Eucken shows that the problems of history are closely allied with those of society. The best accounts of the meaning he attaches to human society are to be found inThe Main Currents of Modern Thought, Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt, andLife Basis and Life Ideal. The conclusions reached in these three books are the same—they are an insistence on the need of spiritual life as a creative power in the utilisation of norms and ideals as well as in the creation of further norms and ideals. He points out the devious paths which human society has travelled over: all these, in the case of society and of the individual, are shown to lead to disaster when they depend merely upon the environment or upon the ideals of a utilitarian mode of a historico-social construction.
Society has gained much through the necessity of emphasising some aspects of a Whole—of thinking and acting collectively—insteadof emphasising merely the Parts. The history of human society, in a very large measure, is the history of shifting the centre of gravity of life alternately from the Whole to the Parts andvice versa. When the centre of gravity remains in some kind of Whole, a number of individuals move towards the same goal, and much that is subjective has to be shifted to the background of life. Now, this is a gain, and it is the only path on which a corporate life becomes possible. Men (and women too) stand shoulder to shoulder when some kind of Whole or Ideal seems to them to be a necessity of their nature. But progress is brought about not only through cementing human beings together in order to move towardsany kindof ideal. The energy is in the right place, but the question has to arise as to thenatureof the over-personal ideal itself. All over-personal ideals cannot connote the good ofall, but the good of all must be present as possessing a validity of its own before any lower over-personal ideal can prevent landing men in disaster. The over-personal ideals which do not include the good of all often represent the good of a section alone, and all other sections have to become convinced that this is a good. Thus many Life-systems present themselves. Each of these includes a good. The problem is, How is each section to realise that there is a good present in what each other section presents?There must be some common standard by which the ideal of each section of the community can be measured, for it is in the light of such a standard alone that the lower good receives its true place, meaning, and value. There are, beyond all sectional over-personal ideals, values which connote the highest 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 anabsolute spiritual lifebefore it can gain any new territory of eternal value. Probably quite as much attention will have to be devoted to the Parts—to the environment, the needs of the hour, the material comforts and happiness of life. But granting that the possession of all these will come about, what then? We are still wretchedly poor in the "inward parts." What we have won has not within itself sufficient spirituality to touch the deepest recesses of the soul. Material plenty and pleasure are a good when they are used as they ought to be used. Where is that "something" that teaches us this? Where is the Ought? The Ought is something outside and infinitely higher than all the gains which the environment or the group is ever able to bring forth. "Life," says Eucken,[36]"cannot be made simplya question of relationship to environment and of the development of mutual relationships (as this tendency would have it) without the independence of the isolated factor [spiritual life] being most seriously reduced. And it must not be forgotten that the individual is the sole source of original spiritual life; corporate social life can do no more than unite and utilise. The maintenance of the strength and freedom of this original life would be less important, and its limitation would be more easily endurable, if human life stood upon a firm foundation and needed only to follow quietly in a naturally appointed direction. In reality, life is not only full of separate problems, but being situated (as it is) between the realm of mere Nature and the spiritual world, must begin by systematically directing itself aright and ascending from the semi-spiritual to the truly spiritual construction of life. It is hence called upon to perform great tasks, which cannot be carried out without serious efforts and the mobilisation of all our spiritual forces. This necessarily leads us back to the original sources of strength, and hence to the individual."
This passage represents well Eucken's main teaching in regard to our social problems. We shall ever fail in the highest sense if the spiritual content of life is no more than ameansto reach material ends, however necessary such ends may be. For in such amanner spiritual life—the universally true and valid—is reduced to a lower plane; 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 creatures of mere impulses and passions, stimulated to activity by a "dead-level" environment. Something of value is gained when even this kind of environment is a good; but the response is quite as readily given to that which is injurious, simply because the "universally true and good" is absent as an inwardness and conviction in the soul.
Without such an inwardness and its content the deeper energy of life is not touched, and men drift with the tide of the environment. Without the ideals or syntheses which are, in their very nature, universal and absolute, progress comes to a standstill, 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 present in the soul to come to any fundamental decision, but life drifts on a river between Yea and Nay; a failure to penetrate beneath thecrust of chance and circumstance becomes evident, and the deeper values and meanings of life disappear.
Eucken's only solution for our present-day troubles is a return to our own deeper nature as this was depicted in previous chapters. The signs of the times, he tells us, are encouraging; the utilitarian mode of life is wearing itself out; the tastes of material comforts have been with us long enough to experience the poverty of their quality; and the mad gamble for the "things which perish" is gradually weeding out its devotees. Eucken's solution to the problems of society is areligiousone. 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. These deal either with petty details or with laws which have no spiritual content whatever in them. Society may proceed with various Life-systems—individualism, socialism, or any other, but until it gets into touch with its deepest soul, each such system of life is hastening towards its own destruction and towards the injury of progress.
The conception of the State is presented by Eucken in a similar manner. He points out how we stop short in our politics of dealing with the universally true and good. Party strives 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 account, so that we find the world to-day spending its energies in warfare concerning many things of minor importance. How can we expect fruition and bliss to follow on such lines?
