view of reality as a whole, and in particular of man, we are faced with
the question whether we may not attain a new synthesis through this
spirituality, and whether it does not begin a characteristic formation
of our world. Our treatment of the philosophies of life of the present
day makes it possible for us to approach this question with definite
demands. We saw life branch off in different movements, each of which
took up into itself a wealth of fact; but we found none of them strong
enough to absorb the others into itself, or even able to estimate them.
If life is not finally to fall into dissolution, it needs, in contrast
to these movements, one more universal in character, and this can be
more than a weak compromise only when there is a still more fundamental
relation of life than that which the developments that we have
considered proffered. In that case the more original basal relation
ought to be able to manifest itself as a presupposition of those
developments; it should make intelligible how divisions can originate in
the condition of man; in particular it should illuminate the opposition
between the idealistic and the naturalistic systems of life--an
opposition which, like a deep gulf, divides the life of the present. In
short, it should depend upon whether the change that results with the
acknowledgment of the independence of the spiritual life makes it
possible for us permanently to transcend those oppositions and to work
towards their reconciliation. But we ought then to see that, with its
universality, the system of life striven for does not fall into a state
vague and lacking in character. Through its whole being, in affirmation
and in negation, the system of life must definitely express itself; it
must synthesise and differentiate, elevate and exclude. But it will be
able to do this only if it produces a new kind of life-process and a new
web of life: only thus can essentially new evaluations and tasks, new
experiences and genuine developments, originate; only thus can life as a
whole be definitely raised. Of course, this new cannot signify something
that has just been discovered and that has arisen suddenly. How could it
be a truth which gives to us security, and how could it dominate our
life, if it is not rooted in our being, and if it had not exerted an
influence at all times? But it makes a great difference whether the new
has been concealed, obscure and against the tendency of our own
activity; or whether it is taken up fully in our own self-determining
activity and thereby essentially advanced. If, on the one hand, the new
must be something old, on the other hand the old must become something
new if it is to liberate, strengthen, and elevate our life where its
needs are so urgent.
(c) _The Spiritual Basis of the System of Life_
There can be no doubt that the acknowledgment of the independence of the
spiritual life involves the recognition of a new fundamental relation of
our life. This relation is no other than that of man to the spiritual
world, which is immanent in him and at the same time transcends him. It
is more original than the relations implied in the systems of the
present day; for these, even though contrary to their own knowledge and
intention, all presuppose this fundamental relation to the spiritual
life. Religion could not be so violently attacked and so zealously
denied by so many, if the relation of life to God were the absolute
relation and were present before all others. The value of religion
depends essentially upon the content of the spiritual life which it
serves. With the mere relation of life to a supernatural power, the
nature of which is not more closely defined--with mere blind
devotion--nothing of value is attained. An honest religious attitude of
a formal kind can go together, on the one hand, with spiritual poverty
and blindness, and, on the other, with hatred and passion. How sad the
condition of things in general has often been even when religion has
shown a strong development of power! How often the help of divine power
has been invoked even in the commission of crime! If, however, the value
of religion and its effect on the substance of life are measured
according to its spiritual content, then this content necessarily
becomes the chief object of attention and conduct. We can assure
ourselves of the relation to a supernatural power only from the
experiences of the spiritual life, and not previously to this life and
independently of it. The relation of life to the spiritual life must
therefore necessarily precede its relation to God; life must be certain
of a universal spiritual character before it can assume a truly
religious one.
We find the case to be no different as regards the system of Immanent
Idealism. It is open to considerable doubt whether the world as it lies
before us can be looked upon as a pure unfolding of the spiritual life,
as this Idealism asserts. In any case, for the spiritual life to
comprehend the world within itself it must itself be established as a
universal power, and clearly distinguished from mere man. Otherwise the
way of Immanent Idealism leads to an anthropomorphism of a more refined
kind; and there is a danger that the whole world which this system
champions may be criticised hostilely and rejected as simply human.
Immanent Idealism, therefore, also points to the problem of substantial
spiritual life.
The naturalistic systems do the same thing in a different way, and this,
indeed, in contradiction to their main contention. For, when they
attempted to produce a system from themselves, they could achieve their
object only in that they were implicitly based upon the spiritual life,
and introduced again indirectly that which they had previously rejected.
They are developments of the spiritual life in particular directions and
under particular circumstances: they think that they are able to
accomplish out of their own resources something which they accomplish
only with the help of a fundamental spiritual life; and so the more
consistent they are in their denial of an independent spirituality the
more inevitably they lose all internal coherence.
