An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy

eep 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 m

-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 deepe

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 ph

orne in mind in order that we may understand the prominence he gives to religion, religious idealism, spiritual life, and other similar concepts-concepts

of G?ttingen, we find him preparing himself as a High Sch

s, 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; he

ay 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 me

noticed. 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 la

nessed 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 poetic

th 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 repre

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 and even antagonistic to our ethical needs and ideals. Huxley's conclusion may be justly designa

e need of a Metaphysic of Life, and of the impossibility of constructing such fro

fference between the methods and results of the sciences of Nature and the sciences of Mind. And even amongst the mental sciences

hich is over-individual. Professor Windelband's writings (cf. Pr?ludien, Die Philosophie im XX. Jahrhundert, etc.) have emphasised very clearly

n 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 imp

t 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

e direction of a philosophy which attempts to take into account not only the results of the physical science

scious 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