Eucken presents in a convincing manner the danger of resting upon the external in Society and State. "We are experiencing to-day a remarkable entanglement. The older forms of Life, which had hitherto governed history and its meaning, have become too narrow, petty, and subjective for human nature. Through emancipation from an easy-going subjectivity and through the positing of life upon external things and, indeed, upon the whole of the great universe, Life, it was believed, would gain more breadth and truth; and in a noteworthy manner man undertook a struggle against the pettiness of his own nature and for the drawing out of all that was merely human and trivial. A great 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 hasundermined 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 exclusively Life transforms itself into external work, the more it ceases to be an inner personal experience, and the more alien we become to ourselves. And yet the fact that we can be conscious of such an alienation—an alienation that we cannot accept indifferently —is a proof that more is firmly implanted in us than the modern direction of life is able to develop and satisfy. We acknowledge simultaneously that we have gained much, but that the loss is a painful one. We have gained the world, but we have lost the soul; and, along with this, the world threatens to bring us to nought, and to take away our one secure foothold in the midst of the roaring torrent of material work."[37]
Eucken shows that the individual will obtain his true place in Society and the State only when spiritual ideals have become fixed norms -norms which form the highest synthesis to be conceived of. And Society and the State will discover their vocations in precisely the same manner. It is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that things are not well with the world to-day. The growth of the materialinterests of the world and 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 life that has no substance of duration within itself—cannot be stopped on its reckless career without the presence of spiritual ideals within and without. If the world proceeds in its denial of the reality and need of spiritual life and its over-world, the negation, when it reaches its climax of disaster and despair, will "turn again home"—to the necessity of spiritual values—and out of the ruins a new humanity will emerge.
Thus, once more we are landed into the province of a religion of spiritual life as a necessity in the affairs of the world and of the State. Eucken's great plea is that the civilised 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 our own hands. How to create the consciousness of the situation is the problem of problems, and all individuals are called to bring the whole of their energies to its solution.
It is evident that some kind of uneasiness has to take place in the deepest recess of the human soul, but the best ways and means of doing this are not yet quite evident.[38]We know what we need and what prevents decadence of individuals and nations. "If ye know these things, blessed are ye if yedothem" (Gospel of John). The bridge between 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 than the Church is brought into existence, the peril will remain. No individual conviction, based on anything less than spiritual ideals, will suffice. What we are looking for is in our midst; it is and has been from the very beginning, in spite of an "existential form," largely archaic, present in the spiritual nucleus of the Christian religion.
Eucken has written less on this subject than on any of those which constitute the headings of the chapters of this book. But he has treated art in precisely the same manner as he has treated all other important problems: he has shown that no great art is possible unless it is rooted in a creativeness which isspiritual. In hisMain Currents of Modern Thoughtwe get an instructive account of art and its relation to morality. His account of the development of art in modern times, from the Renaissance to the present day, shows the ebb and flow of the conception of the Beautiful. The check which the Renaissance received through the Reformation in relation to art had its good as well as its evil side. Intense scorn arose in the Protestant world for every kind of image and decoration, because these were supposed to posit life on what was purely sensuous and natural, and so bar the way to the Divine. Still, the obstructioncreated by Protestantism in this direction opened a door in quite another direction. Art of a higher kind than picture or statue arose, which was far removed from the sensuous level and which emerged from a deeper soil within the soul. The whole series of musical composers produced by Germany is a proof of this. The period of theAufklärungviewed art with scant favour, but with the rise of the New Humanism a change in favour of art took place.
The origin of this change is to be found where one might least expect it—in the soul of the sage of Königsberg. Kant'sCritique of Judgmentis unanimously allowed to be the greatest book ever produced on the subject. Goethe and Schiller were influenced by it—the latter in a remarkable manner. We find in these writers an effort to unite the Good and the Beautiful. It is impossible to read the poetry of Goethe without finding that great moral problems are imbedded in his conceptions of the Beautiful. His poetry is an attempt to bridge the chasm between the external world and the soul. His nature was too deep to remain satisfied with the mere impressions of the senses. The union of the worldwithoutwith the worldwithingave him a view of the universe and of human life full of originality and suggestiveness.
Schiller worked in practically the same direction. A moral standpoint of a high orderis to be discovered in his writings, and he believed this standard to be possible of preservation alongside of a legitimate "freedom granted in the phenomenon." "Then the two tendencies again became divided. Romanticism gave a peculiar definite and self-conscious expression to the priority of art and the aesthetical view of life, while Fichte and the other leaders of the national movement exerted a powerful influence in the direction of strengthening morality. The social and industrial type of civilisation, which became more and more powerful during the course of the nineteenth century, was inclined, with its tendency towards social welfare and utility, to assign a subordinate part to art. Modern art arises in protest against this and is ambitious to influence the whole of life; in opposition to morality it holds up an aesthetic view of life as being alone justifiable. Hence at the present time the two spheres stand wide apart."[39]
Eucken shows how such an antithesis between morality and art has partially existed for thousands of years. But whenever a cleavage takes place both morality and art suffer. On the one hand, morality tends to become a system of rules for the performance of which a reward is promised either in this world or in the world to come. On the other hand, art is stripped of the distinction between the values of sensuous things as these express
