RELIGION AND EVOLUTION
Eucken accepts gladly the theory of descent in Darwinism, but insists
that the theory of selection must be clearly distinguished from it.
He agrees with Edward von Hartmann that the doctrine of selection is
inadequate to explain the phenomena of life. But, as he points out,
there is much which is true and helpful in the theory of selection
even in regard to human life. "In all quarters there is a widespread
inclination to go back to the simplest possible beginnings, which
exhibit man closely related to the animal world, to trace back the
upward movement not to an inner impulse, but to a gradual forward
thrust produced by outward necessities, and to understand it as a mere
adaptation to environment and the conditions of life. It seems to be a
mere question of natural existence, of victory in the struggle against
rivals."[5] But he is not satisfied that such an explanation covers the
[p.27] phenomena of consciousness. If there were no more than this at
work in the higher forms of life, the things of value--the things which
have meant so much in the upward development of humanity--would be
reduced to mere adjuncts of physical existence. If mental and moral
values mean no more than this, they are simply annihilated. But the
values of life are something quite other than any physical manifestation;
and however much they are conditioned by physical changes it is
inconceivable that what is purely physical should be the sole cause of
them. Man would never have risen so far above Nature, and become able to
be conscious of his own personality and of the meaning of the world, had
there not been present from the very beginning some spiritual potency
which could receive the impressions of the external world and bind them
together into some kind of connected Whole. This connected Whole may be
no more in the beginning than a potency without any content, and its
roots may be discerned in the world below man; but without such a
potency, different in its nature from physical things, the whole meaning
of the evolution of mind and spirit is utterly unintelligible. But what
can this potency mean but something which includes within itself the
germ of that which later comes out in the form of the values which have
been gained in the life of the individual and of the race?
[p.28] In order to understand Eucken's conceptions concerning Spirit,
Whole, Totality, and other similar terms, this fact has to be borne in
mind. The capacity for _more_ is present in man's nature. It may remain
dormant in a large measure, but it is not entirely so, as witnessed by
the fact that men have scaled heights far above Nature and the ordinary
life of the day. And humanity, on the whole, has climbed to a height to
give some degree of meaning to the life of the day--a meaning superior
to physical impressions, and which is able to see somewhat behind,
around, and beyond itself. Wherever this happens, it comes about through
the presence and activity of the life of the spirit within man. The
spiritual life is, then, a possession of man, but it is a possession
only in so far as it is used. It is subject to helps and hindrances from
the world; it is not freed from its own content; it can never say,
"So far and no further according to the bond and the duty"; it has to
undergo a toilsome struggle before it can ever become the possessor of
the new kind of world to which it has a right.
In all this we notice something in the _new world of consciousness_
similar to what happens within the physical world. In the world of
nature no animate (and probably no inanimate) thing has received a
_donum_ which it may preserve as its own without effort. Everything that
has value has to be preserved through [p.29] struggles necessitated by
the changing conditions of the impinging environment as well as
struggles between contrary characteristics within the nature of the
thing itself. Otherwise nothing could maintain its identity and
individuality at all. There must be some core in everything which exists
as an individual thing. This individuality is seen more clearly as the
scale of existence is mounted. In the organic world each thing lives in
a more or less degree its own life, however much that life is
conditioned and even hindered by the environment. What is it, then, that
keeps the thing together? It is some point of union of elements
otherwise scattered. When we come to man we see this more clearly than
in the world below him. This core is a kind of Whole made up of isolated
impressions mingling with a potency different in nature from themselves,
and transmuting them to its own nature in the forms of self-consciousness,
meanings, values. This potency--this Whole--although present from the
very beginning as the condition of becoming conscious of anything, yet
remains in constant change. Impressions pour in through the senses,
enter the Whole that is already present; they drop their content into
that Whole by means of the senses, and the miracle of transmutation,
entirely mysterious, takes place.
This point is not new. It is a fact well [p.30] known in the history of
psychology, and played a very prominent part in the psychology of Kant.
