freedom in both of these senses; indeed, with apparently insuperable
force they oppose freedom in every sense. Modern science most clearly
shows that man belongs to a great world-whole and world-movement; his
life and work seem to be completely determined through his relations in
this whole; his whole life is subject to an irresistible destiny, and in
all his undertakings and conduct he can only follow the course directed
by it. This destiny assumes for us the most diverse forms; and through
this diversity surrounds us on all sides. Through the power of heredity
we enter life with a definite nature: in the family, the state, and the
society a particular kind of environment surrounds us and gives to our
nature its more detailed colouring: the age meets us with particular
tendencies, takes us up into itself with a supreme power, and just as
decidedly directs us towards certain ends as it diverts us from others.
Even in earlier times all this was not ignored, so far as the individual
aspects are concerned; but the Modern Age was the first to conceive the
problem as a whole, and with this it has pursued the idea of
determination even into the inner structure of the life of the soul,
with the demonstration that here also nothing is spontaneous, nothing
unmeditated, but that even down to the most primary impulse everything
depends upon something else, and proceeds from definite relations. From
this point of view the idea of freedom, and in particular that of a
freedom of choice, appears to be only a remnant of an unscientific way
of thinking. The fact that man feels--as an immediate impression--free
in cases of hesitation between different possibilities has lost its
power to convince the individual of the Modern Age. For the new mode of
thought has evolved point for point along with an increasing divergence
from the naïve manner of representation, and it has won its greatest
victories in opposition to this manner of representation. The revolution
that Copernicus accomplished in the representation of the world has
become typical of the whole of modern work; and as regards our problem
also, dissent from ordinary opinion is less a cause for doubt than a
recommendation.
However, our attitude in regard to this problem has, indeed, been
essentially changed by modern thought. There can be no further talk of a
vague freedom of the will, of a capacity to act in one manner or
another unaffected by anything that preceded and by the whole
environment; the fact of the subjection of man to a destiny, both
external and internal, is forced upon us with overwhelming power.
Whether the idea of freedom in every sense is shown to be invalid is
another question; perhaps the problem is not so much solved as put on
one side. In any case, if a fundamental problem--one that has been
discussed from the earliest times--is suddenly declared to be finally
solved, the suspicion must soon arise that the solution appears to be
self-evident only because certain presuppositions which are in no way
self-evident are implicitly assumed in it.
The surrender of every kind of freedom meets in the first place with the
suspicion that thereby far more is lost than we think or intend; that
much is lost to which it is impossible to surrender all claim. Great
trouble is taken to prove that the denial of freedom by no means does
away with the possibility of an ethical moulding of life. Yet it might
be shown without difficulty that, in attempts of this kind, either the
freedom, rejected in its ordinary sense, finds entrance again altered
and deepened--as, for example, in the philosophy of Spinoza--or the
ethic that remains after freedom has been denied retains only the name,
and in itself signifies something merely mechanical. But why do we
insist upon the ethical; why does so much depend upon its continuance?
For this reason: that upon it depends whether life merely _happens to_
us or also _from_ us; whether we are simply parts of a rigid
world-mechanism or self-determining co-operators in the building up of
reality. If the former hypothesis is true, we are no more than the
platform upon which events become connected; and we can possess no other
unity than a summation of the multiplicity. A unity of this kind could
not possibly attain to independence and transcendence; could not make an
inner judgment upon events; could not take up a conflict in opposition
to the condition of life as it is immediately experienced. The
conception of conduct would inevitably be degraded to that of mere
occurrence. We should cease to have inner unity and be comprehensive
selves; we should not be able to speak of disposition and conviction:
for it is of the essence of all these things that they cannot be
imparted, but must arise newly and spontaneously just in the individual,
and for this a concentration of life, an elevation to self-conscious and
self-determining activity, is necessary.