Themselves in their relation to human life. In the former case, insistence on morality (even on morality alone) has deepened human life; it has given it a more strenuous tone; and it has created a scale of values which alters the whole meaning of life. But morality conceived as a system of regulations and laws has always the tendency to harden and narrow the life, and to posit the individual too much upon himself. Any justification from without—from the physical side—consequently fails to give any help or satisfaction. And man needs this help. As it is impossible for him to fly out of the world to some region where mind or spirit alone reigns, he has to do the best he can with the physical world in the midst of which he exists. It is within such a world that he has to cultivate the spiritual potencies of his own being. It is true that the spiritual potencies of his own being are higher and of more value than anything in Nature. Still, that does not mean that Nature has to be discarded or condemned before the potencies of his own being can develop. Nature is not a mere blind machine; it has produced all—including man and his potencies—that is to be found on the face of it. It is therefore not entirely meaningless, and the meaning it possesses is a necessary element in the evolution of personal spiritual life. Man must enter into some relation with Nature. But such a relation produces even more than all this. When viewed in a friendly mood,Nature herself wears an aspect higher than a materialistic or intellectual one. It calls forth the best in imagination; it enables us to feel that something of the power that dwells within the soul dwells also in all the manifestations of phenomena.[40]This fact is evident in all the poetry of the world, and without the perpetual presence of Nature to the soul in the form of wonder, reverence, and admiration, no poetry worthy of the name is possible. Nature thus is of value in the fact that when its phenomena present themselves to a consciousness aware not only of itsknowingaspect but also of itsfeelingaspect, the union of Nature and soul produces a feeling of reality which creates an ideal nature. "The light that never was on sea or land" becomes now on sea and land; it illuminates the whole scene with a "halo and glory" which was concealed before. But there must be present "an eye of the soul" united with the physical impressions before all this is possible. Indeed, the effect of all this is nothing less than an ideal creation of a world consisting of Nature and the spiritual potencies of man. It is evident that if theinternalfactor, which represents itself in the form of morality or value, is absent, the picture of Nature is quite different. And this is Eucken's complaint in regard to much of the art of the present day: the internal factor is absent. Seriousness is not blended with freedom in it; or, in other words, theinwardhas no power to pass its quality into theoutward. But when theinwardis present in the form of morality or value, then art becomes joyous, serious, helpful, and disinterested. This last aspect of the disinterestedness of art was perceived clearly by Kant, and has formed an important contribution to the philosophy and even to the religion of the nineteenth century. When a potency of the soul, gained in a province outside art (as is the case with morality or value), operates, there is no danger of art degenerating into mere subjectivism; otherwise there is a very grave danger. Loosened from morality it becomes a mere play of decoration and fancy—a mere superficial embroidery of an empty life; it can look on the human world and all its struggles with an indifferent and often cynical mood. Why has all this happened? Because the inward factor of the "strenuous mood" has been replaced by a sentimental factor based on nothing deeper than the satisfaction of the senses; and the result of this is found in feelings which are more psychical than spiritual in their nature.
But that art is necessary for any completionof life is seen by the fact that its contribution to the soul is more than athoughtcontribution. For the deeper life of the spirit of man is more than thought, although thought forms an essential element of it; this deeper life has wider demands than can be expressed in the form of logical propositions. Eucken shows how true art is therefore indissolubly connected with spiritual life. "Without the presence of a spiritual world [the resultant of the union of the spiritual potencies and external objects], art has no soul and no secure fundamental relationship to reality, and in no way can it develop a fixed style. We hear to-day of a 'new style,' and are in the saddle after such a conception. But shall we find it so long as the whole of life does not fasten itself upon simple fundamental lines and does not follow the main path in the midst of all the tangle of effort? How is it possible to attain to a unity of interpretation where our life itself fails in the possession of a governing unity? We discover ourselves in the midst of the most fundamental transformations of life; old ideals are vanishing, and new ones are dawning on the horizon. But as yet they are all full of unrest and unreadiness; and the situation of man in the All of things is so full of uncertainty that he has to struggle anew for the meaning and value of his life. If art has nothing to say to him and no help to offer—if it relegates these questions far from itself—then art itself must sink to the level of asubsidiary play the more these problems win the mind and spirit of man. But if art is capable of bringing a furtherance of values to man in his needs and sorrows, it will have to recognise and acknowledge the problems of spiritual life as well as participate in the struggle for the vindication and formation of a spiritual world. When art does this, these questions which engage our attention are also its questions."[41]
In spite of the contradictions of life, in spite of much which seems indifferent to human weal and woe within the physical universe, the contradictions may be surmounted by the union of man's spirit with other aspects of existence which look in an opposite direction. The ideal world of art is not to be discovered by ignoring these contradictions, but by acknowledging them to the full, and by seeing that Nature is supplemented by man and his soul. Such a union, as has already been pointed out, will create an earnestness and joyousness of life; it will enable man, when any teleology of Nature herself fails to give him satisfaction, to realise a teleology within thesubstanceof his own life—spiritual in its essence, infinite in its duration, and the flowering of a bud which has grown with the help of the natural cosmos. When Nature is thus viewed as a preparatory stage for spirit, it will wear an aspect very different from the mechanical one. Its real teleologywill be seen: there can be no dispute about it; it has actually produced man, and man has now to carry farther the evolutionary process. Eucken has presented this aspect in a fine manner in his article on Schiller inKantstudien[42](Band X., Heft 3),Festschrift zu Schillers hundertstem Todestage. No one in modern times discovered the contradictions of the world in regard to the needs of man more than Schiller. And yet no one led a more joyous life than this "half-poet, half-thinker." Pressed from within and without by many alien elements, he overcame them all and found, despite his physical weakness, what a gift life is. It is in the direction of a great synthesis of spiritual life and natural phenomena that true art will discover the qualities for a permanent duration. Such a synthesis will enrich the spiritual life, and will grant it something of higher construction concerning the meaning and value of the union of Nature and Man. So Eucken has once more landed us into the spiritual life as the source and goal of all true Art.
