RELIGION AND PSYCHOLOGY
It has been noticed in the two previous chapters how Eucken discovered
the presence of a mental or spiritual life in the very act of knowing
any object in the physical world. And the presence of such a life
enables the percept to turn into a concept. Such a concept is something
far removed from the level of the sensuous object or of its mere
perception. We are in this very act in a world of _meaning_. When such a
meaning comes to be acknowledged, it forms a kind of standard which
interprets any future facts that enter into it. The further the progress
of the knowledge of physical objects advances the more the concepts
become removed from the level of the sensuous; as is witnessed, for
instance, in the forms of laws and hypotheses, which constitute the very
groundwork of physical science. The physical scientist, whether he is
conscious of it or not, has constructed an ideal world of _meaning_
which constitutes the explanation [p.88] of the external world. This is
a fact so familiar that it needs no further elucidation here. But there
is great need for calling attention to the power which _does_ all this
as well as to the reality of the interpretation which that power, in its
contact with physical phenomena, has brought forth. That such a power of
the mind is connected with physical existence does not in the least
explain its nature. It is not physical _now_; it is meaning and value,
and there is no such thing as meaning or value in the nature of physical
objects in themselves. Their meaning and value come into being when they
serve a purpose which the mind has framed concerning them. Eucken
insists that a reality must be ascribed to so much as all this--to that
which knows and interprets Nature. However much Nature and Spirit
resemble one another, however much the latter is dependent on the
former, Nature must be conceived as exhibiting a lower grade of reality
than mind. Indeed, Nature could not exist for mind unless there were a
mind to know it; and this fact inevitably leads us to ask the question,
whether Nature could exist at all.[25]
Eucken maintains that the insufficient attention paid to this priority
of the subject is the [p.89] defect of all the systems which have
reduced life and all its values to their lowest denominator. A naive
realism is a relic of past ancestry; it is a failure to conceive
anything as reality unless it lends itself to the senses. Had men not
grasped a higher order of reality than that of the external object, none
of the mental and moral gains of the world would ever have been
realised. Hence, man has to insist that the mental or spiritual life is
the possessor of a reality of its own, although much of the material
comprising that reality has been drawn from the physical world through
the senses. But the spiritual life has proceeded far beyond these
initial stages of knowing the world. Material of a kind other than the
physical has presented itself to it. Thus, in will-relations we find the
material itself belonging to a higher order of existence than the
material of the physical world. It is then what might be expected when
the spiritual life, within the domain of events of human history, forms
a Life-system higher in its nature than the natural process.
Eucken then concludes that Nature and History require for their
interpretation the presence of a spiritual life. Nature involves the
spiritual in the very power of mind in knowing external things. He would
not state that the physical course of things is enough in itself to
prove the existence of spiritual life. We are uncertain of any working
towards [p.90] definite ends in Nature. The whole matter belongs to the
region of speculation; and speculation based on something other than
observation and experiment has greatly retarded progress in connection
with the truest interpretation of the highest things. Eucken would
really agree here with the physical scientist pure and simple that,
however far back the investigations of the physical world are carried,
the scientist does not seem to come to anything at the furthest point
which bears more affinity to what is mental than was to be discovered at
the point from which he set out.
But in History it is different. We are here dealing with material which
is not in space, and which has not resulted through any mere succession
in time. The material, in fact, is timeless, because it is a synthesis
of factors which cannot be reckoned mechanically, and which requires a
great span of time in order to be constructed by the spirit of man. At
this level the spiritual life has gained a reality which is
over-personal as well as personal. It is true that this over-personal
reality is in the _mind_ of the individual; but that does not mean that
the reality is no more than a private experience. Its content is clearly
now higher and more significant than the individual's own life. That we
cannot locate in space this over-personal aspect of the ideal is
probably a disadvantage. But this cannot be helped; and [p.91] it cannot
possibly be otherwise, simply because the over-personal reality is not a
spatial thing. The same may be said of the content of individual
experience, even when it does not for the time being hold before itself
any ideal. But such over-personal elements mean more than was to be
found on the level of _knowing_ the world. A further development of
spiritual life has taken place; and reality has become _objective_ in
its nature and _subjective_ in its apprehension and appropriation by the
individual. Reality has, through the over-personal which has evolved in
history, obtained _a cosmic significance_; and it is out of this region
that a _Lebensanschauung_ as well as a true _Weltanschauung_ have
developed.