Where inner unity and such an activity are lacking, a true present does
not exist. For if, through the all-dominant relation of cause and
effect, that which comes later proceeds in certain sequence from that
which came earlier, our whole existence is only a stream of occurrences,
and that which is called present is nothing more than the point of
transition from the past to the future. Now, a real present can be
reached from such an apparent present only if an independent task
originates at this point, and a decision has to be made: the more our
whole life and being here become a problem again, the more securely
might we trust to the possibility of advancing beyond all previous
achievement, and of a spontaneous breaking forth of new powers, the more
will our life be transformed into a genuine present. A genuine present
does not exist within the sequence, but above it; it cannot come to us
opportunely, but must be attained through our own activity: it is our
own work. It is, therefore, not a common and equal possession, but is
differently constituted according to the individual. The present is the
more real and comprehensive for us the more spiritual power we evolve
and the more spiritual content we give to life. Thus the present is not
a mere point in the succession of times, a mere ripple in the stream of
appearances, but involves a counteraction to this flow; its formation is
to be accomplished only by the placing of life in the region of the
spontaneous, the independent, the time-transcendent.
All the losses in individual matters are, however, only appearances and
parts of a universal loss that the surrender of freedom involves. This
loss is no other than that of an independent nature-transcending
spiritual life in general. Spontaneity is no subsidiary quality, the
disappearance of which might only involve a modification; with it, the
spiritual life as a whole stands or falls. The experience of history
also shows clearly enough that that which has in any way reached a
spiritual height never persists by simply existing, but that, if it is
not to degenerate rapidly, it must proceed ever anew from spontaneous
creative activity. The law of nature, that everything remains in its
existent state of rest or motion until it is acted upon from without, is
not true of the spiritual: of it nothing abides that is not continually
brought forth anew.
The surrender of freedom, therefore, means no less than the inner
destruction of the spiritual life. And before we submit to this we shall
feel compelled to make a more careful inquiry, to see whether the
arguments against freedom are really so cogent as they are represented.
They do exert a compelling force, but only so long as their
presuppositions are admitted and held to be unassailable. That they are
not unassailable will become evident as soon as we clearly recognise
their nature and implications.
If the world forms a closed and "given" system, in which every
particular is determined completely by its position in the whole, there
is no place for spontaneity. The question of freedom has no meaning for
man if he belongs solely and entirely to such a world, and within it has
only to weigh aims one against another. But in accordance with the
results of our investigation we contest these two presuppositions most
decidedly. To an investigation that begins with the life-process as the
basis of its treatment, it is certain that a "given" world never can be
primary, but only secondary. That it may attain to an inner present it
needs a life that is not itself "given," but with its activity
encompasses a multiplicity, unifies, and makes it definite; for anything
to be experienced as "given" a self-conscious and self-determining
activity is necessary. If this self-determining activity can struggle
upwards to complete power and consciousness only slowly, still it is
the first and the sustaining world; and at the same time it can never be
asserted that the forms of its life are only ideas and appearances. Life
is not formed from existing individual points, and does not pass between
such points, but all multiplicity is sustained by an active whole, and
from this whole animated ever anew. This active whole may not be
conceived as dependent upon another, and it is quite capable of advance.
We have endeavoured to show that the matter is not one of subtleties of
thought, but of different natures of the world and of activity; and that
with the attainment of independence a new world emerges. We have also
shown that in us the new world must first wrestle with another, to which
we primarily belong; that inner changes must take place in us; and that,
if all our toil is not to be in vain, the relation of the two worlds
must be changed.
Man, therefore, has a special significance in that the two worlds meet
together within him, and in that there can be no change in their
relation to each other at this point without his co-operation. The
problem of his life concerns more than his conduct, it extends to his
being; the question is, how far the different worlds may become his own
world, his life. The matter is one of shifting the centre of life from
the position in which it is in immediate experience. Thus, the tension
and the conflict involve the ultimate elements: each of the worlds has
its own tasks and evaluations; things do not affect man with a given and
fixed value, but they receive their value first from their relation to
the main course upon which his life enters; and so all conflict
concerning particular matters implies a decision concerning the whole.
Of course, such a decision is not being made from moment to moment; and
more especially, it is not made simply by reflection, but it is involved
in the whole of life. Only that which in him, in endeavour and work,
participates in such decision is true life; individual acts of external
conduct only bring to expression that which has happened and still
continues to happen inwardly and in the whole.
In all this the possibility of an inner elevation is presupposed.
Everyone who strives for an inner development of man; everyone who, with
clear insight into the meanness of the general condition of human
affairs, unswervingly continues to strive for the advancement of
humanity, relies on this possibility: without it there is no hope of a
development and a growth of one's own life, of an elevation of it above
the condition in which it is first experienced. And so without this
possibility endeavour loses all its true tension, and all that we are
able to accomplish in ourselves and in others is no more than a
dexterous use of existent forces. But is this condition of the matter,
spiritually discerned, more than a mere discipline?