"Only the rooted knowledge to high senseOf heavenly can mount, and feel the spurFor fruitfullest achievement, eye a markBeyond the path with grain on either hand,Help to the steering of our social ArkOver the barbarous waters unto land."[43]
We have followed Eucken's system developing step by step from the stage of knowing the world up through the evolution of spiritual life in history, in the soul, in art, and in society. 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 themselves to consciousness. Something spiritual has persisted and evolved in the midst of all the changes, and the changes have been utilised by this deeper potency of the soul. Through the evolution of this spiritual potency changes have been brought about in the external world, in human society, and in the individual soul. This spiritual potency has bent things to subserve its own inherent demands. The union of conation and cognition within the soul has brought forth everything that has happened outside the natural process of the physical world, and much even of that worldhas been made subservient to man. When the attention is turned to this "fact of facts" concerning the work of spiritual life, individually and collectively, it is impossible to consider it as a mere addendum to the natural process, however closely connected it may be with that process. Sufficient has been said to prove the superiority of spiritual life over the whole aspects and manifestations of Nature. The question, then, cannot be laid 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 question arises, What is reality? Eucken agrees with the great idealists of the world that reality in its highest manifestation issomething that pertains to spirit and meaning rather than to matter and its behaviour.[44]Our rigid clinging to a meaning of reality from the side of its physical history is doubtless a remnant of a race—memory which may be largely physical in its nature. We find a difficulty in conceiving as yet a reality existing in itself—existing in itself though material elements have helped it on its upward course. But even here it is not at all certain that nothing but material elements have operated in this fundamental process. Men have by now known enough of the connection of mind with lower processes in order to be aware of a mystery present in the whole operation—a mystery which does not yield itself to the senses.
But even such a past history of the spiritual life is not all that can be said concerning it. It isnowin process of evolution, and its greatest work is always accomplished not by looking backward but forward. The whole universe has operated in bringing spiritual life into existence. Are there any reasons whatever for concluding that the whole universe is not co-operatingnowin its further development? Life, civilisation, culture, morality, and religion are proofs that this life of the spirit is moving onward and upward. It does not move without checks and entanglementsfrom 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 theSollen(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 abeyond. It is not abeyondwithin any physical region thatwas; neither is it, so far as we know, abeyondin any physical region thatis to be. It is abeyond of the spirit; and as it is the most real and most requisite possession of man, how can it have anything less than acosmicsignificance? The future of spiritual life is therefore governed not by something that isto bein the cosmos, but by something that isnowpresent in it—by the acknowledgment, assimilation, and appropriation by man and humanity of spiritual norms which are far beyond their present actual situation.
The whole meaning here is that somethingsub specie aeternitatishas to take the foremost place in life. We are beings who perpetuallymove. Eucken and Bergson are both emphasising this to-day. But the latter deals with the movement alone; he has no notion whither we are going, nor can he possibly have until he revises very largely his conception of the function and meaning of intellect in life.[45]ButEucken states that we do know whither we are going. What are the over-personal spiritual norms and standards but stars by which to steer the direction of our course over the tempestuous sea of time? Everyone who guides his life in connection with reason guides it by means of some norm or other. Even the daily avocation requires this in order to be fulfilled. And the norms which furnish guidance to the spiritual life have originated and are utilised in precisely the same manner as those of the daily avocation. The only difference is that there is more meaning and value in the former than in the latter. But each is aSollenand constitutes abeyond. ThisSollenis a certainty; it exists, and its existence isin itself.It is the star for theWollen.[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 theSollenthe nature of theSollenmust become known. As noticed in previous chapters, such a movement towards so higha 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 secondary importance. Unless this meaning of the norm becomes clear, life will revolve around the reality nearest-at-hand, and will consequently fail to unfold the deeper spirituality of its nature. "And if all depended on the brief flash of the moment, which endures but the twinkling of an eye, only to vanish into the dark of nothingness, then all life would mean a mere exit into death. Thus, without eternity there is no spirituality, and without connection there is no content of life. But what is enthroned in itself above Time becomes for the man who wins such a spirituality, first of all, an immense task which allows itself to be grasped on the field of Time alone; and, also, the Eternal which works within us and which hovers before us on the horizon of Eternity can become our full possession only through the movement of Time. To wish to check the course of Time means not to serve Eternity, but to ascribe to Time what belongs to Eternity."[47]
It is not said by Eucken anywhere in his writings that thenaturalsources at which Life drinks must be abandoned. These remain with us as long as we are in this world of space andtime. But these are not found in the same place, neither is the same importance attached to them, once the meaning and value of the over-personal norms and the potency of spiritual creativeness have come into union with one another.
What Eucken means by universal religion is the establishment of this independency and supremacy of spiritual life over all else in the world. We have already dealt with this aspect in former chapters; the conclusion was reached that everywhere the presence of a life of the spirit made itself felt, and gave a meaning and interpretation to all life and existence. That is the conclusion Eucken arrives at in hisKampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt.The problem of religionquareligion 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. Having come so far in regard to the value and meaning of spiritual life, we are bound to gofarther. No point occurs where we can find a terminus. Though we have already been constrained to grant the norms a reality of their own, we have only just touched, here and there,upon theircosmicsignificance. The matter thus reaches a further point than we have yet touched. What justification is there for granting spiritual life this cosmic significance?
