aims of which appear to be unattainable? In the first place, because the
movement cannot be given up so easily as those critics imagine who adopt
this view; for it does not consist simply of explanations and theories
that might be completely refuted by rigorous argument, but a certain
reality has been evolved, desires aroused, forces called into life, and
movements inaugurated. Even if they halt in their course they were
something; they do not disappear therefore before the attacks of
Scepticism; further, however mean their results may be, they prove to be
strong enough to indicate the limitations in the life of nature, and to
make it inadequate for us. The matter is the more mysterious in that the
striving is anything but a product of the natural desire for happiness.
For the movement disturbs all our complacency; it leads man to be
discontented with that which hitherto had fully satisfied him; it
surrounds him with fixed organisations; desires from him much labour and
sacrifice, and makes existence, not easier, but more difficult for him.
Delusions are wont to deceive us by pleasing pictures; to attract us
with the promise of pleasure and enjoyment. How does a delusion, that
imposes so much toil and trouble upon us, win so much power over us?
There is another matter to be considered in this connection. A complete
renunciation can appear possible only because it is not clearly
perceived how much which we cannot give up and which ultimately we have
no desire to give up is involved in it. Only a want of clearness of
thought, and still more a weakness of character, could wish to retain in
the particular case what was given up as a whole; could affirm as effect
what it denied as cause. As soon as this course is recognised to be
impossible, it becomes evident that with the rejection of the spiritual
life everything is abandoned which gives to our life dignity, greatness,
and inner unity, and joins us to others with an inward bond. Realities
such as love and honour, truth and right, must be regarded as empty
forms; and even science must come to an end, because there is no longer
any inner unity of work, no objective necessity.
Such considerations again show us that a complete negation is
impossible; and it seems that we must remain for ever in painful
suspense between an unattainable affirmation and an impossible negation.
We might be able to endure this condition of affairs if it concerned a
problem which arose in reference to something of little importance to
our life, something that we could relegate to the background, and simply
permit to lie there, without compromising our life. But our problem lies
at the centre of life; is, in fact, itself the centre. To be left in
suspense here means to condemn life as a whole to a state of paralysis,
to surrender it to complete dissolution. Against this everyone who has
any vital energy in him will contend; with his whole might he will seek
to escape from a condition so intolerable; he will not hold back from
making a bold venture, mindful of the words of Goethe, "Necessity is the
best counsellor."
In seeking a way out of the contradiction, it is essentially necessary
not to forget the source of the contradiction. We saw that source to be
in the fact that the spiritual life would set up a new world, and at the
same time remains bound up with the merely human and presents itself as
an endeavour of mere man. To the spiritual life a universal character is
indispensable; of this claim nothing can be abated. There must therefore
be a change as regards man; it must be that more comes to pass in him
than the first impression makes evident. It must be that the spiritual
within him, which seems at first to be his own product, is a
participation in wider connections; the spiritual must be operative in
man, but not originate out of the merely human. It is true that this
makes a reversal of the traditional position necessary, and not merely
of its representations; and such a reversal provokes serious doubt.
Modern science, however, has taught us sufficiently often that the first
appearance of anything need not be the ultimate one; that there may be
cogent reasons for regarding something that at first seems based in
itself as the proof of something existing beyond. Thus, modern natural
science has transformed the world of sense into a world present only to
the eyes of research. Certainly, science accomplishes these changes
within the bounds of experience: on the contrary, in regard to our
problem, in which the fundamental form of reality is in question, it is
indispensable that we should transcend these bounds; without a change in
respect of the whole, and hence without a resort to metaphysics, it is
not possible to accomplish our purpose. It is quite clear that the
tendency of our time is opposed to appeals to metaphysics: yet it is a
question how far this attitude is justified. So far as metaphysics
assumes the same form as in the past--that of conceptual speculation of
a thought hovering unrestrained over the existing world--then it is
rightly opposed. But the attitude is unjustifiable which assumes that
with the overthrow of the older metaphysics all metaphysics may be
ignored. For a metaphysic can proceed also from the whole life, and need
not be a product of mere thought. The implication therefore is this,
that the centre of life itself must be changed, and thus a revolution of
the previous condition accomplished; that an actuality already operative
in life is to be given its rightful place and brought to its full
effect. The business of metaphysics, therefore, is not to add something
in thought to a reality which lies before us, or to weave such a reality
into a texture of conceptions; but to seek to grasp reality in itself,
and to rouse it to life in its entire depth for ourselves. Every change
of thought then rests on a change of life. Such a metaphysic may appeal
to the saying of Hebbel, "Only fools will banish metaphysic from the
drama; it makes a great difference, however, whether life evolves out of
metaphysic or metaphysic out of life."