But Eucken has deepened the conception in such a way as to be able to
rid himself of the postulates of Kant concerning God, Freedom, and
Immortality. The germs of these, according to the meaning of Eucken,
are within the spiritual life itself, and not transcendent in the form
presented by Kant or external as presented by Hegel. There is, then,
within consciousness a process in many respects analogous to the natural
process. And as the meaning of the physical universe has become clearer
through the conception of evolution, so the meaning of consciousness,
originating in a higher world than Nature, will become clearer if viewed
in a similar manner. Let us then turn to one of the most important
aspects of Eucken's work, Evolution and Religion.
Eucken's deepest, and consequently the most difficult, account of the
meaning of religion is to be found in his _Truth of Religion_ and his
_Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt._ It is important to deal with
the concept of the spiritual life at this stage of our inquiry, for it
is the pivot around which the whole of Eucken's philosophy turns.
The essence of religion is conceived by him as the possession by man of
an eternal existence in the midst of time; of the presence of an
over-world in the midst of this world [p.31]--guiding man to the
revelation of a Divine Will.
This is Eucken's main thesis, and connected with this thesis is the fact
that religion can come to birth in the soul of man only through a
conquest of the ordinary, natural world which surrounds him. The world
which surrounds him hinders more than it helps the birth of religion in
the soul. The aim of religion is therefore not the perfecting of man in
a natural sense, but the bringing about of a union of human nature and
the Divine. Religion must therefore include a "world-denial and a
world-renewal." There is not enough for man's deeper nature either in
the physical world or in the ordinary life of the hour. The natural
world knows of no complete self-subsistence, for everything is connected
with its environment, and it is in this connection with its environment
that life below man largely obtains its existence. But in man we
discover a transition stage from the sensuous to the non-sensuous, and
it is in the latter that the meaning of the former can be obtained. The
history of civilisation and culture is a history of this all-important
fact. The meaning of man is, therefore, not to be found in his
relationship to the physical world, but in his own consciousness.
Although we may not be aware of it, consciousness is the power which, in
the long and slow progress of the ages, has overcome the sensuous and
made it subservient to the [p.32] meaning and value which its own
content of experience has presented. The necessity and proof of religion
are not then discovered in anything in the external world, but in the
realisation of the fact that we are meant to be citizens of a world
higher in its nature, the birthright of which is to be found within our
own nature. The conquest of nature and the growth of culture are proofs
to man of his superiority to the world of sense impressions. This denial
of the sufficiency of the world of sense in the evolution of the human
soul, on the one hand, and the affirmation of the potentiality of a
higher world of spirit on the other hand, constitute the nucleus of the
Christian religion. Its superiority consists in giving their rights to
both worlds, and also in showing that they do not possess the same
value. This essential nature of Christianity will be demonstrated later.
We must return, then, to consciousness itself and see what may be
discovered within it concerning the meaning of religion. The great
thinkers of the ages have all been agreed as to the impossibility of
finding sufficient proofs and meanings of religion either from Nature or
from some supernatural source flowing in a miraculous manner towards our
earth. The growth and interpretation of natural science in modern times
have rendered it impossible to find proofs of religion in any external
mode. Yet the problems of man's [p.33] Whence and Whither raise
themselves with energy and even tragedy in our own day. These, as Eucken
points out, are "problems concerning our Whence and Whither, our
dependence upon strange powers, the painful antitheses within our own
soul, the stubborn barriers to our spiritual potencies, the flaws in
love and righteousness, in Nature and in human nature; in a word, the
apparent total loss of what we dare not renounce--our best and most real
treasures."[6] The loss takes place because we have been looking outward
instead of inward for support, and prop after prop has given way. This
is the situation to-day, and it has been brought about by no evil power,
but by the gradual dawning of the meaning of things. Still, it is not
the whole meaning of things, for, as Eucken points out: "But we are now
experiencing what mankind has so often experienced, viz. that at the
very point where the negation reaches its climax and the danger reaches
the very brink of a precipice, the conviction dawns with axiomatic
certainty that there lives and stirs within us something which no
obstacle or enmity can ever destroy, and which signifies against all
opposition a kernel of our nature that can never get lost."[7]
The religio-philosophical problem is, then, a return to _the Whole of
Life_. It is here that any satisfactory answer can be found if found
[p.34] at all. It is necessary to investigate the final grounds as well
as the most complete structure of Life; it is further necessary to
discover whether the movement of Life necessarily leads to religion.