Attention has already been called to the fact of a distinction between nature and spirit. But attention has now to be directed to the necessity of emphasising the reality of spirit. The nature of spirit is revealed most clearly in the life and content of human consciousness. No anthropomorphic standard from without can come to our aid to establish the existence of spirit. The standard is to be found within the consciousness itself. A distinction has to be made betweennature 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 assubstance. The chief characteristic of matter is that it occupies space; but spirit, though connected with, and largely conditioned by, matter as it exists in space, is now something quite other—something which has to be granted an existence of its own, and which forms the beginning of anew kind of worldand unfolds anew kind of reality.
The reality of spiritual life is not discovered in anything which is external to life; it is to be found in life itself. The reality is revealed and, indeed, created by an act of the spirit of man. Such an act must be the act of one'sown deepest being. But although such a new reality is not to be found in anything external to life, yet the very revelation points, as we have already observed, to something which is over-individual. Even the meaning of the reality itself, from itsimmanentside, 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 in the ordinary life. A cleavage is therefore made between the "small self" and the spiritual life. In the degree the former wins through the calling forth of the deepest activities of the soul, in that degree does the transcendent aspect of the new reality urge itself upon man. And when the two aspects—immanent and transcendent—of the reality are firmly grasped by the soul, the soul moves upward in the exploration and possession of its new world.
The failure to enter into this region of religion is due to the fact that men often attempt to construct religion on certain so-called faculties of the soul. Some attempt to discover and establish religion through the power and conclusions of the intellect. It is evident that when the knowing aspect of consciousnesstakes such a leading part, and deliberately ignores the affective and active aspects, no more than a segment of the reality can be discovered, and such a segment leaves out of account important elements of human nature. If the affective aspect takes the lead at the expense of the other two aspects, we are here again in a region where only certain fragments of our nature 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 hisTruth of Religionthat 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 tobethe thing we know weought to be.It is unfamiliarity with such a truth that brings a difficulty into the mind when face to facewith the problem of religion. The mind has not learned how to attend to the truth in its own self-subsistence, but posits this truth in its relation to the conditions in the external world which brought it forth.[49]Thus the conception of truth is made up very largely of its history on its physical side, and this history of the truth comes to possess the entire meaning of the truth itself! The road to religion, in its deepest sense, is barred to everyone who fails or refuses to grant the deeper reality which presents itself within the soula self-subsistence.The only existence of such a reality can be its own self-subsistence. The reality is now conceived as something quite other than an existence in space; it exists for consciousness and can persist within consciousness.
When reality is conceived as a substance subsisting in itself, the passage to the Absolute is opened. This Absolute is the most universal and complete meaning and value which the soul is capable of possessing; its very nature forces itself upon man as being true; and its value has revealed itself in its being the only power which will carry farther the spiritual evolution of the soul. If such an Absolute is left out of account, it is evident that the most universaltruth which presents itself to life as absolutely necessary cannot enter into the deepest recesses of the soul; it cannot be more than a subsidiary element accompanying lower intellectual elements of life, which are more closely allied on such a lower level with physical processes of the body and with the physical world. And when truth is treated in this manner, it cannot possibly make its abode and become a power in the soul. Consciousness hesitates to create a further cleft within itself because the evidence of truth at such a height as this does not lend itself to the senses. The result is that the full power of the truth fails to produce effects on the consciousness, and thus keeps it on practically the same level as that on which it has been accustomed to work. The higher truth—the higher spiritual life—has not become anything more than a fact of knowledge or a probability. It has not become one's own life. It is only when this higher aspect of spiritual life becomesone's own life, and is acknowledged and used, that it is ever possible for man to become the possessor of an original energy, of an independent governing centre, and so to realise himself as a co-carrier of a cosmic movement. This is the presupposition of religion: it testifies that within man'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 oftruths 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 thedifferentvalues 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 beingobjectivein 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 itis a proof of its existence somewhere at the core of the universe. It cannot mean an illusion; it brings changes of too fundamental a nature to be no more than that. Its very value and the enormous difficulty of turning it from being an idea into being a possession demand too much energy of the soul to allow of its being dismissed without any more ado. It contains elements so different in their nature from the ordinary life of the hour as to render it impossible to be considered of no more than of subsidiary importance. For it has to be borne in mind that the values and norms farthest removed from the regions of sense and intellect appear only when man follows the drift of his own higher being; it is not when he remains effortless and satisfied with the life of the hour that such values and norms appear. They appear when the ordinary life is seen through as no more than a stage for the further evolution of the soul through the grasping of a higher kind of reality than has as yet presented itself to it. As Eucken says: "Religion proves itself a kingdom of opposites. When it steps out of such opposites, it destroys without a doubt the turbidity and evanescence of ordinary commonplace life, and separates clearly the lights and shadows from one another. It sets our life between the sharpest contrasts, and engenders the most powerful feelings and the most mighty movements; it shows the dark abyss in our nature, but alsoshows illumined peaks; it opens out infinite tasks, and brings ever to an awakening a new life in its movement against the ordinary self. It does not render our existence lighter, but it makes it richer, more eventful, and greater; it enables man to experience cosmic problems within his own soul in order to struggle for a new world, and, indeed, in order to gain such a genuine world as its own proper life."[50]
All this is not a matter of speculation, but of fact. And it is in the recognition of this fact that Eucken's philosophy of religion constitutes a new kind of idealistic movement—a movement tending more and more in the direction of Christianity. But he differs here again from the absolute idealists and the pragmatists. The former base their Absolute upon the demands of logic, whilst Eucken bases all upon the demands and potencies of life; 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 individual does not become aware of a burning desire to move in the direction of the goal.The pragmatist leaves the individual at the mercy of the momentary content of consciousness; this content is quite as likely to be trivial as to be great; and hence there is no absolute standard present to determine the nature and value of this content of the moment, and consequently no more than a life of effortless drifting can issue out of all this.