It is true that the possibility of an elevation has its fixed
conditions; it necessitates particular convictions with regard to the
world and to man. We must view the world as being still in a state of
flux and regard man as not being simply a closed and limited individual.
The infinite spiritual life must be present as a whole to him, and
arouse a new world to life in him; his conduct must be rooted in the
power and content of the infinite life: only thus can we understand that
in man also a movement begins and a change is brought about. And so it
remains ever an inderivable, original phenomenon, which we must
acknowledge as a fact, that a spontaneous life breaks forth in man, a
new and relatively independent life-centre originates. We always come
back in the long run to original phenomena; the origin of living being
in general is also an original phenomenon. May we deny the fact of such
original phenomena, because they make our representation of the world
less uniform and simple? To do so would be nothing else than to make our
previously formed conceptions the measure of reality; it would be a new,
specifically modern anthropomorphism.
This freedom, with its requirement of a world of inner life that
introduces new contents, and also that we belong in some way to this
world, is by no means a capacity to make a decision capriciously at any
moment; it is not a denial of the power of necessity. Of course, it
implies that there may be some kind of counteraction to this necessity;
and that if this counteraction can attain success only as a result of
the activity of life as a whole, even the individual moment need not be
a matter of indifference. For, as the spiritual life has always to win
its own height anew, so the present in its relations is not a mere
consequence of the past: times of temptation can come repeatedly when
all that which has been achieved becomes doubtful again; but times of
elevation also come when an advance is made beyond that previously
achieved. It is not possible for us simply to reject the present
existence and all the conditions which constrain us, and to choose for
ourselves a new kind of existence, instead of the one we have; from that
it is impossible to free ourselves: in all further endeavour we have to
take it into account, to make our peace with it. Nevertheless, life can
attain to a transcendent point of view, from which the world of sense
becomes the object of judgment and of adaptation; from which, to be
regarded as completely ours, it needs acknowledgment and appropriation
by us; and from which it is seen not to constitute our whole life, as
that which is ultimate. Indeed, the tendencies within us which are
concerned with nature, first reach their highest through such
acknowledgment and appropriation by us: placed on a spiritual basis they
lose their rigid exclusiveness and become unified; our particular nature
no longer constitutes our whole being, but becomes the central point of
a more comprehensive life, which extends further and further to
infinity.
Our life, therefore, is a conflict between fate and freedom, between
being "given" and spontaneity; and this conflict may be followed through
all life's divisions. The conflict appears primarily in the individual
in the development towards personality and spiritual individuality. For,
as personality, unless life has a spontaneous source, is an empty word,
so also spiritual individuality does not come to anyone, but has first
to be won by the work of life essentially elevating that which destiny
brings: so far, it is our own work; but it is not entirely our own work,
because that which comes to us from nature, and the condition of life
gives us fixed points of support and points out a certain course.
Similarly, peoples have in their nature, environment, and history
definite conditions of their being, from which they cannot withdraw. But
spiritual creation and inward greatness do not grow simply out of these
conditions, however favourable they may be, but out of a spontaneous
activity which takes up that which has been presented to it, gives it a
central point, and from this develops it. The deciding question is
always whether and how far individuals and peoples attain to and
preserve such a self-determining activity. This activity alone makes it
possible for life to be unified inwardly; for its elements to be
distinguished and separated, and for some to be brought into prominence
and others relegated to the background; for life to be made secure and
elevated, and as the result of all for a spiritual individuality to be
formed. The same thing holds good of the condition of a particular time,
and man's relation to it. At first man appears to be a child of his age,
a slave of his age. But by the spiritual life he is able to win an
independence of the age, and to make himself its lord. Again, he cannot
free himself from the problems of the age; he cannot alter them just as
he likes, cannot divert into an opposite direction the power which they
exert upon him. But there is always an "either--or," either submission
to the succession of experience, or the beginning of an opposition from
spiritual self-determining activity: in this, also, the possibility of
calling new powers to life presents itself. From this spiritual point of
view activity centred upon the concerns of the particular age is no
longer regarded as the whole life; the particular age with its work is
comprehended in an infinite life. As through all its different stages
and constituents, so ultimately humanity as a whole also carries on a
struggle for a spiritual being, an advance to a new level. Humanity may
not be regarded as something finished; it must evolve to a nature other
than its present one, bring about a transformation of its life, and win
a spiritual individuality: the life of humanity is in a state of motion
and it must become self-determined.