As Eucken invariably presents the truth of religion, the meaning and
significance of religion are to be found through self-consciousness.
This meaning of consciousness is twofold in nature. On the one hand,
it is something that may be _known_, and, on the other hand, it is
something that is _active_ through its own inherent energy. Here we find
a difference between what we may _know_ we are and what we _are_. Our
knowledge of what we are, the conditions of what we are, the history of
what we are--all these are a help for us to be what we are capable of
becoming. But all these are not the very movement of the becoming
itself. That movement is the resultant of the spiritual potency after
experiences in the form of cognition have marked out the path for
conation. This conation is an inheritance; it is present in the form of
dissatisfaction with the present situation; it moves in the direction of
a goal which is marked out by intellect. Now, however much this conation
may be analysed, it resists being decomposed into a number of elements
which make it up, for any such number, except in the very manner they
are united, could not produce the situation. In other words, whatever
the history of this conation may be, it is now a unity or whole. [p.35]
Conditioned as it is by the surrounding world and by its own history, in
so far as it is this, it is _determined_; but it is still _free_ in so
far as it is capable of becoming a new point of departure for life and
of proceeding on its way in a world of spirit. Unless man's nature
contained within itself some unity or whole of the kind already referred
to, it would mean no more than a receptacle of momentary impressions
which would vanish as soon as their physical effects had passed away.
But man is in reality more than all this. In the form of memory and
experience he is able to hold together in a core of his being the
_meaning_ of these impressions after they have filtered into his
consciousness. That is what we find, in however obscure a way, as the
very beginning of every human life. This unity or whole, as already
stated, may be no more than a potency in the beginning of life, but it
gains in content and depth as it passes from impression to impression,
and from experience to experience. And all further impressions and
experiences have to be referred to this nucleus of the nature in order
that they may be used and may prove themselves helpful. It is in this
nucleus of the nature that everything obtains its meaning and value.
The _Whole_ consequently grows, and gradually man becomes conscious of
his personality as over against the environing world and even his own
body. This consciousness of [p.36] _inwardness_ is of slow growth,
because the natural tendency of life is to give a primary place to the
world from which we have emerged--the world of physical existence, and
also because much of that physical world reigns powerfully within our
nature. But when reflection turns into itself, it becomes aware that the
inwardness constitutes the kernel of a reality higher in its nature than
anything either in the physical world or in the physical life which the
man has to lead.
Two modes of reality now present themselves to the life, neither of
which allows itself to be conceived of as an illusion. On the one hand,
we find the physical world and our own physical nature. We discover that
we cannot jump out of these without destroying all we possess; we have
to come to some kind of understanding with the physical world and our
own physical existence. Yet, on the other hand, the consciousness of a
kernel of our being, non-sensuous and spiritual in its nature, has for
ever broken our satisfaction with the physical world and our own
physical existence. There are only two alternatives on which we can act.
Either we are to conceive of our spiritual personality as something
secondary and subsidiary to the natural world, or we are to insist on
its independence, and acknowledge it as the beginning of _a new mode of
existence._ If the former alternative is chosen, the personality can
never pass to a state of self-subsistence, [p.37] but will conceive of
reality as something which is mainly physical. The consequence is that
the personality will suffer seriously in its evolution, for such an
evolution is brought about through the recognition and willing
acknowledgment of the breaking forth of _a new kind of reality_ within
the spiritual nucleus of life. If the latter alternative is chosen, this
nucleus of life is now seen as something quite other than a quality
entirely dependent upon the physical or than a mere flowering of the
physical; it is seen as a reality higher in its nature than the physical
or even than the ordinary life of the individual. Such a situation is
forced on man when once he reflects upon the inward meaning of the
content of his consciousness. It is true that such questions may be
thrust into the background, and consequently inhibited from presenting
us with their full value and significance. And it is this which happens
only too often in daily life. The constant need of attention to external
things, the absorption of the mind in conventionality and custom as
these present themselves in the form of a ready-made inheritance--all
these occupy so much of the attention as to prevent man from knowing and
experiencing what _his own life_ is or what it is capable of becoming.
