inwardness; rather in its own development it everywhere presupposes the
subject. It does not shape life out of mere and pure nature, but out of
a close union of a transcendent spiritual life with nature, and out of
an energetic insistence upon elements of nature within the soul.
However, man experiences not so much the things themselves as himself
in the things; the relating together, the surveying, the experiencing of
the whole is always a spiritual performance. This performance makes
something different out of nature, just as the naturalistic culture that
is striven for is different from the state of nature that is found at
the beginning. The misconception of the relation of nature to the mind;
the postulation of nature without mind, in place of nature with mind,
makes Naturalism self-contradictory and untenable. Naturalism therefore
struggles vainly against the following dilemma: if it is really in
earnest in the elimination of spiritual realities, it must inevitably
destroy its own fundamental basis and, as a system of life, must break
down; while if it in any way acknowledges a transcendence of nature, and
a transcendence just in that which is fundamental to it, then it is
necessarily driven beyond itself.
But such contradiction in the basal position must be present through the
whole development of Naturalism and must make all its factors variating
in colour and double in meaning, since at one and the same time they
involve the spiritual element and reject it, eliminate it and bring it
into the foreground, the former openly and explicitly, the latter
concealedly and implicitly. Such is the case, in particular, with the
fundamental conception of the _struggle for existence_. In the context
of Naturalism, this conception can signify nothing else than the
preservation of natural existence, of mere life; such a conception,
however, is as incapable of comprehending the whole wealth of the work
of civilisation and culture as it is of developing within itself. If the
preservation of existence in this sense were really the highest aim,
then, all the work of humanity, incalculable and great as it is, all the
toil and creative activity of history, would be without result; in no
way would it lead beyond the starting-point; we should, of course, have
life, but nothing along with and in life. Indeed, the movement would be
a continual retrogression, for the experience of the present shows us
clearly enough that the conflict of life becomes ever more difficult,
toilsome, and embittered. If all this toil does not yield more than was
possessed in the original condition, that is, physical existence, then
this implies that we have to make an ever greater detour to establish
that which formerly devolved upon us immediately. In such a case our
life would be a continual sinking, a toil continually increasing in
difficulty, in order that we might simply be something, without being
anything in particular. Or, will anyone assert that there is no
retrogression when the achievement of the same aim costs ever more
effort, ever more labour and turmoil of spirit?
The fact is that Naturalism also gives to life, which is seen to be thus
immersed in conflict, some kind of content, which it conceives as
increasing continually in the course of the movement, and as attaining
for us through the conflict an ever richer and more comprehensive
existence. But how can a conception such as that of the _content of
life_ originate in mere nature? How can it be even conceived unless life
possesses some consciousness of itself, unless there is a transformation
of what is external into something internal--a thing which nature can
never accomplish?
With the conception of the _struggle for existence_, the useful becomes
the preponderant power of life; it attempts a transvaluation of all
values, since it lays stress rather on the relation of things to us than
on their own nature. The conception won acceptance from and power over
the minds of men because it was a complete change from the generally
accepted explanation, and at the same time seemed to simplify matters
greatly. Unfortunately, on further consideration this transformation
proves to be a complete reversal of the general scheme of life, indeed a
destruction of it. Man, it is true, does not preserve his physical
existence without toil; he must continually win it anew, and nothing can
occupy him which does not acquire some relation to this necessity and
make itself consistent with it. But the further question arises, whether
anxiety for the useful is also able to crush out that which is
distinctive and characteristic in the world of humanity. If we
recognise the limits of the endeavour after the useful, we shall soon
become doubtful concerning its claim to be the sole aim of conduct. That
endeavour is spent solely on the welfare of the individual; it can never
free itself from reference to the individual, and never, beyond that
perceived, can it take up anything as an aim in itself. Interest is
centred solely upon the external products of the activity of men and of
the process of nature, and not at all upon what men and nature are in
themselves. We find here nothing but isolated spheres of existence which
are devoid alike of inner relation to themselves and to one another.
Now, Naturalism can appeal in its own defence to the fact that real life
shows its individual departments to have thousands of inter-relationships,
so that the welfare of the individual is inseparably bound up with that of
his environment, his family, his home, his state; and that therefore, in
order to prosper himself, his endeavour must be for the good of these
also. It may even serve his own interest to give up a direct advantage in
favour of a greater indirect one. Further, Naturalism is able to assert
that, however little the inner disposition of others may affect us
directly, this disposition can acquire a value for us in so far as its
persistence alone assures to us a continuance of achievement. As
considerations of this kind may be extended without limit, there is
nothing in the whole breadth of existence which the utilitarian view of
life need reject.
