An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy Part 2

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._ s.p.a.ce 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--s.h.i.+fting 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 partic.i.p.ate; and in the partic.i.p.ation 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 pa.s.ses 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 s.p.a.ce 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 hara.s.s 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 const.i.tute 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 att.i.tude he has expressed towards a mental att.i.tude 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 cla.s.sified 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 const.i.tutes 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 G.o.d. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sions 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 G.o.dhead 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 cras.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.s of mankind such a synthesis is little more than a name, even though that name be G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 att.i.tude 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 ma.s.ses. The ma.s.ses 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 mora.s.s 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 _Beitrage 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 const.i.tute 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 const.i.tutes 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.signed 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sive, descriptive att.i.tude 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 p.r.o.nounced, 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 ant.i.thesis 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 a.s.sociation, 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 encompa.s.sing 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 noology 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 const.i.tutes 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 circ.u.mference, 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 const.i.tutes 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.