Man has penetrated into the secrets of Nature as well as into the past
of human society through close and constant attention to external
things. [p.38] He has been able to gather fragments together, piece them
into each other, and through this frame laws concerning them. It is thus
that the external world and society have come to mean more to a human
being than to an animal. The animal is probably almost entirely the
creature of its instincts and of the percepts which present themselves
to it from moment to moment, and which largely disappear. But man rises
above this situation. The external world and everything that has ever
happened on its face are not merely objects external to himself, which
contain all their qualities in themselves. Somebody has to experience
all this, and that somebody that experiences all this is _mental_ in his
nature, however much this nature has been conditioned by _physical_
things in the past or present.
Eucken emphasises this fundamental fact in all his books. Wherever a
being is capable of _experiencing_ impressions and of giving _meanings_
to these, we are bound to conclude that the power which does this is
something quite other than physical in its nature. It may be that such
a power has never been known except in connection with what is physical;
it may be that various chemical changes give the truer and clearer
explanation of its origin, as far as its origin can be known at all;
it may be that there was nothing of the _mental_ visible in the early
stages of its development; but all this is very different from stating
that [p.39] no potentiality for mental evolution was there. And it is
this potentiality which is the issue at stake. We have no warrant for
stating that it does not exist because it does not lend itself to be
verified by the senses. Where does _mind_ manifest itself to the senses?
It is something which does not exist in space as a horse or a tree. It
may be that consciousness has emanated from simple chemical beginnings
and combinations, but it is not a simple or a chemical thing _now_. We
divide worlds into inorganic and organic. The main principle of division
is necessitated on account of the fact that some characteristics are
present in the former which are absent in the latter. It is precisely
the same between Body and Mind, with one difference. Body and Mind are
indissolubly connected, but one cannot be reduced into the other.
However much the connection on one side may influence the other side,
the difference between a _meaning_ and a _thing_ remains. And it is this
fundamental difference which makes it absolutely necessary to
acknowledge _a world_ of consciousness in contradistinction to a world
of matter and its behaviour, whether such matter is to be found in the
human body with its mechanical and chemical changes and transformations
or in the physical universe outside our body.
It is only when the mind becomes aware of its own existence--an
existence not to be established as being in Space (or entirely in [p.40]
Time) but as a reality subsisting in itself and in will-relations--that
the efforts and fruitions of the spirit of man become intelligible at
all. But such an awareness has become a permanent possession in a
greater or less degree within the life of man. Whenever he becomes
conscious of the fact that in his own soul a new phenomenon has made its
appearance, he begins, after the willing acknowledgment of the reality
of such a phenomenon, to exercise its potency over against the external
world and over against much that is present in his own psychical life. A
Higher and a Lower present themselves to him. The two alternatives force
themselves, and there is no third: either this deeper kernel of his life
must mean the possibility and, in a measure, the presence of _a new land
of reality_; or, on the other hand, it means no more than a mere
epiphenomenon and blossoming of the merely _natural_ life. If the latter
view is adopted, the spiritual nucleus of man's nature obtains but
slight attention except on the side of its connection with the
surrounding organic world, and consequently what this nucleus is in
itself as an experience recedes into the background, and descriptions
and explanations in scientific or philosophical form step into the
foreground. But a contradiction is imbedded in this very account. Some
kind of experience of life, apart from, and higher in its nature than,
the connection of the spiritual nucleus with its [p.41] physical
history, persists in the life. The man of science is generally a good
and worthy man. He believes in the moral life, and he does not throw the
values of the centuries overboard. Such belief and valuation are not
made up of the content of the explanation of life from its physical
side, but are an unconscious acknowledgment of the presence of _truths
and values as experiences and as now subsisting in themselves_, however
much they are caused by physical things.
If, on the other hand, an acknowledgment of the reality of this
spiritual life is made, new questions immediately arise. And the most
fundamental of these questions have always been those farther removed
from any sensuous or physical domain. They are questions concerning the
value and meaning of life. It is a deep conviction of the reality of the
deeper kernel of our being that alone constitutes the entrance to a _new
kind of world_. But to acknowledge the presence of such a new world does
not signify the possession of it simultaneously with the acknowledgment.