But, in the midst of all this extension in breadth, this development of
life retains a fixed limitation in its inner nature, which cannot be
transcended: we can never strive for the alien, the other, the whole,
for its own sake, but only as a means for our own welfare; everything
inward becomes a matter of indifference if, sooner or later, it is not
transformed into an external result. Human life, however, through its
own development has grown beyond this limitation; if not in the breadth
of existence, yet in its inner nature and at its highest, it manifests
something significantly more. Man is capable of a love which values
another, not because it hopes for this or that which is useful from
him, but because with the whole of his existence he is valuable to it.
Man is capable of a love which can lead him to the willing
subordination, indeed the joyful sacrifice, of his own existence; of a
love in which the first self dies and a new self is born. "Love is the
greatest of all contradictions, and one which the understanding cannot
solve, since there is nothing more impenetrable than this individuality
of self-consciousness, which is negated, and which yet I should retain
as positive" (Hegel). Into what a state of poverty humanity would fall
if a genuine love of this kind were struck out of the number of its
possessions! But can Naturalism in any way understand and estimate such
an inner expansion of the heart, such a _Stirbe und Werde_ [a dying to
live], to use the words of Goethe?
A deliverance of life from the mere _ego_ is effected in another
direction in work. Of course, work also stands in close relation to the
preservation of life; it must demonstrate itself to be in some way
useful. But work would never fill the soul and attain to anything great
if it did not also become an aim in itself; if it were not carried on in
complete submission to the object and according to its requirements. How
low all educational endeavour, personal guardianship, all work for
humanity would sink; how humanity would lack all self-forgetting
devotion to it, all bold pressing forward; and how unintelligible the
joy in a life's vocation would be, if the idea of utility solely and
entirely determined conduct, if the chief concern were always how the
work paid! Should we not sink, in such a case, into a slavery which
would enthral man far more oppressively than any command which a tyrant
could be capable of?
It is true that on the average level of existence much is turned to the
service of the merely useful which was produced from love and work, and
this reversal of spiritual goods may be the first thing which comes
definitely under our notice. In order, however, even to be so applied
and reversed, they must originally have been generated in some manner,
and this original generation can never proceed from the useful, but only
out of the inner force and compulsion of the object, as, for example, in
the case of the great transitions of thought, of artistic creation, and
of religious conviction. And, as these have proceeded from inner
movements, so they have also brought about powerful inner changes. They
have not altered this or that in a given world in order to make it more
comfortable to man, but with an energetic revolution have transformed
our world from its very foundations, and have constructed a new world in
contrast to that which immediately surrounds us. How much or how little
individual men, or indeed even mankind as a whole, have appropriated of
this; how far man has corresponded and still corresponds to the
necessities of his own nature, is a matter and a question in itself: in
the spiritual life of humanity the new magnitudes are extant, and they
operate here as norms for testing all achievement. At the same time,
they show that our life and our nature are of a kind different from what
Naturalism represents them to be. However much Naturalism may boast that
it is possible for even the highest to be drawn into the service of the
merely human, with all its boasting it has not explained the origin of
the highest: can a thing proceed from its own shadow? The naturalistic
attempt to trace everything back to the useful really reverses the
condition of affairs and results in inner destruction wherever
disposition stands first. For conduct changes its character completely
according as it is regarded as a mere means, or as an end in itself;
according as its aim is striven for directly or only indirectly. Do such
things as love, fidelity, honour deserve these names if the thought of
selfish advantage is their motive power? It lies in the nature of
certain things that they must be treated as ends in themselves and as
matters of primary concern: to degrade them to a subsidiary position is
in their case only a finer kind of destruction; to be opposed to utility
is an attribute inseparable from their very being. Where disposition is
valued only as a pre-condition of achievement, as in Naturalism, at the
highest only a tolerable appearance, a substitute for a genuine
disposition, can be reached in the whole moral sphere. Naturalism
affords us an example of such a substitution when it sets up an
altruistic action, that is, an action which produces something useful to
another, in place of an inner expansion of life, which takes the other
up inwardly into our own volition and being, and which alone leads
beyond egoism. Naturalism is able to overlook all this; is able to make
what is the secondary view of things the primary one; the derived, the
original; is able to put the relation to human perception in place of
the thing itself, only because its interest is so completely occupied
with external relations that it does not independently evaluate the
inner; and again, because a reflection that appeals to the understanding
hinders all immediate relation and spontaneous appropriation. Otherwise,
it also would feel how deep, how intolerable, a degradation of man
ensues if his innermost experience, his striving after truth, his
wrestling for unity within himself, his love, and his suffering are made
a mere means to physical self-preservation, and are thus regarded from
the point of view of utility.