Even if our age rejects a metaphysic of this kind also, if it surrenders
itself without resistance to the inconsistencies of the world of sense,
this would be the last thing which could deter us from an appeal to
metaphysic. For the inner cleavages and the superficiality of the life
of our time--and we saw reason to believe that these are facts--stand in
the closest relation to the rejection of metaphysics: this rejection has
made the age inwardly insignificant. If an indirect proof of the
necessity of a revolutionary transformation of life, and at the same
time of a metaphysic may be offered, our age furnishes one quite
sufficient in its own experiences; its opposition can be only a
recommendation of an appeal to metaphysic.
The one main thesis which it is essentially necessary to establish is
analysed in sufficient detail throughout the whole course of our
investigation; it simply sums up that which has already been advanced
point by point. The intolerable contradiction arises, as we saw, from
this, that the spiritual life with its new world should be a product of
mere man, and that that life should remain within man and at the same
time lead in its essence beyond him. This contradiction cannot be
overcome otherwise than by our recognising and acknowledging in the
spiritual life a universal life, which transcends man, is shared by him,
and raises him to itself. That this transition brings with it a change
in the appearance of life and of the world as a whole, and that as a
result our striving is brought under entirely different conditions,
needs more detailed presentation.
(b) THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MAIN THESIS
1. The Main Thesis and the Possibility of a New System of Life
(a) _The Development of the Spiritual Life to Independence_
Our investigation reached its highest point in the demand that the
spiritual life should become independent of man. Man cannot produce a
spiritual life of his own capacity: a spiritual world must impart itself
to him and raise him to itself. It must be shown that this does not by
any means signify only a change of name, a new labelling of an old
possession, but implies far-reaching changes, and indeed involves a
complete reversal of the first condition. At the same time the course of
the investigation must establish that this transition to the spiritual
life is not something subsequently inferred or offered simply for the
explanation of an otherwise unintelligible fact, but that it would
overcome a false appearance, and help a misunderstood truth to its
right. The fact that is affirmed should become an immediate experience
of one's own and should advance life rather than knowledge. Only the
whole investigation and not an introductory consideration can furnish a
proof of our contention.
There are within our own soul distinctive movements tending in
directions different from those of nature. We recognised that there is a
life which proceeds from some kind of comprehensive whole; a life which
transcends the opposition of subject and object, and evolves a
self-consciousness in contrast with the relation to externals. All these
features present a quite different appearance, form a more coherent
whole, and will occupy a more definite position in the representation
of reality, if in them an independent life superior to mere man is
recognised and acknowledged. The principal reason for this is that it is
only by means of that deliverance from the simply human that the new
life is able to express its own nature clearly and to realise as part of
its own nature what otherwise seemed to have its source in something
external. The individual traits that we become aware of are the
revelation of a universal life, if they are no longer regarded as
limited by the idiosyncrasies of the human. With this acknowledgment
they can gain ascendancy over man and prove their power upon him.
We saw that it is characteristic of the spiritual life that it is lived
from the whole; the elements are fashioned by a comprehensive unity; the
different complexes and tendencies which arise in this life strive
ultimately towards a single aim. We saw also that it was absolutely
impossible that the tendency to universality should be originated by
man, whose chief movement is towards differentiation and division; and,
further, that it should be realised by him in face of the opposition of
nature, which extends to the immeasurable in matters great and small.