This blend of absolutism and pragmatism is richer in its content than either of the two. Each has missed something of importance, and it is here supplied by Eucken.
Norms and potency become two indissoluble factors in the evolution of the higher life. As already stated, the norms have an objectivity of their own, and consequently when they enter into life, life becomes conscious of their being somethinggivenand not brought into existence by its own potency. It is out of this conclusion to which life is forced that the doctrine of Grace, found in some way or other in all religions, is to be accounted for. And it is out of the consciousness of the interval between norm and achievement that the sense ofguiltfollows man whenever he penetrates deeply into the deeper experiences of the soul. Grace and guilt—naming only two experiences of the soul—are not remnants of a traditional theology, but essential elements which accompany the deepest experience of the soul. When they are wanting, it is most probable that the soul has not plumbed its ownexistence to its very depths, but has rather chosen to be satisfied with what lies but a little way beneath the surface—with what does not cause too much uneasiness, but is sufficient for a life to persist as a good member of the society by which it is surrounded. Only half a religion can become the possession of any individual who does not at least pay as much attention to the nature and value of over-individual norms as he pays to the nature of the environment and of the ordinary life. It is always a sign that humanity is drifting to the shallows of life when it looks upon religion as the flowering of the mere natural life of good custom, earthly happiness, and ease. Whenever the tragedy born in the conflict between norms and ordinary life is absent, the very elements which constitute greatness and the "taste of eternity" are also absent. It is on account of this 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 manwho 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 progress has not been continuous, there has been a gain in the "long run." But the point to bear in mind is that it is the power of the over-individual ideal which has carried the race along. Ideals have been perverted, it is true; they have beendrawn down and mixed with what was inferior in its nature, yet they have never been completely destroyed in this evil process. They have still a marvellous power of disentangling themselves from human perversions, and of revealing themselves once more in their pristine power and glory. "But the spiritual life declares its ability also positively within the human province through a persistent effort to move outside the 'given' situation, through a tracing out and a holding forth of ideals, through a longing after a more complete happiness and a more complete truth. Why is not man satisfied with the relativity which so obstinately clings to his existence? Why has he a longing for the Absolute in opposition to such relativity, and through this plunges himself into the deepest sorrows and distractions? This has happened not only in special situations of individuals, but in the whole process of culture; indeed, the upward march of culture would have been impossible without a striving of man from a level above his 'given' position and even above himself. Was not subjective satisfaction more easily reached by him in the semi-animal stages of his existence than in culture and civilisation with all their toils and tangles, and does the progress of culture and civilisation with all their mechanical appliances make him in the merely human sense happier? What else could compel him to step into this perilous track but the necessity of his own naturerevealing to him the presence of a new order of things?"[51]
The whole of this movement is from within without. Even the physical world has to enter into consciousness before it can be known and interpreted; even the over-individual norms have to be accepted and interpreted by the spiritual potency before the reality which they possess in themselves can become our own personal reality. We receive from without on the plane of Nature and on the planes of mentality and spirituality. The consciousness 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 materialwithinconsciousness; it has to awaken a potency, and has to distil its own content within that potency. But as this potency is not of the same nature entirely as what presents itself as possessing value, it is clear that the higher element which presents itself has to enter into a struggle for the throne of life with elements of a lower order. As this all-important fact has been dealt with in a previous chapter, there is no need to dwell on it again; but it is well to bear in mind that the factconstitutes an important element in Eucken's conception of "universal" religion.
"Universal" and "Characteristic" religion do not constitute two different religions, but two grades of the one religion. In "Universal" religion Eucken deals very largely with the intellectual grounds of religion. He is aware that it is necessary for us to carry our whole potencies into religion. Intellect is one of these, and we cannot 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 by the very theory of knowledge itself. It is a great gain for man to know that this is so—that in so far as knowledge testifies anything in regard to religion and spiritual life it affirms more than it negates. It is of enormous advantage to be assured that knowledge is on our side in the quest for something that is deeper than itself.
Further, Eucken conceives it as the function of religion on this "Universal" level to present, on the other hand, the actual situation. What but knowledge can reveal to us the difference between spiritual norms and ordinary life, between intellect working alone and intellect merged with the spiritual potency of one'sbeing? We are bound to know these and a hundred other things. They all go to prove that there is justification for the movement of spiritual life in the direction of an over-world, and in its hope for the possession 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 the life. Thus, something of the nature of the higher reality has touched the soul and will of man. Weknowin what we have believed. This is a stage which must be passed through, for we can never feel certain upon a higher altitude unless we are certain of what had led to it. And although, on the higher altitude, there is the merging of intellectual truth in something higher than itself, still what is discovered on this higher level is richer in content if we can call up at times intellectual affirmations for its support.
But "Universal" religion has its limitations, and has to pass into something more characteristic, specific, and personal. The over-personal norms, which are spiritual in their very nature,have not only to be interpreted, they have also to be appreciated and reverenced. TheHowof their appearance, after it is settled, takes a secondary place, 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 the creation and sustaining power of all life. A communion with the Godhead now takes place, and man finds himself in possession of experiences brought about without the intervention of the world. Thus "Universal" religion culminates in a "Characteristic" or personal religion. And to this culmination, as it is presented by Eucken, we now turn.