The new world is discovered, but it is not yet possessed. There are
terrible obstacles in the way; there are enemies without and within to
be conquered. It is of little use entering into this struggle without an
acknowledgment--born of an inward necessity--of the spiritual nucleus of
our nature. Unless man has accustomed himself to hold fast to this
"subtle thing termed spirit" [p.42] he will soon be swamped in the
region of the natural life once more; and when this happens the
spiritual nucleus loses the consciousness of its own real subsistence as
something higher in its nature than physical things or than the body and
the ordinary life of the day. If the enterprise is to issue in anything
that is great and good--into a spiritual world with an ever-growing
content here and now--an insistence upon the reality of this deeper life
coupled with the highest end which presents itself to the life must be
made. Something is now seen in the distance as the meaning and value of
life--something which our deeper nature longs for, and which has created
a cleft within the soul between the ordinary things of sense and time
and that which "never was on sea or land." It is something of this
nature which Eucken discovers as the germ of all the spiritual ideas of
religion as well as of the essence of religion itself. The Godhead,
Eternity, Immortality, are concepts which arise within the soul through
a consciousness of the inadequacy of all natural things and of even
mental descriptions and explanations to answer and to satisfy the
potency and longing of human nature.
Most of the great thinkers of the ages have insisted on the necessity of
the recognition and acknowledgment of this deeper life which is in dire
need of a content. If man is not to be swamped by the external and
become the [p.43] mere sport of the "wind and wave" of the environment,
he has to enter somehow into the very centre of his being and become
convinced that the dictates which proceed from that centre are the most
fundamental things in life. This has always formed the kernel of
religion, however often men, failing to reach that kernel, have lived on
the husks. But even this very sham notifies some small attempt in the
right direction. In modern times--in the various forms of Idealism and
Pragmatism--such a need of getting at the core of being and of being
convinced that the effort is worth while, has been emphasised again and
again. "_Launch yourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as
possible_. Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall
re-enforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions
that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old;
take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your
resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning
such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon
as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is
postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all."[8]
"The Stoic and Butler also said, 'Follow God.' In each case you must
realise that, whatever you do, you take your life in your [p.44] hands;
you enter on a grand enterprise, a search for the Holy Grail, which will
bring you to strange lands and perilous seas. For you cannot say,
interpreting, 'Thus far and no further, merely according to the bond and
the duty.' In following God, you follow by what has been, what is ruled
and accomplished, but you follow after what is not yet. 'It may be that
the gulfs will wash us down'; it may be that the gods of the past will
rain upon us brimstone and horrible tempest. But he that is with us is
more than all that are against us. Whoever keeps his ear ever open to
duty, always forward, never attained, is not far from the kingdom. The
gods may be against him, the demi-gods may depart; but he, as said
Plotinus, 'if alone, is with the Alone.'"[9]
It is impossible for us, as Eucken constantly insists, to stop short of
this. Who can prescribe limits to the capability of consciousness when
it is focussed, in the form of a conviction, on the deepest problems
which press themselves upon it? There is only one objection that the
empiricist can bring forward, and that is that all such ideals can never
be proved to exist as things exist in space. But, as already hinted, is
existence in space the only form of existence? Is it not necessary for
something which is _not_ in space to make us aware of what is in space?
"If not as men of science, yet as [p.45] men, as human beings, we have
to put things together, to form some total estimate of the drift of
development, of the unity of nature."[10]
If the deepest core of consciousness is acknowledged and the vague
ideals and ends which present themselves are attended to, _something new
happens_ in the life. Life now starts on the great enterprise referred
to by William Wallace. It finds its highest reality in an experience
born within itself and differentiated for ever from the natural and even
the intellectual life. To such a conclusion man is forced; and if the
situation is evaded, something within his soul never comes to birth. It
is seen at once that in order to know the content of this _new world_,
it is necessary for a long series of struggles to take place. And to
this point we now turn.
