware
+that that message is contrary to the current terminology and meaning of
+the philosophy of our day. Some of his great constructive books were
+written as far back as 1888, and have remained, almost until our own
+day, in a large measure unnoticed. [p.19] The _Einheit des Geisteslebens
+in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit_ is a case in point. It is one of
+his greatest books, and its value was not seen until the last few years.
+But the philosophy of the present day in Germany is tending more and
+more in the direction of Eucken's. Writers such as the late Class and
+Dilthey, Siebeck, Windelband, Muensterberg, Rickert, Volkelt, Troeltsch
+--naming but a small number of the idealistic thinkers of the present
+--are tending in the direction of the new Metaphysic presented by Eucken
+in the book already referred to as well as in the _Kampf um einen
+geistigen Lebensinhalt_.
+
+The philosophy of Germany at the present day is making several attempts
+at a metaphysic of the universe. Much critical and constructive work has
+been done during the past quarter of a century and is being done to-day.
+The attempts to construct systems of metaphysics may be witnessed on the
+sides of natural science and of philosophy. Haeckel, Ostwald, and Mach
+have each given the world a constructive system of thought. But these
+three systems have not, except in a secondary way, attempted a
+metaphysic of human life. Haeckel's system is mainly poetico-mythical,
+chiefly on the lines of some of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Ostwald's
+attempt is to show the unity of nature and life through his principle of
+Energetics; and Mach's may be described as an inverted kind [p.20] of
+Kantianism in regard to the problem of subject and object.
+
+None of these has attempted a reconstruction of philosophy from the side
+of the content of consciousness; in fact, they all find their
+explanation of consciousness in connection with physical and organic
+phenomena observed on planes below those of the mental and ideal life of
+man. Such work is necessary; but if it comes forward as a _complete_
+explanation of man, it is, as Eucken points out again and again, a
+wretched caricature of life. To know the connection of consciousness
+with the organic and inorganic world is not to know consciousness in
+anything more than its history. It may have been similar to, or even
+identical with, physical manifestations of life, but it is not so _now_.
+Eucken admits entirely this fact of the history of mind; but the meaning
+of mind is to be discovered not so much in its _Whence_ as in its
+present potency and its _Whither_.[1] A philosophy of science is bound
+to recognise this difference, or else all its constructions can
+represent no more than a torso. Physical impressions enter into
+consciousness, [p.21] and doubtless in important ways condition it,
+but they are _not physical_ once man becomes _conscious_ of them. A union
+of subject and object has now taken place, and consequently a new beginning
+--a beginning which cannot be interpreted in terms of the things of
+sense--starts on its course. This is Eucken's standpoint, and it is no
+other than the carrying farther of some of the important results Kant
+arrived at.
+
+This difference between the natural and the mental sciences has been
+emphasised, at various times, since the time of Plato. But the
+difference tended to become obliterated through the discoveries of
+natural science and its great influence during the latter half of the
+nineteenth century. The key of evolution had come at last into the hands
+of men, and it fitted so many closed doors; it provided an entrance to a
+new kind of world, and gave new methods for knowing that world. But, as
+already stated, evolution is capable of dealing with what _is_ in the
+light of what _was_, and the _Is_ and the _Was_ are the physical
+characteristics of things. In all this, mind and morals, as they are in
+their own intrinsic nature operating in the world, are left out of
+account. A striking example of this is found in the late Professor
+Huxley's Romanes Lecture--_Evolution and Ethics_. In this remarkable
+lecture it is shown that the cosmic order does not answer all our
+questions, and is indifferent [p.22] and even antagonistic to our
+ethical needs and ideals. Huxley's conclusion may be justly designated
+as a failure of science to interpret the greatest things of life. Before
+culture, civilisation, and morality become possible, a new point of
+departure has to take place within human consciousness, and the attempt
+to move in an ethical direction is as much hindered as helped by the
+natural course of the physical universe. This lecture of Huxley's runs
+parallel in many ways with Eucken's differentiation of Nature and
+Spirit, and Huxley's "ethical life" has practically the same meaning as
+Eucken's "spiritual life" on its lower levels.
+
+Numerous instances are to be found in the present-day philosophy of
+Germany of the need of a Metaphysic of Life, and of the impossibility of
+constructing such from the standpoint of the results of the natural
+sciences either singly or combined.
+
+Professor Rickert's investigations are having important effects in this
+respect. In his works he has made abundantly clear the difference
+between the methods and results of the sciences of Nature and the
+sciences of Mind. And even amongst the mental sciences themselves,
+all-important aspects of different subject-matters present themselves,
+and render themselves as of different _values_.
+
+Professor Muensterberg has worked on a similar path, and has insisted
+once more on the nature of reality as this expresses itself in [p.23] a
+meaning which is over-individual. Professor Windelband's writings (_cf.
+Praeludien, Die Philosophie im XX. Jahrhundert_, etc.) have emphasised
+very clearly the need of the presence and acknowledgment of norms in
+life, and of the meaning of life realising itself in the fulfilment of
+these norms.[2]
+
+When we turn to the great neo-Kantian movement, we find alongside of
+discussions concerning psychological questions important ethical aspects
+presenting themselves. The works of the late Professor Otto Liebmann of
+Jena (_cf_ the last part of his _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_) and of the
+late Professor Dilthey and Dr. G. Simmel point in the same direction.
+Professors Husserl, Lipps, and Vaihinger, as their most recent important
+books show, work on lines which insist on bringing life as it is and as
+it ought to be into their systems. The same may be said of Professor
+Wundt's works in so far as they present a constructive system.
+
+But the ground was fallow twenty-five years ago when some of Eucken's
+important works made their appearance. Even as late as 1896 he complains
+of this in the preface of his _Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_:
+"I am aware that the explanations offered in this [p.24] volume will prove
+themselves to be in direct antagonism to the mental currents which
+prevail to-day."[3] He states that his standpoint is different from that
+of the conventional and official idealism then in vogue. By this he
+means, on the one hand, the "absolute idealism" which constructed
+systems entirely unconnected with science or experience--systems whose
+Absolute had no direct relationship with man, or which made no appeal to
+anything of a similar nature to itself in the deeper experience of the
+soul; and, on the other hand, the degeneration of the neo-Kantian
+movement to a mere description of the relations of bodily and mental
+processes.
+
+Probably enough has been said to show that the idealistic systems of
+Germany are tending more and more in the direction of a philosophy which
+attempts to take into account not only the results of the physical
+sciences and psychology, but also those of the norms of history and of
+the over-individual contents of consciousness.
+
+It has been stated by several critics in England, Germany, and America,
+that Eucken has ignored the results of physical science and psychology.
+This was partially true in the past, when his main object was to present
+his [p.25] own metaphysic of life. The problems of science and
+psychology had to take a secondary place, but it is incorrect to state
+that these problems were ignored. It is remarkable how Eucken has kept
+himself abreast of these results which are outside his own province.[4]
+But he has been all along conscious of the limitations of these results
+of natural science and psychology. The results fail to connote the
+phenomena of consciousness and its meaning. While Eucken has accepted
+these results, I have not seen any evidence that any of his conceptions
+concerning the main core of his teaching--the spiritual life--are
+disproved by any of them. He shows us, as will be elucidated later, that
+as sensations point in the direction of percepts, and percepts in the
+direction of concepts, so concepts point in the direction of something
+which is beyond themselves. And as the meaning of reality reveals itself
+the more we pass along the mysterious transition from sensation to
+concept, so a further meaning of reality is revealed when concepts
+search for a depth beyond themselves. This is the clue to Eucken's
+teaching in regard to spiritual life. It is a further development of the
+nature of man--a development beyond the empirical and the mental. And
+the object of the following chapters will be to show this from various
+points of view.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER II [p.26]
+
+RELIGION AND EVOLUTION
+
+
+Eucken accepts gladly the theory of descent in Darwinism, but insists
+that the theory of selection must be clearly distinguished from it.
+He agrees with Edward von Hartmann that the doctrine of selection is
+inadequate to explain the phenomena of life. But, as he points out,
+there is much which is true and helpful in the theory of selection
+even in regard to human life. "In all quarters there is a widespread
+inclination to go back to the simplest possible beginnings, which
+exhibit man closely related to the animal world, to trace back the
+upward movement not to an inner impulse, but to a gradual forward
+thrust produced by outward necessities, and to understand it as a mere
+adaptation to environment and the conditions of life. It seems to be a
+mere question of natural existence, of victory in the struggle against
+rivals."[5] But he is not satisfied that such an explanation covers the
+[p.27] phenomena of consciousness. If there were no more than this at
+work in the higher forms of life, the things of value--the things which
+have meant so much in the upward development of humanity--would be
+reduced to mere adjuncts of physical existence. If mental and moral
+values mean no more than this, they are simply annihilated. But the
+values of life are something quite other than any physical manifestation;
+and however much they are conditioned by physical changes it is
+inconceivable that what is purely physical should be the sole cause of
+them. Man would never have risen so far above Nature, and become able to
+be conscious of his own personality and of the meaning of the world, had
+there not been present from the very beginning some spiritual potency
+which could receive the impressions of the external world and bind them
+together into some kind of connected Whole. This connected Whole may be
+no more in the beginning than a potency without any content, and its
+roots may be discerned in the world below man; but without such a
+potency, different in its nature from physical things, the whole meaning
+of the evolution of mind and spirit is utterly unintelligible. But what
+can this potency mean but something which includes within itself the
+germ of that which later comes out in the form of the values which have
+been gained in the life of the individual and of the race?
+
+[p.28] In order to understand Eucken's conceptions concerning Spirit,
+Whole, Totality, and other similar terms, this fact has to be borne in
+mind. The capacity for _more_ is present in man's nature. It may remain
+dormant in a large measure, but it is not entirely so, as witnessed by
+the fact that men have scaled heights far above Nature and the ordinary
+life of the day. And humanity, on the whole, has climbed to a height to
+give some degree of meaning to the life of the day--a meaning superior
+to physical impressions, and which is able to see somewhat behind,
+around, and beyond itself. Wherever this happens, it comes about through
+the presence and activity of the life of the spirit within man. The
+spiritual life is, then, a possession of man, but it is a possession
+only in so far as it is used. It is subject to helps and hindrances from
+the world; it is not freed from its own content; it can never say,
+"So far and no further according to the bond and the duty"; it has to
+undergo a toilsome struggle before it can ever become the possessor of
+the new kind of world to which it has a right.
+
+In all this we notice something in the _new world of consciousness_
+similar to what happens within the physical world. In the world of
+nature no animate (and probably no inanimate) thing has received a
+_donum_ which it may preserve as its own without effort. Everything that
+has value has to be preserved through [p.29] struggles necessitated by
+the changing conditions of the impinging environment as well as
+struggles between contrary characteristics within the nature of the
+thing itself. Otherwise nothing could maintain its identity and
+individuality at all. There must be some core in everything which exists
+as an individual thing. This individuality is seen more clearly as the
+scale of existence is mounted. In the organic world each thing lives in
+a more or less degree its own life, however much that life is
+conditioned and even hindered by the environment. What is it, then, that
+keeps the thing together? It is some point of union of elements
+otherwise scattered. When we come to man we see this more clearly than
+in the world below him. This core is a kind of Whole made up of isolated
+impressions mingling with a potency different in nature from themselves,
+and transmuting them to its own nature in the forms of self-consciousness,
+meanings, values. This potency--this Whole--although present from the
+very beginning as the condition of becoming conscious of anything, yet
+remains in constant change. Impressions pour in through the senses,
+enter the Whole that is already present; they drop their content into
+that Whole by means of the senses, and the miracle of transmutation,
+entirely mysterious, takes place.
+
+This point is not new. It is a fact well [p.30] known in the history of
+psychology, and played a very prominent part in the psychology of Kant.
+But Eucken has deepened the conception in such a way as to be able to
+rid himself of the postulates of Kant concerning God, Freedom, and
+Immortality. The germs of these, according to the meaning of Eucken,
+are within the spiritual life itself, and not transcendent in the form
+presented by Kant or external as presented by Hegel. There is, then,
+within consciousness a process in many respects analogous to the natural
+process. And as the meaning of the physical universe has become clearer
+through the conception of evolution, so the meaning of consciousness,
+originating in a higher world than Nature, will become clearer if viewed
+in a similar manner. Let us then turn to one of the most important
+aspects of Eucken's work, Evolution and Religion.
+
+Eucken's deepest, and consequently the most difficult, account of the
+meaning of religion is to be found in his _Truth of Religion_ and his
+_Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt._ It is important to deal with
+the concept of the spiritual life at this stage of our inquiry, for it
+is the pivot around which the whole of Eucken's philosophy turns.
+
+The essence of religion is conceived by him as the possession by man of
+an eternal existence in the midst of time; of the presence of an
+over-world in the midst of this world [p.31]--guiding man to the
+revelation of a Divine Will.
+
+This is Eucken's main thesis, and connected with this thesis is the fact
+that religion can come to birth in the soul of man only through a
+conquest of the ordinary, natural world which surrounds him. The world
+which surrounds him hinders more than it helps the birth of religion in
+the soul. The aim of religion is therefore not the perfecting of man in
+a natural sense, but the bringing about of a union of human nature and
+the Divine. Religion must therefore include a "world-denial and a
+world-renewal." There is not enough for man's deeper nature either in
+the physical world or in the ordinary life of the hour. The natural
+world knows of no complete self-subsistence, for everything is connected
+with its environment, and it is in this connection with its environment
+that life below man largely obtains its existence. But in man we
+discover a transition stage from the sensuous to the non-sensuous, and
+it is in the latter that the meaning of the former can be obtained. The
+history of civilisation and culture is a history of this all-important
+fact. The meaning of man is, therefore, not to be found in his
+relationship to the physical world, but in his own consciousness.
+Although we may not be aware of it, consciousness is the power which, in
+the long and slow progress of the ages, has overcome the sensuous and
+made it subservient to the [p.32] meaning and value which its own
+content of experience has presented. The necessity and proof of religion
+are not then discovered in anything in the external world, but in the
+realisation of the fact that we are meant to be citizens of a world
+higher in its nature, the birthright of which is to be found within our
+own nature. The conquest of nature and the growth of culture are proofs
+to man of his superiority to the world of sense impressions. This denial
+of the sufficiency of the world of sense in the evolution of the human
+soul, on the one hand, and the affirmation of the potentiality of a
+higher world of spirit on the other hand, constitute the nucleus of the
+Christian religion. Its superiority consists in giving their rights to
+both worlds, and also in showing that they do not possess the same
+value. This essential nature of Christianity will be demonstrated later.
+
+We must return, then, to consciousness itself and see what may be
+discovered within it concerning the meaning of religion. The great
+thinkers of the ages have all been agreed as to the impossibility of
+finding sufficient proofs and meanings of religion either from Nature or
+from some supernatural source flowing in a miraculous manner towards our
+earth. The growth and interpretation of natural science in modern times
+have rendered it impossible to find proofs of religion in any external
+mode. Yet the problems of man's [p.33] Whence and Whither raise
+themselves with energy and even tragedy in our own day. These, as Eucken
+points out, are "problems concerning our Whence and Whither, our
+dependence upon strange powers, the painful antitheses within our own
+soul, the stubborn barriers to our spiritual potencies, the flaws in
+love and righteousness, in Nature and in human nature; in a word, the
+apparent total loss of what we dare not renounce--our best and most real
+treasures."[6] The loss takes place because we have been looking outward
+instead of inward for support, and prop after prop has given way. This
+is the situation to-day, and it has been brought about by no evil power,
+but by the gradual dawning of the meaning of things. Still, it is not
+the whole meaning of things, for, as Eucken points out: "But we are now
+experiencing what mankind has so often experienced, viz. that at the
+very point where the negation reaches its climax and the danger reaches
+the very brink of a precipice, the conviction dawns with axiomatic
+certainty that there lives and stirs within us something which no
+obstacle or enmity can ever destroy, and which signifies against all
+opposition a kernel of our nature that can never get lost."[7]
+
+The religio-philosophical problem is, then, a return to _the Whole of
+Life_. It is here that any satisfactory answer can be found if found
+[p.34] at all. It is necessary to investigate the final grounds as well
+as the most complete structure of Life; it is further necessary to
+discover whether the movement of Life necessarily leads to religion.
+As Eucken invariably presents the truth of religion, the meaning and
+significance of religion are to be found through self-consciousness.
+This meaning of consciousness is twofold in nature. On the one hand,
+it is something that may be _known_, and, on the other hand, it is
+something that is _active_ through its own inherent energy. Here we find
+a difference between what we may _know_ we are and what we _are_. Our
+knowledge of what we are, the conditions of what we are, the history of
+what we are--all these are a help for us to be what we are capable of
+becoming. But all these are not the very movement of the becoming
+itself. That movement is the resultant of the spiritual potency after
+experiences in the form of cognition have marked out the path for
+conation. This conation is an inheritance; it is present in the form of
+dissatisfaction with the present situation; it moves in the direction of
+a goal which is marked out by intellect. Now, however much this conation
+may be analysed, it resists being decomposed into a number of elements
+which make it up, for any such number, except in the very manner they
+are united, could not produce the situation. In other words, whatever
+the history of this conation may be, it is now a unity or whole. [p.35]
+Conditioned as it is by the surrounding world and by its own history, in
+so far as it is this, it is _determined_; but it is still _free_ in so
+far as it is capable of becoming a new point of departure for life and
+of proceeding on its way in a world of spirit. Unless man's nature
+contained within itself some unity or whole of the kind already referred
+to, it would mean no more than a receptacle of momentary impressions
+which would vanish as soon as their physical effects had passed away.
+But man is in reality more than all this. In the form of memory and
+experience he is able to hold together in a core of his being the
+_meaning_ of these impressions after they have filtered into his
+consciousness. That is what we find, in however obscure a way, as the
+very beginning of every human life. This unity or whole, as already
+stated, may be no more than a potency in the beginning of life, but it
+gains in content and depth as it passes from impression to impression,
+and from experience to experience. And all further impressions and
+experiences have to be referred to this nucleus of the nature in order
+that they may be used and may prove themselves helpful. It is in this
+nucleus of the nature that everything obtains its meaning and value.
+
+The _Whole_ consequently grows, and gradually man becomes conscious of
+his personality as over against the environing world and even his own
+body. This consciousness of [p.36] _inwardness_ is of slow growth,
+because the natural tendency of life is to give a primary place to the
+world from which we have emerged--the world of physical existence, and
+also because much of that physical world reigns powerfully within our
+nature. But when reflection turns into itself, it becomes aware that the
+inwardness constitutes the kernel of a reality higher in its nature than
+anything either in the physical world or in the physical life which the
+man has to lead.
+
+Two modes of reality now present themselves to the life, neither of
+which allows itself to be conceived of as an illusion. On the one hand,
+we find the physical world and our own physical nature. We discover that
+we cannot jump out of these without destroying all we possess; we have
+to come to some kind of understanding with the physical world and our
+own physical existence. Yet, on the other hand, the consciousness of a
+kernel of our being, non-sensuous and spiritual in its nature, has for
+ever broken our satisfaction with the physical world and our own
+physical existence. There are only two alternatives on which we can act.
+Either we are to conceive of our spiritual personality as something
+secondary and subsidiary to the natural world, or we are to insist on
+its independence, and acknowledge it as the beginning of _a new mode of
+existence._ If the former alternative is chosen, the personality can
+never pass to a state of self-subsistence, [p.37] but will conceive of
+reality as something which is mainly physical. The consequence is that
+the personality will suffer seriously in its evolution, for such an
+evolution is brought about through the recognition and willing
+acknowledgment of the breaking forth of _a new kind of reality_ within
+the spiritual nucleus of life. If the latter alternative is chosen, this
+nucleus of life is now seen as something quite other than a quality
+entirely dependent upon the physical or than a mere flowering of the
+physical; it is seen as a reality higher in its nature than the physical
+or even than the ordinary life of the individual. Such a situation is
+forced on man when once he reflects upon the inward meaning of the
+content of his consciousness. It is true that such questions may be
+thrust into the background, and consequently inhibited from presenting
+us with their full value and significance. And it is this which happens
+only too often in daily life. The constant need of attention to external
+things, the absorption of the mind in conventionality and custom as
+these present themselves in the form of a ready-made inheritance--all
+these occupy so much of the attention as to prevent man from knowing and
+experiencing what _his own life_ is or what it is capable of becoming.
+Man has penetrated into the secrets of Nature as well as into the past
+of human society through close and constant attention to external
+things. [p.38] He has been able to gather fragments together, piece them
+into each other, and through this frame laws concerning them. It is thus
+that the external world and society have come to mean more to a human
+being than to an animal. The animal is probably almost entirely the
+creature of its instincts and of the percepts which present themselves
+to it from moment to moment, and which largely disappear. But man rises
+above this situation. The external world and everything that has ever
+happened on its face are not merely objects external to himself, which
+contain all their qualities in themselves. Somebody has to experience
+all this, and that somebody that experiences all this is _mental_ in his
+nature, however much this nature has been conditioned by _physical_
+things in the past or present.
+
+Eucken emphasises this fundamental fact in all his books. Wherever a
+being is capable of _experiencing_ impressions and of giving _meanings_
+to these, we are bound to conclude that the power which does this is
+something quite other than physical in its nature. It may be that such
+a power has never been known except in connection with what is physical;
+it may be that various chemical changes give the truer and clearer
+explanation of its origin, as far as its origin can be known at all;
+it may be that there was nothing of the _mental_ visible in the early
+stages of its development; but all this is very different from stating
+that [p.39] no potentiality for mental evolution was there. And it is
+this potentiality which is the issue at stake. We have no warrant for
+stating that it does not exist because it does not lend itself to be
+verified by the senses. Where does _mind_ manifest itself to the senses?
+It is something which does not exist in space as a horse or a tree. It
+may be that consciousness has emanated from simple chemical beginnings
+and combinations, but it is not a simple or a chemical thing _now_. We
+divide worlds into inorganic and organic. The main principle of division
+is necessitated on account of the fact that some characteristics are
+present in the former which are absent in the latter. It is precisely
+the same between Body and Mind, with one difference. Body and Mind are
+indissolubly connected, but one cannot be reduced into the other.
+However much the connection on one side may influence the other side,
+the difference between a _meaning_ and a _thing_ remains. And it is this
+fundamental difference which makes it absolutely necessary to
+acknowledge _a world_ of consciousness in contradistinction to a world
+of matter and its behaviour, whether such matter is to be found in the
+human body with its mechanical and chemical changes and transformations
+or in the physical universe outside our body.
+
+It is only when the mind becomes aware of its own existence--an
+existence not to be established as being in Space (or entirely in [p.40]
+Time) but as a reality subsisting in itself and in will-relations--that
+the efforts and fruitions of the spirit of man become intelligible at
+all. But such an awareness has become a permanent possession in a
+greater or less degree within the life of man. Whenever he becomes
+conscious of the fact that in his own soul a new phenomenon has made its
+appearance, he begins, after the willing acknowledgment of the reality
+of such a phenomenon, to exercise its potency over against the external
+world and over against much that is present in his own psychical life. A
+Higher and a Lower present themselves to him. The two alternatives force
+themselves, and there is no third: either this deeper kernel of his life
+must mean the possibility and, in a measure, the presence of _a new land
+of reality_; or, on the other hand, it means no more than a mere
+epiphenomenon and blossoming of the merely _natural_ life. If the latter
+view is adopted, the spiritual nucleus of man's nature obtains but
+slight attention except on the side of its connection with the
+surrounding organic world, and consequently what this nucleus is in
+itself as an experience recedes into the background, and descriptions
+and explanations in scientific or philosophical form step into the
+foreground. But a contradiction is imbedded in this very account. Some
+kind of experience of life, apart from, and higher in its nature than,
+the connection of the spiritual nucleus with its [p.41] physical
+history, persists in the life. The man of science is generally a good
+and worthy man. He believes in the moral life, and he does not throw the
+values of the centuries overboard. Such belief and valuation are not
+made up of the content of the explanation of life from its physical
+side, but are an unconscious acknowledgment of the presence of _truths
+and values as experiences and as now subsisting in themselves_, however
+much they are caused by physical things.
+
+If, on the other hand, an acknowledgment of the reality of this
+spiritual life is made, new questions immediately arise. And the most
+fundamental of these questions have always been those farther removed
+from any sensuous or physical domain. They are questions concerning the
+value and meaning of life. It is a deep conviction of the reality of the
+deeper kernel of our being that alone constitutes the entrance to a _new
+kind of world_. But to acknowledge the presence of such a new world does
+not signify the possession of it simultaneously with the acknowledgment.
+The new world is discovered, but it is not yet possessed. There are
+terrible obstacles in the way; there are enemies without and within to
+be conquered. It is of little use entering into this struggle without an
+acknowledgment--born of an inward necessity--of the spiritual nucleus of
+our nature. Unless man has accustomed himself to hold fast to this
+"subtle thing termed spirit" [p.42] he will soon be swamped in the
+region of the natural life once more; and when this happens the
+spiritual nucleus loses the consciousness of its own real subsistence as
+something higher in its nature than physical things or than the body and
+the ordinary life of the day. If the enterprise is to issue in anything
+that is great and good--into a spiritual world with an ever-growing
+content here and now--an insistence upon the reality of this deeper life
+coupled with the highest end which presents itself to the life must be
+made. Something is now seen in the distance as the meaning and value of
+life--something which our deeper nature longs for, and which has created
+a cleft within the soul between the ordinary things of sense and time
+and that which "never was on sea or land." It is something of this
+nature which Eucken discovers as the germ of all the spiritual ideas of
+religion as well as of the essence of religion itself. The Godhead,
+Eternity, Immortality, are concepts which arise within the soul through
+a consciousness of the inadequacy of all natural things and of even
+mental descriptions and explanations to answer and to satisfy the
+potency and longing of human nature.
+
+Most of the great thinkers of the ages have insisted on the necessity of
+the recognition and acknowledgment of this deeper life which is in dire
+need of a content. If man is not to be swamped by the external and
+become the [p.43] mere sport of the "wind and wave" of the environment,
+he has to enter somehow into the very centre of his being and become
+convinced that the dictates which proceed from that centre are the most
+fundamental things in life. This has always formed the kernel of
+religion, however often men, failing to reach that kernel, have lived on
+the husks. But even this very sham notifies some small attempt in the
+right direction. In modern times--in the various forms of Idealism and
+Pragmatism--such a need of getting at the core of being and of being
+convinced that the effort is worth while, has been emphasised again and
+again. "_Launch yourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as
+possible_. Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall
+re-enforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions
+that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old;
+take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your
+resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning
+such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon
+as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is
+postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all."[8]
+
+"The Stoic and Butler also said, 'Follow God.' In each case you must
+realise that, whatever you do, you take your life in your [p.44] hands;
+you enter on a grand enterprise, a search for the Holy Grail, which will
+bring you to strange lands and perilous seas. For you cannot say,
+interpreting, 'Thus far and no further, merely according to the bond and
+the duty.' In following God, you follow by what has been, what is ruled
+and accomplished, but you follow after what is not yet. 'It may be that
+the gulfs will wash us down'; it may be that the gods of the past will
+rain upon us brimstone and horrible tempest. But he that is with us is
+more than all that are against us. Whoever keeps his ear ever open to
+duty, always forward, never attained, is not far from the kingdom. The
+gods may be against him, the demi-gods may depart; but he, as said
+Plotinus, 'if alone, is with the Alone.'"[9]
+
+It is impossible for us, as Eucken constantly insists, to stop short of
+this. Who can prescribe limits to the capability of consciousness when
+it is focussed, in the form of a conviction, on the deepest problems
+which press themselves upon it? There is only one objection that the
+empiricist can bring forward, and that is that all such ideals can never
+be proved to exist as things exist in space. But, as already hinted, is
+existence in space the only form of existence? Is it not necessary for
+something which is _not_ in space to make us aware of what is in space?
+"If not as men of science, yet as [p.45] men, as human beings, we have
+to put things together, to form some total estimate of the drift of
+development, of the unity of nature."[10]
+
+If the deepest core of consciousness is acknowledged and the vague
+ideals and ends which present themselves are attended to, _something new
+happens_ in the life. Life now starts on the great enterprise referred
+to by William Wallace. It finds its highest reality in an experience
+born within itself and differentiated for ever from the natural and even
+the intellectual life. To such a conclusion man is forced; and if the
+situation is evaded, something within his soul never comes to birth. It
+is seen at once that in order to know the content of this _new world_,
+it is necessary for a long series of struggles to take place. And to
+this point we now turn.
+
+The deeper consciousness has relegated the natural world to a secondary
+place, and has further shown man that the main object of life includes
+not only finding a footing against the dangers of natural things, but to
+plant oneself within a spiritual world of meanings and values. This
+cannot be done without _an independent and decisive act of the soul_. A
+meaning of life has now revealed itself beyond that of the "small self."
+This meaning can be reached only through this decisive act of the soul.
+This meaning is _over-individual_ in its nature; [p.46] it is a truth,
+goodness, or beauty, which presents itself as an idea and ideal formed
+by the experiences of many individuals, at different epochs and in
+different circumstances. Thus the individual, in order to realise his
+own life, must work with material presented in the community. Such
+material has been found helpful in the life of the community. It
+consists of collective results made up of large numbers of single
+factors. These have been tied together in the form of various syntheses.
+Such various syntheses comprise a larger meaning than what ordinarily
+happens from moment to moment in connection with the relation of the
+individual to the external world or, indeed, within the individual's own
+ordinary life. Many of the isolated, fragmentary experiences of the
+individual have to give way when tested in the light of any larger
+synthesis. If this were not so, no commercial, social, civilised life
+would be possible at all. The more real life is now perceived to be that
+of the larger meaning and value. The individual, solitary experiences
+may be legitimate, for they often express wants and needs of the
+individual which have a certain right to obtain satisfaction. But the
+extent and limits of these rights have to be measured by some norm or
+standard other than themselves, or else each individual will proceed on
+his own course regardless of the rights of others. It is the presence of
+various syntheses which express the [p.47] collective life of the
+whole--of each and every individual--that makes civilisation possible.
+Thus, in the very process of civilisation itself, as Eucken points out,
+there is present a factor which is termed Spiritual, and which is not to
+be mistaken for a mere flow of cause and effect, or for one mere event
+following another. Eucken emphasises this all-important element of the
+over-individual qualities present in human history. There is here much
+which resembles Hegel's Absolute. But there is a great difference
+between the two in the sense that Eucken shows the constant need of
+spiritual activism on the part of individuals in order to realise and
+keep alive the norms and standards which have carried our world so far;
+and there is also the need of contributing something to the values of
+these through the creation of new qualities within the souls of the
+individuals themselves.
+
+But the problems of civilisation and morality are not the only, or the
+highest, problems which present themselves. But even such problems have
+partially been the means of drawing man outside himself, and of enabling
+him to see that his self can only be realised in connection with the
+common good and demands of the community. He now feels the necessity of
+living up to that standard. This is an important step in the direction
+of the moral and religious life. It reveals the presence of a spiritual
+nucleus of our being obtaining a content beyond the needs [p.48] of the
+moment; it shows life as realising itself in wide connections; and the
+individual becomes the possessor of a certain degree of spiritual
+inwardness in the process. Even as far as this level we find the deeper
+life--the spiritual life--insisting on the validity of its mental and
+moral conclusions over against the objects of sense. Without this
+insistence no knowledge would progress and be valid. The macrocosm is
+mirrored and coloured in a mental and moral microcosm. A replica of the
+external world has a reality in consciousness, and this reality is not a
+mere photograph of the external, but it is the external as it appears to
+the meaning it has obtained in consciousness. The meaning of the world
+is thus something beyond the world itself; it is more than appears at
+any one moment. If the world were less than this, if the percept could
+not somehow become a concept, all progress would come to a standstill,
+and we should be no more than creatures of sensations and percepts which
+vanished as soon as they appeared. But these do not vanish; they persist
+in various ways, as after-images, concepts, memory. Thus, in the very
+act of knowing anything at all, something greater than the physical
+object known is present. And Eucken would insist, therefore, that the
+mental and spiritual are present from the very beginning and bring to a
+mental focus the impressions of the senses. In the interpretation of
+Eucken's philosophy several writers [p.49] have missed the author's
+meaning here. They have, through the ambiguity of the term "spiritual"
+in English, conceived of "spiritual life" as something entirely
+different from the mental life. It is different, but only in the same
+way as the bud is different from the blossom; it means at the religious
+level a greater unfolding of a life which has been present at every
+stage in the history of civilisation and culture.