If we glance over the life of universal history, we see that a history
of a distinctively human character extricates itself from the machinery
of nature only through man's acquiring an independence over against his
environment, evolving a life conscious of itself and from it exerting a
transforming power upon all presented to it. Only thus does a
civilisation grow up in contrast with the mere state of nature. In
civilisation and culture man enters into conflict with the infinity of
the external world, but he cannot carry on this conflict victoriously
without setting an inner infinity in opposition to that external one. In
the struggle between these two worlds the life of man is transformed no
less than the appearance of reality. More and more the visible world
becomes an expression of an invisible one; more and more life draws the
world into itself and finds the chief problems in its own sphere. Thus
life becomes raised above simple physical preservation; that which
serves in this preservation is regarded as a condition only and as
something preliminary.
Among the peoples situated nearest to us, this tendency has taken
different forms; but the separation of creative spiritual activity from
all mere utility is common to all. Thus, Greek culture gave birth to a
life resting in its own movement, a life satisfied in itself. In the
sharpest manner it marked off the beautiful, that which could produce
pleasure immediately and of itself, from the merely useful, everything
which served something else. It lauded the life filled with the
perception and appreciation of the beautiful as the only free life, and
pronounced every other way of life to be servile. Further, if in
Christianity, in the comprehensiveness of its relations, the care for
the welfare of the narrowly human takes up a great amount of attention,
and a utilitarianism of a religious kind is evolved, the height of its
creation and disposition is not affected: in it the winning of a new
life superior to all selfishness, the becoming one with the divine, is
the one end in itself. If Clement of Alexandria could say that, if it
was a matter of choosing between the knowledge of God and eternal bliss,
he would have, without hesitation, to renounce the latter, or if Thomas
à Kempis said, "I would rather be poor for Thy sake than rich without
Thee. I choose rather to be a pilgrim with Thee on the earth, than
without Thee to possess heaven. For where Thou art, there is heaven; but
where Thou art not, there is death and hell"--then these are not merely
the lofty sayings of individuals, but a faithful expression of that
which gave to the whole system its world-penetrating and world-reviving
power.
The Modern Age, too, which has conceded so much to utilitarian striving,
is in the innermost essence of its effort far removed from the spirit of
mere utility. For, from the two poles of its life, from the subject as
from the object, it breaks through all that is simply "given" and forms
a new, self-existent world. In modern times the subject frees itself
from the environment, places itself proudly over against it, and finds
its securest experience in the self-certainty of its own life. At the
same time it in no way renounces the surrounding world; but through the
activity of thought it reconstructs that world, and in this
conceptualises and idealises all its magnitudes. The more the subject
becomes assured of seeing all things spiritually and scientifically by
means of its own organisation, the more true is it that all sense
experience is sustained and modified by spiritual power. Natural
self-preservation cannot possibly satisfy the striving of the subject.
For this striving can never be reduced to a mere means, but finds its
power, as its joy, in becoming a world in itself; in the proud
maintenance and establishment of its own nature in face of every
opposition; in the impression of its particularity upon the infinity of
things. On the other hand, over against the circumstantiality of man,
great systems of thought are formed; evolve a characteristic content and
independent powers; and, as forces in the life of universal history,
press forward their consequences with inevitable necessity. These
systems seek to bring reality under their sway, and do not manifest the
least concern with regard to the continuance and the interests of man.
Science and art and the political and economical aspects of life afford
examples of what we mean. Accordingly, in the modern world and in the
modern man, two movements towards infinity clash together, and from
these there arise great commotion and violent unrest. Whatever may
remain enigmatical in this, the fact of the transformation of the first,
the sense experience of things, is beyond doubt. It is also beyond doubt
that man, regarded spiritually, does not find himself a member of a
given world, but must first seek and make clear his fundamental
relations to the world. From this position Naturalism, with its naïve
assertion of the finality and permanence of the sense impression,
appears to be an intolerable dogmatism.