Thus from whatever point we start we come to the question of an
independent spirituality; an answer to this question is involved in
every system of life. But as its implications are not distinctly
recognised, it does not receive its proper due. If we consider the
question adequately, it will be found that a universal life must precede
all differentiation and division; and that from this life each movement
must receive a new elucidation. A multiplicity within the whole is quite
intelligible, because it is a development of the spiritual life, not
absolutely, that is in question, but in relation to the position of man
and under the conditions to which he is subject. The desire to give
greater stability to our life in opposition to the never-ceasing flow of
appearances that constitutes our immediate existence, also compels us
strongly to emphasise the importance of the relation to the spiritual
life, which is acknowledged as independent. Without an elevation above
this constant change all spiritual work must inevitably become
disintegrated, and no truth of any kind would be possible to us. In the
Modern Age especially there is a keen desire for a firm basis, as a
secure support of life as a whole. But it is useless to seek this basis
in life as we immediately experience it, whether in thought, in
activity, or in anything else; for in the whole life of immediate
experience there is nothing that is free from change. To seek this basis
in a particular point is also to no purpose, even if one could be raised
to a position above change; for it could not operate beyond itself in
such a way as to support the rest of life. If, therefore, we would not
submit to a dissolution of life, we must seek a basis for it beyond its
immediate state and in a whole of life. Such a whole of life is offered
only by the spiritual life, which, transcending man, is also immanent in
him. Of course this cannot be taken possession of immediately at the
beginning of the journey of life; but it is held up to us as an aim, and
we can only gradually approach it. But how could it operate within us
thus, if our life had not some kind of participation in it from the
beginning; if our life were not in some way based in the spiritual life,
and in progressive activity only developed the spiritual that is in it?
For unless we are based in the spiritual life we should drift helplessly
to and fro in uncertainty, and our endeavour would never be
intelligible. From this point of view also, our relation to the
spiritual life is seen to be the fundamental problem that must precede
all others.
If there can be no doubt that the problem of life is comprehended most
universally when we view it in relation to the spiritual life, there may
be all the more uncertainty whether all characteristic form and, with
it, all deep-reaching effect are not lost by reason of this
universality. If the conception of the spiritual life involved its usual
vagueness, this would in reality be the case, for recourse to it would
not effect any fundamental transformation of the immediate condition of
life; and we should not rise above the mere combination of its various
movements. The case is quite otherwise if the spiritual life is
distinguished clearly from the human and is acknowledged to be an
independent world. So understood, it must show a particular content, a
new structure of life, and must give a distinct form to everything that
it takes up into itself. It is necessary to consider, also, its relation
to the world of sense, and we may expect to be faced in this matter with
complications and problems that will agitate our life in its whole
extent, and set it in a new light.
In the spiritual life we recognised a new world, a realm of inwardness,
which has become independent. Within this realm life cannot be directed
to something alien, but can be occupied only with itself, with its own
development. Its experiences cannot be related to externals; they must
lie in itself. Now, have we any knowledge of a movement that reaches
back in this manner to the elements of life? We perceive a movement of
this kind clearly enough. In the first place, all development of the
spiritual life shows, even within the individual, the attribute that a
universal mode of thought, conviction, disposition, sets itself in the
single function and continues present within it. The tendencies and
manifestations of the spiritual are not all at the same level of
development, but since a universal activity, a comprehensive and
persistent deed, is present in the particular manifestation, the process
acquires a depth, and a single act is able to give expression to a
tendency of the whole as well as to react upon it.
But this movement extends beyond the immediate state of the soul of the
individual to spiritual work, and gives it a particular form. Life as a
whole, as reality's consciousness of itself, may be regarded as
throughout capable of a multiplicity, as containing within itself
different sides and possibilities. Since its evolution produces this
multiplicity, life as a whole can express itself in the individual
aspects and tendencies; expand them till they become different
departments; experience itself in particular ways in these departments,
and in so doing achieve a development of its own; it is able also to
bring these departments and their developments into their relation to
one another. Since thus, within the world as a whole, life concentrates
in different ways, and the particular tendencies which thus arise meet
and enter into conflict with one another, and since their conflict is in
particular a contest to determine the form of the whole, there is
revealed the prospect of a wealth of experiences which come not from
without but out of the movement of life itself, and spring from its
occupation with itself. The conflict between the different movements of
life must bring the whole into a state of tension and lead it to further
development. In the progressive formation of itself, in the development
of a reality conscious of itself, life through its movement finds itself
and develops a content. This movement will summon all the psychical
powers of man to activity; it cannot possibly proceed from them. If we
are to take part in the building up of that inner world, a spiritual
creative activity from the basis of our being must be operative through
these psychical functions, uniting them, and applying them as means and
instruments.