+
+But, as already noticed, the mental life is passed when we enter the
+life of a community. The norms and standards, already referred to, make
+their appearance and persist in demanding obedience to themselves even
+at the expense of much within consciousness that points in another
+direction.
+
+But even such a stage as this does not give satisfaction to man. Much
+effort and sacrifice are needed to live up to the life of the community.
+And such effort and sacrifice are often the best means of calling into
+activity a still deeper, reserved energy of the soul. The soul now
+recognises a value beyond the values of culture and civilisation. The
+Good, the True, and the Beautiful appear as the sole realities by the
+side of which everything that preceded, if taken as complete in itself,
+appears as a great shadow or illusion. Here we are reminded of Eucken's
+affinity with Plato's Doctrine of Ideas, as well as of his attachment to
+the revival of Platonism by Plotinus. Values for life, subsisting in
+themselves, become objects [p.50] of meditation, of "browsing," and of
+the deepest activity of the soul. Life is now viewed as consisting in a
+great and constant quest after these religious ideals. It sees its
+meaning beyond and above the range of mentality or even morality, though
+it is well that it should pass as often as possible through the gate of
+the former, and is bound to pass always through the gate of the latter.
+A break takes place with the "natural self"; the mental life of
+concepts, though necessary, is now seen as insufficient; and life is now
+viewed as having a "pearl of great price" before its gaze. Here the
+_stirb und werde_ of Paul and Goethe becomes necessary. The real
+education of man now begins. His life becomes guided and governed by
+norms whose limits cannot be discovered, and which have never been
+realised in their wholeness on the face of our earth. What can these
+mean? They cannot be delusions or illusions, for they answer too deep a
+need of the soul to be reduced to that level. If we blot them out of our
+existence, we sink back to a mere natural or mechanical stage. When the
+soul concentrates its deepest attention on these norms or ideals they
+fascinate it, they draw hidden energies into activity, they give
+inklings of immortality. Is it not far more conceivable that such a
+vision of meaning, of beauty, and of enchantment is a new kind of
+reality--cosmic in its nature and eternal in its duration? Man has to
+[p.51] come to a decision concerning this. There is no half-way house
+here possible without the deepest potencies of human nature suffering
+and failing to transform themselves from bud to blossom and fruit.
+
+At a later stage in our inquiry this question will recur in connection
+with the conception of the Godhead. But here it may be observed that to
+decide on the affirmative side that somehow such norms and ideals which
+mean so much are cosmic realities, is simply to state no more than that
+an evolutionary process is taking place towards a new kind of world as
+well as a new kind of existence. No outsider is competent to pronounce
+judgment on the validity of the proofs possessed within this spiritual
+realm. The qualifications here are beyond the range of knowledge,
+although knowledge does not cease to act within such a realm. The
+experiences here cannot be measured or weighed; and that a certain
+obscurity is present in them is only what may be expected, considering
+that the spiritual nature is farther removed from the region of nature
+with its physical existence than when it deals with problems on the
+intellectual level. But such spiritual proofs are found in the fact that
+these realities present themselves only at the height of spiritual
+development, and in the fact that they produce an _inversion_ of the
+nature of man, and change the centre of gravity of his life to a more
+inward recess of his being [p.52] than is open on the natural or
+intellectual side.
+
+Thus, once more, the soul is driven forward by its own necessities to a
+religious reality. What can it do but grant cosmic origin and validity
+to such ideals? If these ideals are not this, then, as Eucken points
+out, they are the most tragic illusions conceivable.
+
+When they are acknowledged as cosmic realities, man is in the midst of a
+religion of a _universal_ kind. But the acknowledgment of these as
+cosmic realities is something more than a concept. The men who have come
+to this conclusion required something more than logical arguments in
+order to establish this truth. The conclusions were based upon a
+_specific (characteristic)_ religious experience of their own. And such
+a religious experience was larger and more real than anything that could
+be established in the form of concepts concerning it. As we shall notice
+in a later chapter, it is somewhat on this account that Eucken
+differentiates between _universal_ and _specific (characteristic)_
+religion.
+
+It becomes evident that such contents of the new spiritual world cannot
+be utilised by man without effort. These realities have to pass from the
+region of ideas to the region of actual experiences. In other words,
+they must become man's own religion. Man has now become convinced of the
+reality of a universal spiritual life as constituting, in a measure, the
+[p.53] foundation of the evolution of the soul, and as the goal towards
+which he must for ever move. Eucken is unwilling to speculate as to the
+origin or the goal of this. The centre of gravity of life must be laid
+in what may be known and experienced between these two poles. There is
+a certainty which is _intermediate_ between man and the Godhead. It is
+when this certainty is realised as an actual portion of the soul that
+man becomes competent to carry farther--backward and forward--the
+implications of this certainty. And implications of a new kind of
+_Weltanschauung_ result from the spiritual experiences of the
+_Lebensanschauung_ of the spiritual life. On this matter we shall touch
+at a later stage in the inquiry.
+
+At present let us confine our attention to the _intermediate_ reality
+which presents itself in a form that is over-individual. It is only when
+we pass out of the psychology of the subject--a matter that deals with
+the _history_ of mental processes--that we are able to view the meaning
+of the realities which are over-individual. As already pointed out,
+these realities are not the creations of man's fancy or imagination
+after reason has been switched off. They are non-sensuous realities
+which have moulded and shaped the lives of individuals and nations in
+varied degrees. These ideals are not to remain merely objects of
+knowledge; they are to become portions of the inmost experiences of the
+soul. This they cannot become without the [p.54] calling out of the
+deepest energy of the individual. His fragmentary spiritual life--small
+as it is--still calls for _more_ of its own nature, and this _more_ has
+been seen in the distance as something of infinite value.[11] A
+mountain, as it were, has to be climbed; dark ravines have to be gone
+through; and rivers have to be swum across. The whole vision means no
+less than an entrance into _a new kind of world_, the scaling to a new
+kind of existence, and a conquest which will make the pilgrim a
+participator in that which is Divine. A struggle has to take place,
+because so much that belongs to the life, on the level where it now
+stands, belongs to a world _below_ it. Impulses and passions, the narrow
+outlook, the timidity and hollowness of the "small self"--all these,
+which have previously remained at the centre of life, have to be thrust
+to the periphery of existence. So that an entrance into the highest
+spiritual world is not merely something to _know_, but far rather
+something to _do_ and to _be_. This is the meaning of Eucken's activism.
+It is not the busying of ourselves over trifles; there is no need of
+encouragement in that direction. It is rather the inward glance on the
+nature of the over-individual ideals; it is a deep and constant
+concentration upon their value and significance, in order that the soul
+may plant itself on the shores of the _over-world_. It is in granting a
+[p.55] higher mode of existence to these ideals, and in preserving them
+as the possession of the soul, that man finds the ever greater meaning
+of that spiritual life which was present within him from the very
+beginning of his enterprise. The process of forcing an entrance into
+this over-world has to be repeated time after time. There are no enemies
+in front, but the man is surrounded by them from around and behind him.
+The indifference, in a large measure of the natural process, the rigid
+instincts of mere self-preservation, the temptation to smugness and
+ease, the cold conclusions of the understanding when satisfied with
+explanations from the physical world, the hardness of the heart--these
+and many other enemies fight for supremacy, and the soul is often torn
+in the struggle. The struggle continues for a great length of time; but
+the history of the world testifies to an innumerable host of individuals
+who scaled and fell, who started again and again, until at last their
+conceptions of the Highest Good became a permanent experience and
+possession of their deepest being.
+
+And when the spiritual life creates an entrance into this _over-world_
+something happens which makes a fundamental difference in the life. The
+life may again and again sink back to its old level, but what has
+happened will never allow it to remain satisfied on that level. "We fall
+to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake" (Browning). Life
+now becomes [p.56] alternately _a quest and a fruition_.[12] The
+individual has to gather his whole energies together because something
+great is at stake. This is nothing less than the possession of a new
+kind of reality. The struggle has yielded a conquest for the time being.
+He tastes and "eats his pot of honey on the grave" of enemies within and
+without. This fruition means no less than a taste of "eternal life in
+the midst of time" (Harnack), and the relegating of the whole world of
+phenomena to a subsidiary place.
+
+This is the kernel of Eucken's _Truth of Religion_. The book deals with
+the most subtle psychological problems of the soul, and reaches the
+conclusion of an entrance by man into a divine world. All this is far
+removed from the ordinary traditional conception either of God or of
+religion. Perhaps the majority of mankind is not as yet ready for such a
+presentation of religion. But I think it may be safely said that it is
+through some such mode of conceiving religion as this that the "great
+and good ones" of the world found an entrance into a divine world and
+grasped the conception of the evolution of the soul as a process which
+begins where organic evolution ends.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER III [p.57]
+
+RELIGION AND NATURAL SCIENCE
+
+
+In the previous chapter we have noticed how man is able to reach an
+over-world which will grant him a new kind of reality over against the
+whole remaining domain of existence. But the evidence hitherto brought
+forth has been that of the nature of man himself. We have in this
+chapter to inquire whether there is a warrant for such a conclusion
+within the realm of natural science. Does science give any hint of the
+presence of spiritual life anywhere in the universe? Eucken answers
+distinctly in the affirmative.[13]
+
+The conclusions of natural science have, in modern times, come into
+direct conflict with religion. Traditional religion has grown up on a
+view of the universe which has been [p.58] utterly discarded by modern
+knowledge. Religious leaders have often had to be dragged to see the
+truth of this statement, and, as Eucken points out, many are still far
+from realising the seriousness of the cleft between knowledge and
+religion. The theology of the Middle Ages has not yet disappeared,
+although fortunately there are some signs of a great reconstruction
+going on in our midst. Fortunately, this naive view of the universe is a
+theology and not a religion; but doubtless even the religion of the soul
+suffers when its _knowing_ aspect is perpetually contradicted by
+scientific knowledge. There is such a close connection between "head"
+and "heart"--even closer than between body and mind--that the use of
+discarded theories of the universe and of life cannot but prove
+injurious to the deepest source of life.
+
+The mental conceptions of religion have, in the course of the ages,
+undergone many transformations, and there is no reason why another
+transformation should gradually not come about in the present. In Hebrew
+and Greek times we discover a polytheism, after a long course of
+development, emerging into henotheism, and finally, here and there, into
+monotheism. The old conceptions of gods and spirits present in trees and
+wells, mountains and air, are overcome. They are not so much destroyed
+as supplanted by higher conceptions. In pre-Socratic philosophy we find
+the gods and [p.59] spirits relegated to a secondary place, and Nature
+is conceived as a system of inner energies and strivings. In these
+conceptions Man is drawn closer to Nature, and the connection of his
+life is shown to be closely interwoven with the life of Nature. But the
+empirical aspect of this teaching was pushed into the background through
+the teachings of Socrates and Plato. The "myth" regained some of its
+pristine power in a new kind of way; and "God transcendent of the world
+and immanent in the world" came prominently forward as a doctrine of the
+universe and of life. This is the kernel of the Christian theology,
+constructed through the blending of Hebrew and Greek philosophies. Such
+a conception remained very largely the philosophy as well as the
+theology of the Christian Church until the seventeenth century. During
+this long interval hardly any progress was made in the investigation of
+Nature, so that such a theology proved rather a help than a hindrance to
+the religion of those who understood it. But such a theology has been
+destroyed, however unwilling many people are to acknowledge the fact.
+But until this fact is acknowledged, there is very little hope, in
+Eucken's opinion, of the Christian religion gaining many adherents from
+the side of those who understand the modern meaning and significance of
+natural science. The physical universe has become a problem; and the old
+solution was a matter [p.60] of speculation based upon scarcely any
+observation and experiment. Eucken marks the stages which have brought
+about a revolution in our conceptions of the universe as consisting of
+the change brought about in the science of astronomy through Copernicus
+in the sixteenth century, the founding of exact science through Galileo
+in the seventeenth century, and the theory of evolution propounded by
+Darwin and his followers in the nineteenth century. The whole tendency
+has been to describe and explain Nature in terms of mechanism, and to
+extend such mechanism into the life of man. Proof after proof has poured
+upon us, and has been the means, on the whole, of establishing a kingdom
+of mechanism within the realm of Nature and of human nature. Theology
+and speculative philosophy went on their courses unheedful of these
+developments of physical science, until in our day both have had to
+reconsider the tenableness of their position, and to see that Nature and
+its physical manifestations have to enter as all-important factors into
+their reconstructions. Miracle is now relegated to a secondary place in
+theology, and it has disappeared altogether from science; a Supreme
+Being transcendent of, and immanent in, the world is not known to
+science, however far it reaches into the secrets of Nature. Doubtless
+the loss to religion has been here incalculable; for although the
+natural scientist was able to destroy the old building, [p.61] he was
+unable to construct a new one. And Eucken shows that the natural
+scientist will remain unable to accomplish this, because the material
+with which he deals is physical in its nature and constitutes no more
+than a part--a secondary part--of what is found in the world.
+
+The old mode of conceiving the universe, when driven from its citadel by
+the new conceptions of physics and astronomy, turned for refuge to the
+mystery of Life itself. Here it supposed itself to be safe. But the
+development of modern chemistry and biology shows how dangerous it is to
+base a theological and religious superstructure on the unfilled clefts
+of natural science. The lesson here during the past hundred years ought
+to be a grave warning against its repetition in the future. These clefts
+have been filled more and more by the investigations and results of
+modern chemistry and biology, so that the theologian is constantly kept
+in a state of panic, and has to shift his camp and run away when the
+tide of knowledge sweeps in with its newly discovered results. The whole
+situation seems serious, but it is not so disastrous as it appears at
+first sight. Doubtless the gains of science have been numerous, and have
+shaken and practically ruined the old theological and metaphysical
+foundations; but a halt has now been called on science itself, and its
+limitations have become perceptible even to its own [p.62] leaders. It
+is not quite so certain that the problem of organic life can be settled
+in terms of chemical combinations and mechanism. Many scientists[14] are
+agreed on this point, although they repudiate the claims of neo-vitalists
+such as Driesch and Reinke.[15] No judgment can be pronounced on this
+subject at the present day, and probably the problem will take a long
+time before any important results will accrue. And even these results
+will not solve the problem of organic life, for the manifestations of
+life, the higher we mount the scale of being, are not things visible to
+the senses but express themselves in the forms of meanings and
+will-relations.
+
+The limits of natural science become clearly perceptible when we enter
+into the complex problem of the relation of subject and object, [p.63]
+or of mind and body. The final tribunal in regard to the great questions
+of life and religion is not natural science. This is not a matter of a
+mere wish that it should be so on the part of religious teachers who
+ignore the findings of science, but is a conviction of the scientists
+themselves.
+
+Natural science has been so busy with the investigation of the physical
+world that it has had time to remember but little besides objects in the
+external world. And yet what are objects in the external world without
+a subject to know them?[16] And what are the hypotheses which science
+frames in order to explain phenomena but syntheses of factors framed in
+consciousness?[17] What are laws of Nature but mental constructions
+framed concerning similar ways of behaviour on the part of a large
+number of objects? What are the fundamental conceptions which serve as
+the very groundwork of the whole of science but concepts which are
+explanations of phenomena and not themselves phenomena?[18]
+
+Wherever we look, we find that our view [p.64] of Nature is in the first
+place a result as well as a conviction of the content of consciousness;
+that we do not perceive things and their qualities in a form of
+immediacy, but only after they have entered into consciousness are we
+able to know what external objects really are. The constructions of
+science in the form of hypotheses and laws are a proof that the reality
+of the physical world and its meaning are known only in so far as they
+are known by mind, and in so far as the _universal_ (which is a mental
+content) explains the _particular_ (which may or may not be an object in
+the external world).
+
+Eucken emphasises this truth in several of his books, and whenever the
+truth is borne in mind the scientist becomes aware of the existence of a
+reality beyond that of the objects of sense. And even when the scientist
+is unaware of the mental qualities which operate in perceiving external
+objects and of the generalisations formed as the result of the
+impressions left by the objects in the mind, he uses these all the same.
+Professor Haeckel (one of Professor Eucken's colleagues in Jena) starts
+out in _The Riddle of the Universe_ with the strong hope of reducing the
+whole universe (including God) into a state of material substance, and
+ends with a kind of peroration on the virtues of the new goddesses, the
+True, the Good, and the Beautiful.
+
+[p.65] But an increasing number of scientists to-day are aware of the
+limits of science. They know that the mental models which they have to
+frame in order to interpret phenomena are not material things, and exist
+nowhere except in a world of mind and meaning. Eucken's conclusion then
+is that what knows and interprets is a mental quality. He would rather
+call it the life of the spirit of man, or the spiritual life. A
+non-sensuous power has to operate in order that the physical world may
+be known at all; that power has, further, in a manner unknown, to gather
+the fragmentary impressions of the senses, turn them into that which is
+mental, combine them into what is termed meaning.
+
+We are led back to the point made so clear by Descartes--to his
+insistence on the presence of a thinking subject as the starting-point
+for the knowledge of all existence. This truth was elucidated later by
+Kant in a manner which the world can probably never get rid of.
+Therefore, if so much happens in the mind in connection with the
+knowledge and interpretation of the world, our view of the world _after_
+this happens in the mind is entirely different from the view which
+exists _before_ it happens. Thought stands over against the sensuous
+object, transforms the object into a logical construction of meaning.
+When one becomes aware of this, not only do the objects themselves
+become most problematic [p.66] in their relation to consciousness, but
+the very tools with which the scientist works--_e.g._ space and
+time--become so puzzling that only by a return to a metaphysic do they
+become partially explainable. And thus we are landed in a region of
+idealism in the very midst of the work of natural science. Naturalism
+has arisen only because the subject was forgotten in the enchantment of
+the object. The attention has been turned so long on the object that the
+nature and the results of the attention itself are quite left out of
+account. We can all believe in what naturalism has to say concerning
+organic and inorganic objects; but it has not said enough when it leaves
+the power that knows the meaning of what it says out of account.
+
+The conclusion Eucken arrives at is, then, that we must ascribe reality
+to the quality that knows and interprets as well as to the thing that is
+known. He ascribes reality to the physical world, but this is not the
+whole of reality. This cannot be so, simply because we could not know
+that the physical world was real had it not been that there was
+implanted in us a mental organisation to know all this. The other
+reality is that of consciousness and the meanings it formulates. Thus
+natural science itself announces the presence of _more_ than sensuous
+nature. This _more_ which knows the external world is the _more_ which
+has constructed civilisation, culture, and [p.67] religion. This _more_
+has formed an independent inner life over against the natural world. Had
+it not been for this power of the _more_ to construct its inner world,
+Life would have been no more than the life of sensuous nature--shifting
+from point to point, and entirely at the mercy of a physical
+environment. But the progress of mankind shows everywhere the growth of
+a life higher in nature than that of physical or animal existence. Some
+kind of total-life has been formed in which the individual can
+participate; and in the participation of which he can be carried far
+beyond physical things and beyond his own individual interests. Mankind
+has striven after truth, and has discovered something that is beyond the
+opinions of individuals, that does not serve his own petty interests,
+but overcomes them and reaches out after truths which are valid and good
+for all.
+
+What is all this that has happened? What has brought it about? What is
+the individual potency that knows the world and passes beyond it? What
+are the ideals and norms which revealed themselves in the co-operative
+movements of humanity, and only revealed themselves when humanity was at
+its highest attainable level? Enough has been said to show that it is
+_more_ than Nature, that characteristics are found within it entirely
+unknown in Nature. We are bound to take this _more_ into account, for it
+has constructed all the gains of mankind. [p.68] What can it be, in the
+individual efforts of the soul and in the ideal constructions of science
+and the higher ethical and religious constructions of life, but a
+reality higher than sense and outside the categories of space and time?
+What better name can be given to it than a Spiritual Life in
+contradistinction to the life of Nature?
+
+When this life of the mind and spirit of man is acknowledged, it is seen
+to be the beginning of a new order of existence. There appears within it
+a new kind of reality. It is the standpoint from which natural science
+itself has arisen. Such an acknowledgment of life as a new kind of
+reality alters in an essential manner the whole view of the world.
+Nature now signifies not the whole of things, but only a step beyond
+which the cosmic process progresses. Two worlds, instead of one world,
+now appear--one growing out of the other, but keeping a connection still
+with the other. Nature consequently gains a deeper significance of
+meaning when we recognise that it gives birth to mind and spirit
+--characteristics which merge into consciousness, values, and ideals.
+Nature is not discarded in our new view, but it takes a secondary place.
+The primary place must be given to the spiritual life--the life which is
+active as an organisation in knowing and being and doing. And when this
+truth is realised, this life of mental and spiritual activity becomes
+the [p.69] centre from which the new reality will obtain an ever greater
+content. The deepest aspect of reality is then discovered, not without
+but within. This reality is now conceived as something which belongs to
+a new kind of world, and this new world stands above the physical world.
+Man, when he conceives of things in this manner, will be able to bear
+the indifference of the physical course of existence towards the
+spiritual potencies of his being. The natural process may seem to harass
+and even destroy him; it matters not, for he has been led to a
+conviction of the possession of qualities which have not come into
+activity and power in any world _below_ him, and which have laws of
+their own and goals spiritual in their nature. But all this will not
+come about as a shower of rain descends. The spiritual life has to
+insist on its superiority to the natural process, and to construct, with
+the deepest energy of its being, ever richer moral and spiritual
+contents for itself; for it is these contents which constitute the
+growth of the meaning and value of the new world, as well as of its
+indestructible reality beyond the process of Nature.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER IV [p.70]
+
+RELIGION AND HISTORY
+
+
+The subject of history has obtained a most prominent position in the
+whole of Eucken's philosophy. All his books deal with the subject, and
+in a manner resembling one another, whatever the particular subject
+dealt with may be. But the most exhaustive treatment of history
+presented in his volumes is to to be found in the chapter on history in
+_Systematische Philosophie_("Kultur der Gegenwart," Teil I., Abteilung
+VI.), and in the latter half of _The Truth of Religion_. In the former
+volume Eucken deals with history in its relation to civilisation and
+culture, and in the latter the place of history in the religions of the
+world is strikingly expressed.
+
+We have already noticed in the previous chapter how he set out to
+discover the presence of a mental or spiritual life in the very act of
+knowing the physical world and in the constructions which form both the
+basis and the apex of physical science. It was shown [p.71] here that a
+life higher than the physical was present in order to be able to read
+the meaning of the world. Such a life became a standpoint to view
+Nature, and is the possession, more or less, of each individual. But
+although the possession of individuals and _above_ Nature, the
+consciousness that knows Nature is still carried beyond its own
+individual life. The meaning of the physical world appears in
+consciousness, through the syntheses it forms, as objective, although it
+is not an object of sense but of thought; and, further, this very
+objectivity subsists in the form of generalisations and meanings which
+create standards for each individual in his relations with the physical
+world. Eucken then concludes that there is a trans-subjective aspect
+present in the conclusions of physical science itself.[19] And it is on
+this fact that he bases the presence of a mental or spiritual life in
+the very act of knowing at all. But it is evident that the whole of
+man's potencies and relations are not confined to the knowing of Nature
+and framing interpretations concerning it. There are other provinces to
+which man is related--other objects besides physical ones to which his
+attention is called to frame interpretations concerning them also.
+History is one of these provinces. The subject-matter here is entirely
+[p.72] different from the subject-matter of physical science. In the
+latter the objects are physical; in the former the objects are not
+things, but _will-relations._[20] We are in history dealing with the
+effects of heredity and physical environment upon all organic life--man
+included. But it has been already shown that man, though rooted in the
+natural world and dependent upon it, is still the possessor of a world
+which is above the physical. Man's roots in Nature have been unearthed
+in a large measure; and his dependence on the world from which he has
+emerged is greater than was suspected, and probably it will be
+discovered in the future that he is still more dependent on what is
+below him. But however deep his connection with Nature may prove itself
+to be, he will still remain an unsolved problem if he is coolly stripped
+of all the qualities he has gained since he emerged from the bosom of
+Nature.
+
+We are consequently led to the higher aspects of history where the
+centre of gravity of the matter lies in the _relations of wills_.
+
+By will-relations is meant the impact of individuals upon one another
+from the side of _meaning_. It is through the expressions of the meaning
+of our concepts that we are able to construct an intelligible world. The
+individual's [p.73] deeper reality does not consist in the percept we
+obtain of him, but in the mental attitude he has expressed towards a
+mental attitude of ours. The _clothing_ of meaning is certainly
+physical; there is our friend's physical body in front of us, and his
+speech is audible in a physical sense to physical ears. But neither body
+nor speech is absolutely necessary for the expression of meaning to
+another. We have neither seen nor heard many of the individuals who have
+exercised great influence over our lives. Words have answered the
+purpose. By this is not meant that we have not lost something of great
+value in having to depend on print alone. Something of every individual
+reveals itself in his body and speech which is missed when we have to
+depend on paper and ink as mediums of meaning. But meaning is something
+other than its medium; it is a mental or spiritual content. This content
+has to be classified and interpreted. The interpretation forms here
+again, as on the level of natural science, syntheses and generalisations
+larger than any one individual. These are the resultants of mind with
+mind and will with will. When human beings come into contact with each
+other, there originates a state of things in which something is
+_thought_ and _done._ What is thought and done deals with situations
+outside the situation of each individual. The interpretation of these
+situations is, therefore, an objective reality which becomes a [p.74]
+norm for each individual. Mankind has thus created a reality which is
+beyond that of the content of each individual's experience _as an
+individual_.
+
+We thus see that there are presented in such norms two aspects of a very
+different nature. On the one hand, we discover the contribution of each
+individual, and witness events dealing with situations which succeed one
+another with greater or less rapidity. This aspect is in constant flux.
+It constitutes the capability of meeting the needs of the moment. All
+this works well so long as the needs of the moment involve no great
+complexities. But immediately the situation becomes complex there is a
+turn to something besides this mere flow of things.[21] To what? It is a
+turn to something whose nucleus of meaning and value has persisted in
+the midst of all the flow. This is no other than one or other of the
+highest of the ideal constructions which formed the basis of the life of
+the community. The community had been unconsciously garnering something
+over-individual and over-historical for its future use. Thus, in history
+itself there is the presence of a reality higher than the individual,
+and higher than the ordinary meaning of the [p.75] hour. This becomes the
+standard by which everything has to be measured. Of course, this norm
+does not remain static in regard to its own content. But its growth of
+content depends upon the contributions made to it by individuals in
+their will-relations. Something over-individual issues out of all these
+relations, and this enters into the still higher over-individual norms
+which are the heritage of society. Eucken consequently shows that
+history itself is dependent upon something which works within
+it--interpreting its events, and absorbing into itself something that is
+of value. What other can this be but a spiritual life higher not only
+than physical things but even than the will-relations which accrue from
+moment to moment? It has already been noticed that on these lower levels
+the spiritual life is ever present--present as a potency and experience
+when viewed from the standpoint of the individual's creativeness, and
+present as norms and values when viewed as an object of thought brought
+forth through general conclusions founded on situations beyond any
+single situation of the individual. Thus, we get in Eucken's teaching
+the over-historical as the power which operates within the events of
+history. It is what philosophy has termed the Ideal, and what religion
+has termed the revelation of God. It is not correct, then, to say that
+we are dependent upon the content of the moment apart from the presence
+of the [p.76] content of the past in that moment in order to grasp
+reality. The Past does not mean a mere series of events which occurred
+some hundreds or thousands of years ago, and before which we bend and
+towards which we try to turn back the world, for that would mean what
+Eucken terms "mere historism." The Past has rolled its meaning down to
+the Present: the Past mingled with the content of the Present is at each
+point of its course something other than it was before.[22] But in any
+case this aspect of the Past as presented by Eucken shows that human
+life requires a great span of time which has already run in order to
+create its ideals and to be raised from the triviality of the mere
+moment. Goethe perceived the importance of the same truth:--
+
+
+    "Wer nicht von drei tausend Jahren sich weiss
+       Rechenschaft zu geben,
+    Bleib' im Dunkeln unerfahren, mag von Tag
+       Zu Tage leben!"
+
+
+At certain epochs in the history of the world great events have
+happened. Often such epochs are followed by epochs of inertia. Men bask
+in the sunlight of the glory that was revealed to humanity; they receive
+help and strength from what had been. But the greater the interval
+between the occurrence [p.77] of that greatness and the contemplation of
+it, the more difficult does it become to grasp and to possess something
+of the true meaning, value, and significance of such greatness. The
+greatness, as the interval grows, becomes something to be known,
+something which is believed to fall upon us in an external, miraculous
+manner; and finally it often becomes an object of wordy dispute and
+strife. Certain periods in the history of the Christian Church give
+abundant evidence of the truth of this statement. Eucken points out in
+his _Problem of Human Life_ how barren in creative power, for instance,
+was the fourth century. Why? An interval of nearly three centuries had
+passed away since the Master and his followers had proclaimed truths and
+experiences which were the burning convictions of their deepest being.
+Gradually, and often unconsciously, men glided down an inclined plane,
+until at last the spiritual nucleus of Christianity had largely
+disappeared and little more than the husks remained. At the close of
+such intervals religion becomes a number of conflicting intellectual
+theories, and the worst passions are called to its support. Dogmatism
+and intolerance prevail, and a blight comes over the choicest potencies
+of the soul. All this happens because certain great events and
+experiences of the past are conceived of as marking a terminus in the
+history of the moral and spiritual evolution of the world. The [p.78]
+soul is not stirred to its depth to preserve such experiences and, if
+possible, enhance them. Thus the world leaves such a rich spiritual
+content largely behind itself; and when this happens, it becomes a
+matter of the greatest difficulty to recover it. And even when it is
+recovered, something of infinite value has been for ever lost. The
+present moment of the soul has to live on itself; and such a life
+remains alien to depths of reality which have been plumbed by the great
+personalities of history in the past. It is a want of conviction in
+truth and reality that makes us seek finality in the past. It may be
+that the highest personalities of our day are not able to scale such
+spiritual heights as were scaled by the Christians of the primitive
+Church; but unless they believe that the same power is present in their
+souls they will never have courage even to make the attempt. It is a
+vision of the nature of the reality which was climbed by the
+personalities of the past, coupled with the consciousness of the same
+spiritual power in the present, that will enable Christianity to be
+lived on such a "grand scale" in the present and the future. The
+spiritual experiences of the past have become over-individual and
+over-historical norms for our lives; but such norms are no more than
+ideas until the will enters into a relation with them. When this
+happens, the individual does not only observe a goal in the distance but
+also starts to move towards such [p.79] a goal with the whole spiritual
+energy of his nature. And every individual who moves in the direction of
+such norms brings some contribution of value from the present to be
+added to the norms of the past. The spiritual life is thus individual
+and over-individual, historical and over-historical, transcendent and
+immanent.
+
+Eucken has worked for many years at this difficult problem--a problem so
+important in the life of civilisation and religion. It has already been
+hinted that the conception bears striking resemblances to aspects of
+Hegel's philosophy. But there are differences. One of these was pointed
+out long ago by Eucken: "The gist of religion is with Hegel nothing but
+the absorption of the individual in the universal intellectual process.
+How such a conception can be identified with moral regeneration of the
+Christian type, with purification of the heart, is unintelligible to
+us."[23] Eucken's philosophy, on the other hand, is pre-eminently a
+spiritual activism. The life-process is shaped by the collective
+activity of individuals; and when this activity slackens the ideals of
+the over-world suffer. Man is thus called to be what he _ought to be_;
+and in the process he heightens something of the value of the Ought. An
+Ought and a Will are involved in the creativeness of the individual life
+and of the Life-process; so that it is a mistake to conceive [p.80] of
+Eucken's activism as some stirring of the individual to realise merely
+his own needs as these present themselves to him from moment to moment.
+He is called and destined to do infinitely more; he is to be a creator
+of the Life-process and a carrier in the making of a new world; but all
+this can be done only from the standpoint of a vision of a spiritual
+life superior to history and to the individual himself. Vision and
+action are to be ever present. In the light of the vision man becomes
+more than he now is; through action the vision increases in depth and
+value.
+
+What relation this has to the conception of the Godhead will be dealt
+with in a later chapter. It is enough at present to bear in mind that,
+as far as we have gone, a reality above sense, time, history, and the
+content of the individual life has become evident. And it is such a
+reality which gives meaning to the events of history.