Naturalism is seen to be far below the highest point of universal
historical development; it cannot appropriate the experiences and
results of that development; it consists of a confusion of naïve and
scientific modes of thought, which win the adherence of many
individuals, but which, through their contradictions, can never
guarantee to life genuine stability and a clear course. Only because it
evolves in the atmosphere of a world of another kind, and thereby
imperceptibly enhances its own conceptions, does it appear at all
plausible. Nevertheless, even so, it is a mischievous confusion of
thought which must act detrimentally upon conduct. Those especially will
be opposed to it who recognise in human life great tasks and severe
perplexities, and desire that the highest powers and clearest thought
shall be called forth for the accomplishment of those tasks and the
solution of those perplexities. But Naturalism, obscuring, as it does,
the inner problems of life; with its backwardness in the movement of
universal history; and with its attempt to take from human life all
proud and free self-consciousness, indeed all soul, can tend only to
reduce the energy of life.
The rejection of Naturalism by no means signifies failure to appreciate
the increased attention to nature, out of the wrong interpretation of
which Naturalism has proceeded. Not only has visible nature become more
to our knowledge; it has also become incomparably more to our life. The
fact that we feel ourselves conditioned by it, and have become more
closely associated with it, can be fully appreciated and must force us
to a radical revision of the traditional form of life. Such a revision,
however, can be successful in achieving its aim only if the new
experiences are systematised to form a consistent whole with the
remaining facts in a comprehensive, universal life; spiritual endeavour
is solely and alone capable of offering this universality and of
accomplishing this task.
2. THE SOCIALISTIC SYSTEM
The socialistic system of life is often closely bound up with the
naturalistic, and blends with it so well as almost to form a single
whole; indeed, there is so much affinity in their fundamental
principles that the one may appear to be the completion of the other.
But when we come to details, we find that a different character and a
different emotional life are yielded according as the relation to nature
or to human society governs life; especially as we are parts in an
infinite nature, or as we place our own province in the foreground and
seek a new form for it. On the one hand knowledge takes the lead, on the
other activity. While the former, according to its nature, is more
concerned with reaching a consistent whole, the latter feels the
contradictions of experience most intensely. With the one progress
appears to be a gradual accumulation, with the other it does not seem
possible to dispense with a radical change; while the former is broader
in its outlook, the latter has more warmth of enthusiasm. Through the
domination of thought and life by the problems of society, a distinctive
form of culture may therefore be expected.
In modern life different motives have led to a closer unity of men on
the basis of experience. Religion no longer accords to the individual
firm support as in earlier times, and with every advance of scientific
research nature is removed inwardly further from us; ceaseless criticism
and reflection tend to prevent us more and more from comprehending the
whole as a unity. Man, thus isolated in the whole, seems to himself to
be lost, unless he succeeds in discovering relations between himself and
others of the same nature as himself, and unless in co-operation with
them he helps to build up an independent realm of their own, which may
lend support and value to the life of the individual.
In the Modern Age social life has tended to this end under the influence
of fresh impressions and new prospects. Hitherto that life was under the
influence of an invisible world of thought, especially of one of a
religious kind. The union of men had particular presuppositions and was
realised in a particular manner; here, the more closely a certain group
held together, the more sharply was it separated from others; the
calling forth of power in one particular direction meant diverting it
from other tasks. A changed mode of thought was also able to take
exception to the view that the ties which bind men together came from a
transcendent order, which is now felt as an "other" world and is the
subject of doubt. At first, therefore, we are apt to think it a pure
gain if modern society no longer concerns itself with these invisible
bonds, and regards the union as arising solely and entirely out of the
immediate experience of life. For then there is nothing to hinder the
balanced development of all the relationships of men among themselves;
the social life serves no other end, but finds its task and happiness in
itself, and in its actuality is disturbed by no kind of doubt.
With this deliverance from all external constraint, a positive advance
of the life of society on the basis of the Modern Age is associated. A
life more free in conduct, and which through progress in the arts
ceaselessly expands, brings men nearer to one another, and forces them
into closer union; action and reaction accelerate each other. The
opinions and strivings of the masses are determined more easily and
exercise more influence; the whole and its influence upon the individual
become incomparably stronger. At the same time, the energetic attention
that men bestow upon the surrounding reality throws into bold relief
relations which have existed from the earliest times, but which hitherto
have not been prominent, and enables them to acquire a greater value for
life. Since the old appears in a new light, and the new arises, diverse
streams of social life are formed, and through their diversity operate
to the strengthening of the main tendency.