On the level of "Universal" religion great changes have taken place in life. The consciousness and conviction of the reality of a new kind of world have arisen; the sensuous, and even partially the intellectual, domains have been relegated to a secondary place: other values, higher in their nature and more universal in their scope, have attracted the attention of mind and soul. In all this a change has taken place in the disposition as well as in the will. Prior to this change the character had not become conscious of its own inwardness, but remained subservient to the norms of social and moral inheritance. Some amount of morality and good will have issued forth in this manner, and, indeed, the gain cannot be over-estimated. But it is evident that something further has to happen if the movement of society is to proceed onward and upward, and if the energy for such a movement is to be discovered within the soul. The whole material which enters into consciousness has to obtain a deeper meaningthan it hitherto possessed. And this happens on the level of "Universal" religion. Thespiritualis now recognised as the highest manifestation of life; and this spiritual is seen to be something which has to be gained through a struggle which calls the whole nature into activity. Such a movement from the less to the more spiritual proceeds side by side with thefreedomof the individual. Freedom has now taken a new meaning. Hitherto it meant little more than the consciousness of the individual moving along the line of least resistance. The effort to move in such a direction is generally pleasurable; and when it tends to become painful the individual gives up the effort. The highest norms were not present with a categorical affirmation of their reality and value. But when they are present, the will is turned from the direction of ordinary life and its ease to the conception of the meaning and value of the highest norms. Something, appearing as of intrinsic value, now makes itself felt, and stirs the whole nature. Thus, anew movementbegins; thepassiveattitude of the soul gives way to anautonomousattitude and movement. The will, consequently, is conscious of a deeper need than any hitherto experienced, and therefore calls into being some deeper elements of its own in order to reach its goal. The whole nature has now affirmed theidea of the good, which had dawned upon it as an imperative. It is insuch a moment that the real nature becomes free—it becomes conscious, through and through, of the possibility of leaving its old world and of ascending into a new one. This is, in Eucken's words, the real spiritual evolution (Wesensbildung) of human nature. This evolution, which, prior to this, was considered very largely as a kind of gift of the environment, is now perceived as capable of realisation only in so far as the spiritual norms are willed. When we examine the progress of humanity, we discover that it has taken place in this manner; a task had to be set and the whole nature had to be called forth to realise it. The result is that a new creation takes place in the history of the world. Such a creation becomes a new norm in the moral world, as well as a possession in the life of the individual who has struggled to realise it.
Such a spiritual process, after something of its nature has been realised, finds necessities laid upon it on all hands. Once we have stepped into the very centre of spiritual norms and ideals they begin to reveal with a wonderful rapidity and impressiveness their own intrinsic content and value. "Universal" religion has enabled us to realise that we are dealing with "grounds" which are a demand of the deepest nature, and with convictions which seem, without a doubt, "to ring true." The man has found a shelter in the midst of all the chaos and welter of the natural process,and his deepest reason has not failed to come to the assistance of his spiritual need. He now becomes conscious of security and even of victory in the enterprise before the battle has really begun on an arena outside his own nature; a conviction is being brought into being within his deepest soul that the best and strongest elements in the universe are on his side. Although hindrances and entanglements of all kinds increase in number, the increase in spiritual certainty, and faith in the final issue of his life, have grown at a greater ratio. Such a man has settled his destiny; he has come to the great spiritual affirmation of life—an affirmation which has to be repeated so often, and which each time distils something of a higher order within the soul.
It is evident that such an affirmation of the reality of spiritual ideals, which have now an existence of their own, should lead us farther. If they mean so much, why cannot they mean more? If they subsist in themselves, they must be what theyare. They are to us meaning and value of infinite significance. But such and other spiritual characteristics arenot things, and, as we have seen, not mere projections of our own individual selves. There is nothing short of personality and over-personality by which they can be even partially designated and determined. We are forced to this conclusion if they are to be objects of communion and union: and we are forcedfurther to gather the Many into the One. That was what was done on all lower planes. Why stop short here, because infinitely much happens when the Many find their points of union and meaning in the One?[52]We have said that infinitely much happens when the Many find their meaning in the One. A need of the nature has arisen which demands this, and it has arisen at itshighest possible level alone. Such a nature will never become absolutely certain of the meaning and value of all that has led up to this until the One obtains a self-subsistence. If this effort fails, the whole effort of development towards unity and inwardness fails. And when such a chain of effort snaps at its highest link of spiritual development, everything that had entered into the process at all the levels below it snaps along with it in so far as it had any validity whatever in the light of what is higher than itself.
But the fact that this conception of the One, conceived as Absolute Spiritual Life, has produced so many effects of the highest kind is a proof of its existence. Qualities come into being which can never come with such power in any other way. The spiritual experiences, revealed at such a level, have something to say on this matter. These experiences,although aware of the meaning of universal concepts, have become aware of something higher still: Knowledge has given place to Love; a region has been reached beyond all the contradictions of the world and beyond all the dialectics of knowledge. It is a region which includes the good of all without injuring the good of any; and all the meaning of the world and of life is interpreted from this highest standpoint. This is the essence of "characteristic" or specific religion. On the level of "universal" religion, God was seen from the standpoint of the world; in "characteristic" religion the world is seen from the standpoint of God. The appearance of the world is consequently different from each standpoint. All must now be viewed and valued from the standpoint of "characteristic" religion, from the standpoint of the One—the Godhead; and if humanity is ever to be brought to this standpoint, the nature and the meaning of the One have to be presented to it. And it is this, as Eucken shows, which has been partially accomplished by the religions of the world. Their founders were personalities who had scaled the heights towards the "holy of holies" of the One; they descended into the plains to reveal what they had seen and heard and experienced on the heights. They had been able to commune with the Alone, and their natures had been completely transformed. In passing thus from the stage of "universal"religion to the higher stage of "characteristic," men have discovered a further security and spiritual evolution of their whole being. Their views of man and the world have become changed; they now long to make mankind the possessor of the "vision splendid" which has meant all for them. Communion with the One as Infinite Love has revealed to them a peace and a power which are far beyond all the lower unities.