+
+It has to be borne in mind that much which is natural and of the earth
+enters into history. Such effects have become clearly discernible in
+modern times. Physical conditions do exercise an influence, and hem the
+course of the spiritual life. The indifference of the physical order of
+things to the ethical values of history is a problem which constantly
+perplexes every thinking mind. No solution to the puzzles of life is to
+be found in Nature. What do we discover there? "We discover enchainments
+[p.81] of phenomena which seem to conduct to the creation of great
+misery and which, with unmerciful callousness, drive man over the brink
+of an abyss. The faintest hint would have sufficed to hold him back from
+such a catastrophe; but this is not given, and consequently destruction
+takes its course. Petty accidents destroy life and happiness; a moment
+annihilates the most toilsome work. Often, also, we discover a chaotic
+medley, a sudden overthrow of all potency, a seeming indifference
+towards all human weal and woe, a blind groping in the dark; we discover
+gloomy possibilities constantly sweeping as dark clouds over man and
+occasionally descending as a crashing tempest."[24] Hundreds of similar
+examples may be found in Eucken's books, and all point to the
+insufficiency of the natural process for satisfying the deepest needs of
+our being. But in spite of the fact that the natural process accompanies
+Life everywhere, man has built a world beyond the world of sense.
+
+With the entrance of the spiritual life a new mode of history makes its
+appearance. This fact is to be witnessed in the tools invented by man in
+order to overcome physical barriers. The growth of technics in our own
+day is a proof of Nature yielding here and there to the demands of life
+and intellect. This has all been brought about by mentality, and new
+modes of living are the result.
+
+[p.82] And when we enter the domain of human society the superiority of
+the spiritual life becomes evident here as well. It is true that we are
+as yet far from any ideals of human society which include the good of
+all, and which bind all together in spite of radical differences that
+will continue to persist. Systems of various kinds are presented--often
+at variance with one another; but even these are evidence of a spiritual
+life far above the achievements of any single individuals. What must we
+do? We must all work on in the direction of the highest: and the higher
+we mount the nearer we are to a point of convergence of all the
+different syntheses; and out of the union there will be born a synthesis
+which will include the whole family of man. We possess already such a
+synthesis partially realised here and there in the lives of the greatest
+personalities of history; but to the mass of mankind such a synthesis is
+little more than a name, even though that name be God or Infinite Love.
+The content of the name has to be realised: and this can never come
+about except through a deep stirring and longing, through enormous
+sacrifices, painful and recurring failures, to issue finally in a
+conquest--a height attained by mankind on which the content of God and
+Infinite Love will be born in the soul as a living, personal, and
+durable experience. When this comes to be--and every genuine effort in
+the movement of our higher being brings us nearer to it--there issues
+[p.83] an incomparably higher mode of life. Thus a new history is framed
+through the spiritual activities of individuals; and something of its
+very nature and of the mode by which such a reality can be reached will
+become an atmosphere into which future generations will be born, as well
+a higher condition than has ever previously existed to hail the entrance
+of human souls into the world.
+
+Eucken insists that it is not the movement of democracy towards better
+social conditions that will be effective in bringing about such a
+change. Much, of course, can be effected by better social conditions.
+There are needs to-day in connection with labour which ought to be met.
+But at the best they can do no more than touch the periphery of human
+existence. A poverty in the "inward parts" will still exist in the midst
+of external plenty. But if men and women could be brought to the
+consciousness of spiritual ideals and their efficacy, a disposition of
+soul and character would be created which would rapidly change the evil
+conditions of life and the perplexing problems of capital and labour.
+Several writers have gone astray when they have imagined that Eucken has
+but scant sympathy with the social needs of our times. It would be
+difficult to find anywhere a man of a more tender heart. But he sees
+deeper than the level of material and social needs and their fulfilment.
+He sees that it is only by a change [p.84] of disposition and attitude
+of the soul that permanent changes in the material well-being of the
+world can come about. For it is in the soul's relation with its
+over-individual and over-historical ideals that permanent qualities can
+be created and preserved: it is in our own deepest being, through a
+conviction of the values of sympathy, sacrifice, and love that any
+genuine history can find its birth and nurture. We require to pay no
+less attention to the things of the body; but the things of the spirit
+must step into the foreground of life once again. Then we are working at
+the heart of the Life-process--a Life-process which is the beginning of
+a new cosmic process; and what will issue out of such a result will
+probably be greater and better than anything we can dream of. Men are
+called to this work to-day. They understand but little its significance
+and its trend; they must be willing to learn from those who have lived
+through these problems, and who see ramifications of the problems into a
+soil deeper than is perceptible by the masses. The masses must be
+willing to be taught in the things of the spirit. Hence we see the need
+of great personalities who will combine in their own souls a penetrating
+knowledge and an intense enthusiasm for the real welfare of mankind. A
+true history can never be born outside this region; the world, without
+such a conviction, can only wander out of one morass into [p.85]
+another; and failure after failure will be the inevitable result of all
+the attempts. Movements will have value and duration only in so far as
+they are the outcome of a need of a spiritual life which includes
+demands of intellect, morality, and religious idealism.
+
+Eucken shows at the close of his remarkable article in _Beitraege zur
+Weiterentwickelung der Religion_ that some form or other of the Eternal
+must enter into time and its changes, and become a norm towards which
+mankind will move. When this happens, mankind will not be content to
+look merely beyond the grave for the redemption of the race and the
+annihilation of sin. The very world in which we live is surrounded by an
+over-world of ideal truth and goodness. Why should we live on "hope and
+tarrying" when there is so much to be done and gained? The energies of
+men run on such lines into "sickly sentimentalism" and "watery wishes,"
+and nothing great issues out of our activities on the surface of life.
+History becomes no more than a succession of changes of which the later
+are of no more value than the earlier. All this happens, because there
+is no Eternal--no over-world of over-individual and over-historical
+values--present. In a large measure our very religion grants us here but
+little help. It is either a contemplation of certain events in the past
+which were delivered for once and for all or an immersion in the social
+environment. [p.86] We remain aliens to the truth that these events can
+be repeated to-day. We are not convinced as to the possibilities of our
+own nature and of the realisation of the Divine in the making of
+history. Our age is an age of stripping things of their connections and
+qualities and of finding their essence in what they _were_ and not in
+what they _are_ and _ought to be_. Even history is brought back to its
+origin from savagery; and its explanation is sought in its _beginnings_
+and not in its _ends_; the aspirations of the soul are supposed to be
+explained in their totality when biological and psychological names are
+given them; enthusiasm and conviction, which leave the level of the
+daily rut and the conventionalities of society, are branded as signs of
+shallowness and even of insanity. We are in the midst of plenty, and
+feed on husks. The situation will not be altered until we turn from
+intellect to intuition--which is no other than a turn from the mere way
+in which things are put together to what the things essentially are and
+ought to be in their meaning and value. When this happens, a new meaning
+will be given to history, and the events of the day will be illumined
+and valued in the light of the standard of spiritual ideals. Can we then
+doubt that there works in history a Divine element which is
+over-historical, and which alone gives their meanings and values to the
+events of history itself?
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER V [p.87]
+
+RELIGION AND PSYCHOLOGY
+
+
+It has been noticed in the two previous chapters how Eucken discovered
+the presence of a mental or spiritual life in the very act of knowing
+any object in the physical world. And the presence of such a life
+enables the percept to turn into a concept. Such a concept is something
+far removed from the level of the sensuous object or of its mere
+perception. We are in this very act in a world of _meaning_. When such a
+meaning comes to be acknowledged, it forms a kind of standard which
+interprets any future facts that enter into it. The further the progress
+of the knowledge of physical objects advances the more the concepts
+become removed from the level of the sensuous; as is witnessed, for
+instance, in the forms of laws and hypotheses, which constitute the very
+groundwork of physical science. The physical scientist, whether he is
+conscious of it or not, has constructed an ideal world of _meaning_
+which constitutes the explanation [p.88] of the external world. This is
+a fact so familiar that it needs no further elucidation here. But there
+is great need for calling attention to the power which _does_ all this
+as well as to the reality of the interpretation which that power, in its
+contact with physical phenomena, has brought forth. That such a power of
+the mind is connected with physical existence does not in the least
+explain its nature. It is not physical _now_; it is meaning and value,
+and there is no such thing as meaning or value in the nature of physical
+objects in themselves. Their meaning and value come into being when they
+serve a purpose which the mind has framed concerning them. Eucken
+insists that a reality must be ascribed to so much as all this--to that
+which knows and interprets Nature. However much Nature and Spirit
+resemble one another, however much the latter is dependent on the
+former, Nature must be conceived as exhibiting a lower grade of reality
+than mind. Indeed, Nature could not exist for mind unless there were a
+mind to know it; and this fact inevitably leads us to ask the question,
+whether Nature could exist at all.[25]
+
+Eucken maintains that the insufficient attention paid to this priority
+of the subject is the [p.89] defect of all the systems which have
+reduced life and all its values to their lowest denominator. A naive
+realism is a relic of past ancestry; it is a failure to conceive
+anything as reality unless it lends itself to the senses. Had men not
+grasped a higher order of reality than that of the external object, none
+of the mental and moral gains of the world would ever have been
+realised. Hence, man has to insist that the mental or spiritual life is
+the possessor of a reality of its own, although much of the material
+comprising that reality has been drawn from the physical world through
+the senses. But the spiritual life has proceeded far beyond these
+initial stages of knowing the world. Material of a kind other than the
+physical has presented itself to it. Thus, in will-relations we find the
+material itself belonging to a higher order of existence than the
+material of the physical world. It is then what might be expected when
+the spiritual life, within the domain of events of human history, forms
+a Life-system higher in its nature than the natural process.
+
+Eucken then concludes that Nature and History require for their
+interpretation the presence of a spiritual life. Nature involves the
+spiritual in the very power of mind in knowing external things. He would
+not state that the physical course of things is enough in itself to
+prove the existence of spiritual life. We are uncertain of any working
+towards [p.90] definite ends in Nature. The whole matter belongs to the
+region of speculation; and speculation based on something other than
+observation and experiment has greatly retarded progress in connection
+with the truest interpretation of the highest things. Eucken would
+really agree here with the physical scientist pure and simple that,
+however far back the investigations of the physical world are carried,
+the scientist does not seem to come to anything at the furthest point
+which bears more affinity to what is mental than was to be discovered at
+the point from which he set out.
+
+But in History it is different. We are here dealing with material which
+is not in space, and which has not resulted through any mere succession
+in time. The material, in fact, is timeless, because it is a synthesis
+of factors which cannot be reckoned mechanically, and which requires a
+great span of time in order to be constructed by the spirit of man. At
+this level the spiritual life has gained a reality which is
+over-personal as well as personal. It is true that this over-personal
+reality is in the _mind_ of the individual; but that does not mean that
+the reality is no more than a private experience. Its content is clearly
+now higher and more significant than the individual's own life. That we
+cannot locate in space this over-personal aspect of the ideal is
+probably a disadvantage. But this cannot be helped; and [p.91] it cannot
+possibly be otherwise, simply because the over-personal reality is not a
+spatial thing. The same may be said of the content of individual
+experience, even when it does not for the time being hold before itself
+any ideal. But such over-personal elements mean more than was to be
+found on the level of _knowing_ the world. A further development of
+spiritual life has taken place; and reality has become _objective_ in
+its nature and _subjective_ in its apprehension and appropriation by the
+individual. Reality has, through the over-personal which has evolved in
+history, obtained _a cosmic significance_; and it is out of this region
+that a _Lebensanschauung_ as well as a true _Weltanschauung_ have
+developed.
+
+This digression from the subject of this chapter has probably prepared
+us to see that the potentiality of consciousness and the presence of
+over-personal elements presenting themselves to consciousness are the
+two main elements in the construction of the several grades of reality
+which present themselves on the lower level of Nature and on the higher
+level of History.
+
+But our question now is, Does the nature of man himself confirm such
+statements as have already been made? And it is to man's own nature and
+its content we now turn, as these are presented in Eucken's teaching.
+
+It is probable that Eucken has done less justice to psychology from the
+side of the [p.92] connection of consciousness with the external world.
+He is aware, and points out the fact in several of his books, of the
+close connection between mind and body; but seems to think that the fact
+is sufficiently brought out by text-books on psychology that some kind
+of dualism or parallelism is absolutely necessary to be held in order to
+account for the content of consciousness. What exact meaning and
+province should be assigned to psychology is to-day a matter of serious
+dispute. Textbooks of the nature of William James's _Principles of
+Psychology_ present a double aspect of the subject-matter as well as of
+its mode of treatment. It is often difficult to differentiate in James's
+works where one aspect ends and another begins. Psychology is presented
+by him as a natural science on one page, and on the opposite page we
+discover ourselves in the region of ethics and even of metaphysics and
+religion. On the one side, we find the _connection_ of consciousness and
+its mode of operation with the physical organism presented in terms
+which emphasise the mechanical and chemical sides. On the other side,
+the _content_ of consciousness itself, _after_ the connection has taken
+place, is presented as a psychology as well. So that several important
+writers on psychology have emphasised the need of differentiating one
+aspect from the other, and of confining the meaning of psychology to the
+description and explanation of the _connection_ [p.93] of mind and
+body.[26] But when we pass to the content of consciousness, something
+more than a mere connection of mind and body is discovered. The content
+of consciousness includes the _Will_--the unrest of consciousness in its
+actual situation, a dissatisfaction with its state of inertia, and a
+movement towards some End. When the Will operates with the content of
+consciousness we are in a realm which is beyond the physical--a realm,
+too, which is other than a passive, descriptive attitude of a spectator
+of things. The realm of _values_ has now been reached; and a content,
+different in its nature from any account it is able to give of itself or
+of its connection with the physical, starts on its own independent
+course. The psychologist is "right in insisting that the atoms do not
+build up the whole universe of science. There are contents in
+consciousness, sensations and perceptions, feelings and impulses, which
+the scientist must describe and explain too. But if the psychologist is
+the real natural scientist of the soul, this whole interplay of ideas
+and emotions and volitions appears to him as a world of causally
+connected processes which he watches and studies as a spectator. However
+rich the manifold of the inner experience, everything, seen from a
+strictly psychological standpoint, [p.94] remains just as indifferent
+and valueless as the movement of the atoms in the outer experience.
+Pleasures are coming and going; but the onlooking subject of
+consciousness has simply to become aware of them, and has no right to
+say that they are better or more valuable than pain, or that the
+emotions of enjoyment or the ideas of wisdom or the impulses of virtue
+are, psychologically considered, more valuable than grief or vice or
+foolishness. In the system of physical and psychical objects, there is
+thus no room for any possible value; and even in the thought and idea of
+value there is nothing but an indifferent mental state produced by
+certain brain excitement. For as soon as we illuminate and shade and
+colour the world of the scientist in reference to man's life and death,
+or to his happiness and pain, we have carelessly destroyed the pure
+system of science, and given up the presupposition of the strictly
+naturalistic work."[27] Wundt presents a standpoint not quite so
+pronounced, but which looks in the same direction.[28]
+
+This fundamental difference has been recognised by Eucken, and forms an
+important contribution on his part towards elucidating [p.95] the
+meaning of spiritual life not only in the process of knowing but in its
+new beginning in its creation of an "inner world of values." The content
+present in the construction of this "new world" is other than a mental
+content expressing connection of psychical and physical. Eucken
+differentiates between the two aspects already referred to, and
+designates the difference by the terms _Noological and Psychological
+Methods_. These methods are most clearly presented in _The Truth of
+Religion_. He says: "To explain _noologically_ means to arrange the
+whole of spiritual life [including mental life] as a special spiritual
+activity, to ascertain its position and problem, and through such an
+adaptation to illumine the whole and raise its potencies. To explain
+_psychologically,_ on the contrary, means to investigate _how_ man
+arrives at the apprehension and appropriation of a spiritual content and
+especially of a spiritual life, with what psychic aids is the spiritual
+content worked out, how the interest of man for all this is to be
+raised, and how his energy for the enterprise is to be won. Here one has
+to proceed from an initial point hardly discernible, and step by step,
+discover the way of ascent; thus the psychological method becomes at the
+same time a psychogenetic method. The main condition is that both
+methods be held sufficiently apart in order that the conclusions of both
+may not flow together, and yet may form a fruitful completion."
+
+[p.96] "Such separation and union of both methods and their
+corresponding realities make it possible to understand how to overcome
+inwardly the old antithesis between Idealism and Realism. The
+fundamental truth of Idealism is that the spiritual contents establish
+an independence and self-value over against the individual, that they
+train him with superior energy, and that they are not material for his
+purely human welfare. In the _noological method_ this truth obtains a
+full recognition. Realism, however, has its rights in the forward sweep
+of the specifically human side of life with all its diversions, its
+constraints, and its preponderantly natural character. Viewed from this
+standpoint, the main fact is that life is raised out of the idle calm of
+its initial stages, and is brought into a current; in order to bring
+this about, much is urgently needful by man, which cannot originate,
+prior to the appearance of the spiritual estimation of values, but which
+becomes his when he is set in a strong current; then, on the one hand,
+anxiety for external existence, division into parties, ambition, etc.,
+and, on the other hand, the mechanism of the psychic life with its
+association, reproduction, etc., are all seen in a new light. These
+motive powers would certainly never produce a spiritual content out of
+man's own ability; such a content is only reachable if the movement of
+life raises man out of and above the initial performances and the
+initial motives. No mechanism, [p.97] either of soul or of society, is
+able to accomplish this; it can be accomplished alone by an inward
+spirituality in man. Through such a conception, Realism and Idealism are
+no longer irreconcilable opponents, but two sides of one encompassing
+life; one may grow alongside the other, but not at the expense of the
+other. Indeed, the more the content of the spiritual life grows, the
+more becomes necessary on the side of psychic existence; the more we
+submerge ourselves in this psychic existence, the greater appears the
+superiority of the spiritual life."[29] This difference between noeology
+and psychology is pointed out by Eucken in his delineation of spiritual
+life along the whole course of its development. The insistence on the
+reality of life within the region of values, brought forth through the
+activity of the Will, is shown to be absolutely necessary in order that
+life may not sink into the level of the mere physical object on the one
+hand, and into mere subjectivity and momentary changes of consciousness
+on the other hand. It is a decision at this point which constitutes the
+great turn to a life of the spirit and to the granting to it of a
+_self-subsistence_ as real as objects in the external world; it is a
+turn which includes, further, a new beginning of a remove from the
+content of the moment and from the impinging of the environment upon the
+subject; it is a realisation by the mind and [p.98] soul that its own
+content is now on a path which has to be carved out, step by step, by
+its own spiritual potency. It is in the light of what is attempted and
+accomplished in this respect that the external world and all its
+ramifications into the soul are in the last resort to be interpreted.
+When the foundation of life is thus placed upon a spiritual content of
+meaning and value, norm and end, the _first impressions_ of things are
+seen as nothing more than preparatory stages and conditions to a life
+beyond themselves. To come to a decision, insisted on again and again,
+in regard to the reality of life and its content is not possible without
+the deepest act of the whole of the soul. Such a conviction concerning
+the spiritual kernel of our being is not a mere matter either of thought
+or feeling or will. The three make their contribution towards the great
+affirmation which takes place, but they are united at a depth in
+consciousness which has no psychological name; they come to a kind of
+focus within the blending of the over-individual norms and the need and
+capacity of the soul for such norms. When this happens, the individual
+has created a cleft in his own nature which renders it forever
+impossible for him to be satisfied with the mere external aspect
+produced by the first impressions of things. An inverted order of things
+has come about: the sensuous world is relegated to the circumference,
+and a spiritual world [p.99] dawns within the content of the soul. This
+is the deepest meaning of religion; and, as we shall see at a later
+stage, it constitutes the very nucleus of Christianity with its
+announcement of conversion, the regeneration of the soul, and the union
+and communion of man with the Divine.
+
+Doubtless all this is difficult of apprehension, mainly on account of
+the fact that there is no proof for it in a manner that can be made
+intelligible. But the question arises, What is the power that acts and
+brings forth proofs concerning anything? It is evidently not the whole
+of the potentialities of man's nature: it is no more than the
+understanding dealing with the evidence of impressions. But the
+understanding, when dealing with the content of the union of individual
+potency and over-individual norms, is dealing with a content infinitely
+larger and more complex than itself; the material is too great and
+intricate for the understanding to handle; it is a fruitless attempt of
+the Part to monopolise the meaning and value of the Whole. The proof
+rather lies within the domain of the soul itself, and is not something
+which may be tacked on to any kind of external, spatial existence; it is
+the emergence of a _new kind_ of existence or _self-subsistence._ The
+proof (if we designate it by such an insufficient term) is _within_ the
+experience and not _without_; it is the spiritual experience itself and
+not merely an account, [p.100] in the form of even valid logical
+concepts, concerning such experience.[30]
+
+The space devoted to this subject may be justified on account of the
+fact that Eucken's meaning of the evolution of spiritual life towards
+higher levels cannot be understood without an understanding of the
+distinction between _knowledge_ about experience and the _content_ of
+experience itself, as this latter reveals itself in the ways
+mentioned.[31] Eucken has lately paid great attention to this matter in
+the new edition (1912) of _Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der
+Gegenwart_, especially in the chapter on the "Philosophy of Religion and
+the Psychology of Religion."[32]
+
+The root of the matter here seems to be the ready acknowledgment of the
+content of [p.101] spiritual life as well as of the fact that it
+possesses a higher grade of existence than anything in the world without
+or even within the psychic life. This is granting the manifestation of
+spiritual life a foundation deeper than nature, culture, civilisation,
+and even morality; for it is the norms of the over-world uniting with
+the spiritual nature of man which have brought forth all these. This
+willing acknowledgment becomes ever necessary, because something of _two
+worlds_ is now present in the life of the man. On the one hand, the
+natural world, with its material elements and its instincts and
+impulses, is present in the soul. But, on the other hand, all these
+cannot be torn away from the life. They constitute a great deal of the
+vitality and the pleasure which are the legitimate possessions of man.
+How cold and soulless would life be without these! But the danger arises
+when there is not present a Standard sufficiently high and powerful to
+govern these, and to make them serve the higher interests of the soul.
+In other words, they must be melted in the contents and values of the
+over-individual ideals; they must be sanctified to subserve the higher,
+absolute ends and demands of the spirit. What can we say, then, of Life
+when the natural assists the spiritual and when the individual passes
+out to the realm of the over-individual save that a real point of
+departure into _a new kind of world_ has actually taken [p.102] place?
+Even this interpretation is insufficient to explain what happens,
+although it happens within ourselves; far less, as we have seen, will
+any other interpretation which explains life in lowest terms suffice.
+We are then, says Eucken, driven to the conclusion that such a state is
+either the breaking forth of a new kind of reality or the worst of all
+possible illusions. And this great and inexorable _Either_--_Or_
+presents itself in every decision taken towards what is higher than the
+level we are standing on. The matter here does not belong to any
+speculative domain, and is not the result of fancy or imagination out of
+which reason has taken its flight. The matter is concrete--tangible
+through and through. The history of mankind bears witness to the
+validity of it; the experience of each individual in the deepest moments
+of life echoes the experience of the race. The superiority of this _new
+beginning in the over-world_ has to be established over and over again
+by each individual on account of the danger of sinking back to a lower
+level where the main power of spiritual life is not in action. A
+certainty is therefore requisite in the very beginning of the
+enterprise--an enterprise which is absolute and eternal. No limits are
+perceptible to the possibilities of spiritual life when the fullest
+conceivable content of the soul is seated at the centre of life, and
+when every outward is interpreted and governed by an inward. This
+experience is [p.103] far removed from all attempts to found religion on
+speculation drawn either from the physical world or from the
+generalisations of logic. These have their value--they point to the
+presence of some degree of spiritual life when the human mind has worked
+upon the material presented to it. But the matter at this highest level
+does _not_ deal with the _relations_ of life but with _life itself_ in
+the light of an over-world.
+
+Eucken is nowhere finer than when he detects the necessity for the
+acknowledgment of such a spiritual foundation of life. It is not a mere
+individual need, but the union of an individual need with a reality
+objective to the need. If the reality were already the possession of
+man, no such need could arise. Still, the reality is present in his mind
+as an idea and ideal; it is present to the individual, but it is not as
+yet the possession of the individual except in a measure at the best. So
+that the certainty includes within itself a _realisation_ and a further
+_quest_. And the very nature of the quest involves a _struggle_ of the
+whole nature. The certainty has gone so far as to show that the highest
+good which presents itself to the soul is the "one thing needful," and
+is possible of partial attainment. When all this burns within the soul,
+something of the norm or ideal gets fixed within it, and the individual
+starts to conquer more and more the new world into which he is now
+landed. [p.104] Often the life is driven out of its course by alien
+currents; a great deal of what the man has now left behind himself still
+clings tenaciously to the new life, and the whole soul becomes an arena
+often of a terrible conflict. The spiritual life and its content of a
+new reality may be temporarily beaten in this warfare; but the battle is
+finally won if ever the deepest within the soul has been touched by a
+conviction of the eternal value and significance of the new life. The
+conquest is followed by periods of calm and fruition. Here the deeper
+energies gather themselves together; they grant a peace which the world
+cannot give and cannot take away; they create new certainties, new
+demands, and new attempts for the possession of a reality which is still
+higher in its nature than anything that previously revealed itself.
+
+Gradually the soul is forced more than ever to the conviction that the
+whole matter is too serious to be of less than of _cosmic_ significance.
+And it is out of this that the idea of the Godhead arises. It is not a
+speculative dream but a conclusion forced upon the man by the actual
+situation; the material for the conclusion is not anything which
+descends into the soul with a ready-made content. Eucken states that
+such a view of revelation belongs to the past history of the race. It is
+now no less than a revelation springing from the very nature of the soul
+at its highest possible level. [p.105] It occurs only when a foundation,
+a struggle, and a conquest have been worked out by the soul in the
+manner already depicted. No close determinations, as we shall see later,
+are made concerning the meaning and nature of the Godhead. The man is
+here at an altitude so rare and pure that it forbids any logical or
+psychological analysis. God is not something to be explained, but to be
+possessed. When the attempt is made to explain Him, He is very soon
+explained away; when he is possessed, He becomes not something other
+than was present before, but _more_ than was present before; a cosmic
+significance is given to the universe and to man's struggle to scale the
+heights of the over-world with all its momentous values.
+
+Here, again, the spiritual life has landed us out of psychology into the
+deepest experiences of religion and into the consciousness that the
+_intermediate_ realities which presented themselves as over-individual
+norms and ideals are realities of cosmic significance. The Godhead is
+now _possessed_. As Jacob Boehme presents it: "From my youth up I have
+sought only one thing: the salvation of my soul, the means of gaining
+possession of the Kingdom of God." Here, as Professor Boutroux[33]
+points out, "Jacob Boehme learnt from the mystics what it means to
+possess God. One must take care, so these masters [p.106] teach, not to
+liken the possession of God to the possession of anything material. God
+is spirit, _i.e._ for the man who understands the meaning of the term, a
+generating power previous to all essence, even the divine. God is spirit,
+_i.e._ pure will, both infinite and free, with the realisation of its own
+personality as its object. Henceforward, God cannot be accepted by any
+passive operation. We possess Him only if He is created within us. To
+possess God is to live the life of God." This is on lines precisely
+those of Eucken, and something of this nature seems to be gaining ground
+to-day in a strong idealistic school in Germany. We may soon discover
+that a true mysticism is the flowering of the bud of knowledge; that
+true knowledge constitutes a tributary which runs into the ocean of the
+Infinite Love of the Divine and becomes the most precious possession of
+the soul.[34]
+
+Eucken touches on this subject in an extremely interesting chapter in
+his _Truth of Religion_. "This is a question of fact, and not of
+argument.... Because we convinced ourselves that things were so, we
+gained the standpoint of spiritual experience over against a merely
+psychological standpoint. For the [p.107] latter standpoint occupies
+itself with purely psychic processes, and in the province of religion
+especially it occupies itself with the conditions of the stimulations
+of will and feeling, which are not able to prove anything beyond
+themselves. The spiritual experience, on the contrary, has to do with
+life's contents and with the construction of reality; it need not
+trouble itself concerning the connections of the world except in a
+subsidiary manner, because it stands in the midst of such connections,
+and without these it cannot possibly exist. Man never succeeds in
+reaching the Divine unless the Divine works and is acknowledged in his
+own life; what is omitted here in the first step is never again
+recovered and becomes more and more impossible as life proceeds on its
+merely natural course. If, however, the standpoint of spiritual
+experience is gained, then religion succeeds in attaining entire
+certainty and immediacy; then the struggles in which it was involved
+turn into a similar result, and its own inner movements become a
+testimony to the reality of the new world which it represents."[35]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VI [p.108]
+
+RELIGION AND SOCIETY
+
+
+Eucken shows that the problems of history are closely allied with those
+of society. The best accounts of the meaning he attaches to human
+society are to be found in _The Main Currents of Modern Thought, Der
+Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_, and _Life Basis and Life Ideal_.
+The conclusions reached in these three books are the same--they are an
+insistence on the need of spiritual life as a creative power in the
+utilisation of norms and ideals as well as in the creation of further
+norms and ideals. He points out the devious paths which human society
+has travelled over: all these, in the case of society and of the
+individual, are shown to lead to disaster when they depend merely upon
+the environment or upon the ideals of a utilitarian mode of a
+historico-social construction.
+
+Society has gained much through the necessity of emphasising some
+aspects of a Whole--of thinking and acting collectively--instead [p.109]
+of emphasising merely the Parts. The history of human society, in a very
+large measure, is the history of shifting the centre of gravity of life
+alternately from the Whole to the Parts and _vice versa_. When the
+centre of gravity remains in some kind of Whole, a number of individuals
+move towards the same goal, and much that is subjective has to be
+shifted to the background of life. Now, this is a gain, and it is the
+only path on which a corporate life becomes possible. Men (and women
+too) stand shoulder to shoulder when some kind of Whole or Ideal seems
+to them to be a necessity of their nature. But progress is brought about
+not only through cementing human beings together in order to move
+towards _any kind_ of ideal. The energy is in the right place, but the
+question has to arise as to the _nature_ of the over-personal ideal
+itself. All over-personal ideals cannot connote the good of _all_, but
+the good of all must be present as possessing a validity of its own
+before any lower over-personal ideal can prevent landing men in
+disaster. The over-personal ideals which do not include the good of all
+often represent the good of a section alone, and all other sections have
+to become convinced that this is a good. Thus many Life-systems present
+themselves. Each of these includes a good. The problem is, How is each
+section to realise that there is a good present in what each other
+section presents? [p.110] There must be some common standard by which
+the ideal of each section of the community can be measured, for it is in
+the light of such a standard alone that the lower good receives its true
+place, meaning, and value. There are, beyond all sectional over-personal
+ideals, values which connote the highest welfare of everyone "who
+carries a human face." These values are the results of the partially
+collective experiences of the deepest in life, and have been gained in
+the history of the race. They are the values which are the needs and
+rights of all. Justice, Sympathy, Love--these and others are the highest
+syntheses. They have, as yet, been only partially reached; and this
+partial realisation is the possession of a few, and has not yet
+succeeded in becoming the necessary standard which shall pass judgment
+on all lower ideals. "Rights are rights," we are told. This may be true,
+but something higher has to interpret them, or else one set of rights
+comes into conflict with other sets and stands but little chance of
+realisation. And even if realised, a whole series of complexities
+immediately arises. This has been, in the main, the history of human
+society. And are we able to say that society has progressed much during
+the past century in this direction of illuminating lower needs in the
+light of higher ones which include the good of all? Eucken doubts
+whether the progress has been great. And here once more, [p.111] in
+connection with the deepest meaning of society and the individual, he
+sees the need of ideals which are universally true and universally
+valid. This means that the spiritual life as it presents itself in the
+universally true, good, and beautiful, must become the sun which will
+shine upon all that is below it; it is the Whole in which the Parts must
+find their function and meaning. If the life of society relates itself
+to anything lower than this, the best within it cannot come to flower
+and fruit. In other words, society will have to return to a conception
+and utilisation of an _absolute spiritual life_ before it can gain any
+new territory of eternal value. Probably quite as much attention will
+have to be devoted to the Parts--to the environment, the needs of the
+hour, the material comforts and happiness of life. But granting that the
+possession of all these will come about, what then? We are still
+wretchedly poor in the "inward parts." What we have won has not within
+itself sufficient spirituality to touch the deepest recesses of the
+soul. Material plenty and pleasure are a good when they are used as they
+ought to be used. Where is that "something" that teaches us this? Where
+is the Ought? The Ought is something outside and infinitely higher than
+all the gains which the environment or the group is ever able to bring
+forth. "Life," says Eucken,[36] "cannot be made simply [p.112] a
+question of relationship to environment and of the development of mutual
+relationships (as this tendency would have it) without the independence
+of the isolated factor [spiritual life] being most seriously reduced.