If, for us men, life becomes conscious of its content only through
movement and conflict, nevertheless this content may not be regarded as
ultimately proceeding from them. If, as a whole, life did not transcend
movement and conflict, if the latter were not included within a
self-conscious and self-determining life, then they could yield no
inner result, and could not lead to the further development of the
whole. The attempts to derive this self-conscious and self-determining
life from ontological conceptions such as "being," "whole," "movement,"
and so on, as the older metaphysics often undertook to do; or the
tendency to treat it only as a supplement to them, are to be dismissed
most decisively. The fundamental qualities that the spiritual life
evolves always presuppose a self-conscious life and become intelligible
only in relation to it. Without it, the conceptions of the true and the
good remain in complete obscurity, as will be shown later in more
detail.
If our human reflection often advances from the indefinite to the
definite, from the abstract to the concrete, this does not involve that
the latter is originated from the former: the advance could not be
achieved unless that which comes at the end was operative from the
beginning as its basis and presupposition.
If a self-conscious life unfolds itself with an increasing content
through all departments and activities of life, then these departments
will have their meaning and their value primarily in that which they
accomplish for the further development of that life, and in the
particular tendencies that they add to it: this yields a treatment and a
standard of value different from those which we are led to if we make
the psychical states of the individual our starting-point. The treatment
of religion, for example, as a mere occurrence of an unrestrained
psychical life may understand by religion a particular agitation of this
or that psychical function; but with this we do not obtain a spiritual
content. Again, it is not evident how a world of thought formed from
such an individual psychical life could acquire an independence of man,
and lift him above the position in which it finds him. The problem of
religion attains quite a different basis if the spiritual movements and
contents which emerge with it are emphasised; with this it develops and
discloses the reality of the spiritual life more deeply. Then through it
we may discover and win something that alters the condition of life,
transcends the immediate life of the soul, and is able to exert an
elevating influence upon man. The value and the truth of a particular
religion will be judged in the first place by the nature of the
spiritual substance that it offers, and the degree in which, in its
advance, it is able to join itself to the movement of life as a whole
and to guide it further. A great divergence is possible between this
spiritual substance and the movement and passion that call forth a
religion on the basis of humanity: the real is, in human relations, by
no means without further consideration to be regarded as rational.
The case of the other departments of life is the same as that of
religion: the character and the value of all achievement depend entirely
upon the range and the kind of substantial spirituality that they
evolve. The same is valid of whole epochs and cultures, of peoples and
individuals. The exertion of the greatest energy upon externals and the
most revolutionary transformation of human conditions cannot protect us
from becoming inwardly destitute, or lead us beyond mere appearance to
genuine reality. On the contrary, the experience of history shows often
enough that spiritual revivals have been accompanied in their origin and
growth by manifestations externally insignificant; and that something
which struggles against the broad stream of human life fundamentally
changes the standards and values of our existence.
Our whole spiritual life, therefore, constitutes a problem; it is an
indefatigable seeking and pressing forward. In self-consciousness the
framework is given which has to be filled; in it we have acquired only
the basis upon which the superstructure has to be raised. We have to
find experiences in life itself, to reveal something new, to develop
life, to increase its range and its depth. The endeavour to advance in
spirituality, to win itself through struggle, is the soul of the life of
the individual and of the work of universal history: where there is no
endeavour of this kind, there is no true life and no genuine history;
our activity in relation to the world as a whole assumes a different
form, and the world is represented differently and presents to us
different problems according to that which is attained here in the basal
structure of life. Life's struggle for itself, for its own content, its
own truth, is the greatest and most intense of all struggles.