The unity that is necessary for this cannot arise out of the many as an
ultimate result; it must be original and be operative from the
beginning. We may postulate such a unity only if the spiritual life is
itself a universal life transcending that of the isolated individuals;
if it bears in itself a unity which takes the multiplicity up into
itself. And so the whole from an abstract conception is for the first
time raised to a living reality; and only on thus becoming a reality can
it exercise a distinctive power upon individuals and in contrast to
individuals; and inwardly unite and essentially raise them. Only in this
way is it conceivable that another kind of activity having its source
within the soul may exert itself in opposition to the mechanism of
nature and transcend it; and that selfishness and spiritual weakness may
in some way be overcome. Man, so far as he shares in the spiritual life,
is more than a mere individual; a universal life becomes his own and
works within him as a power of his life.
Further, the taking up of the object into the life-process, the
transcendence of the antithesis of subject and object, is characteristic
of the spiritual life. But this remained an inner contradiction, a
complete impossibility so long as the spiritual life was regarded as an
occurrence in a being who, with a closed nature, stands over against
things as though they were alien; and who can take up nothing into
himself without accommodating it to his own particular nature. The
contradiction is removed only when the spiritual becomes independent;
for then both sides of the antithesis come to belong to each other and
are related to each other in a single life; and a life transcending the
division may develop, a life that produces the antithesis from within,
lives in the different sides and seeks in them its own perfection. The
life-process is now seen to be a movement that is neither from object to
subject, nor from subject to object; neither the subject's attainment of
content from the object, nor the object's becoming controlled by the
subject, but an advance of a self-conscious life in and through the
antithesis. Life, by this movement, ceases to be a single, thin thread;
it wins breadth; it expands to an inner universality. At the same time a
depth is manifested in that a persistent and comprehensive activity
emerges which lives in the antithesis. In this manner life first becomes
a life in a spiritual sense, a self-conscious and self-determining life,
a self-consciousness.
That this change is possible and brings with it a new type of life is
shown with complete clearness by experience in the separate departments
of the spiritual life. Thus, artistic creation at its highest is neither
the production of the truest possible copy of an external object, the
artist painfully abstaining from all subjective addition; nor a
presentation of subjective situations and moods, the artist endeavouring
to the utmost to avoid everything objective; but a transcendence of the
opposition of soulless objectivity and empty subjectivity by an art that
is sovereign, autonomous, and with a character of its own; the creative
activity belonging to which gives life from the soul to the object, and
moulds the soul by means of the object. This kind of artistic creation
is directed primarily towards an inner truth, not towards a truth that
is produced by the object, but one that arises only in the contact of
the object with the soul. It is manifest that creation is effected here
not as an interaction between subject and object, but above and through
this antithesis; it is only by transcending the antithesis that the
artist can give himself in his work, lend to it a soul, place an
infinity within it. In this respect conduct manifests a character
similar to that of creation. Conduct would never attain an inner
stability and enter upon an independent course, if it could not raise
itself above the opposition of a submission to orders that are forced
upon it from without, and a mere play of subjective inclination; if it
were not able to become the self-assertion and self-development of a
life transcending that opposition. At this point also the acknowledgment
of an independent spiritual life teaches us to comprehend as a whole
that which, in a many-sided development, the different departments of
life show to be real.
The obscurity in which the conception of inwardness was hitherto
involved begins to disappear when the spiritual life is no longer
regarded as supplementary but as an independent life. It cannot be
denied that, within humanity, there is an endeavour to develop the life
of the soul to a state of self-determining activity and, at the same
time, to free that life from the bondage to sense in which it remains at
the level of nature. Yet, definite affirmation that shall correspond to
the negation of sense has been lacking; it has not been clear how
inwardness might find content and characteristic forms; there has been
no advance from the subjective to the substantial. But since a universal
activity is operative within the multiplicity and through the division,
and since it sets itself in the division and from this returns to
itself, a self-conscious inwardness becomes conceivable which has a life
of its own with new experiences. Since within this life "to receive"
presupposes the comprehending power and the self-determining activity of
a vital whole, something other than sense is able to evolve and through
all the persistence of sense to become the chief matter. The spiritual
life is not directed to a reality adjacent to it, but evolves a reality
out of itself; or rather, it evolves as a reality, a kingdom, a world;
and so it advances from vague outline to more complete development; it
struggles for itself, for its own perfection, not for anything external.