+And it must not be forgotten that the individual is the sole source of
+original spiritual life; corporate social life can do no more than unite
+and utilise. The maintenance of the strength and freedom of this
+original life would be less important, and its limitation would be more
+easily endurable, if human life stood upon a firm foundation and needed
+only to follow quietly in a naturally appointed direction. In reality,
+life is not only full of separate problems, but being situated (as it
+is) between the realm of mere Nature and the spiritual world, must begin
+by systematically directing itself aright and ascending from the
+semi-spiritual to the truly spiritual construction of life. It is hence
+called upon to perform great tasks, which cannot be carried out without
+serious efforts and the mobilisation of all our spiritual forces. This
+necessarily leads us back to the original sources of strength, and hence
+to the individual."
+
+This passage represents well Eucken's main teaching in regard to our
+social problems. We shall ever fail in the highest sense if the
+spiritual content of life is no more than a _means_ to reach material
+ends, however necessary such ends may be. For in such a [p.113] manner
+spiritual life--the universally true and valid--is reduced to a lower
+plane; it becomes entangled in lower stages, and thus ceases to be a
+"light on the hill" illumining the steep upward path. Convictions of a
+spiritual nature--the very forces which have moulded society--are absent
+from such a system of life which has no more than the day or the hour to
+look forward to. Individual and society become the creatures of mere
+impulses and passions, stimulated to activity by a "dead-level"
+environment. Something of value is gained when even this kind of
+environment is a good; but the response is quite as readily given to
+that which is injurious, simply because the "universally true and good"
+is absent as an inwardness and conviction in the soul.
+
+Without such an inwardness and its content the deeper energy of life is
+not touched, and men drift with the tide of the environment. Without the
+ideals or syntheses which are, in their very nature, universal and
+absolute, progress comes to a standstill, and degeneration soon sets in.
+The ordinary situation, apart from the presence of the content of the
+over-world within the life of the soul, swings like a pendulum between a
+shallow optimism and a blind pessimism. There is no power present in the
+soul to come to any fundamental decision, but life drifts on a river
+between Yea and Nay; a failure to penetrate beneath the [p.114] crust of
+chance and circumstance becomes evident, and the deeper values and
+meanings of life disappear.
+
+Eucken's only solution for our present-day troubles is a return to our
+own deeper nature as this was depicted in previous chapters. The signs
+of the times, he tells us, are encouraging; the utilitarian mode of life
+is wearing itself out; the tastes of material comforts have been with us
+long enough to experience the poverty of their quality; and the mad
+gamble for the "things which perish" is gradually weeding out its
+devotees. Eucken's solution to the problems of society is a _religious_
+one. Where is the conception of religion as the solution of the
+momentous and intricate problems of our day to be found in the teachings
+and writings of our economists? It is not to be found. These deal either
+with petty details or with laws which have no spiritual content whatever
+in them. Society may proceed with various Life-systems--individualism,
+socialism, or any other, but until it gets into touch with its deepest
+soul, each such system of life is hastening towards its own destruction
+and towards the injury of progress.
+
+The conception of the State is presented by Eucken in a similar manner.
+He points out how we stop short in our politics of dealing with the
+universally true and good. Party strives against party, and nation
+against nation. [p.115] Groups of all hues and cries propound their own
+particular ideals as the all-important ones. Higher ideals are left out
+of account, so that we find the world to-day spending its energies in
+warfare concerning many things of minor importance. How can we expect
+fruition and bliss to follow on such lines?
+
+Eucken presents in a convincing manner the danger of resting upon the
+external in Society and State. "We are experiencing to-day a remarkable
+entanglement. The older forms of Life, which had hitherto governed
+history and its meaning, have become too narrow, petty, and subjective
+for human nature. Through emancipation from an easy-going subjectivity
+and through the positing of life upon external things and, indeed, upon
+the whole of the great universe, Life, it was believed, would gain more
+breadth and truth; and in a noteworthy manner man undertook a struggle
+against the pettiness of his own nature and for the drawing out of all
+that was merely human and trivial. A great deal has been gained through
+such a change and new tendency of life. In fact we have discovered far
+more than we had hoped for. But, at the same time, we have lost
+something--a loss which at the outset occasions no anxiety, but which,
+however, through painful experience, proves itself to have been the 'one
+thing needful.' Through its own development the work has destroyed its
+own vehicles; it has [p.116] undermined the very ground upon which it
+stood; it has failed, notwithstanding its infinite expansion, through
+its loss of a fundamental and unifying Life-process; and in the entire
+immersion of man into activity his deepest being has been sacrificed.
+Indeed, the more exclusively Life transforms itself into external work,
+the more it ceases to be an inner personal experience, and the more
+alien we become to ourselves. And yet the fact that we can be conscious
+of such an alienation--an alienation that we cannot accept indifferently
+--is a proof that more is firmly implanted in us than the modern
+direction of life is able to develop and satisfy. We acknowledge
+simultaneously that we have gained much, but that the loss is a painful
+one. We have gained the world, but we have lost the soul; and, along
+with this, the world threatens to bring us to nought, and to take away
+our one secure foothold in the midst of the roaring torrent of material
+work."[37]
+
+Eucken shows that the individual will obtain his true place in Society
+and the State only when spiritual ideals have become fixed norms--norms
+which form the highest synthesis to be conceived of. And Society and the
+State will discover their vocations in precisely the same manner. It is
+impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that things are not well with
+the world to-day. The growth of the material [p.117] interests of the
+world and of life has become a menace on a scale unknown in the previous
+history of civilisation. There is only one refuge in the midst of all
+this welter and chaos. That indestructible refuge is "an inner synthesis
+and spiritual elevation of life." It is this alone which can prevent the
+disintegration that is bound to follow in its absence. The petty human
+element cannot be eliminated from this; and the mere life of the
+hour--the life that has no substance of duration within itself--cannot
+be stopped on its reckless career without the presence of spiritual
+ideals within and without. If the world proceeds in its denial of the
+reality and need of spiritual life and its over-world, the negation,
+when it reaches its climax of disaster and despair, will "turn again
+home"--to the necessity of spiritual values--and out of the ruins a new
+humanity will emerge.
+
+Thus, once more we are landed into the province of a religion of
+spiritual life as a necessity in the affairs of the world and of the
+State. Eucken's great plea is that the civilised nations of the world
+should become aware of all this before it is too late to turn
+back--before the boat has reached too near the rapids to avoid disaster.
+The remedy is in our own hands. How to create the consciousness of the
+situation is the problem of problems, and all individuals are called to
+bring the whole of their energies to its solution.
+
+[p.118] It is evident that some kind of uneasiness has to take place in
+the deepest recess of the human soul, but the best ways and means of
+doing this are not yet quite evident.[38] We know what we need and what
+prevents decadence of individuals and nations. "If ye know these things,
+blessed are ye if ye _do_ them" (Gospel of John). The bridge between a
+knowledge of the Ought and its possession is difficult to construct, but
+its importance is necessary to be brought constantly before the people.
+The majority of the people have thought fit to leave almost the only
+place where such an obligation was presented--_i.e._ the Christian
+Church. Until they return, or some other institution higher than the
+Church is brought into existence, the peril will remain. No individual
+conviction, based on anything less than spiritual ideals, will suffice.
+What we are looking for is in our midst; it is and has been from the
+very beginning, in spite of an "existential form," largely archaic,
+present in the spiritual nucleus of the Christian religion.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VII [p.119]
+
+RELIGION AND ART
+
+
+Eucken has written less on this subject than on any of those which
+constitute the headings of the chapters of this book. But he has treated
+art in precisely the same manner as he has treated all other important
+problems: he has shown that no great art is possible unless it is rooted
+in a creativeness which is _spiritual_. In his _Main Currents of Modern
+Thought_ we get an instructive account of art and its relation to
+morality. His account of the development of art in modern times, from
+the Renaissance to the present day, shows the ebb and flow of the
+conception of the Beautiful. The check which the Renaissance received
+through the Reformation in relation to art had its good as well as its
+evil side. Intense scorn arose in the Protestant world for every kind of
+image and decoration, because these were supposed to posit life on what
+was purely sensuous and natural, and so bar the way to the Divine.
+Still, the obstruction [p.120] created by Protestantism in this
+direction opened a door in quite another direction. Art of a higher kind
+than picture or statue arose, which was far removed from the sensuous
+level and which emerged from a deeper soil within the soul. The whole
+series of musical composers produced by Germany is a proof of this. The
+period of the _Aufklaerung_ viewed art with scant favour, but with the
+rise of the New Humanism a change in favour of art took place.
+
+The origin of this change is to be found where one might least expect
+it--in the soul of the sage of Koenigsberg. Kant's _Critique of Judgment_
+is unanimously allowed to be the greatest book ever produced on the
+subject. Goethe and Schiller were influenced by it--the latter in a
+remarkable manner. We find in these writers an effort to unite the Good
+and the Beautiful. It is impossible to read the poetry of Goethe without
+finding that great moral problems are imbedded in his conceptions of the
+Beautiful. His poetry is an attempt to bridge the chasm between the
+external world and the soul. His nature was too deep to remain satisfied
+with the mere impressions of the senses. The union of the world
+_without_ with the world _within_ gave him a view of the universe and of
+human life full of originality and suggestiveness.
+
+Schiller worked in practically the same direction. A moral standpoint of
+a high order [p.121] is to be discovered in his writings, and he
+believed this standard to be possible of preservation alongside of a
+legitimate "freedom granted in the phenomenon." "Then the two tendencies
+again became divided. Romanticism gave a peculiar definite and
+self-conscious expression to the priority of art and the aesthetical
+view of life, while Fichte and the other leaders of the national
+movement exerted a powerful influence in the direction of strengthening
+morality. The social and industrial type of civilisation, which became
+more and more powerful during the course of the nineteenth century, was
+inclined, with its tendency towards social welfare and utility, to
+assign a subordinate part to art. Modern art arises in protest against
+this and is ambitious to influence the whole of life; in opposition to
+morality it holds up an aesthetic view of life as being alone
+justifiable. Hence at the present time the two spheres stand wide
+apart."[39]
+
+Eucken shows how such an antithesis between morality and art has
+partially existed for thousands of years. But whenever a cleavage takes
+place both morality and art suffer. On the one hand, morality tends to
+become a system of rules for the performance of which a reward is
+promised either in this world or in the world to come. On the other
+hand, art is stripped of the distinction between the values of sensuous
+things as these express [p.122] themselves in their relation to human
+life. In the former case, insistence on morality (even on morality
+alone) has deepened human life; it has given it a more strenuous tone;
+and it has created a scale of values which alters the whole meaning of
+life. But morality conceived as a system of regulations and laws has
+always the tendency to harden and narrow the life, and to posit the
+individual too much upon himself. Any justification from without--from
+the physical side--consequently fails to give any help or satisfaction.
+And man needs this help. As it is impossible for him to fly out of the
+world to some region where mind or spirit alone reigns, he has to do the
+best he can with the physical world in the midst of which he exists. It
+is within such a world that he has to cultivate the spiritual potencies
+of his own being. It is true that the spiritual potencies of his own
+being are higher and of more value than anything in Nature. Still, that
+does not mean that Nature has to be discarded or condemned before the
+potencies of his own being can develop. Nature is not a mere blind
+machine; it has produced all--including man and his potencies--that is
+to be found on the face of it. It is therefore not entirely meaningless,
+and the meaning it possesses is a necessary element in the evolution of
+personal spiritual life. Man must enter into some relation with Nature.
+But such a relation produces even more than all this. When viewed in a
+friendly mood, [p.123] Nature herself wears an aspect higher than a
+materialistic or intellectual one. It calls forth the best in
+imagination; it enables us to feel that something of the power that
+dwells within the soul dwells also in all the manifestations of
+phenomena.[40] This fact is evident in all the poetry of the world, and
+without the perpetual presence of Nature to the soul in the form of
+wonder, reverence, and admiration, no poetry worthy of the name is
+possible. Nature thus is of value in the fact that when its phenomena
+present themselves to a consciousness aware not only of its _knowing_
+aspect but also of its _feeling_ aspect, the union of Nature and soul
+produces a feeling of reality which creates an ideal nature. "The light
+that never was on sea or land" becomes now on sea and land; it
+illuminates the whole scene with a "halo and glory" which was concealed
+before. But there must be present "an eye of the soul" united with the
+physical impressions before all this is possible. Indeed, the effect of
+all this is nothing less than an ideal creation of a world consisting of
+Nature and the spiritual potencies of man. It is evident that if the
+_internal_ [p.124] factor, which represents itself in the form of
+morality or value, is absent, the picture of Nature is quite different.
+And this is Eucken's complaint in regard to much of the art of the
+present day: the internal factor is absent. Seriousness is not blended
+with freedom in it; or, in other words, the _inward_ has no power to
+pass its quality into the _outward_. But when the _inward_ is present in
+the form of morality or value, then art becomes joyous, serious,
+helpful, and disinterested. This last aspect of the disinterestedness of
+art was perceived clearly by Kant, and has formed an important
+contribution to the philosophy and even to the religion of the
+nineteenth century. When a potency of the soul, gained in a province
+outside art (as is the case with morality or value), operates, there is
+no danger of art degenerating into mere subjectivism; otherwise there is
+a very grave danger. Loosened from morality it becomes a mere play of
+decoration and fancy--a mere superficial embroidery of an empty life; it
+can look on the human world and all its struggles with an indifferent
+and often cynical mood. Why has all this happened? Because the inward
+factor of the "strenuous mood" has been replaced by a sentimental factor
+based on nothing deeper than the satisfaction of the senses; and the
+result of this is found in feelings which are more psychical than
+spiritual in their nature.
+
+But that art is necessary for any completion [p.125] of life is seen by
+the fact that its contribution to the soul is more than a _thought_
+contribution. For the deeper life of the spirit of man is more than
+thought, although thought forms an essential element of it; this deeper
+life has wider demands than can be expressed in the form of logical
+propositions. Eucken shows how true art is therefore indissolubly
+connected with spiritual life. "Without the presence of a spiritual
+world [the resultant of the union of the spiritual potencies and
+external objects], art has no soul and no secure fundamental
+relationship to reality, and in no way can it develop a fixed style.
+We hear to-day of a 'new style,' and are in the saddle after such a
+conception. But shall we find it so long as the whole of life does not
+fasten itself upon simple fundamental lines and does not follow the main
+path in the midst of all the tangle of effort? How is it possible to
+attain to a unity of interpretation where our life itself fails in the
+possession of a governing unity? We discover ourselves in the midst of
+the most fundamental transformations of life; old ideals are vanishing,
+and new ones are dawning on the horizon. But as yet they are all full of
+unrest and unreadiness; and the situation of man in the All of things is
+so full of uncertainty that he has to struggle anew for the meaning and
+value of his life. If art has nothing to say to him and no help to
+offer--if it relegates these questions far from itself--then art itself
+must sink to the level of a [p.126] subsidiary play the more these
+problems win the mind and spirit of man. But if art is capable of
+bringing a furtherance of values to man in his needs and sorrows, it
+will have to recognise and acknowledge the problems of spiritual life as
+well as participate in the struggle for the vindication and formation of
+a spiritual world. When art does this, these questions which engage our
+attention are also its questions."[41]
+
+In spite of the contradictions of life, in spite of much which seems
+indifferent to human weal and woe within the physical universe, the
+contradictions may be surmounted by the union of man's spirit with other
+aspects of existence which look in an opposite direction. The ideal
+world of art is not to be discovered by ignoring these contradictions,
+but by acknowledging them to the full, and by seeing that Nature is
+supplemented by man and his soul. Such a union, as has already been
+pointed out, will create an earnestness and joyousness of life; it will
+enable man, when any teleology of Nature herself fails to give him
+satisfaction, to realise a teleology within the _substance_ of his own
+life--spiritual in its essence, infinite in its duration, and the
+flowering of a bud which has grown with the help of the natural cosmos.
+When Nature is thus viewed as a preparatory stage for spirit, it will
+wear an aspect very different from the mechanical one. Its real
+teleology [p.127] will be seen: there can be no dispute about it; it has
+actually produced man, and man has now to carry farther the evolutionary
+process. Eucken has presented this aspect in a fine manner in his
+article on Schiller in _Kantstudien_[42] (Band X., Heft 3), _Festschrift
+zu Schillers hundertstem Todestage_. No one in modern times discovered
+the contradictions of the world in regard to the needs of man more than
+Schiller. And yet no one led a more joyous life than this "half-poet,
+half-thinker." Pressed from within and without by many alien elements,
+he overcame them all and found, despite his physical weakness, what a
+gift life is. It is in the direction of a great synthesis of spiritual
+life and natural phenomena that true art will discover the qualities for
+a permanent duration. Such a synthesis will enrich the spiritual life,
+and will grant it something of higher construction concerning the
+meaning and value of the union of Nature and Man. So Eucken has once
+more landed us into the spiritual life as the source and goal of all
+true Art.
+
+
+    "Only the rooted knowledge to high sense
+    Of heavenly can mount, and feel the spur
+    For fruitfullest achievement, eye a mark
+      Beyond the path with grain on either hand,
+    Help to the steering of our social Ark
+      Over the barbarous waters unto land."[43]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII [p.128]
+
+UNIVERSAL RELIGION
+
+
+We have followed Eucken's system developing step by step from the stage
+of knowing the world up through the evolution of spiritual life in
+history, in the soul, in art, and in society. Everywhere the
+investigation has revealed a progressive autonomy and duration of
+spiritual life in the midst of all the kaleidoscopic aspects of the
+objects which presented themselves to consciousness. Something spiritual
+has persisted and evolved in the midst of all the changes, and the
+changes have been utilised by this deeper potency of the soul. Through
+the evolution of this spiritual potency changes have been brought about
+in the external world, in human society, and in the individual soul.
+This spiritual potency has bent things to subserve its own inherent
+demands. The union of conation and cognition within the soul has brought
+forth everything that has happened outside the natural process of the
+physical world, and much even of that world [p.129] has been made
+subservient to man. When the attention is turned to this "fact of facts"
+concerning the work of spiritual life, individually and collectively, it
+is impossible to consider it as a mere addendum to the natural process,
+however closely connected it may be with that process. Sufficient has
+been said to prove the superiority of spiritual life over the whole
+aspects and manifestations of Nature. The question, then, cannot be laid
+aside concerning the nature of the life of the spirit in itself. What is
+it now? What is it capable of becoming? Why should its evolution snap at
+its highest point? Why cannot the power that has accomplished so much in
+the history of our world, and has always done this the more efficiently
+the more a remove from the realm of the sensuous took place--why cannot
+such a power proceed farther on its course? And what limits can be set
+to it? The pertinency of such and other questions cannot be doubted. The
+spiritual life has ascended too high and accomplished too much to be
+treated with indifference. And yet that is the way it is being treated
+only too widely to-day. Men hesitate to grant to it a reality of its own
+because of its close connection with mechanical and chemical elements.
+They half affirm and half deny its reality. The question arises, What is
+reality? Eucken agrees with the great idealists of the world that
+reality in its highest manifestation is [p.130] something that pertains
+to spirit and meaning rather than to matter and its behaviour.[44] Our
+rigid clinging to a meaning of reality from the side of its physical
+history is doubtless a remnant of a race--memory which may be largely
+physical in its nature. We find a difficulty in conceiving as yet a
+reality existing in itself--existing in itself though material elements
+have helped it on its upward course. But even here it is not at all
+certain that nothing but material elements have operated in this
+fundamental process. Men have by now known enough of the connection of
+mind with lower processes in order to be aware of a mystery present in
+the whole operation--a mystery which does not yield itself to the
+senses.
+
+But even such a past history of the spiritual life is not all that can
+be said concerning it. It is _now_ in process of evolution, and its
+greatest work is always accomplished not by looking backward but
+forward. The whole universe has operated in bringing spiritual life into
+existence. Are there any reasons whatever for concluding that the whole
+universe is not co-operating _now_ in its further development? Life,
+civilisation, culture, morality, and religion are proofs that this life
+of the spirit is moving onward and upward. It does not move without
+checks and entanglements [p.131] from without and within, but in every
+"long run" it is gaining some new ground and tilling it as its own. It
+dare not turn back; it dare not throw away the pack of the _Sollen_ (the
+Ought) off its shoulders. The over-individual norms have planted
+themselves too strongly in the heart of humanity to be ever uprooted.
+The meaning and value of life now lie in a _beyond_. It is not a
+_beyond_ within any physical region that _was_; neither is it, so far as
+we know, a _beyond_ in any physical region that _is to be_. It is a
+_beyond of the spirit_; and as it is the most real and most requisite
+possession of man, how can it have anything less than a _cosmic_
+significance? The future of spiritual life is therefore governed not by
+something that is _to be_ in the cosmos, but by something that is _now_
+present in it--by the acknowledgment, assimilation, and appropriation by
+man and humanity of spiritual norms which are far beyond their present
+actual situation.
+
+The whole meaning here is that something _sub specie aeternitatis_ has
+to take the foremost place in life. We are beings who perpetually
+_move_. Eucken and Bergson are both emphasising this to-day. But the
+latter deals with the movement alone; he has no notion whither we are
+going, nor can he possibly have until he revises very largely his
+conception of the function and meaning of intellect in life.[45] But
+[p.132] Eucken states that we do know whither we are going. What are the
+over-personal spiritual norms and standards but stars by which to steer
+the direction of our course over the tempestuous sea of time? Everyone
+who guides his life in connection with reason guides it by means of some
+norm or other. Even the daily avocation requires this in order to be
+fulfilled. And the norms which furnish guidance to the spiritual life
+have originated and are utilised in precisely the same manner as those
+of the daily avocation. The only difference is that there is more
+meaning and value in the former than in the latter. But each is a
+_Sollen_ and constitutes a _beyond_. This _Sollen_ is a certainty; it
+exists, and its existence is _in itself._ It is the star for the
+_Wollen._[46] The Will is our own; the Ought is not our own; the fact
+that we possess it as an idea is no proof that it has become a
+possession of the whole of life. In this sense the Ought has an
+objectivity and a subsistence of its own. The Will has to travel in the
+direction of the Ought, and its course is mapped out by this Ought at
+every step of its progress. Hence, in order to reach towards the
+_Sollen_ the nature of the _Sollen_ must become known. As noticed in
+previous chapters, such a movement towards so high [p.133] a goal
+becomes a difficult task--a task which demands the activity of the whole
+spiritual nature. Man's dependency and the meaning of his life are thus
+set before his eyes, and the aspects of momentary existence are valued
+as of secondary importance. Unless this meaning of the norm becomes
+clear, life will revolve around the reality nearest-at-hand, and will
+consequently fail to unfold the deeper spirituality of its nature. "And
+if all depended on the brief flash of the moment, which endures but the
+twinkling of an eye, only to vanish into the dark of nothingness, then
+all life would mean a mere exit into death. Thus, without eternity there
+is no spirituality, and without connection there is no content of life.
+But what is enthroned in itself above Time becomes for the man who wins
+such a spirituality, first of all, an immense task which allows itself
+to be grasped on the field of Time alone; and, also, the Eternal which
+works within us and which hovers before us on the horizon of Eternity
+can become our full possession only through the movement of Time. To
+wish to check the course of Time means not to serve Eternity, but to
+ascribe to Time what belongs to Eternity."[47]
+
+It is not said by Eucken anywhere in his writings that the _natural_
+sources at which Life drinks must be abandoned. These remain with us as
+long as we are in this world of space and [p.134] time. But these are
+not found in the same place, neither is the same importance attached to
+them, once the meaning and value of the over-personal norms and the
+potency of spiritual creativeness have come into union with one another.
+
+What Eucken means by universal religion is the establishment of this
+independency and supremacy of spiritual life over all else in the world.
+We have already dealt with this aspect in former chapters; the
+conclusion was reached that everywhere the presence of a life of the
+spirit made itself felt, and gave a meaning and interpretation to all
+life and existence. That is the conclusion Eucken arrives at in his
+_Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt._ The problem of religion _qua_
+religion is hardly touched. But, indeed, what other than religion can
+all these conclusions mean? Norm and potency are emphasised. An
+elevation above the world and above the "small self" has taken place.
+But something still has to be done before we have entered into the very
+heart of the matter. The problems which arise after all the conclusions
+previously arrived at are acknowledged must be taken into account.
+Having come so far in regard to the value and meaning of spiritual life,
+we are bound to go _farther_. No point occurs where we can find a
+terminus. Though we have already been constrained to grant the norms a
+reality of their own, we have only just touched, here and there, [p.135]
+upon their _cosmic_ significance. The matter thus reaches a further
+point than we have yet touched. What justification is there for granting
+spiritual life this cosmic significance?
+
+Attention has already been called to the fact of a distinction between
+nature and spirit. But attention has now to be directed to the necessity
+of emphasising the reality of spirit. The nature of spirit is revealed
+most clearly in the life and content of human consciousness. No
+anthropomorphic standard from without can come to our aid to establish
+the existence of spirit. The standard is to be found within the
+consciousness itself. A distinction has to be made between _nature and
+spirit_. However much they resemble each other in the beginnings of
+life, spirit has travelled far beyond nature or matter. It has developed
+for itself an essence which may be designated as _substance_. The chief
+characteristic of matter is that it occupies space; but spirit, though
+connected with, and largely conditioned by, matter as it exists in
+space, is now something quite other--something which has to be granted
+an existence of its own, and which forms the beginning of a _new kind of
+world_ and unfolds a _new kind of reality_.
+
+The reality of spiritual life is not discovered in anything which is
+external to life; it is to be found in life itself. The reality is
+revealed and, indeed, created by an act of the spirit of man. Such an
+act must be the act of one's [p.136] own deepest being. But although
+such a new reality is not to be found in anything external to life, yet
+the very revelation points, as we have already observed, to something
+which is over-individual. Even the meaning of the reality itself, from
+its _immanent_ side, is something quite other than the natural life and
+its contents. It is something revealed, but not as yet possessed; it is
+hard to be reached; and even within the man's own nature obstacles and
+hindrances of various kinds are to be found. But the new reality
+persists in the midst of the hindrances; the man discovers himself as
+the possessor of a deeper kind of truth than was present and operative
+in the ordinary life. A cleavage is therefore made between the "small
+self" and the spiritual life. In the degree the former wins through the
+calling forth of the deepest activities of the soul, in that degree does
+the transcendent aspect of the new reality urge itself upon man. And
+when the two aspects--immanent and transcendent--of the reality are
+firmly grasped by the soul, the soul moves upward in the exploration and
+possession of its new world.
+
+The failure to enter into this region of religion is due to the fact
+that men often attempt to construct religion on certain so-called
+faculties of the soul. Some attempt to discover and establish religion
+through the power and conclusions of the intellect. It is evident that
+when the knowing aspect of consciousness [p.137] takes such a leading
+part, and deliberately ignores the affective and active aspects, no more
+than a segment of the reality can be discovered, and such a segment
+leaves out of account important elements of human nature. If the
+affective aspect takes the lead at the expense of the other two aspects,
+we are here again in a region where only certain fragments of our nature
+are touched. If the active aspect busies itself without carrying along
+with itself the content of meaning and value to be discovered in
+consciousness, the true element of the greatness of the reality is
+missing. Eucken shows in his _Truth of Religion_ that there must be a
+point in the soul, at some deeper level than any of the three, where the
+three are working conjointly.[48] It must be so, because what is now at
+stake is more than knowing a thing; it is to _be_ the thing we know we
+_ought to be._ It is unfamiliarity with such a truth that brings a
+difficulty into the mind when face to face [p.138] with the problem of
+religion. The mind has not learned how to attend to the truth in its own
+self-subsistence, but posits this truth in its relation to the
+conditions in the external world which brought it forth.[49] Thus the
+conception of truth is made up very largely of its history on its
+physical side, and this history of the truth comes to possess the entire
+meaning of the truth itself! The road to religion, in its deepest sense,
+is barred to everyone who fails or refuses to grant the deeper reality
+which presents itself within the soul _a self-subsistence._ The only
+existence of such a reality can be its own self-subsistence. The reality
+is now conceived as something quite other than an existence in space; it
+exists for consciousness and can persist within consciousness.
+
+When reality is conceived as a substance subsisting in itself, the
+passage to the Absolute is opened. This Absolute is the most universal
+and complete meaning and value which the soul is capable of possessing;
+its very nature forces itself upon man as being true; and its value has
+revealed itself in its being the only power which will carry farther the
+spiritual evolution of the soul. If such an Absolute is left out of
+account, it is evident that the most universal [p.139] truth which
+presents itself to life as absolutely necessary cannot enter into the
+deepest recesses of the soul; it cannot be more than a subsidiary
+element accompanying lower intellectual elements of life, which are more
+closely allied on such a lower level with physical processes of the body
+and with the physical world. And when truth is treated in this manner,
+it cannot possibly make its abode and become a power in the soul.
+Consciousness hesitates to create a further cleft within itself because
+the evidence of truth at such a height as this does not lend itself to
+the senses. The result is that the full power of the truth fails to
+produce effects on the consciousness, and thus keeps it on practically
+the same level as that on which it has been accustomed to work. The
+higher truth--the higher spiritual life--has not become anything more
+than a fact of knowledge or a probability. It has not become one's own
+life. It is only when this higher aspect of spiritual life becomes
+_one's own life_, and is acknowledged and used, that it is ever possible
+for man to become the possessor of an original energy, of an independent
+governing centre, and so to realise himself as a co-carrier of a cosmic
+movement. This is the presupposition of religion: it testifies that
+within man's soul there appears something higher than sense or
+intellect, but which remains surrounded by alien elements which impose
+checks to its further development. It is quite evident that the
+appearance of [p.140] truths which are absolute and complete within the
+life is in direct antagonism to much that was previously present within
+it. This fundamental fact, however, is not evident without a great deal
+of attention paid to the nature of the higher elements which present
+themselves. Without comparing the values of the higher and the lower
+elements, how is it ever possible to know what they are and what they
+mean? When the whole being attends to both elements--higher and
+lower--there is no possibility of making a mistake concerning the
+_different_ values of what are presented. A higher grade of reality
+reveals itself over against all that had been previously gained. The
+soul is forced to admit that something of a higher nature than it
+hitherto possessed seeks admission. And this Higher, if it enters into
+the whole of life, so far from revealing itself as a continuation of
+what had already happened, reveals itself as something which is
+discontinuous with the ordinary life, and superior even to the highest
+attainments of the intellectual life. And it is this aspect which
+produces the conviction of such a revelation as being _objective_ in its
+very nature. It belongs to something or somebody outside our own
+individual experience or achievement. That there is much which is
+mysterious in all this, is only what might be expected. But the very
+fact that the Higher comes with such power when the soul expects,
+assimilates, and appropriates it [p.141] is a proof of its existence
+somewhere at the core of the universe. It cannot mean an illusion; it
+brings changes of too fundamental a nature to be no more than that. Its
+very value and the enormous difficulty of turning it from being an idea
+into being a possession demand too much energy of the soul to allow of
+its being dismissed without any more ado. It contains elements so
+different in their nature from the ordinary life of the hour as to
+render it impossible to be considered of no more than of subsidiary
+importance. For it has to be borne in mind that the values and norms
+farthest removed from the regions of sense and intellect appear only
+when man follows the drift of his own higher being; it is not when he
+remains effortless and satisfied with the life of the hour that such
+values and norms appear. They appear when the ordinary life is seen
+through as no more than a stage for the further evolution of the soul
+through the grasping of a higher kind of reality than has as yet
+presented itself to it. As Eucken says: "Religion proves itself a
+kingdom of opposites. When it steps out of such opposites, it destroys
+without a doubt the turbidity and evanescence of ordinary commonplace
+life, and separates clearly the lights and shadows from one another. It
+sets our life between the sharpest contrasts, and engenders the most
+powerful feelings and the most mighty movements; it shows the dark abyss
+in our nature, but also [p.142] shows illumined peaks; it opens out
+infinite tasks, and brings ever to an awakening a new life in its
+movement against the ordinary self. It does not render our existence
+lighter, but it makes it richer, more eventful, and greater; it enables
+man to experience cosmic problems within his own soul in order to
+struggle for a new world, and, indeed, in order to gain such a genuine
+world as its own proper life."[50]
+
+All this is not a matter of speculation, but of fact. And it is in the
+recognition of this fact that Eucken's philosophy of religion
+constitutes a new kind of idealistic movement--a movement tending more
+and more in the direction of Christianity. But he differs here again
+from the absolute idealists and the pragmatists. The former base their
+Absolute upon the demands of logic, whilst Eucken bases all upon the
+demands and potencies of life; the pragmatists emphasise the primary
+place of the will in the development of the inner life, but they have
+certainly ignored the presence of over-individual norms, as the goal of
+volition, whilst Eucken holds to the necessity of both. With the
+absolutists the relation of the Absolute with the will is not clearly
+perceived, and consequently the Absolute becomes merely an object of
+thought and contemplation; and in all this the individual does not
+become aware of a burning desire to move in the direction of the goal.