The passion which animates all the endeavour after a revelation of life
and to win life itself is no other than the desire for a genuine
reality: for a being within the activity, for a full as opposed to an
empty life. If the formation of reality from within once begins, and the
desire for a substantial inwardness gains the day over the merely
subjective, then the intolerable inadequacy of all that is usually
called life is bound to be strongly felt. The growth of intelligence has
led man beyond the life of nature and its blind actuality. In
intelligence, the inner life already proves far too independent to be
satisfied with being a mere appearance accompanying nature. With this
evolution the psychical powers win a greater freedom, and man is able to
face his environment more boldly: indeed, in his thought he can grasp an
infinity; and in arousing and using all his powers he may hope from his
own position, in the interaction of subject and environment, to give to
life a content, and thus to make it a genuine life. But here the
limitation of man and the contradictory character of life as it is
immediately experienced soon come to be felt. All the rousing of forces,
all the passing backwards and forwards between subject and object that
we experience in the immediate condition of life, does not lead beyond
interaction, and yields no content: it does not raise life to a
self-conscious and self-determining life; so that, in spite of all its
activity, our life in this condition remains inwardly alien. There is
thus an enormous disparity between the means that are offered and the
aims that are reached; an inward unrest; an incessant conflict, without
any prospect of victory, against the ever-recurring tendency to become
spiritually destitute; a state of dissatisfaction in the midst of all
results of an external kind. Only the revelation of a self-conscious
life, a life which itself evolves as a reality, can be the source of
progress, and lead from appearances and shadows to a genuine life.
It is apparent that with such an aim a task is presented that dominates
and comprehends the whole extent of our existence. We have to take up
everything into that self-conscious and self-determining life and to
transform the condition of life as it lies immediately before us. A
demand of this kind is not limited to a change of this or that; it
implies a complete transformation and renewal. It not only involves the
whole multiplicity of life, but it must also itself tend to bring about
an increase in the multiplicity; indeed, this task first gives the
multiplicity a firm foundation and an inner value. For the development
and the formation of self-conscious life, it is essential, as we saw,
that life concentrate in particular tendencies and departments; that the
whole place itself in them, and return to itself from them; and that by
this they develop a life of their own and give rise to their own
experiences. To act thus, to advance the whole in its own development,
the individual concentrations of life must possess an inner spiritual
unity which comprehends and dominates all multiplicity. This is seen in
the case of individuals, peoples, epochs, and whole civilisations: only
by overcoming the state of confusion and division in which they at first
find themselves do they come to wrestle with the spiritual life as a
whole and win a spiritual character. These unities of life, however,
will enter into the most diverse relations with the whole and with one
another; and since in so doing they further self-conscious and
self-determining life, they develop reality without limit. From all the
facts we have considered we see that, with the attainment of
independence by the spiritual life, there emerges a distinctive kind of
being which everywhere exerts its activity, holds up a new aim, and
desires a transformation: life is for the first time placed on a firm
foundation, and taken possession of in the deepest source of its
movement.
(d) _Human Existence_
For the construction of a new system of life, this independent nature of
the spiritual life is primary and most essential. Such construction is
dependent in the second place upon the relation in which the development
of the self-conscious and self-determining life of reality stands to the
position and to the activity of man; in particular whether it wins this
position and activity for itself with ease or meets with definite
opposition. Now, there cannot be any doubt that the recognition of the
fact of the development of the spiritual life to independence of man, as
we traced it, must make us feel that the state of things at the usual
level of human life is most unsatisfactory. It is not that one or
another aspect is inadequate, but that as a whole it is definitely
opposed to the requirements of an independent spiritual life. For the
spirituality that is evolved here is treated for the most part as a mere
means in the pursuit of human welfare. Civilisation, at the level at
which we are most accustomed to it, lifts man above mere nature, but at
the same time it forces him into rivalry and conflict with his equals,
and leads him to expect happiness from victory. This is the case not
only among individuals but also among nations. Since the desire and the
conflict for more generate an indescribable amount of excitement and
passion, life seems to be full, whereas in reality it is entirely
lacking in content, and behind the tumult is felt to be empty. But man
has no intention of giving up all claim to a share in genuine
spirituality: and so he gives a better outward appearance to his
endeavour and his conduct, and practises deceit upon himself as well as
upon others. Genuine spiritual life cannot possibly proceed from
circumstances so contradictory and so confused. Neither can such
circumstances produce the concentration of life that is necessary for
the strengthening and advancement of the spiritual life. It is not the
abuse of some one thing that provokes attack: it is not a particular
failing, but the ordinary daily course which, unresistingly, man is
accustomed to accept as his world, that shows in its successes no less
than in its failures the greatest divergence from genuine spirituality.
It is just at the point where man becomes proud of his own doings and
makes much ostentatious display that he can least of all conceal the
spiritual poverty and the foolishness of his way of thinking.