It is of value, in the midst of all the complexities of life, of the partial interpretations of the various branches of knowledge, to have passed through the several stages below the One. Some must guard the highest citadel of religion and keep open the avenues to Infinity, Eternity, and Immortality. And the greater the number who are able to do this, the better for the world and for the individual. But a taste of this Infinite Love can be obtained without all this. Just as some of us are able to walk without a knowledge of the bodily mechanism and to eat and digest without a knowledge of the history of our bread, so the deeper spiritual potencies inherent in man are able to find a vast amount of satisfaction by resting upon and trusting in a Love Absolute, Eternal, and Infinite. Here, man is in a region of infinite calm beyond the distractions of the world and of knowledge. He cannot remain here for any great length of time; he has to return to the world, but he is neveragain the same being after having scaled the "mount of transfiguration." "Religion holds as certain and conclusive that this new inner foundation is the greatest thing of all and the wonder of wonders, because it carries within itself the power and certainty of the overcoming of the old world and the creation of a new one; it is on account of this that religion longs for the conviction of the whole man, and brands the denial of this as pettiness and unbelief. The world may therefore remain to the external view as it appeared before—a kingdom of opposition and darkness; its hindrances within and without may seem to nullify everything else; they may contract and even seemingly destroy man and his spiritual potencies; all his acts may seem fruitless and vain, and his whole existence may seem to sink into nothingness and worthlessness. Yet, through the entrance of the new life and a new world, everything is transformed from within, and the clearness of the light appears all the more by contrast with all the depth of the darkness. Indeed, in the midst of all the mysteries of existence, hope and conviction and certainty will consolidate our experience, so that ultimately evil itself must serve the development of the good."[53]Or in the words of Luther: "This is the spiritual power which reigns and rules in the midst of enemies, and is powerful in the midstof all oppression. And this is nothing other than that strength is perfected in weakness, and that in all things I can gain life eternal, so that cross and crown are compelled to serve and to contribute towards my salvation."[54]
Eucken shows how this idea of God comes from the Life-process itself. The Godhead is present, not as an external revelation but as the ever fuller meaning and experience which have been carried along in the soul in its passage from the natural level to the highest spiritual plane. At its summit the development unfolds its true spiritual content of Love. The Highest Power—however much there still remains dark concerning it—has had communication with man, is present within his soul, has become his own life and nature, as well as his self-subsistence over against the order of the world. Here Love is raised up into an image of the Godhead—Love as a self-communication and as an essential elevation of the nature, and as an expression of inmost fellowship.[55]"There originates a mutual intercourse of the soul and God as between an I and a Thou." It has already been stated that Eucken insists that no close determination, in an intellectual form, should be given to this conception and experience of God. The idea of a personality of God is not an intellectual idea presented in any doctrinal form; it is an ideabornwithintheLife-processon its highest levels. On such levels it becomes obvious and indispensable. Man may be clearly conscious of the symbolism of the idea, and yet, at the same time, grasp in it an incontestable intrinsic truth which he knows to be far above all mere anthropomorphism. Eucken shows that it is not merely a human greatness that has been transferred to the Divine, but that the whole meaning here is a return to the source of a Divine Life and its mutual communication with man; and therefore the whole process is not an argument of man concerning the Divine, because the Divine has to be apprehended through the Divine within us. "All opposition to the idea of the Divine personality is ultimately explained by the fact that an energetic Life-process is wanting—a Life-process which entertains the question not so much from without as from within. Whenever such a Life-process is found, there is simultaneously found, often in overt contradiction to the formal doctrinal statement, an element of such a personal character of God."[56]But thisimmanentaspect of the idea of God is accompanied by atranscendentaspect. We have noticed already that the very nature of theOughtincluded a transcendent and objective aspect.[57]The same fact becomes evident inreligious experience. The two poles—immanence and transcendence—are complementary. The former shows that something of the Divine nature has been implanted within human nature; the latter shows that more is in existence than we have already possessed. Spiritual norms never decrease but increase in splendour the nearer man is to their attainment. Something is here discovered which is not found in the world; it is a kind of transcendent summit, a mysterious sublimity. And an approach towards this summit produces experiences never to be possessed in any other kind of way. As Eucken himself puts it: "If this sublimity superior to the world secures an abode in the soul, and, indeed, becomes the inmost and most intimate part of our being, and enables us to participate in the self-subsistence of infinity, it opens up within us a fathomless depth, in which the existence that lies nearest to our hands is swallowed up, and it makes us a problem to ourselves—a problem which transforms the whole of life—whilst it enables us to understand and to handle what at the outset appeared to be its whole life as a mere phase and appearance. Thus it is the same religion which opens out from God to man and which simultaneously opens itself out in man himself and becomes a great mystery to him. Therefore, in the idea of God the intimate and the ultimate must both be present if religion is to reach its full development and toavoid the dangers which everywhere threaten it."[58]Both these aspects interlace in one Life-process; the unity is present in the manifold, and the ultimate present in the intimate.