+[p.143] The pragmatist leaves the individual at the mercy of the
+momentary content of consciousness; this content is quite as likely to
+be trivial as to be great; and hence there is no absolute standard
+present to determine the nature and value of this content of the moment,
+and consequently no more than a life of effortless drifting can issue
+out of all this.
+
+This blend of absolutism and pragmatism is richer in its content than
+either of the two. Each has missed something of importance, and it is
+here supplied by Eucken.
+
+Norms and potency become two indissoluble factors in the evolution of
+the higher life. As already stated, the norms have an objectivity of
+their own, and consequently when they enter into life, life becomes
+conscious of their being something _given_ and not brought into
+existence by its own potency. It is out of this conclusion to which life
+is forced that the doctrine of Grace, found in some way or other in all
+religions, is to be accounted for. And it is out of the consciousness of
+the interval between norm and achievement that the sense of _guilt_
+follows man whenever he penetrates deeply into the deeper experiences of
+the soul. Grace and guilt--naming only two experiences of the soul--are
+not remnants of a traditional theology, but essential elements which
+accompany the deepest experience of the soul. When they are wanting, it
+is most probable that the soul has not plumbed its own [p.144] existence
+to its very depths, but has rather chosen to be satisfied with what lies
+but a little way beneath the surface--with what does not cause too much
+uneasiness, but is sufficient for a life to persist as a good member of
+the society by which it is surrounded. Only half a religion can become
+the possession of any individual who does not at least pay as much
+attention to the nature and value of over-individual norms as he pays to
+the nature of the environment and of the ordinary life. It is always a
+sign that humanity is drifting to the shallows of life when it looks
+upon religion as the flowering of the mere natural life of good custom,
+earthly happiness, and ease. Whenever the tragedy born in the conflict
+between norms and ordinary life is absent, the very elements which
+constitute greatness and the "taste of eternity" are also absent. It is
+on account of this fact that Eucken insists that no individual or nation
+that loses its own deeper religious experience can be really great or
+true; for the purest spring of human life and conduct is wanting, and
+the whole life issues from a shallower stream. It is impossible here to
+enter into the truth of this matter; but our individual observation
+concerning men and communities is almost enough of itself to verify the
+statement. That such a higher spiritual life is a reality may be
+evidenced further through its effects. It changes the whole relationship
+of the man [p.145] who has experienced it to everything he comes in
+contact with. New convictions and new points of view have now actually
+occurred within his soul; man has become conscious of a spiritual
+inwardness, brought forth through the presence of an over-personal
+spiritual life coupled with his own spiritual needs. With the possession
+of such spiritual elements, how is it possible for him any more to look
+upon the world and human life with the same eyes as before? The dawning
+of a new reality has made him a new creature; he is now compelled by his
+own deeper nature to preserve and to reflect the light which is within
+him; and all this brings prominently forward the need of something other
+for the progress of the world than the first look of things is able to
+show. It is in such manner as this that we must account for all the
+ideals which have moved mankind from the level of animalism and greed to
+the level of civilisation, culture, morals, and religion. The work is
+far from being completed: the world still clings to the old level of
+ordinary life, and is so slow to grasp the value of the life of
+spiritual ideals. Still, something has been accomplished in the course
+of the ages; and although, probably, the progress has not been
+continuous, there has been a gain in the "long run." But the point to
+bear in mind is that it is the power of the over-individual ideal which
+has carried the race along. Ideals have been perverted, it is true; they
+have been [p.146] drawn down and mixed with what was inferior in its
+nature, yet they have never been completely destroyed in this evil
+process. They have still a marvellous power of disentangling themselves
+from human perversions, and of revealing themselves once more in their
+pristine power and glory. "But the spiritual life declares its ability
+also positively within the human province through a persistent effort to
+move outside the 'given' situation, through a tracing out and a holding
+forth of ideals, through a longing after a more complete happiness and a
+more complete truth. Why is not man satisfied with the relativity which
+so obstinately clings to his existence? Why has he a longing for the
+Absolute in opposition to such relativity, and through this plunges
+himself into the deepest sorrows and distractions? This has happened not
+only in special situations of individuals, but in the whole process of
+culture; indeed, the upward march of culture would have been impossible
+without a striving of man from a level above his 'given' position and
+even above himself. Was not subjective satisfaction more easily reached
+by him in the semi-animal stages of his existence than in culture and
+civilisation with all their toils and tangles, and does the progress of
+culture and civilisation with all their mechanical appliances make him
+in the merely human sense happier? What else could compel him to step
+into this perilous track but the necessity of his own nature [p.147]
+revealing to him the presence of a new order of things?"[51]
+
+The whole of this movement is from within without. Even the physical
+world has to enter into consciousness before it can be known and
+interpreted; even the over-individual norms have to be accepted and
+interpreted by the spiritual potency before the reality which they
+possess in themselves can become our own personal reality. We receive
+from without on the plane of Nature and on the planes of mentality and
+spirituality. The consciousness does not evolve its content on any level
+of its progress from itself alone. Material from without has to enter
+into it. But the whole of this material will become one's own possession
+in the degree it is attended to after it has entered consciousness;
+something has to happen to the material _within_ consciousness; it has
+to awaken a potency, and has to distil its own content within that
+potency. But as this potency is not of the same nature entirely as what
+presents itself as possessing value, it is clear that the higher element
+which presents itself has to enter into a struggle for the throne of
+life with elements of a lower order. As this all-important fact has been
+dealt with in a previous chapter, there is no need to dwell on it again;
+but it is well to bear in mind that the fact [p.148] constitutes an
+important element in Eucken's conception of "universal" religion.
+
+"Universal" and "Characteristic" religion do not constitute two
+different religions, but two grades of the one religion. In "Universal"
+religion Eucken deals very largely with the intellectual grounds of
+religion. He is aware that it is necessary for us to carry our whole
+potencies into religion. Intellect is one of these, and we cannot afford
+to construct our religion on what comes into perpetual conflict with
+intellectual conceptions. Eucken has shown that intellectual
+conclusions, if they are carried far enough and include the whole of
+their own meaning, lead us into religion. We have already noticed how
+the presence of norms and standards were necessitated by the very theory
+of knowledge itself. It is a great gain for man to know that this is
+so--that in so far as knowledge testifies anything in regard to religion
+and spiritual life it affirms more than it negates. It is of enormous
+advantage to be assured that knowledge is on our side in the quest for
+something that is deeper than itself.
+
+Further, Eucken conceives it as the function of religion on this
+"Universal" level to present, on the other hand, the actual situation.
+What but knowledge can reveal to us the difference between spiritual
+norms and ordinary life, between intellect working alone and intellect
+merged with the spiritual potency of one's [p.149] being? We are bound
+to know these and a hundred other things. They all go to prove that
+there is justification for the movement of spiritual life in the
+direction of an over-world, and in its hope for the possession of a new
+grade of reality. It is well and necessary to affirm all this before we
+enter on the "grand enterprise." When an affirmation, based upon
+insight, is made, there will be present within the soul a greater power
+to resist hunting after shadows or slipping to a lower level when we are
+in the very midst of the quest. And, indeed, on this very level of
+"Universal" religion something besides the mere knowledge of religion
+has taken place. Values which are intellectually true are bound to
+exercise some influence on the life. Thus, something of the nature of
+the higher reality has touched the soul and will of man. We _know_ in
+what we have believed. This is a stage which must be passed through, for
+we can never feel certain upon a higher altitude unless we are certain
+of what had led to it. And although, on the higher altitude, there is
+the merging of intellectual truth in something higher than itself, still
+what is discovered on this higher level is richer in content if we can
+call up at times intellectual affirmations for its support.
+
+But "Universal" religion has its limitations, and has to pass into
+something more characteristic, specific, and personal. The over-personal
+norms, which are spiritual in their very nature, [p.150] have not only
+to be interpreted, they have also to be appreciated and reverenced. The
+_How_ of their appearance, after it is settled, takes a secondary place,
+and the norms in their own value and subsistence are attended to. Thus,
+they become not merely ideas having some kind of reality of their own,
+but also become revelations of the very nature of the world; they become
+the source of all creation; the one spring of all being. In other words,
+they are made to mean the Godhead; they mean the creation and sustaining
+power of all life. A communion with the Godhead now takes place, and man
+finds himself in possession of experiences brought about without the
+intervention of the world. Thus "Universal" religion culminates in a
+"Characteristic" or personal religion. And to this culmination, as it is
+presented by Eucken, we now turn.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER IX [p.151]
+
+CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION
+
+
+On the level of "Universal" religion great changes have taken place in
+life. The consciousness and conviction of the reality of a new kind of
+world have arisen; the sensuous, and even partially the intellectual,
+domains have been relegated to a secondary place: other values, higher
+in their nature and more universal in their scope, have attracted the
+attention of mind and soul. In all this a change has taken place in the
+disposition as well as in the will. Prior to this change the character
+had not become conscious of its own inwardness, but remained subservient
+to the norms of social and moral inheritance. Some amount of morality
+and good will have issued forth in this manner, and, indeed, the gain
+cannot be overestimated. But it is evident that something further has to
+happen if the movement of society is to proceed onward and upward, and
+if the energy for such a movement is to be discovered within the soul.
+The whole material which enters into consciousness has to obtain a
+deeper meaning [p.152] than it hitherto possessed. And this happens on
+the level of "Universal" religion. The _spiritual_ is now recognised as
+the highest manifestation of life; and this spiritual is seen to be
+something which has to be gained through a struggle which calls the
+whole nature into activity. Such a movement from the less to the more
+spiritual proceeds side by side with the _freedom_ of the individual.
+Freedom has now taken a new meaning. Hitherto it meant little more than
+the consciousness of the individual moving along the line of least
+resistance. The effort to move in such a direction is generally
+pleasurable; and when it tends to become painful the individual gives up
+the effort. The highest norms were not present with a categorical
+affirmation of their reality and value. But when they are present, the
+will is turned from the direction of ordinary life and its ease to the
+conception of the meaning and value of the highest norms. Something,
+appearing as of intrinsic value, now makes itself felt, and stirs the
+whole nature. Thus, a _new movement_ begins; the _passive_ attitude of
+the soul gives way to an _autonomous_ attitude and movement. The will,
+consequently, is conscious of a deeper need than any hitherto
+experienced, and therefore calls into being some deeper elements of its
+own in order to reach its goal. The whole nature has now affirmed the
+_idea of the good_, which had dawned upon it as an imperative. It is in
+[p.153] such a moment that the real nature becomes free--it becomes
+conscious, through and through, of the possibility of leaving its old
+world and of ascending into a new one. This is, in Eucken's words, the
+real spiritual evolution (_Wesensbildung_) of human nature. This
+evolution, which, prior to this, was considered very largely as a kind
+of gift of the environment, is now perceived as capable of realisation
+only in so far as the spiritual norms are willed. When we examine the
+progress of humanity, we discover that it has taken place in this
+manner; a task had to be set and the whole nature had to be called forth
+to realise it. The result is that a new creation takes place in the
+history of the world. Such a creation becomes a new norm in the moral
+world, as well as a possession in the life of the individual who has
+struggled to realise it.
+
+Such a spiritual process, after something of its nature has been
+realised, finds necessities laid upon it on all hands. Once we have
+stepped into the very centre of spiritual norms and ideals they begin to
+reveal with a wonderful rapidity and impressiveness their own intrinsic
+content and value. "Universal" religion has enabled us to realise that
+we are dealing with "grounds" which are a demand of the deepest nature,
+and with convictions which seem, without a doubt, "to ring true." The
+man has found a shelter in the midst of all the chaos and welter of the
+natural process, [p.154] and his deepest reason has not failed to come
+to the assistance of his spiritual need. He now becomes conscious of
+security and even of victory in the enterprise before the battle has
+really begun on an arena outside his own nature; a conviction is being
+brought into being within his deepest soul that the best and strongest
+elements in the universe are on his side. Although hindrances and
+entanglements of all kinds increase in number, the increase in spiritual
+certainty, and faith in the final issue of his life, have grown at a
+greater ratio. Such a man has settled his destiny; he has come to the
+great spiritual affirmation of life--an affirmation which has to be
+repeated so often, and which each time distils something of a higher
+order within the soul.
+
+It is evident that such an affirmation of the reality of spiritual
+ideals, which have now an existence of their own, should lead us
+farther. If they mean so much, why cannot they mean more? If they
+subsist in themselves, they must be what they _are_. They are to us
+meaning and value of infinite significance. But such and other spiritual
+characteristics are _not things_, and, as we have seen, not mere
+projections of our own individual selves. There is nothing short of
+personality and over-personality by which they can be even partially
+designated and determined. We are forced to this conclusion if they are
+to be objects of communion and union: and we are forced [p.155] further
+to gather the Many into the One. That was what was done on all lower
+planes. Why stop short here, because infinitely much happens when the
+Many find their points of union and meaning in the One?[52] We have said
+that infinitely much happens when the Many find their meaning in the
+One. A need of the nature has arisen which demands this, and it has
+arisen at its _highest possible level alone_. Such a nature will never
+become absolutely certain of the meaning and value of all that has led
+up to this until the One obtains a self-subsistence. If this effort
+fails, the whole effort of development towards unity and inwardness
+fails. And when such a chain of effort snaps at its highest link of
+spiritual development, everything that had entered into the process at
+all the levels below it snaps along with it in so far as it had any
+validity whatever in the light of what is higher than itself.
+
+But the fact that this conception of the One, conceived as Absolute
+Spiritual Life, has produced so many effects of the highest kind is a
+proof of its existence. Qualities come into being which can never come
+with such power in any other way. The spiritual experiences, revealed at
+such a level, have something to say on this matter. These experiences,
+[p.156] although aware of the meaning of universal concepts, have become
+aware of something higher still: Knowledge has given place to Love; a
+region has been reached beyond all the contradictions of the world and
+beyond all the dialectics of knowledge. It is a region which includes
+the good of all without injuring the good of any; and all the meaning of
+the world and of life is interpreted from this highest standpoint. This
+is the essence of "characteristic "or specific religion. On the level of
+"universal" religion, God was seen from the standpoint of the world; in
+"characteristic" religion the world is seen from the standpoint of God.
+The appearance of the world is consequently different from each
+standpoint. All must now be viewed and valued from the standpoint of
+"characteristic" religion, from the standpoint of the One--the Godhead;
+and if humanity is ever to be brought to this standpoint, the nature and
+the meaning of the One have to be presented to it. And it is this, as
+Eucken shows, which has been partially accomplished by the religions of
+the world. Their founders were personalities who had scaled the heights
+towards the "holy of holies" of the One; they descended into the plains
+to reveal what they had seen and heard and experienced on the heights.
+They had been able to commune with the Alone, and their natures had been
+completely transformed. In passing thus from the stage of "universal"
+[p.157] religion to the higher stage of "characteristic," men have
+discovered a further security and spiritual evolution of their whole
+being. Their views of man and the world have become changed; they now
+long to make mankind the possessor of the "vision splendid" which has
+meant all for them. Communion with the One as Infinite Love has revealed
+to them a peace and a power which are far beyond all the lower unities.
+
+It is of value, in the midst of all the complexities of life, of the
+partial interpretations of the various branches of knowledge, to have
+passed through the several stages below the One. Some must guard the
+highest citadel of religion and keep open the avenues to Infinity,
+Eternity, and Immortality. And the greater the number who are able to do
+this, the better for the world and for the individual. But a taste of
+this Infinite Love can be obtained without all this. Just as some of us
+are able to walk without a knowledge of the bodily mechanism and to eat
+and digest without a knowledge of the history of our bread, so the
+deeper spiritual potencies inherent in man are able to find a vast
+amount of satisfaction by resting upon and trusting in a Love Absolute,
+Eternal, and Infinite. Here, man is in a region of infinite calm beyond
+the distractions of the world and of knowledge. He cannot remain here
+for any great length of time; he has to return to the world, but he is
+never [p.158] again the same being after having scaled the "mount of
+transfiguration." "Religion holds as certain and conclusive that this
+new inner foundation is the greatest thing of all and the wonder of
+wonders, because it carries within itself the power and certainty of the
+overcoming of the old world and the creation of a new one; it is on
+account of this that religion longs for the conviction of the whole man,
+and brands the denial of this as pettiness and unbelief. The world may
+therefore remain to the external view as it appeared before--a kingdom
+of opposition and darkness; its hindrances within and without may seem
+to nullify everything else; they may contract and even seemingly destroy
+man and his spiritual potencies; all his acts may seem fruitless and
+vain, and his whole existence may seem to sink into nothingness and
+worthlessness. Yet, through the entrance of the new life and a new
+world, everything is transformed from within, and the clearness of the
+light appears all the more by contrast with all the depth of the
+darkness. Indeed, in the midst of all the mysteries of existence, hope
+and conviction and certainty will consolidate our experience, so that
+ultimately evil itself must serve the development of the good."[53] Or
+in the words of Luther: "This is the spiritual power which reigns and
+rules in the midst of enemies, and is powerful in the midst [p.159] of
+all oppression. And this is nothing other than that strength is
+perfected in weakness, and that in all things I can gain life eternal,
+so that cross and crown are compelled to serve and to contribute towards
+my salvation."[54]
+
+Eucken shows how this idea of God comes from the Life-process itself.
+The Godhead is present, not as an external revelation but as the ever
+fuller meaning and experience which have been carried along in the soul
+in its passage from the natural level to the highest spiritual plane. At
+its summit the development unfolds its true spiritual content of Love.
+The Highest Power--however much there still remains dark concerning
+it--has had communication with man, is present within his soul, has
+become his own life and nature, as well as his self-subsistence over
+against the order of the world. Here Love is raised up into an image of
+the Godhead--Love as a self-communication and as an essential elevation
+of the nature, and as an expression of inmost fellowship.[55] "There
+originates a mutual intercourse of the soul and God as between an I and
+a Thou." It has already been stated that Eucken insists that no close
+determination, in an intellectual form, should be given to this
+conception and experience of God. The idea of a personality of God is
+not an intellectual idea presented in any doctrinal form; it is an idea
+[p.160] born _within_ the _Life-process_ on its highest levels. On such
+levels it becomes obvious and indispensable. Man may be clearly
+conscious of the symbolism of the idea, and yet, at the same time, grasp
+in it an incontestable intrinsic truth which he knows to be far above
+all mere anthropomorphism. Eucken shows that it is not merely a human
+greatness that has been transferred to the Divine, but that the whole
+meaning here is a return to the source of a Divine Life and its mutual
+communication with man; and therefore the whole process is not an
+argument of man concerning the Divine, because the Divine has to be
+apprehended through the Divine within us. "All opposition to the idea of
+the Divine personality is ultimately explained by the fact that an
+energetic Life-process is wanting--a Life-process which entertains the
+question not so much from without as from within. Whenever such a
+Life-process is found, there is simultaneously found, often in overt
+contradiction to the formal doctrinal statement, an element of such a
+personal character of God."[56] But this _immanent_ aspect of the idea
+of God is accompanied by a _transcendent_ aspect. We have noticed
+already that the very nature of the _Ought_ included a transcendent and
+objective aspect.[57] The same fact becomes evident in [p.161] religious
+experience. The two poles--immanence and transcendence--are
+complementary. The former shows that something of the Divine nature has
+been implanted within human nature; the latter shows that more is in
+existence than we have already possessed. Spiritual norms never decrease
+but increase in splendour the nearer man is to their attainment.
+Something is here discovered which is not found in the world; it is a
+kind of transcendent summit, a mysterious sublimity. And an approach
+towards this summit produces experiences never to be possessed in any
+other kind of way. As Eucken himself puts it: "If this sublimity
+superior to the world secures an abode in the soul, and, indeed, becomes
+the inmost and most intimate part of our being, and enables us to
+participate in the self-subsistence of infinity, it opens up within us a
+fathomless depth, in which the existence that lies nearest to our hands
+is swallowed up, and it makes us a problem to ourselves--a problem which
+transforms the whole of life--whilst it enables us to understand and to
+handle what at the outset appeared to be its whole life as a mere phase
+and appearance. Thus it is the same religion which opens out from God to
+man and which simultaneously opens itself out in man himself and becomes
+a great mystery to him. Therefore, in the idea of God the intimate and
+the ultimate must both be present if religion is to reach its full
+development and to [p.162] avoid the dangers which everywhere threaten
+it."[58] Both these aspects interlace in one Life-process; the unity is
+present in the manifold, and the ultimate present in the intimate.
+
+According to Eucken, it is out of such an experience as we have noticed
+that the idea of immortality becomes a firm belief and faith within the
+soul. The idea cannot be proved scientifically, simply because its
+spiritual content is greater than anything which is _below_ it. The
+whole proof lies within the experience itself at this, its highest
+summit. "The Infinite Power and Love that has grounded a new spontaneous
+nature in man, over against a dark and hostile world, will conserve such
+a new nature and its spiritual nucleus, and shelter it against all
+perils and assaults, so that life as the bearer of life eternal can
+never be wholly lost in the stream of time." We are here in a region
+farthest removed from sense and understanding; but the remarkable thing
+is that the conviction of immortality does not dawn on any lower level;
+it is not on the lower levels a portion of spiritual experience. It
+seems as if an element of immortality is only to be gained at a certain
+height of the spiritual life. On all levels below, men seek for proofs
+in the analogies of Nature, in the supposed return of the spirits of the
+dead, and in the craving found in their own lives. All these proofs have
+one thing in common: they [p.163] are all of a lower order of value than
+the meaning which the content of experience gives to immortality on its
+highest level. For at this highest level the proof is not something
+happening outside the man; it is the deepest part of his own being which
+now actually possesses a taste of life eternal. It seems, then, that
+there is no answer to the problem outside ourselves, because it is not
+something to be known, but something to be experienced after long toil
+and a stirring of the nature to its lowest depths in the drift of all
+that is highest and best.[59] It is sufficient for us to possess a life
+which is spiritual and timeless in its nature: and when such a life is
+possessed, empirical proofs are neither demanded nor desired. It is
+within one's own new and spiritual world that proofs are now discovered,
+and they are timeless and spaceless in their own intrinsic nature. "Do
+this, and thou shalt live." If the man has to negate all concerning the
+preservation of his natural individuality, the new world he has gained
+for his soul will have abundant affirmation within itself, without the
+support of any earthly props. It is his own highest life which testifies
+to him that "death does not count" at all.
+
+Eucken's whole plea is that spiritual life at the point of its highest
+manifestation should not be interpreted by anything below itself.
+[p.164] We have already noticed how, on lower levels, spiritual life was
+even there interpreted by its _norms_, and not by its connections with
+what was _below itself_. The disappearance of miracle in religion is an
+indispensable stage which must be passed over. It is necessary only on a
+mid-level of religion, and has really been far more of the nature of a
+symbol than of a fact. It is at our peril that in religion we give up
+such a symbol until a more "inward wonder" has happened within our own
+soul. When the self-subsistence of the spiritual life and the reality of
+the norms of the over-world, now all united in God, are experienced, all
+miraculous manifestations of the Divine, imaginary or real, are
+relegated to a secondary place. They all belong to a point which the man
+has passed; they are milestones to which he can never return. "An evil
+and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign
+be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet." As Eucken points out,
+"This is no other than the sign of spiritual power and of a Divine
+message and greatness." The movement from signs and miracles is a
+movement from the outward to the inward, from percept to spirituality;
+and the essence of religion, as a reality in itself and as an experience
+of the soul, is to be found by taking such a step. The centre of gravity
+of life has now been shifted from the outward to the inward. To
+accomplish this means nothing less than a [p.165] struggle for _the
+governing centre of life_. Unless we succeed in this struggle, the inner
+life will reach no independence and subsistence of its own. Even when
+the struggle succeeds in gaining its longed-for depth, it has not
+removed for once and for all the contradictions from without and within.
+Difficulties, from the lower side, will accompany the spiritual life in
+its higher evolution, but once it has become conscious of its own Divine
+nature and certainty it will gain sufficiently in content and power to
+relegate them all to the periphery. Something has happened within the
+soul which can never be obliterated. As Eucken says: "The contradiction
+is now removed from the centre to the periphery of life; it can
+therefore only touch us from without, and is not able to overthrow what
+is within; it will not so much weaken as strengthen the certainty,
+because it calls life to a perpetual renewal and brings to fruition the
+greatness of the conquest."[60]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER X [p.166]
+
+THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS
+
+
+We have noticed in the two preceding chapters how Eucken distinguished
+the two stages of religion--the "Universal" and the "Characteristic"
+--and how he showed the necessity of both stages. As man cannot escape
+from the conclusions of his intellect, it becomes necessary for him to
+come to an understanding with those conclusions; and although such
+conclusions do not form a complete account of life in its deepest
+aspects, still they are indispensable for him in order to know that he
+is on the path towards a further development of his spiritual nature.
+Hence the grounds of religion have to be emphasised by the conclusions
+of the intellect. But though intellectual conclusions, as we have
+already seen, warrant us in holding fast to the presence and reality of
+a life of the spirit and to the possibility of an evolution of such a
+life, all this does not mean that such an evolution is actually reached
+through the affirmations of [p.167] the intellect. The road of spiritual
+development is marked out, but we have to travel over that road
+ourselves. Something more than an intellectual acknowledgment of the
+existence of such a road is necessary before the actual movement takes
+place. When the actual movement does take place, when the intellectual
+conclusions come in contact with a will arising from our deepest needs,
+the matter becomes personal--it becomes something that has to be
+affirmed by the blending of intellect with the deeper spiritual
+potencies. The vision at this higher stage constitutes not only the
+certainty of a path for man--a path which leads to higher regions--but
+brings forth hidden energies in order to start him on the enterprise.
+The whole vision is now seen to be possible of realisation only through
+personal decisions of the whole nature in the direction of the
+over-personal values which present themselves. These over-personal
+values increase as the soul passes along the upward path and as it
+grants a self-subsistence and unconditional significance to these
+values. There follows here an increase of spiritual reflection; the
+content of the vision is loosened from sense and time; its
+self-subsistence becomes more and more real and more and more and more
+different from all that was experienced on any level below; knowledge
+steps into the background, and love and appreciation now guide the whole
+movement of [p.168] the soul. As we have already seen, when this
+happens, the idea of God as Infinite Love presents itself, and the
+soul's main task is to climb to the summits "where on the glimmering
+limits far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn." Religion
+is at such a level more than an intellectual insistence upon its
+grounds; the soul looks now rather to its summits. Hence the two stages
+of Universal and Characteristic religion become necessary. And it is not
+always true that the Universal mode ceases once the Characteristic mode
+is partially realised. The soul has to descend from the heights into the
+ordinary world below. And as it now sees the world with new eyes, it
+sees much more to be condemned than was previously possible for it to
+see. There comes the constant need of certifying the validity of its
+experience on the heights, and of getting others who have never
+attempted the experiment to do so. The man possessed of something of the
+vision within his own soul proclaims his "gospel," and conceives of all
+kinds of ways and means by which humanity can be drawn towards the same
+goal.
+
+This is the meaning which Eucken attaches to the origin and development
+of the union of universal and specific religions as these have been
+revealed in human history. The intellectual grounds of religion as well
+as something of the actual spiritual experiences are presented by the
+founders. Every kind of [p.169] religion has originated in this manner.
+They are all attempts at showing that a _here and now_ and a _beyond_
+have united and become potencies of life, and can become actualities.
+The _here and now_ always points to a _beyond_, and the _beyond_, when
+it is realised, returns to the _here and now_ and always transforms it.
+Thus, we are in the midst of two worlds which are continuous with one
+another just as the valley is continuous with the base of the mountain.
+
+Such historical religions do not, then, originate in the collective
+experiences of humanity, but in what has actually happened in the life
+of unique personalities. These personalities have become, as it were,
+mediators between God and man. Such religions adopt the most diverse
+forms, because the personalities have given of the content of their own
+personal experiences, and no two experiences view anything from
+standpoints precisely identical. The historical religions may
+consequently be narrow in their outlook. The personalities are dependent
+upon their race, place, training, and inheritance for the particular
+intellectual presentation of their religion. Thus, each historical
+religion has its own view of the universe and its own morality. But the
+value of no historical religion is to be judged from this standpoint
+alone. Such views of the universe and such morality must have appeared
+to them somehow as a good--as [p.170] ways and means to what lay
+_beyond_. We may have outgrown such ways and means; other ways and means
+higher in their nature may have become our inheritance. But these higher
+ways and means could not have evolved out of their lower stages had not
+some element of the _beyond_ instilled itself into them. The historical
+religions could never have flourished on immorality and superstition,
+however much of these we may discover in them. It is the _beyond,
+over-personal_ element which has kept them alive, and this element has
+always had a hard struggle to overcome and transform _the here-and-now_
+elements. Whenever the historical religions are traced back to their
+sources, there is discovered an element _above_ the world in the souls
+of their founders and of their immediate followers. As Eucken puts it:
+"To these founders the new kingdom was no vague outline and no feeble
+hope, but all stood clear in front of them; the kingdom was so real to
+their souls and filled them so exclusively that the whole sensuous world
+was reduced by them to a semblance and a shadow if they could not
+otherwise gain a new value from a superior power. The new world could
+attain to such immediacy and impressiveness only because a regal
+imagination wrestled for a unique picture in the tangled heap of life,
+and because it invested this picture with the clearest outlines and the
+most vivid colours. Thus the new world dawns on humanity with [p.171]
+fascinating power, rousing it out of the sluggishness of daily routine,
+binding it through a corporate aim, raising inspiring ardour through
+radiant promises and terrible threats, and creating achievements
+otherwise impossible. This prepared road into the kingdom of the
+invisible, this creation of a new reality which is no merely serene kind
+of play but a deep seriousness, this inversion of worlds which pushes
+sensuous existence down into a distance and which prepares a home for
+man within the kingdom of faith--all this is the greatest achievement
+that has ever been undertaken and that has ever worked upon human soil.
+... Their works seemed to carry within them Divine energies; wonders
+surrounded their paths; their life and being bridged securely the gulf
+between heaven and earth."[61] Now, Eucken shows that it is of great
+importance to acknowledge these personalities in order that life may be
+brought into a safe track. Enough has already been said of the
+impossibility of finding a sufficiency for life and death within the
+span of ordinary existence. And as this is so, a whole span of past and
+present has to be taken into account. The world cannot move a step
+towards the heights of the future without this. The real future is the
+blend of what _was_ and _is_ forming the standard and the receptacle for
+what is _to be._ We have already noticed how such a standard [p.172]
+evolves; and how, when it is followed to its utmost limits, it merges
+into the conception of God. But as all this is a conception spiritual in
+its nature--devoid of flesh and blood as its clothing--it becomes
+extremely difficult for the majority of mankind to hold fast to its
+reality in a world where flesh and blood mean so much. Something more
+tangible is craved for by man as a proof of an over-world and of an
+over-personal life. Such proof men are able to obtain in the great
+religious personalities of the world without having to go through the
+intellectual processes of discovering the grounds of religion. Men are
+able to view this spiritual truth as they view a picture. It becomes
+easy to understand how such personalities have been raised beyond all
+human valuations to a likeness to God and even to an equality with God.
+Such personalities were the highest conceptions which men could possess
+of the Godhead. This seems to have been a necessary stage in the
+evolution of the religious life as well as of religious conceptions. And
+even to-day attention is not to be diverted from such personalities. The
+question whether they were or were not gods has become meaningless. What
+psychology is able to fathom the soul of any individual? Every attempt
+at doctrinal formulation states less than was present within the souls
+of such personalities. But, on the other hand, it does seem necessary,
+[p.173] according to Eucken's teaching, to avoid confusing such
+personalities with the All. They were great; they possessed elements
+above the world; but none of them possessed the whole that is in
+existence.