The deeper consciousness has relegated the natural world to a secondary
place, and has further shown man that the main object of life includes
not only finding a footing against the dangers of natural things, but to
plant oneself within a spiritual world of meanings and values. This
cannot be done without _an independent and decisive act of the soul_. A
meaning of life has now revealed itself beyond that of the "small self."
This meaning can be reached only through this decisive act of the soul.
This meaning is _over-individual_ in its nature; [p.46] it is a truth,
goodness, or beauty, which presents itself as an idea and ideal formed
by the experiences of many individuals, at different epochs and in
different circumstances. Thus the individual, in order to realise his
own life, must work with material presented in the community. Such
material has been found helpful in the life of the community. It
consists of collective results made up of large numbers of single
factors. These have been tied together in the form of various syntheses.
Such various syntheses comprise a larger meaning than what ordinarily
happens from moment to moment in connection with the relation of the
individual to the external world or, indeed, within the individual's own
ordinary life. Many of the isolated, fragmentary experiences of the
individual have to give way when tested in the light of any larger
synthesis. If this were not so, no commercial, social, civilised life
would be possible at all. The more real life is now perceived to be that
of the larger meaning and value. The individual, solitary experiences
may be legitimate, for they often express wants and needs of the
individual which have a certain right to obtain satisfaction. But the
extent and limits of these rights have to be measured by some norm or
standard other than themselves, or else each individual will proceed on
his own course regardless of the rights of others. It is the presence of
various syntheses which express the [p.47] collective life of the
whole--of each and every individual--that makes civilisation possible.
Thus, in the very process of civilisation itself, as Eucken points out,
there is present a factor which is termed Spiritual, and which is not to
be mistaken for a mere flow of cause and effect, or for one mere event
following another. Eucken emphasises this all-important element of the
over-individual qualities present in human history. There is here much
which resembles Hegel's Absolute. But there is a great difference
between the two in the sense that Eucken shows the constant need of
spiritual activism on the part of individuals in order to realise and
keep alive the norms and standards which have carried our world so far;
and there is also the need of contributing something to the values of
these through the creation of new qualities within the souls of the
individuals themselves.
But the problems of civilisation and morality are not the only, or the
highest, problems which present themselves. But even such problems have
partially been the means of drawing man outside himself, and of enabling
him to see that his self can only be realised in connection with the
common good and demands of the community. He now feels the necessity of
living up to that standard. This is an important step in the direction
of the moral and religious life. It reveals the presence of a spiritual
nucleus of our being obtaining a content beyond the needs [p.48] of the
moment; it shows life as realising itself in wide connections; and the
individual becomes the possessor of a certain degree of spiritual
inwardness in the process. Even as far as this level we find the deeper
life--the spiritual life--insisting on the validity of its mental and
moral conclusions over against the objects of sense. Without this
insistence no knowledge would progress and be valid. The macrocosm is
mirrored and coloured in a mental and moral microcosm. A replica of the
external world has a reality in consciousness, and this reality is not a
mere photograph of the external, but it is the external as it appears to
the meaning it has obtained in consciousness. The meaning of the world
is thus something beyond the world itself; it is more than appears at
any one moment. If the world were less than this, if the percept could
not somehow become a concept, all progress would come to a standstill,
and we should be no more than creatures of sensations and percepts which
vanished as soon as they appeared. But these do not vanish; they persist
in various ways, as after-images, concepts, memory. Thus, in the very
act of knowing anything at all, something greater than the physical
object known is present. And Eucken would insist, therefore, that the
mental and spiritual are present from the very beginning and bring to a
mental focus the impressions of the senses. In the interpretation of
Eucken's philosophy several writers [p.49] have missed the author's
meaning here. They have, through the ambiguity of the term "spiritual"
in English, conceived of "spiritual life" as something entirely
different from the mental life. It is different, but only in the same
way as the bud is different from the blossom; it means at the religious
level a greater unfolding of a life which has been present at every
stage in the history of civilisation and culture.
But, as already noticed, the mental life is passed when we enter the
life of a community. The norms and standards, already referred to, make
their appearance and persist in demanding obedience to themselves even
at the expense of much within consciousness that points in another
direction.