This digression from the subject of this chapter has probably prepared
us to see that the potentiality of consciousness and the presence of
over-personal elements presenting themselves to consciousness are the
two main elements in the construction of the several grades of reality
which present themselves on the lower level of Nature and on the higher
level of History.
But our question now is, Does the nature of man himself confirm such
statements as have already been made? And it is to man's own nature and
its content we now turn, as these are presented in Eucken's teaching.
It is probable that Eucken has done less justice to psychology from the
side of the [p.92] connection of consciousness with the external world.
He is aware, and points out the fact in several of his books, of the
close connection between mind and body; but seems to think that the fact
is sufficiently brought out by text-books on psychology that some kind
of dualism or parallelism is absolutely necessary to be held in order to
account for the content of consciousness. What exact meaning and
province should be assigned to psychology is to-day a matter of serious
dispute. Textbooks of the nature of William James's _Principles of
Psychology_ present a double aspect of the subject-matter as well as of
its mode of treatment. It is often difficult to differentiate in James's
works where one aspect ends and another begins. Psychology is presented
by him as a natural science on one page, and on the opposite page we
discover ourselves in the region of ethics and even of metaphysics and
religion. On the one side, we find the _connection_ of consciousness and
its mode of operation with the physical organism presented in terms
which emphasise the mechanical and chemical sides. On the other side,
the _content_ of consciousness itself, _after_ the connection has taken
place, is presented as a psychology as well. So that several important
writers on psychology have emphasised the need of differentiating one
aspect from the other, and of confining the meaning of psychology to the
description and explanation of the _connection_ [p.93] of mind and
body.[26] But when we pass to the content of consciousness, something
more than a mere connection of mind and body is discovered. The content
of consciousness includes the _Will_--the unrest of consciousness in its
actual situation, a dissatisfaction with its state of inertia, and a
movement towards some End. When the Will operates with the content of
consciousness we are in a realm which is beyond the physical--a realm,
too, which is other than a passive, descriptive attitude of a spectator
of things. The realm of _values_ has now been reached; and a content,
different in its nature from any account it is able to give of itself or
of its connection with the physical, starts on its own independent
course. The psychologist is "right in insisting that the atoms do not
build up the whole universe of science. There are contents in
consciousness, sensations and perceptions, feelings and impulses, which
the scientist must describe and explain too. But if the psychologist is
the real natural scientist of the soul, this whole interplay of ideas
and emotions and volitions appears to him as a world of causally
connected processes which he watches and studies as a spectator. However
rich the manifold of the inner experience, everything, seen from a
strictly psychological standpoint, [p.94] remains just as indifferent
and valueless as the movement of the atoms in the outer experience.
Pleasures are coming and going; but the onlooking subject of
consciousness has simply to become aware of them, and has no right to
say that they are better or more valuable than pain, or that the
emotions of enjoyment or the ideas of wisdom or the impulses of virtue
are, psychologically considered, more valuable than grief or vice or
foolishness. In the system of physical and psychical objects, there is
thus no room for any possible value; and even in the thought and idea of
value there is nothing but an indifferent mental state produced by
certain brain excitement. For as soon as we illuminate and shade and
colour the world of the scientist in reference to man's life and death,
or to his happiness and pain, we have carelessly destroyed the pure
system of science, and given up the presupposition of the strictly
naturalistic work."[27] Wundt presents a standpoint not quite so
pronounced, but which looks in the same direction.[28]
This fundamental difference has been recognised by Eucken, and forms an
important contribution on his part towards elucidating [p.95] the
meaning of spiritual life not only in the process of knowing but in its
new beginning in its creation of an "inner world of values." The content
present in the construction of this "new world" is other than a mental
content expressing connection of psychical and physical. Eucken
differentiates between the two aspects already referred to, and
designates the difference by the terms _Noological and Psychological
Methods_. These methods are most clearly presented in _The Truth of
Religion_. He says: "To explain _noologically_ means to arrange the
whole of spiritual life [including mental life] as a special spiritual
activity, to ascertain its position and problem, and through such an
adaptation to illumine the whole and raise its potencies. To explain
_psychologically,_ on the contrary, means to investigate _how_ man
arrives at the apprehension and appropriation of a spiritual content and
especially of a spiritual life, with what psychic aids is the spiritual
content worked out, how the interest of man for all this is to be
raised, and how his energy for the enterprise is to be won. Here one has
to proceed from an initial point hardly discernible, and step by step,
discover the way of ascent; thus the psychological method becomes at the
same time a psychogenetic method. The main condition is that both
methods be held sufficiently apart in order that the conclusions of both
may not flow together, and yet may form a fruitful completion."