+
+The truth concerning these founders of religion seems to lie in the fact
+that they realised a depth of life beyond the world, the intellect, and
+the span of ordinary life. It is this fact that needs to be brought
+prominently forward in our day. And such a fact becomes an experimental
+proof of the presence and efficacy of the Divine within the soul and
+points to an upward direction the total-movement of the world. If such a
+fact does not succeed in holding for itself a primary place, other
+subsidiary facts will colour and weaken its true spiritual content and
+value. This is the road on which speculative and superstitious ideas
+have found an entrance into the historical religions. When such is the
+case, the spiritual reality is gradually weakened, is lowered to the
+level of intellectualistic dogma, until it ultimately becomes, though in
+the guise of religion, the worst enemy which spiritual religion has to
+encounter. All hard and fixed dogmatic settings of religion usurp the
+supremacy of the spiritual life itself.
+
+Eucken shows this in connection with religious
+institutions--institutions which were meant by their founders to be
+essential but [p.174] still subservient to the needs and aspirations of
+spiritual life. Thus, genuine religion is measured by a doctrinal
+standard or by a sacrament. These may possess an incalculable value in
+religion, when used as means and not as ends; but they may, and often
+do, issue in its degradation to a stage which is hardly a spiritual one.
+Every historical religion possesses some absolute truth, but does not
+possess the whole truth; and also each historical religion possesses
+some elements which have to pass away. But this matter will be dealt
+with in a later chapter.
+
+The main service of the historical religions is to bring home to us the
+fact that in the course of human history a spiritual life above the
+world has again and again dawned on mankind through the experiences and
+works of great personalities. To realise intensely such a fact is to
+realise the fact that all this can happen again in a more concentrated
+form than is actually presented in the slow and toilsome effects of the
+results of the collective life of the community.
+
+It may be well to refer here to Eucken's classification of the religions
+of the world. This classifications consists of _the Religions of Law and
+the Religions of Redemption_. The Religions of Law maintain that the
+kernel of religion lies in "the announcement and advocacy of a moral
+order which governs the world from on high." God has revealed His will
+to man; [p.175] if man obeys, rich rewards await him in a future life;
+if he disobeys, painful punishment is sure to follow. Man himself has to
+select one of the two alternatives, and he believes himself able to
+choose. The Religions of Redemption consider such a view false and
+superficial. Now, there is no doubt that the Religions of Law are stages
+which are of value when men are incapable of grasping the difficulties
+and complexities of religion. The whole of religion on this level of Law
+is a replica of the relations which obtain on a smaller scale between a
+sovereign and his subjects, or between a master and his slave. Authority
+is something purely external. The two Religions of Redemption--the
+Indian and the Christian--seek the meaning of religion in a very
+different manner. They both agree that human capability, which seems so
+evident to the Religions of Law, is the most difficult and important of
+all questions. They agree further that the essence of religion does not
+consist in guiding life for the sake of something that life is to
+participate in or to avoid in the future; they agree that a change must
+happen within the soul in this world, and that this change only comes
+about through the aid of a supernatural power. But these two religions
+differ fundamentally in their different ways of looking at the world. To
+the Indian religions, the existence of the world is an evil; the world
+is itself a kingdom of illusions. "All in it is transient [p.176] and
+unreal; nothing in it has duration; happiness and love are merely
+momentary, and men are as two pieces of wood floating on the face of an
+infinite ocean which pass by one another, never to meet again. Fruitless
+agitation and painful deception have fallen upon him who mistakes such a
+transient semblance for a reality and who hangs his heart upon it.
+Therefore it behoves man to free himself from such an unholy arena. This
+emancipation will take place when the semblance is seen through as
+semblance, and when the soul has gained an insight right into the
+foundation of things. Then the world loses its power over man; the whole
+kingdom of deception with its evanescent values goes to the bottom, all
+the excited affections caused by the world are extinguished, and life
+becomes a still and holy calm; it reaches the depth of a dreamless
+sleep, enters, through its immersion into an eternal essence, beyond the
+shadows; it passes, according to Buddhism in its most definite
+interpretation, into a state of entire unconsciousness."[62]
+
+How different a spirit from all this breathes in Christianity! In
+Christianity the world is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far
+enough. Something of the revelation of the Divine may be discovered
+within it, but this is only a segment of a greater whole which comes to
+realisation within the soul. Here, the world is not cast away, despite
+all its limitations, but [p.177] is perceived as the only sphere where
+spiritual experience may exercise itself and draw out its own hidden
+potencies. Tribulation is to be found in the world; but a standpoint
+_above_ the world, gained by cutting a path right through the world, is
+possible. When such a standpoint is reached, the world is seen as it
+ought to be seen and used as it ought to be used. But this aspect of the
+meaning of the world in the Christian religion will be dealt with later.
+It is sufficient to state here that Eucken considers Christianity
+superior to all other religions by virtue of the fact that it overcomes
+the world, not by fleeing from it, but by transforming it. It views the
+physical world as a stage upon which the life of the spirit has to
+realise all its possibilities; the world and all that is within it take
+a secondary place: the primary place is now accorded to the world of
+ideals and values as these merge into love and the conception of the
+Godhead.
+
+The question of the finality of the Christian religion in its purely
+historical sense has been discussed by Eucken in his _Truth of Religion,
+Christianity and the New Idealism_, and _Koennen wir noch Christen sein_?
+In these three works he arrives at the conclusion that no one religion
+has a claim to the name "absolute religion," because even Christianity
+itself cannot be more than a partial, though the highest, manifestation
+of the Divine. And what Christianity has been and is in [p.178] itself
+as a force in the history of the Western world cannot be the same as
+what it was in the personal experience of its Founder. It is not
+something which descended once and for all into the world, and so
+remains its permanent inheritance. It is the most priceless inheritance
+we possess; but such an inheritance has to be discovered again and
+again. All this cannot come about without calling up to-day the same
+spiritual energies as were needful for the tasks that were present when
+Christianity started to conquer the world. Its aspects of "world-denial
+and world-renewal" render Christianity the very religion we need. "It is
+the religion of religions," but a statement of this fact does not mean
+the realisation of the fact. The same energy and aspiration are needful
+to-day as in the days of yore. Christianity, whenever it has lived on
+its highest levels, has struggled for two tremendous facts at least: the
+insufficiency of the world and the regeneration of the world in the
+light of the Divine. It is not a repetition of what the Founder said
+concerning religion. What the Founder said cost him enormous labour to
+discover and to possess. We shall gain so much and no more of the same
+spiritual substance as we put the same kind of energy in motion. In
+order that we may unravel the complexities of our day, a spirit similar
+to his spirit must become ours. When such a spirit ceases to exist,
+Christianity will become merely a [p.179] name; its power will have
+disappeared, and men can delude themselves into believing that they
+possess it when in fact they are the possessors of but little of its
+spirit and of much of its form. But the possession of the same spirit as
+that of Jesus constitutes the further development of Christianity, and
+this further development is nothing other than what we have already
+seen--the experience and efficacy of an eternal order of things in the
+midst of all the changes of time. Thus we are thrown back once more, not
+upon our bare individual selves, but upon the presence of the Divine
+within the spiritual life itself. Christianity is therefore not
+something that has been completed in the past, but the highest mode of
+conceiving and of experiencing Life in the present; it becomes an
+inward, personal and spiritual experience; and its duration and
+expansion depend upon the increase and depth of such a spiritual
+inwardness.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER XI [p.180]
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+
+It has been noticed how "Characteristic" or "Specific" religion means
+the carrying farther of the implications of "Universal" religion. It is
+not only necessary to know the "grounds" of religion, as these reveal
+themselves within the conclusions of the intellect: we have to plant
+ourselves upon these "grounds"; we must _be_ what they _mean_. Thus,
+religion becomes a personal task--something that can never be realised
+until the whole nature comes to constant decisions of its own and acts
+upon those decisions in the light of what has expressed itself in the
+form of those over-personal norms which have further developed into a
+conception of, and communion with, the Godhead. We have noticed further,
+how this essence of religion was realised in the lives of great
+personalities in history, as well as in the religions which they helped
+to found.
+
+Eucken does not hesitate to affirm that the highest of these religions
+is the Christian [p.181] religion. The core of the Christian religion
+consists, as we have already noticed, in its presentation of "a
+world-denial and world-renewal" in a far higher degree than any of the
+other religions, and also in the fact that it presents the union of the
+human and the Divine in a clearer light than before. We have noticed,
+too, how the Indian religions had to condemn the world in order to
+penetrate to the very essence and bliss of religion. Mohammedanism
+affirmed the world in too strong a manner, and its eternal world
+constituted a kind of replica of the present material world on an
+enlarged scale. The Jewish religion evolved through a series of stages
+which finally culminated in Christianity. The Roman and the Greek
+religions presented too many pluralistic aspects to be able ever to
+reach the highest synthesis whereby the Many found their meaning,
+interpretation, and value in the One.
+
+Although the Christian religion cannot be designated as absolute
+religion, still it may be designated as the highest and most perfect
+manifestation of the Divine. The meaning of the term "absolute religion"
+involves a conception impossible to maintain, on account of the fact
+that in all religions some spiritual truth is discerned and realised.
+The term "absolute religion" is also false on account of the fact that
+no religion can contain the whole that is to be revealed and
+experienced. Christianity [p.182] is best valued when it is seen, not as
+a completion of the revelation of the Divine to man, but as a revelation
+which has to be preserved, deepened, and carried farther. In the soul of
+the Founder of Christianity there was doubtless present far more than is
+expressed in the Biblical records, and far more than actually filtered
+into the individual and collective consciousness of the earliest
+Christian communities. But we cannot live on what has occurred in the
+life of any other individual or community except in so far as this
+enters also into our own individual and the collective consciousness. We
+have already touched on this aspect of the impossibility of obtaining
+sufficient strength for the warfare of the present in anything that
+occurred in the past. Some measure of strength--and no psychology is
+able to say how much--can be obtained from a vision of the spiritual
+meaning and significance of the life of the Founder. But there is very
+great danger in looking here alone for the sole source of all the help
+we need. The spiritual principles of Christianity have been operating in
+the world ever since the Master presented the Gospel which he lived and
+died for. The problem of Christianity is thus a twofold problem. On the
+one hand, we have constantly to go back to the Fountain-head, because it
+is here that the stream is purest. But we have, on the other hand, to
+enter into the religious current which surrounds us; and this may be not
+so [p.183] pure as it was at its source. Alien waters have entered into
+the current--waters of very different taste from those which even the
+Founder expected. These have doubtless polluted the stream. But, on the
+other hand, good elements--primary and secondary--have entered into the
+deepest nature of Christianity itself. These have to be taken into
+account. They have been necessitated by the new and ever more complex
+situations and conditions into which Christianity has had to enter from
+generation to generation. It was comparatively easy for Christianity in
+its early beginnings to include within its compass the whole of life.
+But by to-day life has branched off in so many new directions;
+perplexing problems of knowledge and life have made their appearance. We
+dare not dismiss these to a region outside the sphere of influence of
+Christianity. Christianity, if it is to remain and increase as a living
+force, has to interpret these problems; it has to help us to distinguish
+between the chaff and the wheat.
+
+What, then, is the true meaning of Christianity? Eucken shows that it is
+not possible to determine the nature of Christianity without realising
+that the nucleus common to all religions lies in the fact "that they
+manifest and represent a Divine Life, and that such a Life in its inmost
+foundation is superior to its external configuration and activity, and
+is able to withstand all the changes of time, and to [p.184] maintain
+within itself, in spite of all its curtailment through the human
+situation, _an eternal truth_." This nucleus lies deeper in Christianity
+than in any other religion. But even Christianity itself is not a pure
+spiritual nucleus. Much, as we have already noticed, has gathered around
+it--much that reveals a lower grade of spirituality. All this
+constitutes the clothing of Christianity. The clothing has been changed
+again and again in the past. What reason is there for affirming that it
+cannot be changed again? It is therefore necessary to differentiate
+between the _Substance_ of Christianity and its _Existential-form_. The
+Substance constitutes the fundamental Life superior to the world, and
+has been present throughout the whole of the Christian era; and it is
+this Substance which has raised men beyond the merely human situation;
+it is the Substance that has enabled men to overcome the world, and
+afterwards to see the world from the standpoint of the Divine. In this
+work of differentiation we are dependent in a very large measure upon
+the results of knowledge. Such results do not grant us the Substance of
+Christianity, because this is something which has to be lived into in
+order to be possessed. The transformation which occurs on account of a
+change in the Existential-form may indeed prove helpful to the spiritual
+nucleus itself, because it represents a truth of the intellect-a truth
+which does not conflict with any [p.185] knowledge outside its own
+sphere. There are many dangers to be discovered in this process of
+interpreting the spiritual nucleus. A mode of interpretation whose
+meaning has very largely passed away is bound to prove injurious,
+because it comes into sharp conflict with a newer and more comprehensive
+meaning, and consequently Christianity fails to win the support of those
+who are acquainted with the new Existential-form. And even the
+individual who retains the old clothing, and looks upon it as being
+something of the same nature as the spiritual nucleus, is in danger of
+basing a portion of his religion on a foundation of sand. But, on the
+other hand, he who is aware of the flaws of the old Existential-form
+without having assimilated the Spiritual Substance which lies beneath
+it, is in danger of drifting from religion altogether. The only way of
+serving best and carrying farther the development of the Christian
+religion is to grasp and experience deeply the fact that the Spiritual
+Substance is something entirely different from its form of existence.
+Its form of existence is an attempt to account for the Substance; it
+consists of intellectual concepts. And as with everything else in this
+world so with religion; mere intellectual concepts change, and cannot be
+more than receptacles used by the human mind to enshrine the things
+which are presented as meanings and values within the soul.
+
+[p.186] Eucken pays great attention to the necessity of this process of
+differentiation between the two elements in Christianity. There is a
+need to-day of a new form of existence for Christianity; but the
+satisfaction of this need will not grant us the spiritual nucleus
+itself. The spiritual nucleus is something to be gained not by means of
+knowledge, but by means of love. Eucken goes so far as to state that the
+idea of love and love of one's enemy as presented in Christianity forms
+a new element for the redemption of the individual and of the race. To
+grasp this idea and to penetrate into its nature is to solve all the
+problems of life and death. This is the Eternal element in the Christian
+religion. It is found, it is true, in other religions; but why should we
+look for it elsewhere when it blossomed with such divine glory in the
+life of the Founder? This is the highest spiritual synthesis
+conceivable. The world has known nothing greater, and nothing greater is
+to be known. This is the Eternal element in Christianity which has to be
+possessed and preserved and furthered. If we ask the question concerning
+the success or failure of Christianity in the future, the answer is to
+be found by answering the question, Is Love to God and Love to man found
+within it to-day? If we are able to answer in the affirmative, we are
+thereby answering the question in regard to the future duration and
+conquests of Christianity. And if it possesses [p.187] this element
+deeply enough, it can adopt any existential-form which appears true
+without any kind of alarm. If we have to answer in the negative, there
+is no guarantee as to persistence of Christianity in the future.
+Anything less than the spiritual nucleus of Love is lacking in strength
+necessary to withstand the storms of the future.
+
+We thus see that the essence of Christianity and its durability do not
+lie in any kind of theology: it lies within the Spiritual Substance
+which has abode within it throughout the centuries. Here will the world
+find its peace and power; here will all social complexities be solved;
+here will the meanings and blessings of the spiritual over-world of
+goodness and love become the possession of man. This is what Eucken
+means by contending that it is not the business of Christianity to deal
+with social problems in any light but the light of Infinite Love.
+Without an experience of this deepest source of Christianity, we do not
+possess the equipment for doing anything more than patching and
+re-patching the evils of the world. And all our patching, when but a
+small span of time has passed away, will leave the situation just as it
+was, or probably worse. Every solution will give birth to a new
+complexity; the world may be incessantly active in connection with the
+betterment of the social situation,'but we shall never heal the wounds
+of individuals and of nations until they are [p.188] brought to the
+depth of the spiritual life revealed in Christianity as Eternal Love. "A
+warm love towards all humanity runs through Christianity; it longs to
+redeem every individual; it gives man a value beyond all special
+achievements and on the other side of all mental and moral deeds; it has
+been the first to bring the pure inwardness of the soul to a clear
+expression. But it has also, through the linking of the human to a
+Divine and Eternal Order, raised life beyond all that is trivial and
+merely human with its civic ordinances and social interests. He who,
+with the best intention, views Christianity as a mere means for the
+betterment of the social situation, draws it from the heights of its
+nature, and deprives it of the main constituent of its greatness--the
+emancipation from the petty-human within the depths of the human itself.
+It is essentially the nature of Christianity that it transplants man
+into a new world over against the world that is nearest to our hands; it
+has planted the fundamental conviction of Platonism of the existence of
+an Eternal Order over against the world of Time amongst a great portion
+of the human race, and has given a mighty impetus to all effort. But it
+has, though it separated the Eternal from Time, brought it back again
+into Time; and through the presence of the Eternal it has, for the first
+time, proposed to mankind and to each individual a fundamental inner
+renewal, [p.189] and through this has inaugurated a genuine
+history."[63]
+
+Acknowledging such a nucleus as constituting the very substance of
+Christianity, Eucken proceeds to show the necessity of preserving and
+unfolding the nucleus against the changes of Time. The nucleus has to be
+preserved over against Nature. It has been noticed in previous chapters
+how modern science has presented us with a view of Nature immensely
+vaster than that presented in Christian theology. Such a view has
+destroyed for ever a large number of the theological conceptions of the
+past. The earth has been reduced to a subsidiary place within the
+cosmos; and any attempt to return to the old conceptions is bought at
+too high a price. A new mode of thought in regard to the interpretation
+of the physical universe has come to stay, and the sooner the Christian
+Church comes to an understanding with it the better for the Church
+itself. And this new mode may be gladly accepted, because it cannot
+touch the nature and destiny of the _soul_ of man. We are not able to
+view the perfect circle of things, but we are able to [p.190] trace a
+segment of it in the fact of the unmistakably cosmic character of the
+spiritual life. The progressive intensifying of the Life-process has
+made the fact abundantly clear that Nature is not the final reality it
+was supposed to be by the scientific mode of the past, but that it
+signifies no more than a "human vista of reality." And, as we have
+already observed in connection with the Theory of Knowledge, the nature
+of that "vista" is determined by a mental process and a construction
+beyond Nature. Nature appears as no more than an environment when once
+the power of Eternal Life has appeared within the soul. An insistence on
+this power and _its_ capacity has raised man to a level from which he
+recognises the "priority of spirit" in spite of all the "palpableness of
+sensuous impressions." Man thus appears great as against Nature; but
+there is more than enough to make him humble when he views himself in
+the light of that truth which constitutes the Spiritual and Eternal
+Substance of Christianity.
+
+Not only do we find the two different elements present in the
+Christianity of our day; they are also apparent in the presentation of
+Christianity found within the Gospels themselves. The miraculous
+elements in the Gospels exhibit a number of contradictions; and an even
+more serious objection to them is the fact that they come into direct
+conflict [p.191] with the scientific interpretation of Nature. As Eucken
+says: "To place a miracle in that one situation would mean an overthrow
+of the total order of Nature, as this order has been set forth through
+the fundamental work of modern investigation and through an incalculable
+fulness of experiences. What would justify such a breach with the total
+mode of reality ought to appear to us with overwhelming, indisputable
+clearness. Has the traditional fact this degree of certainty, and cannot
+it be explained in any other way? Who is able to assert this with entire
+assurance? If the superiority of the Divine was, on this particular
+occasion, to be proclaimed in a tangible manner, why did all this happen
+for a small circle of believers alone, and why did it not happen to
+others? There seems, however, to have been necessary a certain state of
+the souls of the disciples to make them see what they thought they saw;
+but in all this there is found a psychic and subjective factor in
+operation--a factor whose potency is very difficult to define and to
+mark its boundaries. It would have been a fact of a wonderful nature if
+the souls of the disciples, from within, became suddenly and without
+intermediary convinced of the continuation of the life and the presence
+of the Master: all this would have been no sensuous miracle--no break in
+the course of Nature. But we have to bear in mind how times of strong
+religious agitation and [p.192] convulsion are so little qualified to
+judge concerning external phenomena, and how easily a psychic state
+solidifies into a supposed percept! Within and without Christianity
+there are numerous examples of the sensuous appearance of a dead person
+being considered to be fully authenticated by the narrower circle of
+friends. Savonarola appeared more than a hundred times after his death,
+but always to those whose hearts clung to him; and to fifteen nuns of
+the convent of St Lucia he gave the consecrated wafer through the
+opening in their _grille_."[64]
+
+Eucken shows that an inability to accept the miraculous element in the
+Gospels need not prevent anyone from being the possessor of the
+Spiritual Substance. The spiritual content of Christianity is a content
+which lies beyond the region of physical phenomena, whether those
+phenomena are natural or are supposed to be supernatural. Christianity
+is dragged down to a lower level by confusing its mode of existence with
+its spiritual kernel. Religion is able to subsist without such aids
+simply because it has discovered the true wonder within the spiritual
+life itself. We do not know what future investigations may reveal from
+the scientific side. It may be that Nature will appear more and more
+mechanical in many of its manifestations; but even if this should prove
+to be the case, it can produce no injury whatever to the nature [p.193]
+and content of spiritual life. It may be, on the other hand, that the
+scientific movement now proceeding in the direction of neo-Vitalism will
+produce results which will modify and even overthrow the mechanical
+conceptions of life, and thus enable the future to construct a
+Metaphysic of Nature.[65] The battle between these two schools of
+science is proceeding to-day. But even if the final issue should be a
+decision in favour of mechanism, the destiny of Christianity or of the
+human soul does not depend upon such a decision. If the issue should
+turn in favour of the vitalistic conception, great gains are bound to
+accrue to religion; for thus a warrant for a belief in a reality higher
+in nature than what is termed physical will be established and shown to
+be at work in the origin and constant "becoming" of physical phenomena.
+The main point for us to-day is to hold fast to the superiority of
+spiritual life to all that we know concerning the physical universe.
+Unless this is done, we shall lose the deeper inward connections of
+life, and shall be in danger of sinking back to the level of
+naturalism--a level from which the culture and religion of the Western
+world have partially emerged. Further, the spiritual nucleus of
+Christianity [p.194] must be preserved over against the changes of
+history. Changes in human society threaten Christianity more directly
+than even the changes of Nature. These changes, in so far as they are
+judged by a spiritual standard to be good, can be accepted by
+Christianity, but only on the presupposition that Christianity has
+learned how to differentiate between its Eternal Substance and its
+temporal form of existence. The mere flow of the events of Time is
+insufficient to produce a religion of substance and duration, for here
+we are dependent upon the content of the moment. This aspect has been
+already dealt with in the chapter on Religion and History.[66] A similar
+necessity for differentiating between the Eternal and the temporary
+which Eucken enforced in regard to Christianity applies in his view to
+all the movements of the world. Whatever form--scientific,
+philosophical, social, theological--these movements may take, they have
+all to find their meaning in a Standard which is Eternal. Whenever such
+a Standard has been recognised, mankind was able to move in an upward
+direction; whenever it was absent, the complexities of knowledge and
+life increased and had no light to reflect upon themselves, and no power
+to [p.195] raise themselves to a higher plane. When the Eternal and
+Substantial is present at the governing centre of life, all of reality
+that can possibly present itself to man is viewed in an entirely
+different light. Great spiritual movements cannot possibly arise from
+any shallower source. There must be present in all such movements a
+consciousness of something of Eternal value, and a faith in the
+possibility of attaining a higher grade of reality in the midst of all
+the fragmentary factors which present themselves. Religion is thus
+viewed as a movement which takes place not by the side of life, but
+within life itself. A power of immediacy grows within the soul; it is
+now able to sift and winnow, to select and to reject; it is able to
+penetrate into the difference between first and second things, and to
+relegate all minor things to their lower sphere.[67]
+
+It is of no avail to ignore this difference; and neither is it of any
+avail to ignore the difference between the _old_ and the _new_
+existence-forms of Christianity. The old and the new conceptions cannot
+possibly flow together. One mode has to take a primary place, and the
+other a secondary place. The old intellectual presentation of
+Christianity has, in many ways, become inadequate. But [p.196] still it
+cannot be thrown overboard in any light-hearted manner, if for no other
+reason than that it has grown along with the growth of the Spiritual
+Substance itself. Some kind of shock, and even loss, may be temporarily
+experienced in parting with it; but this is a process that has to be
+passed through; and once it is passed through, the new clothing of
+Christianity cannot but help man to see a richer meaning in the Eternal.
+It may not fit quite so compactly for a time; it may not merge easily
+with the Spiritual Substance. We are far less comfortable in a new suit
+of clothes than in an old one; but comfort is not the only criterion in
+regard to the things of the body or of the soul. There may be a need for
+a change, and our needs are of more significance than our comforts. The
+change from old to new can be accomplished when the difference of
+Substance and Form is clearly perceived, and when the Substance is
+preserved in the midst of the change. This is one of the greatest tasks
+set to the Christian Church to-day, and no one is competent to undertake
+it if he has not experienced in the very depth of his own soul the
+meaning of the Eternal as the essence of the Christian religion. Eucken
+has grasped this truth in an unmistakable manner; and he sees nothing
+but disaster for religion in any attempt to present a new clothing at
+the expense of ejecting the Eternal kernel. But still he insists that in
+[p.197] theology the claims of the new forms are overwhelmingly
+necessary and just.
+
+When we turn to Eucken's conception in connection with the place of the
+personality of the Founder in the Christianity of the present, we are
+treading on very difficult ground. This is a question which cannot be
+decided by the cold, calculating intellect. Without a doubt, there is
+here something unique in the history of the world--something which no
+psychology can fathom and no logic can construct into exact
+propositions. But here once again, the two elements--the Spiritual
+Substance and its Form--are apparent in the life of the Founder, and in
+our conceptions concerning his life and death. But we need not fear that
+any real loss will accrue if we hold fast to the indisputable fact of
+the presence of a divinity within his life--a divinity which has to be
+repeated on a smaller scale in our own lives before we are ever able to
+have even a glimmer of it. It is out of such a spiritual experience that
+the life of the Master can gain its real value and significance for us.
+But in the past there has been a tendency to see a good deal of this
+significance in theological constructions which have now ceased to
+contain any genuine meaning. At the best these constructions could never
+mean more than the best intellectual presentations of good men.
+Something besides them--deeper than them all--had to appear before any
+soul could be [p.198] converted to the things of Eternal Life. Here
+Eucken shows that metaphysical concepts such as the Trinity have tended
+to become purely anthropomorphic and mythological, probably necessary at
+a certain level of religion, but which have now been superseded by truer
+conceptions of life and existence. There is no longer any meaning in
+asking whether the Founder was a "mere man" or a God. He was an
+intermediate reality between the two. To measure the depth and content
+of his soul is a presumption of shallow minds; to determine in a
+speculative manner the exact nature of his divinity, and to formulate
+imposing doctrines out of all this is quite as presumptuous. It is
+sufficient for us to know that he overcame the world, that the Godhead
+dwelt in a form of immediacy within his soul. All this is an
+experimental proof of the working of the Divine upon the plane of Time.
+But such Divine breaks in pieces if it is subjected to exact
+determinations. Some account of it we must have: the understanding
+demands this; but that account must include what the best light of
+knowledge has to throw on the subject. But when all is said, something
+infinitely greater remains unsaid, and yet to be experienced--something
+that requires the soul to exert itself in order to experience what all
+this means. When face to face with the meaning and value of the life and
+death and spiritual resurrection [p.199] of the Founder of our
+Christianity, we are face to face with an eternal reality revealed
+within the soul of the "son of man." At such a depth of our nature, the
+petty questions concerning how much or how little was present disappear
+into the background of life, and we are able through such a vision to
+pass to the Father. When emphasis is laid on such a fact as this,
+Christianity will again become a religion of the spirit--a religion
+which will unite all mankind at a point of unity beneath all close
+intellectual determinations and differences. And Eucken points out that
+it is not in the life of Jesus alone that we can obtain such a vision.
+But we do not gain the vision by merely _saying_ this. If we know of any
+other character who _was_ so much and who _did_ so much, probably we
+shall obtain there what we need. But in the Western world at least we do
+_not_ know any such character; the essence of his life and personality
+has been always connected with the conception of God. But this is not
+the sole conception and, as Eucken says, we cannot bind ourselves
+entirely to this one point in Christianity. The narrow paths which lead
+to religion are many; we have to draw help from all quarters where the
+Divine has been revealed. But the danger lies in merely knowing so many
+such paths while walking on none of them. The personality of Jesus will
+remain in Christianity, and the world in its darkness will turn again
+and [p.200] again to that palpable proof of the Divine seen on such a
+summit, and endeavour to scale the same everlasting hill of God. "Here
+we find a human life of the most homely and simple kind, passed in a
+remote corner of the world, little heeded by his contemporaries, and,
+after a short blossoming life, cruelly put to death. And yet, this life
+had an energy of spirit which filled it to the brim; it had a Standard
+which has transformed human existence to its very root; it has made
+inadequate what hitherto seemed to bring entire happiness; it has set
+limits to all petty natural culture; it has stamped as frivolity, not
+only all absorption in the mere pleasures of life, but has also reduced
+the whole prior circle of man to the mere world of sense. Such a
+valuation holds us fast and refuses to be weakened by us when all the
+dogmas and usages of the Church are detected as merely human
+organisations. That life of Jesus establishes evermore a tribunal over
+the world; and the majesty of such an effective bar of judgment
+supersedes all the development of external power."[68]
+
+We may bring this chapter to a close by once more pointing out Eucken's
+insistence on the Spiritual Substance of Christianity and the need of a
+new Existential-form. The Substance was present in the life of the
+Founder; mankind has to turn to that fact for one of [p.201] the
+experimental proofs of the Divine. But such a fact is not sufficient. It
+is something which happened in _someone else_, and not in ourselves. The
+fact is to serve as an inspiration that something similar shall and can
+happen _in ourselves_. When this is realised, we become conscious of the
+power of the Divine within the soul; and the problems of our own day are
+seen and interpreted in the same spirit as that in which Jesus faced and
+interpreted the problems of his day. Such a spiritual experience will
+become a power to use all the good of life, and thus sanctify it in the
+very using of it. The over-personal norms and standards have now become
+our own possession; they enable us to see the world as it ought to be
+seen and to work for the realisation of the vision; and the norms mean
+even more than this, for we have already seen that they point to
+something _beyond_ themselves and yet continuous with themselves. They
+point to Infinite Love as the very essence of the Godhead. The reality
+of the over-individual norms and the conception of the Divine as
+Infinite Love thus induce in us a conviction of the possibility of an
+evolution of the spirit and of a reality beyond sense and time. The
+Eternal thus enters into Time and overcomes Time. This is Eucken's final
+conclusion in regard to the Christian religion and the destiny of man.
+But all this has to be experienced before it [p.202] can be realised.
+"The task to-day is to work energetically, to labour with a free mind
+and a joyful courage, so that the Eternal may not lose its efficient
+power by our rigid clinging to temporal and antiquated forms, so that
+what we have recognised as human may not bar the way to the Divine as
+that Divine is revealed in our own day. The conditions of the present
+time afford the strongest motives for such work. For once again, in
+spite of all the contradictions which appear on the surface of things,
+the religious problem rises up mightily from the depth of life; from day
+to day it moves minds more and more; it induces endeavour and kindles
+the spirit of man. It becomes ever plainer to all who are willing to see
+that mere secular culture is empty and vain, and is powerless to grant
+life any real content or fill it with genuine love. Man and humanity are
+pressed ever more forcibly forward into a struggle for the meaning of
+life and the deliverance of the spiritual self. But the great tasks must
+be handled with a greatness of spirit, and such a spirit demands
+freedom--freedom in the service of truth and truthfulness. Let us
+therefore work together, let us work unceasingly with all our strength
+as long as the day lasts, in the conviction that 'he who wishes to cling
+to the Old that ages not must leave behind him the old that ages'
+(_Runeberg_), and that an Eternal of the real kind cannot [p.203] be
+lost in the flux of Time, because it overcomes Time by entering into
+it."[69]
+
+Eucken is aware of the various Life-systems which present themselves on
+every side as all-inclusive. But he sees no hope for a real spiritual
+education of mankind until every Life-system shall seek for a depth
+beyond the _natural_ man and all his wants. And such a movement is
+visible amongst us to-day. It needs to be possessed and proclaimed. The
+redemption of the world depends upon its success. The Christian religion
+is such a Gospel. "But a movement towards a more essential and
+soul-stirring culture--to a progressive superiority of a complete life
+beyond all individual activities--cannot arise without bringing the
+problem of religion once more to the foreground. Our life is not able to
+find its bearings within this deep or to gather its treasures into a
+Whole unless it realises how many acute opposites it carries within
+itself. Life will either be torn in pieces by these opposites, or it
+must somehow be raised above them all. It is the latter alone that can
+bring about a thorough transformation of our first and shallow view of
+the universe as well as the inauguration of a new reality. Man has
+emerged out of the darkness of nature and remains afflicted with the
+afflictions of nature; yet at the same time, with his appearance upon
+the earth the darkness begins to illumine, and [p.204] 'nature kindles
+within him a light' (Schopenhauer); he who is a mere speck on the face
+of a boundless expanse can yet aspire to a participation in the whole of
+Infinity; he who stands in the midst of the flux of time yet possesses
+an aspiration after infinite truth; he who forms but a mere piece of
+nature constructs at the same time a new world within the spiritual life
+over against it all; he who finds himself confined by contradictions of
+all kinds, which immediate existence in no way can solve, yet struggles
+after a further depth of reality and after the 'narrow gate' which opens
+into religion. Through and beyond all the particular problems of life
+and the world, it behoves us to raise the spiritual life to a level of
+full independence, to make it simultaneously superior to man as an
+individual and to bring it back into his soul. When this comes to be
+there is at the same time a transformation of his inmost being, and for
+the first time he becomes capable of genuine greatness.... These final
+conclusions strengthen the aspiration after a religion of the spiritual
+life.... Such a religion is in no way new, and Christianity has
+proclaimed it and clung to it from the very beginning. But it has been
+interwoven with traditional forms which are now seen through by so many
+as pictorial ideas of epochs and times. Earlier times could allow the
+Essence and the Form to coalesce without discovering any incongruity in
+this. But the [p.205] time for doing this has irrevocably passed away.