But even such a stage as this does not give satisfaction to man. Much
effort and sacrifice are needed to live up to the life of the community.
And such effort and sacrifice are often the best means of calling into
activity a still deeper, reserved energy of the soul. The soul now
recognises a value beyond the values of culture and civilisation. The
Good, the True, and the Beautiful appear as the sole realities by the
side of which everything that preceded, if taken as complete in itself,
appears as a great shadow or illusion. Here we are reminded of Eucken's
affinity with Plato's Doctrine of Ideas, as well as of his attachment to
the revival of Platonism by Plotinus. Values for life, subsisting in
themselves, become objects [p.50] of meditation, of "browsing," and of
the deepest activity of the soul. Life is now viewed as consisting in a
great and constant quest after these religious ideals. It sees its
meaning beyond and above the range of mentality or even morality, though
it is well that it should pass as often as possible through the gate of
the former, and is bound to pass always through the gate of the latter.
A break takes place with the "natural self"; the mental life of
concepts, though necessary, is now seen as insufficient; and life is now
viewed as having a "pearl of great price" before its gaze. Here the
_stirb und werde_ of Paul and Goethe becomes necessary. The real
education of man now begins. His life becomes guided and governed by
norms whose limits cannot be discovered, and which have never been
realised in their wholeness on the face of our earth. What can these
mean? They cannot be delusions or illusions, for they answer too deep a
need of the soul to be reduced to that level. If we blot them out of our
existence, we sink back to a mere natural or mechanical stage. When the
soul concentrates its deepest attention on these norms or ideals they
fascinate it, they draw hidden energies into activity, they give
inklings of immortality. Is it not far more conceivable that such a
vision of meaning, of beauty, and of enchantment is a new kind of
reality--cosmic in its nature and eternal in its duration? Man has to
[p.51] come to a decision concerning this. There is no half-way house
here possible without the deepest potencies of human nature suffering
and failing to transform themselves from bud to blossom and fruit.
At a later stage in our inquiry this question will recur in connection
with the conception of the Godhead. But here it may be observed that to
decide on the affirmative side that somehow such norms and ideals which
mean so much are cosmic realities, is simply to state no more than that
an evolutionary process is taking place towards a new kind of world as
well as a new kind of existence. No outsider is competent to pronounce
judgment on the validity of the proofs possessed within this spiritual
realm. The qualifications here are beyond the range of knowledge,
although knowledge does not cease to act within such a realm. The
experiences here cannot be measured or weighed; and that a certain
obscurity is present in them is only what may be expected, considering
that the spiritual nature is farther removed from the region of nature
with its physical existence than when it deals with problems on the
intellectual level. But such spiritual proofs are found in the fact that
these realities present themselves only at the height of spiritual
development, and in the fact that they produce an _inversion_ of the
nature of man, and change the centre of gravity of his life to a more
inward recess of his being [p.52] than is open on the natural or
intellectual side.
Thus, once more, the soul is driven forward by its own necessities to a
religious reality. What can it do but grant cosmic origin and validity
to such ideals? If these ideals are not this, then, as Eucken points
out, they are the most tragic illusions conceivable.
When they are acknowledged as cosmic realities, man is in the midst of a
religion of a _universal_ kind. But the acknowledgment of these as
cosmic realities is something more than a concept. The men who have come
to this conclusion required something more than logical arguments in
order to establish this truth. The conclusions were based upon a
_specific (characteristic)_ religious experience of their own. And such
a religious experience was larger and more real than anything that could
be established in the form of concepts concerning it. As we shall notice
in a later chapter, it is somewhat on this account that Eucken
differentiates between _universal_ and _specific (characteristic)_
religion.
It becomes evident that such contents of the new spiritual world cannot
be utilised by man without effort. These realities have to pass from the
region of ideas to the region of actual experiences. In other words,
they must become man's own religion. Man has now become convinced of the
reality of a universal spiritual life as constituting, in a measure, the
[p.53] foundation of the evolution of the soul, and as the goal towards
which he must for ever move. Eucken is unwilling to speculate as to the
origin or the goal of this. The centre of gravity of life must be laid
in what may be known and experienced between these two poles. There is
a certainty which is _intermediate_ between man and the Godhead. It is
when this certainty is realised as an actual portion of the soul that
man becomes competent to carry farther--backward and forward--the
implications of this certainty. And implications of a new kind of
_Weltanschauung_ result from the spiritual experiences of the
_Lebensanschauung_ of the spiritual life. On this matter we shall touch
at a later stage in the inquiry.