[p.96] "Such separation and union of both methods and their
corresponding realities make it possible to understand how to overcome
inwardly the old antithesis between Idealism and Realism. The
fundamental truth of Idealism is that the spiritual contents establish
an independence and self-value over against the individual, that they
train him with superior energy, and that they are not material for his
purely human welfare. In the _noological method_ this truth obtains a
full recognition. Realism, however, has its rights in the forward sweep
of the specifically human side of life with all its diversions, its
constraints, and its preponderantly natural character. Viewed from this
standpoint, the main fact is that life is raised out of the idle calm of
its initial stages, and is brought into a current; in order to bring
this about, much is urgently needful by man, which cannot originate,
prior to the appearance of the spiritual estimation of values, but which
becomes his when he is set in a strong current; then, on the one hand,
anxiety for external existence, division into parties, ambition, etc.,
and, on the other hand, the mechanism of the psychic life with its
association, reproduction, etc., are all seen in a new light. These
motive powers would certainly never produce a spiritual content out of
man's own ability; such a content is only reachable if the movement of
life raises man out of and above the initial performances and the
initial motives. No mechanism, [p.97] either of soul or of society, is
able to accomplish this; it can be accomplished alone by an inward
spirituality in man. Through such a conception, Realism and Idealism are
no longer irreconcilable opponents, but two sides of one encompassing
life; one may grow alongside the other, but not at the expense of the
other. Indeed, the more the content of the spiritual life grows, the
more becomes necessary on the side of psychic existence; the more we
submerge ourselves in this psychic existence, the greater appears the
superiority of the spiritual life."[29] This difference between nöology
and psychology is pointed out by Eucken in his delineation of spiritual
life along the whole course of its development. The insistence on the
reality of life within the region of values, brought forth through the
activity of the Will, is shown to be absolutely necessary in order that
life may not sink into the level of the mere physical object on the one
hand, and into mere subjectivity and momentary changes of consciousness
on the other hand. It is a decision at this point which constitutes the
great turn to a life of the spirit and to the granting to it of a
_self-subsistence_ as real as objects in the external world; it is a
turn which includes, further, a new beginning of a remove from the
content of the moment and from the impinging of the environment upon the
subject; it is a realisation by the mind and [p.98] soul that its own
content is now on a path which has to be carved out, step by step, by
its own spiritual potency. It is in the light of what is attempted and
accomplished in this respect that the external world and all its
ramifications into the soul are in the last resort to be interpreted.
When the foundation of life is thus placed upon a spiritual content of
meaning and value, norm and end, the _first impressions_ of things are
seen as nothing more than preparatory stages and conditions to a life
beyond themselves. To come to a decision, insisted on again and again,
in regard to the reality of life and its content is not possible without
the deepest act of the whole of the soul. Such a conviction concerning
the spiritual kernel of our being is not a mere matter either of thought
or feeling or will. The three make their contribution towards the great
affirmation which takes place, but they are united at a depth in
consciousness which has no psychological name; they come to a kind of
focus within the blending of the over-individual norms and the need and
capacity of the soul for such norms. When this happens, the individual
has created a cleft in his own nature which renders it forever
impossible for him to be satisfied with the mere external aspect
produced by the first impressions of things. An inverted order of things
has come about: the sensuous world is relegated to the circumference,
and a spiritual world [p.99] dawns within the content of the soul. This
is the deepest meaning of religion; and, as we shall see at a later
stage, it constitutes the very nucleus of Christianity with its
announcement of conversion, the regeneration of the soul, and the union
and communion of man with the Divine.