+The human which once seemed to bring the Spiritual and Divine so near to
+man has now become a burden and a hindrance to him. A keener analysis, a
+more independent development of the Spiritual and Divine, and, along
+with this, the truth of religion, do not succeed in reaching their full
+effects if religion is looked upon as merely something to protect
+individuals, instead of as that which furthers the whole of humanity
+--as that which is not merely a succour in times of trouble and sorrow
+but also as that which guarantees an enhancement in work and
+creativeness. The situation is difficult and full of dangers, and small
+in the meantime is the number of those who grasp it in a deep and free
+sense, and who yet are determined to penetrate victoriously into it, so
+that the inner necessities of the spiritual life may awaken within the
+soul of man. Whatever new tasks and difficulties lie in the lap of the
+future, to-day it behoves us before all else to proceed a step upward in
+the direction of the summits and to draw new energies and depths of the
+spiritual life into the domain of man; for this kind of work will
+prevent the coming of an 'old age' upon humanity and will breathe into
+its soul the gift of Eternal Youth."[70]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER XII [p.206]
+
+PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
+
+
+In this chapter some of the most important problems of the present day
+will be touched upon in the light of Eucken's Philosophy of Religion.
+Reference has already been made to Eucken's account of the limitations
+of various Life-systems, of their struggle with one another, and of the
+necessity for a religious synthesis which will include their most
+important results within itself.[71] The answer as to the possibility
+and necessity of such a synthesis constitutes the kernel of Eucken's
+Philosophy of Religion. He has succeeded in a remarkable manner in
+assessing the results of science, philosophy, sociology, art, and
+religion. In them all he has discovered the presence of a reality which
+is non-sensuous in its nature, and, which reveals itself [p.207] in
+judgments of value that carry within themselves their own _necessity_
+and _self-subsistence_. This is his conclusion in regard to the work of
+the spirit of man on whatever plane of knowledge or experience that
+spirit works. Man's spirit has to carry all its knowledge and experience
+into its own conative spiritual potencies. We thus see that everything
+becomes an aid to the unfolding of an ever greater degree of reality
+within the spirit of man. It is then within the _spirit_ of man that
+everything finds its interpretation and value. Whatever interpretation
+is given to anything apart from the union of the _whole_ potency and
+cognition of man's spirit is only a partial interpretation. And it is in
+the failure to recognise this truth that so many Life-systems have set
+themselves against the higher aspects of philosophy and religion. The
+most important question has not been asked: What is the relation and
+value of all results in connection with the deepest potency and
+necessity of man's spirit? Are these results capable of enriching that
+spirit of man when he becomes conscious of them? These are the questions
+which Eucken continually asks and answers in his great works; and it is
+this fact which makes his teaching so valuable and superior to all the
+Life-systems of our day. It is difficult to think of any aspect of
+experience which Eucken has left out of account. He has not, indeed,
+interpreted [p.208] in detail all the Life-systems in vogue, and no
+human being is capable of achieving such a task; but he has clearly
+perceived the flaws which lie in them all. And this discovery of his has
+revealed a flaw common to them all. That flaw consists in ignoring the
+presence of a spiritual life as the great workshop where every form of
+reality finds its truest meaning. This flaw is so serious in that
+several Life-systems have thus over-estimated the importance of their
+results by neglecting to take into account the potentialities and
+necessities of man's spirit. Let us, then, try to trace this defect in
+connection with some of the most important Life-systems in vogue to-day.
+When the various systems of _Idealism_ are estimated, they seem to
+present aspects of reality with vast portions of human potencies and
+experiences left out of account. _Absolute Idealism_ is based upon the
+demands and implications of logic. Its doctrines would have taken a very
+different colouring had it considered that the necessities of Logic have
+to be adjusted to the necessities of Life. Such systems are of little
+value to the soul, because the needs of the soul were not taken into
+account when they were formulated. This fact was the main cause of the
+late Professor James's rebellion against all forms of Absolute Idealism.
+He felt that they bore no relationship to human life and its needs, and
+consequently could not exercise any important [p.209] influence on life;
+they could not move the will, for no possibility of reaching the
+Absolute was offered to man. All the conclusions were in the realm of an
+_intellectual universal_ and not in the realm of _spirit_. They must be
+unreal in the highest sense on account of this very failure. They have
+presented their half-gods as realities outside Nature, human nature, the
+pressing ideals of life, and even God Himself.
+
+Eucken shows that any true Life-system has to start with Life itself.
+There may be interpretations needful which have no implications for
+Life, and these have a right of their own; but when such interpretations
+are carried further, when the subject who _knows_ such interpretations
+and who _uses_ them is taken into account, then the interpretations
+found on this level are something quite different from what they were
+when the whole spirit of man was not taken into account. Eucken
+consequently comes to the conclusion that philosophy has not completely
+fulfilled its vocation until it has become a philosophy of _Life_--until
+the truest meaning of every object is discovered in its relation to all
+the necessities of the spirit. And it is here that his teaching comes
+into conflict with so much that goes by the name of Idealism. How can
+any system be more than a half-truth when its final meaning is presented
+with but little attention to the highest aspect we know in the world
+--to human life in its struggles and conquests, [p.210] in its living
+and loving, and its forward movement towards some distant goal? The
+special value of Eucken's teaching lies, then, in the fact that it
+interprets what happens, can happen, and ought to happen within life
+itself. No system which leaves out the soul with its possibilities is
+complete. This has been done too often in the past, and is being done
+to-day. Is it, then, a wonder that philosophy has given so very little
+help to Life in its complex problems without and its sharp opposites and
+contradictions within? Life is more and needs more than a philosophy of
+words, devoid of power, can offer it. Life, when at its best, believes
+in the all-power of its own spiritual potency; it has faith in the
+possibility of ascent from height to height, as well as in the
+possibility of an incessant progress not only of individuals but of the
+whole of mankind.[72] A System stands or falls according as it is able
+to conceive of Life in such a manner. And Eucken has done this as
+probably no other living philosopher has done it.
+
+If we turn to _Immanent Idealism_, we discover the same failure. It
+emphasises the presence within consciousness of what is idealistic and
+noble, but it leaves out the objective and imperative character of what
+is present. It also forgets that the possession of ideals as ideas is
+only the initial stage of such ideals becoming a very portion [p.211] of
+the deepest substance of soul itself. We may deceive ourselves even with
+the contemplation of the best ideals; they can never become truly ours
+until the will is set in motion and the whole nature is stirred to its
+depths in order to press forward to what it perceives as having infinite
+value. Something has inevitably to happen within the depth of the soul
+before its real creation can advance. Eucken here, again, has perceived
+this truth and presents it everywhere with great power. His Philosophy
+is an _Activism_ of the most powerful type. He is aware that to _know_
+and to _be_ are so far apart. But his Activism is not a mere movement of
+the individual's will, brought forth by anything that has grown within
+it as a private inheritance. The Activism is started and kept going on
+its course by the over-personal norms and values already referred to. It
+is the union of norm and will that constitutes the full action. Life's
+greater meaning and value is, therefore, not a ready-made possession; it
+is rather something already possessed, and a vision of something _more_
+in the distance to be possessed.[73] The presence of the Divine within
+the soul is not the same prior to the search and after the search. This
+is [p.212] one of the most distinctive features of Eucken's teaching,
+and constitutes a necessary supplement to certain presentations of
+Immanent Idealism prevalent in various forms to-day.
+
+When we pass to _Materialism_ in its various forms, we find Eucken
+conscious of its poverty and its caricature of life. It is caused by
+excessive absorption in the sensuous object with all its manifold
+relations. But it is possible to believe in all that it states; for it
+can never really say anything concerning the deeper meaning of spiritual
+life if for no other reason than that it cannot penetrate into life's
+deeper experiences. It is a stage in human thought which is passing
+away. What will become of it after Professor Haeckel's passing is
+difficult to imagine. One thing at least is certain: as a complete
+system of the universe or of life it is doomed.[74] A mechanical
+interpretation of the universe is legitimate: we may have to adopt more
+of such interpretations in the future. But there is no need for any
+alarm from the sides of philosophy and religion. Their citadel is not
+built upon a _thing_, but upon a _thought_; and the gap between the two
+increases in the degree in which our knowledge of Nature and Man
+increases. Eucken has many great things to say on this subject in his
+larger works. Doubtless he would agree with some of the [p.213]
+advocates of _Naturalism_ in regard to the meaning of the physical
+universe, but such agreement would not be an admission that _all_ had
+been said that could be said concerning the need and the possibility of
+a _Metaphysic of Life_.
+
+The one word _More_ constitutes all the difference. This _More_, with
+Eucken, is the beginning of a new order of existence and of value where
+the physical order ends. His work consists in interpreting this _More_,
+and we have already seen whither the _More_ leads us: it leads us into
+spiritual norms and their values, and these in their turn led us into
+Infinite Love in the Godhead. The failure to see the value of all this
+is due to the inattention of the advocates of Naturalism in regard to
+the non-sensuous structure of mind: the _Thing and its relations_
+monopolise them so completely that they are blind to every reality
+non-sensuous in its nature, although they possess some amount of such
+reality in their very knowledge and adoration of the _Thing_. Our
+troubles will continue to accumulate, and the prospect of the future
+will grow extremely dark, if the grip which physical things have on the
+world to-day be not relaxed. The very physical powers which we have
+helped to create, and which hitherto have proved of service to men, will
+mean our destruction unless something of the _More_ which is beyond them
+be found as a possession and an activity within the governing centre of
+life. This is Eucken's [p.214] plea over against the various forms of
+the Naturalism and Materalism of our day. These are not enough for man.
+But man is so slow in recognising this fact. The appeal of Spiritual
+Idealism is considered to be something which is vague and useless. Our
+deepest reality and the source of all true energy have been robbed of
+their efficacy by our absorption in scraping together physical elements
+of chaff and dust. How often does Eucken show our dire poverty in the
+midst of all this external plenty! The all-sufficiency of all forms of
+Naturalism condemns itself through its failure to pass beyond itself.
+Had there not been some who did pass beyond the _Thing and its
+relations_ the spiritual values of the race would have been annihilated.
+"As soon as we demand to pass beyond mere awareness to a genuine
+knowledge, we discover our deplorable poverty, and must confess that
+what is termed certain seems on clearer investigation to rest upon a
+totally insecure foundation."[75] "It is not natural science itself
+which leads to naturalism, for, indeed, no natural science could arise
+if reality exhausted itself in the measurements of naturalism; but it is
+rather the weakness of the conviction of the spiritual life; it is the
+failure of certitude in regard to the presence of a spiritual existence;
+it is the unclearness concerning the _inner_ conditions of all mental
+and spiritual activity which a shallow and popular philosophy [p.215]
+presents--it is all this which turns natural science into a
+materialistic naturalism."[76] The strength of materialistic _monism_
+does not lie in any proof of there being nothing but mechanism in this
+wide universe, but in its energetic propaganda against certain
+traditional theological forms of ecclesiastical religion--forms which
+are rapidly being disowned by the leaders of religious thought. Even
+monism concedes that "it is better being good than bad, better being
+sane than mad." This concession, and the attempt to live according to
+it, constitute a proof of the presence in some form of a non-sensuous
+reality and value in the constructions of materialistic monism itself.
+Hence, Eucken's conception of spiritual life cannot be got rid of after
+all. It will remain so long as men live above the animal level and
+strive to ascend to something higher still.
+
+When the _neo-Kantian_ movement is examined, we find that its long and
+honourable history presents us with gains which cannot be measured. But
+we have already noticed that in so far as this movement has specialised
+within the domain of the connections of mind and body, and has attempted
+to reduce psychology to the limits of the relations between the two, it
+is largely outside the _inner_ meaning and value of the life of
+consciousness. [p.216] Its work has proved useful in many important
+respects. It has made man realise that the connection of body and mind
+is not so simple a matter as materialistic naturalism would lead us to
+suppose; and it has shown, on the whole, the impossibility of reducing
+consciousness to mechanical elements. Even in the various forms of
+psycho-physical parallelism the factor of mind and meaning stands apart
+in its origin from the factors of bodily movement. But neo-Kantianism
+has developed on higher lines than those of physiological psychology. It
+has dealt with the presence of an inner world of thought--a world of
+values and judgments of values, of norms, imperatives, and
+ideals--realities which are not presented in any scheme of natural
+science. It is impossible to read such a great book as the late
+Professor Otto Liebmann's _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_[77] without
+discovering this truth. In this great work, as well as in his _Gedanken
+und Thatsachen_, Liebmann shows how man is more than a natural product.
+[p.217] "Natural science," he tells us, "is a very useful, and, indeed,
+an indispensable handmaid to philosophy, but it is in no manner the
+first, the deepest, the most original basis of philosophy."[78]
+Liebmann's successors, especially Windelband, Rickert, Muensterberg,
+Adickes, and Vaihinger, work on similar lines. And there is a great deal
+in Eucken's teaching which tends in the same direction. But he goes a
+step further than all the neo-Kantians. We have already noticed how he
+gives judgments of value and spiritual norms a _cosmic_ significance. He
+finds that when these norms and values have awakened with great
+clearness within man's spirit they inevitably lead to the conception of
+the Godhead. And it is in this work that Eucken's Metaphysic of Life
+becomes a _religious metaphysic_. As values and norms mean so much when
+a reality is granted them by the truest of the neo-Kantians, they come
+to mean infinitely more when they are acknowledged as somehow
+constituting the foundation and the acme of all existence. Eucken's main
+desire is to establish such norms and values beyond the possibility of
+dispute and beyond the constant changes of Life-systems. They mean for
+him what is present within their spiritual content as a realisation as
+well as the _More_ to which they still point. His teaching is not
+contradicted by anything in the neo-Kantian movement;[p.218] he accepts
+its transcendental reality and lifts it out of the realm of
+individuality and of history into a cosmic realm. After having followed
+the implications of the neo-Kantian movement so far, he feels compelled
+to take the next step. For unless that next step is taken, some of the
+deepest potencies of human nature fail to come to flower and fruit. When
+the step is taken, they do blossom and bear fruit. Is not this a
+sufficient justification for taking the "next step"? It is; for man
+cannot allow any potency of his being to remain dormant without
+suffering a loss; and on this highest level of all the loss must be
+incalculable. "Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart will
+never find its rest until it rests on Thee." That confession of
+Augustine is Eucken's confession also; and it is the implication which
+such a confession contains that constitutes the significance of his
+message to the world. He is in the line not only of the philosophers but
+of the prophets and the mystics. The ladder of knowledge reaches, like
+Jacob's ladder, up to heaven itself--to that pure atmosphere where
+knowledge, merged in a deeper reality, becomes something so different
+from what it was before. An eternal blessedness has now become the
+possession of man.
+
+Eucken has a great deal to say regarding the _Historical_ Life-systems
+of the present day. [p.219] He is aware that the neglect by German
+thinkers of the fundamental importance of Hegel's teaching on this
+question has meant a heavy loss. That loss is already perceived, and
+Hegel's value in the realm of the Philosophy of History is being
+rediscovered. Men are more and more feeling the necessity of conceding a
+validity and objectivity to the concepts of History. The work of the
+late Professor Dilthey[79] in this respect is of great importance, and
+has strong affinities with Eucken's teaching on the same subject. But
+Dilthey's objectivity and validity stopped short of religion in the
+sense in which religion is presented by Eucken. Dilthey gave the norms
+of History a transcendental objectivity and considered them sufficient
+for man. But Eucken, as already stated, while granting all this and even
+insisting upon it, finds that the norms of History do not include the
+whole that human nature needs. The "next step" has to be taken whereby a
+reality is revealed beyond the confines of the best collective
+experiences of the human race. Once more, we are landed in the
+conception of the Godhead. The step became inevitable, because the best
+[p.220] historical concepts, in their totality, pointed to something
+still beyond themselves.
+
+During the past few years Eucken has devoted much attention to the
+Life-system presented in _Pragmatism_. He is alive to the value of much
+of the work of the late Professor William James and of Dr F.C.S.
+Schiller. He feels that Absolute Idealism is too abstract and too remote
+from life to move the human will. It is too much like placing a man
+before a mountain, and asking him to remove it. The very magnitude of
+the object weakens instead of strengthening the will. Pragmatism has the
+merit of insisting that the task be done piecemeal, so that man may not
+lose heart at the very outset. And some kind of goal is present in
+Pragmatism. But Eucken's main objection to Pragmatism is that, however
+adequate it may be at the beginning of the enterprise, it will tend, as
+time passes, to turn man in the direction of the line of least
+resistance, and so be degraded to the level of the ordinary life and its
+petty demands.[80] His Activism is entirely different from James's
+Pragmatism. James depended too much upon the "span of the moment" and
+its immediate experience. There is in this "span" often no cosmic
+conviction present in consciousness to proclaim that the action is
+[p.221] "worth while" at all costs. While constantly demanding the need
+of effort in order to experience the deeper potencies of spiritual life,
+Eucken insists that such effort can enter into a current only in so far
+as norms and values are clearly perceived as the meaning and goal of
+spiritual life. A _universal_ of meaning and value must be perceived,
+however imperfectly it may be, before the individual can call his
+deepest nature into activity. And what is such a _universal_ but
+something beyond the flow of the moment and beyond the realm of ordinary
+daily life? Such a _universal_, too, must have an existence of its
+own--an existence and a value which are beyond the opinions of any
+individual or of any group of individuals, even if such a group were to
+include the whole human race. It is clear, then, why Eucken parts
+company with Pragmatism.
+
+If, finally, we view his attitude towards the _Religious_ Life-systems
+of our generation, we find words of warning and of encouragement. His
+whole work culminates in religion. But he teaches us that we have to
+learn from the sides of knowledge already presented in this chapter. And
+it may be said that the Christian Church (or any other Church) has yet
+to learn this lesson. It still seeks to find its revelation in what
+_was_, and in modes which come constantly into direct conflict with the
+results of the various Life-systems already referred to. It wants the
+fruits of religion without tilling [p.222] the ground and nurturing its
+plants. Its insistence on placing the basis of religion in myth and
+miracle dooms it to a greater disaster in the future than even in the
+past. Eucken sees no hope for a "revival" of religion in the soul until
+an inverted order of conceiving reality takes place. The religious
+synthesis from the intellectual side is to be obtained by passing
+through the grades of reality explicit in the various Life-systems, and
+by abstaining from the imposition of barriers which forbid anyone
+roaming and "ruminating" within these. If one condition is obeyed, this
+is the most fruitful way to construct a new religious metaphysic which
+will supplant traditional theology. That condition is that the various
+Life-systems form a kind of scale which extends from Matter up to the
+Godhead. The new religious metaphysic will then mean a real philosophy
+of values.
+
+Does this constitute an impossible task for the Christian Church? It
+will remain impossible so long as we look upon the essence of
+Christianity as something which descends upon us apart from the exertion
+of our own spiritual potencies. It is a consolation to know that the
+highest reality may be experienced without having to undergo a training
+in the methods and implications of science, history, or metaphysics. But
+the experience here cannot possibly mean so much as the experience which
+passes through and beyond the implications of knowledge to the [p.223]
+Divine. Such an experience as the latter must be richer in content. And
+even apart from this, it produces something of value on the intellectual
+side--something which grants religion a security in the eyes of the
+world. When the Church tends in this direction, its faith will come into
+comradeship with the various branches of human knowledge as these reveal
+themselves on level above level. Christianity has nothing to fear, but
+everything to gain, from the development of all the branches of human
+knowledge. Its source being Spiritual and Eternal, why should opposition
+be presented to any development of the lower realities in science,
+Biblical criticism, history, and philosophy? This lesson is not yet
+learned, and Eucken pleads for its acknowledgment. "If we consider how
+much is involved in such a change in the position of the spiritual life,
+and if we also present before ourselves what transformations
+civilisation, culture, history, and natural science carry within
+themselves, we see clearly the critical situation in which religion is
+placed, because these surface-changes are not of the essence of
+religion. Through the mighty expansion and the fissures which these
+changes bring about, the old immediacy and intimacy of the soul have
+become lost, and religion has now receded into the distance, and is in
+danger of vanishing more and more. The derangement of things which such
+changes cause occurs [p.224] not only in connection with their own facts
+and material and against their old forms, but the effect proceeds into
+the very character and feelings of man and into his religion. And yet,
+when we examine the matter more closely, we find that such changes cause
+not so much a breach with Christianity as with its traditional form, and
+that they seek to bring about a fundamental renewal of Christianity. For
+when we penetrate beyond the motives and dispositions of men to their
+spiritual basis, all the changes are unable to contradict what is
+essential to Christianity, but they even promise to assist this
+essential element in its new, freer, and more energetic development. But
+we have to bear in mind that all this will not descend upon us like a
+shower of rain, but will have to be brought forth through immense labour
+and toil. It becomes necessary to replace that which must pass away, and
+to reconsolidate the essentials which are threatened. All this cannot
+come about save through an energetic concentration and deepening of the
+spiritual life, save through a struggle against the superficiality of
+Time regardless of all consequences, and save through a vivification and
+integration of all that points in the right direction."[81]
+
+[p.225] This passage illustrates well Eucken's whole attitude regarding
+Christianity. It is evident that much remains to be done within and
+without the Church. Within, radical changes are to take place; but
+always in the light and with the preservation of the spiritual
+substance. Without, the indifference of a vast portion of the civilised
+nations of the world has to be reckoned with. It is an immense problem,
+often enough to dishearten good men and women. How can men be moved from
+their inertia and their resentment against the deeper demands which
+spiritual life makes upon every human being? That is the problem of
+problems and the task of tasks to-day. No clear solution of it is yet
+perceptible. But in the meantime, those who care for Divine things and
+who have experienced some of their power within their own souls must
+hold fast to all they possess, and labour unceasingly to increase the
+spiritual value of their possession. Probably catastrophes have to
+happen in order to bring the world home to religion and God.
+
+Rudolf Eucken's gospel is a proclamation of the necessity of religion
+and the possibility of its possession. This, according to him, is the
+final goal of all knowledge and life. If religion is not this, it is the
+most tragic deception conceivable. "Religion is either merely a
+sanctioned product of human wishes and pictorial ideas brought about by
+tradition and [p.226] the historical ordinance--and, if so, no art,
+power, or cunning can prevent the destruction of such a bungling work by
+the advance of the mental and spiritual movement of the world; or
+religion is founded upon a superhuman fact--and, if so, the hardest
+assaults cannot shatter it, but rather, it must finally prove of service
+in all the troubles and toils of man; it must reach the point of its
+true strength and develop purer and purer its Eternal Truth."[82]
+
+The fact that the influence of Rudolf Eucken's personality and teaching
+is spreading with such rapidity and power from west to east and from
+north to south is a proof that an increasing number of men and women are
+aspiring after a religion of spiritual life such as was presented by the
+Founder of our Christianity. All the Life-systems of our day must
+converge towards such a conception of religion.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII [p.227]
+
+EUCKENS PERSONALITY AND INFLUENCE
+
+
+In this chapter an attempt will be made to present in a brief form some
+of the most important aspects of Eucken's personality and influence. His
+training and the relation of his teaching to the German philosophical
+systems of the present have already been touched upon in some of the
+earlier chapters. But no account of Eucken's teaching is complete
+without a knowledge of his personality.
+
+We cannot understand his personality without bearing in mind Eucken's
+nationality. He is a man of the North. A mere glimpse of the deep blue
+eyes reveals this immediately. His ancestors lived in close contact with
+Nature, and faced the perils of the great deep. The history of the men
+of the North has witnessed, along the centuries, a struggle for
+existence as severe as any struggle known in the history of our world. A
+trait of Eucken's character almost entirely unknown in England is his
+deep sympathy with the small nations [p.228] of Europe, and especially
+with those of the North. He has written and pleaded on behalf of Poland,
+Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. He finds that small nations, when
+their independence is preserved, have the tendency to bring forth
+original characteristics of thought and life, which are only too apt to
+get lost in the bustle and mechanism of the great nations. He has shown
+us on several occasions how much the world is indebted to its small
+nations for the ideas and ideals which have shaped its destiny. He
+believes with his whole soul that _size_ does not necessarily mean
+_greatness_. When we compare the greatness of Palestine and Greece with
+that of the larger countries of the world, the latter sink into
+insignificance when weighed in the balances of the spirit. He has,
+during the past few years, several times pointed out a danger to
+personality and character from the vast organisations which have been
+created in the various departments of life during the latter half of the
+nineteenth century. The deeper personality of man has receded more and
+more into the background through the growth of such organisations. This
+fact is clear in the realms of commerce and of politics. We call a
+nation "great" in the degree in which it succeeds in outstripping other
+nations in its exports and imports, or in forming alliances with its
+neighbouring states or with other nations. A large portion of the gains
+which accrue from such [p.229] unions is purely accidental, and these
+gains cannot possibly touch the essentials of life. The explanation of
+this is the fact that the centre of gravity has been shifted from mental
+and moral racial qualities to qualities which are far inferior in mental
+and moral potency and content. Thus, we witness the painful inversion of
+values which has taken place during the past fifty years. Every "small
+nation" has to take a secondary place, has to become subservient to a
+nation which may possess for its inheritance but few qualities besides
+those of expansiveness and force. The small nation is forced to submit,
+to develop on lines entirely alien to its original potencies, and to
+labour with might and main to fill the coffers of the rich nation. The
+old calm and peace, as well as the originality of the small nations have
+thus too often been cruelly uprooted; the characteristics of working on
+their own original lines, and of producing something of essential value
+in the history of the world, have been largely shorn of their initiative
+and freedom in the case of several of the small nations of Europe.
+Superficiality and indifference to deep national and spiritual traits
+become the primary things, and the life of the small nations, as time
+passes, tends to become mechanical and servile.
+
+When we survey the work of the small nations of the Western world, we
+discover achievements which have been of immense [p.230] value in the
+civilisation, culture, morals, and religion of Europe. And what a
+distressing sight it is to witness the attempts of larger nations to
+crush the spirituality of the smaller ones! The attitude of Russia
+towards Finland and Poland is known to all. A greed for territory and a
+passion for ready-made values are characteristics which are only too
+evident to-day in the case of some of the Great Powers of Europe. We
+need, as Eucken points out,[83] a new standard of valuing the national
+characteristics and the relationship of nation with nation. Such
+standard must include moral judgments and human sympathy. It is the
+presence of spiritual powers such as these which constitute the really
+deep and durable elements in a nation's progress. "When righteousness
+goes to the bottom, then there is nothing more worth living for on the
+earth." Eucken's philosophy cannot be understood apart from his intense
+interest in mankind and its spiritual development. He goes, indeed, so
+far as to say that this is the sole goal of philosophy; its message is
+to create new spiritual values in the life of the individual and of the
+race. Our systems of philosophy are painfully defective in this respect
+to-day. Man, as a being with a soul, is little taken into account in
+most of them. Is it surprising, therefore, that philosophy has not
+succeeded, [p.231] for centuries, in interesting or influencing the
+intelligent world at large?[84] It will not succeed in doing this until
+the deepest needs of mankind are taken to be something more than objects
+of psychological analysis or of logical generalisations.
+
+Eucken's personality is rooted in a deep love for humanity and its
+spiritual qualities; and herein lies the essential reason of his
+championing of weak nations and pleading for the preservation of their
+original spiritual characteristics. These qualities are pearls of too
+great a price to be lost in a world where so much tinsel passes as what
+possesses the highest value.
+
+It is not difficult to see why the small nations of the North feel that
+in Eucken they possess a true friend who sees clearly what they feel
+instinctively, and who points out to them the path of their spiritual
+deliverance.
+
+It is impossible, also, to understand Eucken's system of philosophy
+without taking into account his religious experience. This aspect has
+already been touched upon, but it requires elucidation from a more
+personal point of view. Eucken's philosophy is the result of the
+experience of his own soul. It is something which can never be
+understood until it is lived through. Everything is brought back to its
+roots in the needs, aspirations, and inwardness of the soul. One must
+become "converted" [p.232] before he can understand Eucken's teaching.
+Something has not only to be understood but to be lived through; the
+body and the external world have to be relegated to a subsidiary place;
+the intellect has to merge into the spiritual intuition which is deeper
+than itself. It is after one has been willing to pass through this fiery
+furnace that the great "illumination" begins to appear. And such an
+illumination will increase in the degree that service and sacrifice are
+willingly undertaken for the sake of the infinite spiritual gains which
+remain in store.
+
+This element in Eucken's personality draws him to everybody he comes in
+contact with, and draws everybody to him. He has drunk so deeply of the
+experiences of Plato and Plotinus, of the great Christian mystics and
+moralists of the centuries, that he sees the value of every soul that
+comes to him for help. It is far from Eucken's wish for these matters to
+be published. And the present writer will only state the fact that
+nobody, however ignorant and obscure, has failed in Eucken to find a
+father and guide. Hundreds of men who had either lost or had never found
+their moral and spiritual bearings in life have succeeded in doing so
+through coming into contact with him. The present writer remembers well
+many a conversation among students of six or more different
+nationalities, concerning the secret of Eucken's teaching [p.233] and
+influence. Imagine Servians, Poles, Swedes, Scotch, English, and Welsh
+meeting together after a philosophical lecture to discuss the question
+of the spiritual life and wondering how to discover it! Eucken's
+personality had created in their deepest being a need which could never
+more be filled until the Divine entered into it. In the class-room the
+great prophet makes it impossible for us to content ourselves with
+merely preparing for examinations. The teacher's exposition and
+inspiration are creating a deep uneasiness in us. We feel how limited
+and shallow our nature has been when we are face to face with a man who
+reveals to us the eternal values of the things of the spirit; and who
+reveals them not as they have merely been revealed by the great thinkers
+of the world, but as he himself has felt and lived them. We all become
+impressed with the fact that we are in the presence of a power above the
+world; and the feeling of pain is changed into a feeling of strong
+optimism in regard to the possibilities of our own nature. We feel that
+we, too, in spite of our limitations, can become the possessors of
+something of the very nature akin to that which our great teacher
+possesses. Eucken works a change in every man and woman who remain with
+him for a length of time. Many of us understand something of what Jesus
+Christ meant to his disciples; how he created an affection within their
+souls which all the obstacles of the world [p.234] could never
+obliterate. Eucken has done something of the same kind, on a smaller
+scale, for hundreds of his old pupils.
+
+These pupils are found to-day from Iceland in the North to New Zealand
+in the South, and from Japan in the East to Britain and America in the
+West.[85] Many of them have risen to eminence, and all of them have
+experienced something of a spiritual anchorage in the midst of the
+tempestuous sea of Time; all alike cherish an affection for their old
+[p.235] teacher--an affection which is one of their dearest possessions.
+They have helped to spread his spiritual teaching, and, along with his
+books, have made his name known in all the civilised countries of the
+world. Some of Eucken's most important works have already appeared in
+half a dozen languages. The demand for them increases everywhere. This
+receptivity is a good omen of better days. The world is beginning to get
+tired of the mechanism and shallowness of our age, and is once more on
+the point of turning to the spiritual fountains of life. Where can it
+find a better guide to lead it to the waters of life than in Rudolf
+Eucken?
