An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy

iety. 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

d 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 quest

ng onward and upward. It does not move without checks and entanglements 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

e 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 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 secon

s long as we are in this world of space and time. But these are not found in the same place, neither is the same importance attached to t

t. 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. Ha

o 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 sub

g 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 i

e 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 with the problem of religion. The mind has not learned how to attend to the truth in its own s

an'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 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 is a proof of its existence somewhere at the core of the universe. It cannot mean an illusion; it bring

fe; 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 indi

ts content than either of the two. Each has missed som

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 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

ess 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 sam

not 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 b

ession 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

ace, 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 th