An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy

e 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-

e of society and of the individual, are shown to lead to disaster when they depend merely upo

est 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, 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

e; 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 creat

tandstill, 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

y; 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

rives against party, and nation against nation. Groups of all hues and cries propound their own particular ideals as the all-important ones. Higher ideals are left out of acco

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 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 exclusivel

nd 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

lised 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

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 tha