At present let us confine our attention to the _intermediate_ reality
which presents itself in a form that is over-individual. It is only when
we pass out of the psychology of the subject--a matter that deals with
the _history_ of mental processes--that we are able to view the meaning
of the realities which are over-individual. As already pointed out,
these realities are not the creations of man's fancy or imagination
after reason has been switched off. They are non-sensuous realities
which have moulded and shaped the lives of individuals and nations in
varied degrees. These ideals are not to remain merely objects of
knowledge; they are to become portions of the inmost experiences of the
soul. This they cannot become without the [p.54] calling out of the
deepest energy of the individual. His fragmentary spiritual life--small
as it is--still calls for _more_ of its own nature, and this _more_ has
been seen in the distance as something of infinite value.[11] A
mountain, as it were, has to be climbed; dark ravines have to be gone
through; and rivers have to be swum across. The whole vision means no
less than an entrance into _a new kind of world_, the scaling to a new
kind of existence, and a conquest which will make the pilgrim a
participator in that which is Divine. A struggle has to take place,
because so much that belongs to the life, on the level where it now
stands, belongs to a world _below_ it. Impulses and passions, the narrow
outlook, the timidity and hollowness of the "small self"--all these,
which have previously remained at the centre of life, have to be thrust
to the periphery of existence. So that an entrance into the highest
spiritual world is not merely something to _know_, but far rather
something to _do_ and to _be_. This is the meaning of Eucken's activism.
It is not the busying of ourselves over trifles; there is no need of
encouragement in that direction. It is rather the inward glance on the
nature of the over-individual ideals; it is a deep and constant
concentration upon their value and significance, in order that the soul
may plant itself on the shores of the _over-world_. It is in granting a
[p.55] higher mode of existence to these ideals, and in preserving them
as the possession of the soul, that man finds the ever greater meaning
of that spiritual life which was present within him from the very
beginning of his enterprise. The process of forcing an entrance into
this over-world has to be repeated time after time. There are no enemies
in front, but the man is surrounded by them from around and behind him.
The indifference, in a large measure of the natural process, the rigid
instincts of mere self-preservation, the temptation to smugness and
ease, the cold conclusions of the understanding when satisfied with
explanations from the physical world, the hardness of the heart--these
and many other enemies fight for supremacy, and the soul is often torn
in the struggle. The struggle continues for a great length of time; but
the history of the world testifies to an innumerable host of individuals
who scaled and fell, who started again and again, until at last their
conceptions of the Highest Good became a permanent experience and
possession of their deepest being.
And when the spiritual life creates an entrance into this _over-world_
something happens which makes a fundamental difference in the life. The
life may again and again sink back to its old level, but what has
happened will never allow it to remain satisfied on that level. "We fall
to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake" (Browning). Life
now becomes [p.56] alternately _a quest and a fruition_.[12] The
individual has to gather his whole energies together because something
great is at stake. This is nothing less than the possession of a new
kind of reality. The struggle has yielded a conquest for the time being.
He tastes and "eats his pot of honey on the grave" of enemies within and
without. This fruition means no less than a taste of "eternal life in
the midst of time" (Harnack), and the relegating of the whole world of
phenomena to a subsidiary place.
This is the kernel of Eucken's _Truth of Religion_. The book deals with
the most subtle psychological problems of the soul, and reaches the
conclusion of an entrance by man into a divine world. All this is far
removed from the ordinary traditional conception either of God or of
religion. Perhaps the majority of mankind is not as yet ready for such a
presentation of religion. But I think it may be safely said that it is
through some such mode of conceiving religion as this that the "great
and good ones" of the world found an entrance into a divine world and
grasped the conception of the evolution of the soul as a process which
begins where organic evolution ends.
* * * * *