Had there not been some who did pa.s.s beyond the _Thing and its relations_ the spiritual values of the race would have been annihilated.
"As soon as we demand to pa.s.s 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 cert.i.tude 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, const.i.tute 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 _a.n.a.lysis 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, Munsterberg, Ad.i.c.kes, 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 G.o.dhead. 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 const.i.tuting 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 const.i.tutes 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 G.o.dhead. 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 pa.s.ses, 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.dhead. The new religious metaphysic will then mean a real philosophy of values.
Does this const.i.tute 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 pa.s.ses 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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage ill.u.s.trates well Eucken"s whole att.i.tude 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 G.o.d.
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 a.s.saults 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 pa.s.ses, 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 att.i.tude of Russia towards Finland and Poland is known to all. A greed for territory and a pa.s.sion 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 const.i.tute 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.body, 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 cla.s.s-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 j.a.pan 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 G.o.dhead. 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 const.i.tutes 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 a.n.a.lyses 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 pa.s.s 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 const.i.tutes 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 t.i.tanic struggles this inner world becomes man"s possession, and const.i.tutes the true value and significance of his life. Man now realises that it is this world of spirit and values [p.241] which const.i.tutes 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 pa.s.ses 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, Konnen 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 partic.i.p.ates 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 a.n.a.lysis 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.