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV [p.236]
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+It will probably prove helpful at the conclusion to indicate the main
+contents of Eucken's greatest works in order that the reader who turns
+to them for the first time may be able somewhat to find his bearings.
+The whole of Eucken's works turn around the conception of the _spiritual
+life_. This fact must be constantly borne in mind. The term has been
+repeated so often in all the previous chapters that the reader may be
+inclined to think that some other expression might well have been
+exchanged for it. But no other term serves Eucken's meaning, and the
+recurrence of the term has to be endured in order that it may yield of
+its rich content.
+
+It has been shown how Eucken establishes a _new world_ with its own laws
+and values within the spiritual life. The spiritual life possesses
+grades of reality: it reveals itself from the level of connection of
+body and mind and of ordinary life right up to Infinite Love in [p.237]
+the Godhead. Such a reality is created within the total activity of the
+soul; but it is not mere subjectivism by virtue of the fact that its
+material comes to it from without.[86] And Eucken shows that it is thus
+a life partly given to man, and partly created by him. The "given"
+elements have to enter into man's soul. This they cannot do without much
+opposition. With the persistent energy of the total potency of the soul
+a world of independent inwardness is reached--a world which will have an
+existence of its own within the soul, and which will become the standard
+by which to measure the values of all the things which present
+themselves.
+
+It is this superiority of the spiritual life which constitutes the
+essential factor in the evolution of the individual's personality as
+well as in civilisation, culture, morality, and all the rich inheritance
+of the race. Such an inheritance can be developed farther by the [p.238]
+full consciousness of the spiritual life and by the exercising of it
+from its very foundation.
+
+In _The Problem of Human Life_ Eucken sees in the message of every one
+of the great thinkers of the ages, however much he may differ from them,
+the vindication of a life higher than that of sense or even of
+in-intellectualism. In one form or another, they all present some world
+of values which is born and nurtured within the mind and soul. All these
+thinkers stand for something which is great and good. Eucken attempts to
+discover this core in their teaching; and in the midst of all the
+differences some spiritual truth and value make their appearance. This
+volume has undergone many changes, and is now in its ninth edition.
+
+In _The Main Currents of Modern Thought_ Eucken deals, in the first part
+of the book, with _the fundamental concept of spiritual life_ as this
+reveals itself in the meanings of Subjective--Objective,
+Theoretical--Practical, Idealism--Realism. The middle portion of the
+book deals with the _Problem of Knowledge_ as this is shown in Thought
+and Experience (Metaphysics), Mechanical--Organic (Teleology), and Law.
+The third portion of the volume deals with the _Problems of Human Life_
+as these are presented in Civilisation and Culture, History, Society and
+the Individual, Morality and Art, Personality and Character, and the
+Freedom of the Will. The final portion deals [p.239] with _Ultimate
+Problems_; and the two chapters on the Value of Life and the Religious
+Problem bring out the deeper meaning of spiritual life.
+
+This volume has undergone many changes. When it appeared in 1878 it was
+little more than a history of the concepts we have already referred
+to.[87] But at the present time it deals with the history of the
+concepts, a criticism of these, and finally the presentation of the
+author's own thesis regarding the reality of an independent spiritual
+life.
+
+In _Life's Basis and Life's Ideal_ he analyses the various systems of
+thought which have been presented to the world. He finds many of these
+deficient; but although something that is contained in them has to pass
+away, they possess some spiritual element which requires preservation,
+and which is valid for all time. None of these systems is final; they
+have to preserve what is spiritual within them, and also merge it in
+some newer revelation gained for mankind. Every system of the universe
+and of life has to move; it has perpetually to drop something of its
+accidentals, and continually strengthen and increase its essentials.
+Everywhere emphasis is laid on the fact that the spiritual element
+[p.240] must be preserved and increased at whatever cost, for it is an
+element of the highest value for the world, and constitutes the energy
+of the world's upward march.
+
+In the _Einheit des Geisteslebens_, as well as in the _Prolegomena_ to
+this, the necessity of a spiritual conception of knowledge comes to the
+foreground. All systems of Naturalism lack enough spiritual life within
+themselves to meet the deepest needs of the race. Man is _more_ than all
+such systems. Even on the grounds of the Theory of Knowledge itself man
+can be proved to be _more_. Eucken deals in these two books with the
+content of consciousness: that content reveals what is a Whole or
+Totality, what is beyond sense, what includes within itself the isolated
+impressions of the senses or of the understanding, and what is therefore
+_spiritual_ in its nature.
+
+In the _Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_--a book of the greatest
+value--we find Eucken at his best. His attempt here is to deal with the
+struggle for the spiritual life and the certainty of its possession. He
+shows how man has emerged out of Nature, and how he has moved in the
+direction of gaining an inner world during the long course of
+civilisation, culture, morality, and religion. Through titanic struggles
+this inner world becomes man's possession, and constitutes the true
+value and significance of his life. Man now realises that it is this
+world of spirit and values [p.241] which constitutes the only really
+true world. Issuing out of this possession of the ever richer contents
+of this inward, spiritual world, the personality constantly becomes
+something quite other than it was, and its possession adds to the
+inheritance of the spiritual ideals of the world. At this source man is
+in possession of a power of a new kind of creativeness in any field of
+knowledge or life he may be obliged to work. Nothing blossoms or bears
+fruit without the presence and the power of spiritual life in the
+deepest inwardness of the soul.
+
+In _The Truth of Religion_ Eucken roams in a vast territory. All the
+oppositions of the ages to religion are brought on the stage, and are
+made to reveal their best and their worst. He shows how every system of
+thought, devoid of the experience and activity of the deepest soul,
+fails to engender religion. He shows over against all this the
+intellectual warrant for religion, and passes from this to the personal
+search by the soul for what is warranted by the intellect and by the
+deepest needs of one's own being. This has been the meaning of the
+religions of the world, and this meaning finds its culmination in
+Christianity.
+
+Eucken's smaller books, such as _The Life of the Spirit, Christianity
+and the New Idealism, Koennen wir noch Christen sein?_, and _The Meaning
+and Value of Life_, present certain aspects of the larger volumes in a
+simpler form.
+
+Eucken is at present engaged upon the [p.242] completion of a work of
+great importance dealing with _The Theory of Knowledge_. His system has
+been stated to be in need of this important corner-stone, and he has
+hastened to meet the demand. The book will deal with the "grounds" of
+the life of the spirit in an even more fundamental manner than any of
+his books. A preparatory work, small in bulk--_Erkennen und Leben_--has
+just appeared in German, and will be issued in English in the spring of
+1913.
+
+In _Erkennen und Leben_ Eucken shows the need of clearness in regard to
+the concept of the spiritual life. This work is an introduction to his
+forthcoming work--_The Theory of Knowledge_. He shows that the Problem
+of Knowledge can only be answered through a further clarification of the
+Problem of Life. It is, therefore, necessary to show what such a Life is
+and how it may be lived, and, finally, how it makes Knowledge possible.
+This is the only way by which the final convictions of Life are able to
+possess greater depth and duration.
+
+Knowledge is possible only in so far as man participates in a
+self-subsistent life. Without such a self-subsistent life many
+intellectual achievements are possible, but they do not deserve the name
+of Knowledge.
+
+Such a self-subsistent life must be operative in the foundation of our
+nature, but it must constantly receive its material from the most
+[p.243] important meanings and values of the world. The self-subsistent
+life dare not feed on the mere analysis of consciousness or on the
+material which it already possesses.
+
+History shows how a self-subsistent life is not created through the mere
+succession of events, but is always found as a life which is superior to
+the perpetual changes of Time. Consequently, every real Knowledge has
+something _sub specie aeternitatis_ as its essence, and this
+differentiates it from all mere relativism.
+
+The movement of History culminates alternately in _Concentration_ on the
+one hand, and in _Expansion_ on the other: _Positive_ and _Critical_
+epochs alternate. Both aspects are necessary for the growth of life.
+
+In modern times the growth of the Expansion-side of life has destroyed
+in a large measure the equilibrium of life; and the task to-day is to
+construct a new Concentration-side.
+
+Such a new Concentration is possible: the experience of History
+testifies to its presence in several epochs; and there is a deep longing
+for it in many quarters to-day.
+
+In order to attain to such a Concentration the "dead-level" life of the
+present must be overcome, and a turn must take place towards a new
+Metaphysic of Life.
+
+Such is the problem to-day, and no complete answer is to be found in the
+past systems of Metaphysics. "The possibilities of Life and [p.244] of
+Knowledge are in no way exhausted, but it is only through our own
+courage and actions that the possibilities can become actualities"
+(_Erkennen und Leben_, p. 161).
+
+The various systems of Thought need a synthesis which will include them
+all. It is difficult to-day to obtain a theory of life which does not
+leave out of account some essential elements. Is there a possibility of
+discovering such a synthesis? I believe that Eucken's works answer this
+question. But we wait eagerly for the appearance of his greatest work,
+and I think that, when it appears, he will more than ever deserve
+Windelband's designation of him as "the creator of a new Metaphysic."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+APPENDIX [p.245]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+LIST OF EUCKEN'S WORKS
+
+
+1866. "De Aristotelis docendi ratione."  Pars I. De particularis. This was
+       the Doctor's dissertation at Goettingen University.
+
+1868. "Ueber den Gebrauch der Praepositionem bei Aristoteles."
+
+1870. "Ueber die Methode und die Grundlagen der Aristotelischen Ethik"
+       (Separatabdruck aus dem Programm des Frankfurter Gymnasiums von 1870).
+
+1871. "Ueber die Bedeutung der Aristotelischen Philosophie fur die Gegenwart"
+       (Akademische Antrittsrede gehalten am 21 November, 1871). This was in
+       Basel.
+
+1872. "Die Methode der Aristotelischen Forschung in ihrem Zusammenhang mit
+       den philosophischen Grundprincipien des Aristoteles."
+
+1874. "Ueber den Wert der Geschichte der Philosophie" (Antrittsrede, Jena,
+       1874).
+
+1878. "Die Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart." This was translated by Stuart
+       Phelps in 1880, and published by Appleton of New York. The fourth
+       edition has been translated  by M. Booth, and has been published by
+       T. Fisher Unwin in 1912. The title of the third German edition was
+       changed to "Geistige Stromungen der [p.246] Gegenwart."
+       The English edition is entitled "The Main Currents of Modern Thought."
+
+1879. "Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie."
+
+1880. "Ueber Bilder und Gleichnisse in der Philosophie": Eine Festschrift.
+
+1881. "Zur Erinnerung an K.Ch.F. Krausse" (Festrede, gehalten zu Eisenberg
+       am 100 Geburtstage des Philosophen).
+
+1884. "Aristoteles Anschauung von Freundschaft und von Lebensguetern."
+
+1885. "Prolegomena zu Forschungen ueber die Einheit des Geisteslebens in
+       Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit."
+
+1886. "Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino und die Kultur der Neuzeit."
+
+1886. "Beitraege zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie." (Second edition,
+       1906, under the title "Beitraege zur Einfuehrung in die Geschichte
+       der Philosophie.")
+
+1888. "Die Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit."
+       This will be published by Williams & Norgate.
+
+1890. "Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker." The ninth edition
+       appeared in 1911. Changes and additions have been made in each
+       succeeding edition. English translation (1909) by W.S. Hough and
+       W.R. Boyce Gibson under the title "The Problem of Human Life, as
+       viewed by the Great Thinkers from Plato to the Present Time"
+       (published by Charles Scribners' Sons, New York; and T. Fisher
+       Unwin, London).
+
+1896. "Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt." (Second edition, with
+       many changes, 1907.) A translation of this volume will be published
+       by Williams & Norgate in the spring of 1913.
+
+1901. "Das Wesen der Religion." (First and second editions.) This essay
+       was translated by W. Tudor Jones in 1904, and was published for
+       private circulation. It is now out of print, but will soon reappear
+       together with another essay, "Wissenschaft und Religion."
+
+1901. "Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," 1901. (Second edition, with
+       numerous changes, 1905; third edition, with changes, 1912.) The
+       second edition was translated by W. Tudor Jones, and published by
+       Williams & Norgate in 1911 under the title of "The Truth of Religion."
+       A translation of the third German edition will be published at the
+       close of 1912.
+
+1901. "Thomas von Aquino und Kant: ein Kampf zweier Welten."
+
+1903. "Gesammelte Aufsaetze zur Philosophie und Lebensanschauung."
+
+1905. "Was koennen wir heute aus Schiller gewinnen?" (Kantstudien: Sonderdruck).
+
+1905. "Wissenschaft und Religion." This comprises a chapter in the collection
+       of essays entitled "Beitraege zur Weiterentwickelung der Christlichen
+       Religion."
+
+1907. "Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung." This volume was translated
+       by Alban G. Widgery, and published by A. & C. Black in 1911 under the
+       title of "Life's Basis and Life's Ideal."
+
+1907. "Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der Gegenwart." (First edition,
+       1907; fourth and fifth editions (with additions), 1912.) The first
+       edition was translated by W.R. Boyce Gibson and Lucy Gibson under the
+       title "Christianity and the New Idealism: a Study in the Religious
+       Philosophy of To-day." This is published by Harper & Brothers, London
+       and New York.
+
+1907. "Philosophie der Geschichte."  This is an essay in the volume entitled
+       "Systematische Philosophie" in the series "Kultur der Gegenwart."
+
+1908. "Sinn und Wert des Lebens." Third edition (with many additions), 1911.
+       The first edition was translated by W. R. Boyce Gibson and Lucy Gibson
+       under the title of "The Meaning and Value of Life" (Publishers:
+       A. & C. Black).
+
+1908. "Einfuehrung in eine Philosophie des Geisteslebens." Translated by the
+       late F.L. Pogson under the title of "The Life of the Spirit" (third
+       edition, 1911).
+
+1911. "Religion and Life" (the Essex Hall Lecture for 1911). This is
+       published by the Lindsey Press, London.
+
+1911. "Koennen wir noch Christen sein?" A translation of this is in
+       preparation.
+
+1912. "Naturalism or Idealism?" (the Nobel Lecture, translated by
+       A.G. Widgery). This is published by Heffer & Sons, Limited,
+       Cambridge.
+
+1912. "Erkennen und Leben." A translation of this work, by W. Tudor Jones,
+       is in preparation, and will be published by Williams & Norgate in
+       the spring of 1913 under the title of "Knowledge and Life: An
+       Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge."
+
+1913. "Erkenntnistlehre." This volume will appear early in 1913. The
+       translation will also appear during 1913, and the book will be
+       published by Williams & Norgate under the title of "The Theory
+       of Knowledge."
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+
+     [1] It is not only in Germany, but also in England, that natural
+     scientists forget this important fact. The Presidential Address of
+     Professor Schaefer at the British Association (September 1912) is an
+     instance of attempting to explain life in terms of its history and
+     of its lowest common denominator. And huge assumptions have to be
+     made in order to explain as little as this.
+
+     [2] A fuller treatment of this subject will be found in my
+     forthcoming volume, _Pathways to Religion_. It is incorrect to
+     state with Professor Sorley (_Recent Tendencies in Ethics_, p. 30)
+     that "her [Germany's] philosophy betrays the dominance of material
+     interests."
+
+     [3] An important article on this book appeared in _Mind_ during
+     1896, and, as far as I can trace, this seems to be the first
+     serious attention which was given to Eucken's writings in England.
+     A translation of the volume will appear shortly by Messrs Williams
+     & Norgate.
+
+     [4] Cf. _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, translated by Dr M.
+     Booth (1912).
+
+     [5] _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, p. 259.
+
+     [6] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 6l.
+
+     [7] _Ibid._, p. 62.
+
+     [8] W. James's _Text-Book of Psychology_, p. 145.
+
+     [9] William Wallace's _Lectures and Essays on Natural Theology and
+     Ethics_, p. 210.
+
+     [10] Edward Caird's Introduction to William Wallace's Gifford
+     Lectures, pp. xxx, xxxi.
+
+     [11] On this conception of the spiritual as _More, cf._ Bosanquet's
+     _Psychology of the Moral Self_.
+
+     [12] _Cf._ Wicksteed's _The Religion of Time and the Religion of
+     Eternity_, in Carpenter and Wicksteed's _Studies in Theology_.
+
+     [13] Eucken's best account of this subject is found in Parts I.,
+     II., and V. of his _Truth of Religion_ and in _Beitraege zur
+     Weiterentwickelung der Religion_, pp. 240-281. This latter is a
+     volume of ten essays by well-known German religious teachers.
+
+     [14] The President of the British Association (1912) states in his
+     address that it is not within his province to touch the question
+     concerning the nature of the soul. I take the report of his address
+     from _Nature_, 5th September. Dr Haldane goes much further in the
+     direction of Vitalism (discussion at British Association on the
+     subject).
+
+     [15] _Cf._ Driesch: _Philosophy of the Organism_; _Vitalismus als
+     Geschichte und Lehre_; his article in _Lebensanschauung_ (a
+     collection of essays by twenty German thinkers, 1911); Reinke's
+     _Philosophie der Botanik_; McDougall's _Body and Mind_; Thomson's
+     _Heredity, Evolution_, and _Introduction to Science_ (the two
+     latter in the Home University Library). Bergson's _Creative
+     Evolution_ deals with the subject, but the value of this book is
+     greater in other directions. T.H. Morgan's _Regeneration_ is a
+     weighty contribution to the subject.
+
+     [16] A revival of the study of Kant's first _Critique_ would be of
+     great value to our natural scientists. Green, in his _Prolegomena
+     to Ethics_, has interpreted this aspect in a manner that ought not
+     to be forgotten. _Cf._ further Edward Caird's _Evolution of
+     Religion_, vol. i.
+
+     [17] Ward's _Naturalism and Agnosticism_, vol. i., is a reply to
+     this important question.
+
+     [18] _Cf._ Muensterberg's _Psychology and Education_, and his
+     _Eternal Values_; also Royce's _The World and the Individual_.
+
+     [19] This trans-subjective aspect has been worked out in an
+     original way by Volkelt in his _Quellen der menschlichen
+     Gewisskeit_.
+
+     [20] The works of Muensterberg and Rickert deal with great clearness
+     on this difference of subject-matter in science and history.
+
+     [21] The main weakness of Bergson's philosophy seems to be in not
+     recognising this problem. Bosanquet, in his _Principle of
+     Individuality and Value_, has very clearly recognised and
+     interpreted it upon similar lines to Eucken.
+
+     [22] In this respect Eucken and Bergson seem to agree, although it
+     is difficult to reconcile this aspect of Bergson's with his
+     statements concerning the grasping of reality in the perceptions of
+     the moment.
+
+     [23] "Hegel To-day," _The Monist_, April 1897.
+
+     [24] _Truth of Religion_, p. 328.
+
+     [25] Green has dealt with this aspect in the first part of his
+     _Prolegomena to Ethics_ in practically the same way as Eucken.
+     _Cf._ also Nettleship's _Life of Green_ and his (Nettleship's)
+     _Philosophical Remains_.
+
+     [26] This need of differentiation has been presented by Muensterberg
+     in a powerful manner in his _Psychology and Life, Eternal Values_,
+     and _Science and Idealism_.
+
+     [27] Muensterberg's _Science and Idealism_, p. 10; _cf._ also his
+     _Grundsuge der Psychologie_, Bd. i., 1900.
+
+     [28] Wundt's _Grundriss der Psychologie_ and the article
+     "Psychologie" in _Philosophie im beginn des Zwanzigsten
+     Jahrhunderts (Festschrift fur Kuno Fischer_, art. 1).
+
+     [29] _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 178 _f_.
+
+     [30] It is a great merit of Bergson, too, to have perceived this
+     fundamental difference. The difference between intellect and
+     intuition, in his larger volumes, is more illuminating on the side
+     of intellect. The relation of both is expressed by him more clearly
+     in his short _Introduction to Metaphysics_ (soon to appear in
+     English).
+
+     [31] Troeltsch, in his _Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie_, has
+     perceived the difference very clearly, but in a manner quite
+     different from Bergson. Troeltsch has dealt with the presence of
+     the content of the over-empirical as something which is higher than
+     any psychology of the soul, and which is at the farthest remove
+     from the percept.
+
+     [32] Richard Kade, in his new book, _Rudolf Euckens noologische
+     Methode_, points out very clearly Eucken's contributions on this
+     point from 1885 downwards. Kade further deals with the later
+     developments of Windelband, Rickert, Troeltsch, and Wobbermin in
+     the same direction.
+
+     [33] _Historical Studies in Philosophy_,1912, p. 176.
+
+     [34] _Cf._ the two remarkable volumes of Baron von Huegel, _The
+     Mystical Elements of Religion_,1908, and especially vol. ii. These
+     books are a mine of rich things, but I have not observed that many
+     in our country have as yet realised this fact.
+
+     [35] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 456.
+
+     [36] _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, p. 353.
+
+     [37] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 59.
+
+     [38] _Cf. Decadence_, Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture, by the Rt.
+     Hon. Arthur James Balfour, M.P., 1908. Mr Balfour has perceived the
+     problem in a more optimistic manner than Professor Eucken; but he,
+     too, is conscious that much is required of the people. "Some kind
+     of widespread exhilaration or excitement is required in order to
+     enable any community to extract the best results from the raw
+     material transmitted to it by natural inheritance" (p. 62).
+
+     [39] _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, p. 398.
+
+     [40] This aspect has been developed in modern times by
+     Schopenhauer, Ed. von Hartmann, and others. Bergson seems to me to
+     be greatly indebted to Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's Will and
+     Bergson's _elan vital_ are practically the same (_cf_.
+     Schopenhauer's _Ueber den Willen in der Natur,_ and Bergson's
+     _Creative Evolution_). Edward Carpenter, in his _Art of Creation_,
+     has worked out a similar point of view independently of Bergson.
+
+     [41] _Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_, Zweite Auflage,
+     1907, S. 331.
+
+     [42] Sonderdruck, 1905.
+
+     [43] George Meredith, _The Sage Enamoured and the Honest Lady_.
+
+     [44] _Cf._ the closing passages of Bradley's _Appearance and
+     Reality_ for a similar view; also the latter part of Ward's _Realm
+     of Ends_.
+
+     [45] This weakness of Bergson's philosophy is shown in the whole of
+     Bosanquet's _Principle of Individuality and Value_.
+
+     [46] It is a great merit of Windelband to have brought this aspect
+     of the _Ought_ prominently forward in contradistinction to the
+     over-importance attached to the _Will_ alone by the Pragmatists.
+     _Cf._ his _Praeludien_.
+
+     [47] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 175.
+
+     [48] Modern psychology would agree with such a view, but probably
+     not with the implications given to it by Eucken. The "faculty"
+     psychology as it was presented by Kant has now disappeared, and
+     consciousness is conceived as a unity in which the three aspects
+     referred to are present, and even the single aspect that is in the
+     foreground of consciousness is influenced by the others which are
+     in the background. Another point made clear by Hoeffding (_cf_. his
+     _Psychology)_ and others is the difference between the activity of
+     consciousness in the "drifting" process of association of ideas and
+     its power to stem the association current, and to turn it into new
+     directions by means of the reflective power of consciousness
+     itself.
+
+     [49] It is a great merit of Bergson's philosophy to have pointed
+     this out. It is a conception presented several times in the history
+     of philosophy, but there is great need of re-emphasising it to-day,
+     especially as things in space have gripped the soul with such power
+     and disastrous results.
+
+     [50] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 243.
+
+     [51] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 200. _Cf._ also _Koennen wir noch
+     Christen sein_? pp. 91-141.
+
+     [52] _Cf._ Ward's _The Realm of Ends_, chapters ii. and xx.; also
+     Caird's _Evolution of Religion_ has many valuable hints throughout
+     the two volumes pointing in the same direction.
+
+     [53] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 436.
+
+     [54] Quoted in _The Truth of Religion_, p. 436.
+
+     [55] Cf. _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 429 ff.
+
+     [56] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 430.
+
+     [57] This fact is very clearly interpreted by Rickert in his
+     _Gegenstand der Erkenntnis_.
+
+     [58] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 431.
+
+     [59] I cannot but believe that the supposed proofs brought forward
+     by Sir Oliver Lodge and others are so empirical as to be of very
+     little value to religion.
+
+     [60] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 533.
+
+     [61] _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 367, 368.
+
+     [62] _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 11, 12.
+
+     [63] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 545. It is on this fact that
+     Eucken builds his conception of immortality. Such a conception is
+     not a matter of speculation or of scientific proof, but a matter of
+     an experience born on the summit of the evolution of spiritual life
+     within the soul. It is useless to attempt to press such an
+     experience into a conceptual mould.
+
+     [64] _The Truth of Religion_, pp. 550, 551.
+
+     [65] Driesch is attempting the construction of such a Metaphysic of
+     Nature, and a similar attempt is to be discovered in Bergson's
+     philosophy, especially in its later developments.
+
+     [66] Troeltsch has also emphasised this truth in his _Absolutheit
+     des Christentums und die Religionsgeschichte_ and in his _Bedeutung
+     der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu fuer den Glauben_. These two small
+     volumes are of great value.
+
+     [67] Cf. _Koennen wir noch Christen sein_? pp. 150 to 210; _Das
+     Wesen der Religion; Life's Basis and Life's Ideal_, p. 332 ff.;
+     _Christianity and the New Idealism_, chapter iv.; _The Truth of
+     Religion_, pp. 539 to 616.
+
+     [68] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 360.
+
+     [69] _Das Wesen der Religion_, S. 16.
+
+     [70] The closing sections of _The Truth of Religion._ A similar
+     aspect is presented in the final chapter of _Koennen wir noch
+     Christen sein?_
+
+     [71] _Cf._ J.S. Mackenzie's _Outlines of Metaphysics_ on the
+     various constructions of the Universe and of Life. The whole volume
+     is of the greatest value. _Cf._ also A.E. Taylor's illuminating
+     volume, _Elements of Metaphysics_.
+
+     [72] Cf. _Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_, S. 98 ff.
+
+     [73] _Cf._ Wicksteed's remarkable address _The Religion of Time and
+     the Religion of Eternity_, already referred to. There are some
+     striking similarities between Eucken and Wicksteed, who have,
+     however, worked each quite independently of one another.
+
+     [74] Men of science themselves feel this, and are conscious of the
+     one-sidedness of the results of the scientific side of materialism.
+
+     [75] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 103.
+
+     [76] _Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker_, 9te Auflage,
+     1911, S. 504.
+
+     [77] Liebmann passed away in January 1912. He had been Eucken's
+     colleague in Jena for many years. Windelband designates him as "the
+     truest of Kantians and the Nestor of Philosophy." _Cf._ my article
+     on his life and work in the _Nation_ for February 3, 1912. The best
+     presentation in England of the Kantian philosophy and its
+     development is to be found in Caird's _Critical Philosophy of Kant_
+     and Adamson's _Development of Modern Philosophy. Cf_. also G. Dawes
+     Hicks's valuable articles in the _Proceedings of the Aristotelian
+     Society_ during the past ten years.
+
+     [78] _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_,3te Auflage, 1900, S. vii.
+
+     [79] _Cf._ Dilthey's _Erlebnis und Dichtung_; his article "Die
+     Typen der Weltanschauung und ihre Ausbildung in den metaphysichen
+     Systemen" in _Weltanschauung_; _Philosophie und Religion in
+     Darstellungen_, 1911 also, "Das Wesen der Philosophie" in
+     _Systematische Philosophie_ ("Kultur der Gegenwart").
+
+     [80] _Cf._ Eucken's _Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der
+     Gegenwart_, 5te Auflage, 1912, chapter iv. Also, _Erkennen und
+     Leben_ (1912), ss. 35-51.
+
+     [81] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 574. Many hints in this and other
+     respects may be found in W.R. Boyce Gibson's valuable work, _Rudolf
+     Eucken's Philosophy of Life_(3rd edition, 1912).
+
+     [82] _The Truth of Religion_, p. 71.
+
+     [83] "Gesammelte Aufsaetze": _Die Bedeutung der kleiner Nationen_,
+     pp. 47-52.
+
+     [84] This truth is pointed out most forcibly by L.P. Jacks in his
+     _Alchemy of Thought_, chap. i.
+
+     [85] Eucken visited England for the first time during Whitsun-week
+     1911. He had been invited by the Committee of the British and
+     Foreign Unitarian Association to deliver in London the _Essex Hall
+     Lecture_ for the year. A large audience gathered together to see
+     and hear him, and he received a most cordial reception. He spoke in
+     German on _Religion and Life_, and the lecture has since appeared
+     in English. The Rev. Charles Hargrove, M.A., of Leeds (President of
+     the Association) presided over the meeting, and spoke of the great
+     importance of Eucken's growing influence. Interesting addresses
+     were also delivered by Dr J. Estlin Carpenter, Principal of
+     Manchester College, Oxford; and Dr P.T. Forsyth, Principal of
+     Hackney College. At the luncheon which followed, Professor
+     Westermarck, Dr R.F. Horton, and others spoke. The lecture was
+     repeated at Manchester College, Oxford, during the same week. On
+     Whitsunday Eucken preached in the evening at Unity Church,
+     Islington, London, N., at the invitation of the writer of this
+     volume.
+
+     In September 1912 Eucken sailed for the United States of America to
+     deliver a course of lectures at Harvard University covering a
+     period of six months.
+
+     In both countries he was greeted by a large number of his old
+     pupils, many of whom travelled long distances to see and hear him
+     once more.
+
+     [86] Eucken follows Kant in the fact that after the union of
+     subject and object has taken place a _new kind of objectivity_ has
+     to be taken into account. This result has to be admitted before
+     knowledge becomes possible at all. Eucken has not dealt in a
+     thorough manner with this problem, although several hints are given
+     concerning the importance of this transcendental aspect in Kant's
+     philosophy. The implications of such a _new_ kind of objectivity
+     avoid the danger of subjectivism, on the one hand, and of
+     empiricism on the other hand. Eucken's forthcoming _Theory of
+     Knowledge_ will deal with this important matter. In _Erkennen und
+     Leben_ certain aspects of the problem are touched.
+
+     [87] The volume was translated into English and published in the
+     United States of America by Stuart Phelps in 1880. I am not aware
+     that the work exercised any great influence at the time either in
+     England or America. Eucken's "day" had not then dawned.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+INDEX OF NAMES
+
+
+Adamson, R.
+Adickes.
+Aristotle.
+
+Balfour, A.J.
+Bergson.
+Boehme.
+Bosanquet, B.
+Boutroux.
+Bradley, F.H.
+
+Caird, E.
+Carpenter, E.
+Carpenter, J. Estlin.
+Class, G.
+Copernicus.
+
+Darwin.
+Descartes.
+Dilthey, W.
+Driesch, H.
+
+Fichte.
+Fischer, Kuno.
+Forsyth, P.T.
+
+Galileo.
+
+Gibson, W.R.B.
+Goethe.
+Green, T.H.
+
+Haeckel.
+Haldane.
+Hargrove.
+Harnack.
+Hartmann, Ed. von.
+Hegel.
+
+Hicks, G. Dawes.
+Hoeffding, H.
+Horton, R.F.
+Huegel, F. von.
+Husserl.
+Huxley.
+
+Jacks, L.P.
+James, W.
+Jesus, _cf._ chapters on Historical Religions and Christianity.
+
+Kade, R.
+Kant.
+
+Liebmann, Otto.
+Lipps.
+Lodge, O.
+Lotze.
+Luther.
+
+MacDougall, W.
+Mach, E.
+Mackenzie, J.S.
+Meredith, G.
+Morgan, T.H.
+Muensterberg, H.
+
+Nettleship, R.L.
+Ostwald, W.
+
+Paul.
+Paulsen, F.
+Phelps, Stuart.
+Plato.
+Plotinus.
+
+Reinke.
+Reuter.
+Rickert, H.
+Royce, J.
+Runeberg.
+
+Savonarola.
+Schaefer, E.A.
+Schelling.
+Schiller.
+Schiller, F.C.S.
+Schopenhauer.
+Siebeck, H.
+Simmel, G.
+Socrates.
+Sorley, W.R.
+
+Taylor, A.E.
+Thomson, J.A.
+Trendelenberg.
+Troeltsch, E.
+
+Vaihinger
+Volkelt.
+
+Wallace, W.
+Ward, J.
+Westermarck, E.
+Wicksteed, P.H.
+Windelband, W.
+Wundt, W.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's
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