Doubtless all this is difficult of apprehension, mainly on account of
the fact that there is no proof for it in a manner that can be made
intelligible. But the question arises, What is the power that acts and
brings forth proofs concerning anything? It is evidently not the whole
of the potentialities of man's nature: it is no more than the
understanding dealing with the evidence of impressions. But the
understanding, when dealing with the content of the union of individual
potency and over-individual norms, is dealing with a content infinitely
larger and more complex than itself; the material is too great and
intricate for the understanding to handle; it is a fruitless attempt of
the Part to monopolise the meaning and value of the Whole. The proof
rather lies within the domain of the soul itself, and is not something
which may be tacked on to any kind of external, spatial existence; it is
the emergence of a _new kind_ of existence or _self-subsistence._ The
proof (if we designate it by such an insufficient term) is _within_ the
experience and not _without_; it is the spiritual experience itself and
not merely an account, [p.100] in the form of even valid logical
concepts, concerning such experience.[30]
The space devoted to this subject may be justified on account of the
fact that Eucken's meaning of the evolution of spiritual life towards
higher levels cannot be understood without an understanding of the
distinction between _knowledge_ about experience and the _content_ of
experience itself, as this latter reveals itself in the ways
mentioned.[31] Eucken has lately paid great attention to this matter in
the new edition (1912) of _Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der
Gegenwart_, especially in the chapter on the "Philosophy of Religion and
the Psychology of Religion."[32]
The root of the matter here seems to be the ready acknowledgment of the
content of [p.101] spiritual life as well as of the fact that it
possesses a higher grade of existence than anything in the world without
or even within the psychic life. This is granting the manifestation of
spiritual life a foundation deeper than nature, culture, civilisation,
and even morality; for it is the norms of the over-world uniting with
the spiritual nature of man which have brought forth all these. This
willing acknowledgment becomes ever necessary, because something of _two
worlds_ is now present in the life of the man. On the one hand, the
natural world, with its material elements and its instincts and
impulses, is present in the soul. But, on the other hand, all these
cannot be torn away from the life. They constitute a great deal of the
vitality and the pleasure which are the legitimate possessions of man.
How cold and soulless would life be without these! But the danger arises
when there is not present a Standard sufficiently high and powerful to
govern these, and to make them serve the higher interests of the soul.
In other words, they must be melted in the contents and values of the
over-individual ideals; they must be sanctified to subserve the higher,
absolute ends and demands of the spirit. What can we say, then, of Life
when the natural assists the spiritual and when the individual passes
out to the realm of the over-individual save that a real point of
departure into _a new kind of world_ has actually taken [p.102] place?
Even this interpretation is insufficient to explain what happens,
although it happens within ourselves; far less, as we have seen, will
any other interpretation which explains life in lowest terms suffice.
We are then, says Eucken, driven to the conclusion that such a state is
either the breaking forth of a new kind of reality or the worst of all
possible illusions. And this great and inexorable _Either_--_Or_
presents itself in every decision taken towards what is higher than the
level we are standing on. The matter here does not belong to any
speculative domain, and is not the result of fancy or imagination out of
which reason has taken its flight. The matter is concrete--tangible
through and through. The history of mankind bears witness to the
validity of it; the experience of each individual in the deepest moments
of life echoes the experience of the race. The superiority of this _new
beginning in the over-world_ has to be established over and over again
by each individual on account of the danger of sinking back to a lower
level where the main power of spiritual life is not in action. A
certainty is therefore requisite in the very beginning of the
enterprise--an enterprise which is absolute and eternal. No limits are
perceptible to the possibilities of spiritual life when the fullest
conceivable content of the soul is seated at the centre of life, and
when every outward is interpreted and governed by an inward. This
experience is [p.103] far removed from all attempts to found religion on
speculation drawn either from the physical world or from the
generalisations of logic. These have their value--they point to the
presence of some degree of spiritual life when the human mind has worked
upon the material presented to it. But the matter at this highest level
does _not_ deal with the _relations_ of life but with _life itself_ in
the light of an over-world.