It is directly implied in the above conception that the spiritual life
is something different from single psychical functions, such as
cognition, volition, and the like; and that man, so far as he shares in
it, is more than one such function or a sum of such functions. For these
functions come under the antithesis of subject and object, while the
spiritual life transcends it. It is also clear that the spiritual life
does not change this or that in a life which already exists, or add this
or that to it, but that it introduces a new kind of life--a life by
which man is distinguished clearly from everything inferior to him.
If the spiritual life is an evolution of a reality in the life-process,
then the question arises as to how this reality is related to the world
that immediate experience shows us to be surrounded by. As surely as man
in his subjective reflection is able to free himself from the world and
to place himself in opposition to it, so there can be no doubt that the
spiritual life belongs to the permanent reality of the world and, as we
see it, grows up out of its movement. The transition to an independent
inwardness is not something which happens externally to the world but
within it: no special sphere, separate from all the rest, is originated;
but reality itself evolves an inner life: it is the world itself that
reveals a spiritual depth, or, as we might say, a soul. We are not
justified in doubting and attacking this view simply because the
spiritual life meets us only in man, and thus, in contrast with the
infinity of nature, is in its external manifestation so insignificant.
For something essentially new appears in it, something that involves
another order of things: the fact that little falls within our range of
vision is in this connection not at all relevant. If anyone is disturbed
and driven to denial by the external insignificance of the
manifestations of the spiritual life, he shows only that he
misunderstands what is distinctive and revolutionising in that life. The
spiritual life is not to be thought of merely in reference to the
experiences of the individual, but also to the work of humanity, to
history, to the advance of culture. All these show us a development of
life that presents the world from a new side; and this must be an
important factor in the estimation of the world, especially if the
spiritual is recognised as having a life independent of man.
The inward must necessarily present itself as the fundamental and the
comprehensive; as that which in its invisibility sustains, dominates,
and unifies the visible world. Nature, which there was a tendency to
regard as the whole, is now of the essence of a wider reality and a
stage in its development; and it is impossible for the conception formed
from it to be regulative of the whole. Ultimately, therefore, reality
cannot be regarded as something dead, detached, and given: it signifies
to us something living, something experienced in itself, something
sustained by incessant activity. At the same time, the lateness of the
appearance of the spiritual life within our realm and the many ways in
which this appearance is conditioned force us to acknowledge that the
life of the world as a whole has a history. The conception of history
that we have become familiar with in its application to nature and to
the spiritual life throughout is now extended to the relation between
the two. However many mysteries it yet involves, definite progress in
our conception of the world must be admitted.
Most of all it is man with his life and endeavour that appears in a new
light. Two worlds meet together in him, and, indeed, not merely in such
a manner that he provides the place in which they meet and enter into
conflict, but so that he acquires an independent participation in the
new world, and through his own decision co-operates in its development.
For spiritual life, with its self-determining activity, can never become
itself as a mere effect; to become this it must be apprehended and
roused to activity as cause. But it is cause and animating power only in
its being as a whole; so, as a whole it must be present to man and
become his own life. Thus, in contrast to the particularity of his
natural existence, a life having its source in the infinite grows up
within him: in the former a mere part of a world; in the latter he
becomes a world in himself: in the one, bound up with the particular
nature of man; in the other, he is elevated above all particularity to
something more than human, to something cosmic.
To such changes in the content of life there must be corresponding
changes in its form. Empirical consciousness with its discreteness and
succession of presentations and states cannot possibly comprehend the
new life; to do that the soul must acquire a greater depth. It must be
capable of an activity which, with single phases, extends into this
consciousness, but which as a whole and in its creative work must
transcend it. With the acknowledgment of an independent spiritual life
in man two questions giving rise to different methods of treatment
necessarily become distinguished: the one as to the nature and extent of
the spiritual that is revealed in him; and the other, how, under the
specific conditions of his nature, it emerges and establishes itself. It
will become evident how important it is to distinguish these
sufficiently, and yet on the other hand to associate them closely.
(b) _The Demands of a New System of Life_