Eucken is nowhere finer than when he detects the necessity for the
acknowledgment of such a spiritual foundation of life. It is not a mere
individual need, but the union of an individual need with a reality
objective to the need. If the reality were already the possession of
man, no such need could arise. Still, the reality is present in his mind
as an idea and ideal; it is present to the individual, but it is not as
yet the possession of the individual except in a measure at the best. So
that the certainty includes within itself a _realisation_ and a further
_quest_. And the very nature of the quest involves a _struggle_ of the
whole nature. The certainty has gone so far as to show that the highest
good which presents itself to the soul is the "one thing needful," and
is possible of partial attainment. When all this burns within the soul,
something of the norm or ideal gets fixed within it, and the individual
starts to conquer more and more the new world into which he is now
landed. [p.104] Often the life is driven out of its course by alien
currents; a great deal of what the man has now left behind himself still
clings tenaciously to the new life, and the whole soul becomes an arena
often of a terrible conflict. The spiritual life and its content of a
new reality may be temporarily beaten in this warfare; but the battle is
finally won if ever the deepest within the soul has been touched by a
conviction of the eternal value and significance of the new life. The
conquest is followed by periods of calm and fruition. Here the deeper
energies gather themselves together; they grant a peace which the world
cannot give and cannot take away; they create new certainties, new
demands, and new attempts for the possession of a reality which is still
higher in its nature than anything that previously revealed itself.
Gradually the soul is forced more than ever to the conviction that the
whole matter is too serious to be of less than of _cosmic_ significance.
And it is out of this that the idea of the Godhead arises. It is not a
speculative dream but a conclusion forced upon the man by the actual
situation; the material for the conclusion is not anything which
descends into the soul with a ready-made content. Eucken states that
such a view of revelation belongs to the past history of the race. It is
now no less than a revelation springing from the very nature of the soul
at its highest possible level. [p.105] It occurs only when a foundation,
a struggle, and a conquest have been worked out by the soul in the
manner already depicted. No close determinations, as we shall see later,
are made concerning the meaning and nature of the Godhead. The man is
here at an altitude so rare and pure that it forbids any logical or
psychological analysis. God is not something to be explained, but to be
possessed. When the attempt is made to explain Him, He is very soon
explained away; when he is possessed, He becomes not something other
than was present before, but _more_ than was present before; a cosmic
significance is given to the universe and to man's struggle to scale the
heights of the over-world with all its momentous values.
Here, again, the spiritual life has landed us out of psychology into the
deepest experiences of religion and into the consciousness that the
_intermediate_ realities which presented themselves as over-individual
norms and ideals are realities of cosmic significance. The Godhead is
now _possessed_. As Jacob Boehme presents it: "From my youth up I have
sought only one thing: the salvation of my soul, the means of gaining
possession of the Kingdom of God." Here, as Professor Boutroux[33]
points out, "Jacob Boehme learnt from the mystics what it means to
possess God. One must take care, so these masters [p.106] teach, not to
liken the possession of God to the possession of anything material. God
is spirit, _i.e._ for the man who understands the meaning of the term, a
generating power previous to all essence, even the divine. God is spirit,
_i.e._ pure will, both infinite and free, with the realisation of its own
personality as its object. Henceforward, God cannot be accepted by any
passive operation. We possess Him only if He is created within us. To
possess God is to live the life of God." This is on lines precisely
those of Eucken, and something of this nature seems to be gaining ground
to-day in a strong idealistic school in Germany. We may soon discover
that a true mysticism is the flowering of the bud of knowledge; that
true knowledge constitutes a tributary which runs into the ocean of the
Infinite Love of the Divine and becomes the most precious possession of
the soul.[34]
Eucken touches on this subject in an extremely interesting chapter in
his _Truth of Religion_. "This is a question of fact, and not of
argument.... Because we convinced ourselves that things were so, we
gained the standpoint of spiritual experience over against a merely
psychological standpoint. For the [p.107] latter standpoint occupies
itself with purely psychic processes, and in the province of religion
especially it occupies itself with the conditions of the stimulations
of will and feeling, which are not able to prove anything beyond
themselves. The spiritual experience, on the contrary, has to do with
life's contents and with the construction of reality; it need not
trouble itself concerning the connections of the world except in a
subsidiary manner, because it stands in the midst of such connections,
and without these it cannot possibly exist. Man never succeeds in
reaching the Divine unless the Divine works and is acknowledged in his
own life; what is omitted here in the first step is never again
recovered and becomes more and more impossible as life proceeds on its
merely natural course. If, however, the standpoint of spiritual
experience is gained, then religion succeeds in attaining entire
certainty and immediacy; then the struggles in which it was involved
turn into a similar result, and its own inner movements become a
testimony to the reality of the new world which it represents."[35]
* * * * *