The idea of freedom thus reveals far-reaching prospects and the greatest
tasks; it manifests its truth and power in taking possession of common
experiences and illuminating them, and in the arousing and
re-organisation of our life. With the acknowledgment and the adequate
appreciation of freedom, with the revelation of its universal relations,
man is elevated in the most essential manner, for it manifests the new
world as active in the midst of his life and capable of appropriation by
him: it calls him to independent co-operation in the conflict of the
worlds; it gives to the simply human and the apparently commonplace an
incomparable greatness. However powerful destiny may be, it does not
determine man entirely; for, even in beginning opposition to it there is
a liberation from it. However mean man's activity, it carries in it a
decision between worlds; however vanishing the moment, it is not
entirely lost. True, the idea of freedom involves definite
presuppositions: it involves, indeed, a profession of faith concerning
life and reality as a whole, a profession of faith that contradicts
every form of Naturalism and Intellectualism, and, in opposition to
their representations of the world, champions another. But this
profession of faith does not concern this problem only; it is involved
in our work as a whole, and so the whole may support and confirm it.
(c) _The Beginnings of the Independent Spiritual Life_
As the problem of freedom gains in clearness and depth in the relations
which have been discussed, so also the beginnings of independent
spiritual life which are manifested in the domain of man become much
clearer in them. Without such beginnings, which represent a new order
in contrast to nature, and which oppose the degeneration of life to the
narrowly human, a movement towards independent spirituality could never
emerge in us. They are really intelligible and acquire power only when
they are unified and acknowledged as the activity of a new life and
being.
These beginnings appear in an elevation of life accessible to every
individual, an elevation above the forms as well as the content of mere
nature. We perceive this in the norms with which the research of the
present is busily occupied. Our life does not consist entirely of simple
matters of fact, but in certain directions qualities and forms are
presented to it which are able to contradict the immediate state of
things and to exercise a certain power over it. Thus the norms of
thought, the norms of conduct and of artistic creation are evolved, each
making particular demands, and being different in the manner of its
operation. However, we are concerned here not with the aspects of
difference, but with that which is common to all; and this consists in
the working of an actuality in us that is something other than natural
occurrence, an actuality that needs our acknowledgment, and through this
acknowledgment first wins power over us. The demands which these norms
make upon us are in no way convenient to us; they limit our caprice;
they often cost hard toil and heavy sacrifice; our desire for natural
happiness does not commend them to us. How is it then that we do not
simply reject them? what is it that gives to them a constraining power
over us? If they remained isolated and impenetrable experiences, if they
adhered to us as something alien in nature, were foreign elements in our
being, their power would be unintelligible. It is to be explained only
upon the hypothesis that they are unfoldings of our own life, which by
these unfoldings is proved to be something other than a life of nature.
Unless they are rooted in our own life, these norms are like misty forms
in the air. They obtain complete reality and motive power first as
movements of our self, which then is no mere point by the side of other
points, but an independent manifestation of life of the spiritual
world.
This is in particular clearly the case in the idea of duty, the
elucidation of the inner meaning of which is Kant's greatest and most
enduring service. A duty is always a command; it presents itself as
independent of all caprice. At the same time, however, it can never be
forced upon us by an external power; it needs our own assent and
acknowledgment. Our own volition and being must operate in it, and, in
this, being must present itself otherwise than it appears to be at the
first glance. We must bear and maintain within us a new world; in
submission to its orders we must assert and develop ourselves. In this
manner alone can we explain the joyfulness which accompanies all genuine
performance of duty, and without which duty is no more than a task
forced upon us. How much power duty, and the norms in general, may
acquire in the greater part of human life is a question in itself; but
they could not exist for us even as ideas and possibilities if they were
not in some way based in our own being. However, as they show this being
in a new light, it follows that they must themselves gain in clearness
and in power and become more closely unified if they are understood and
treated as developments and modes of self-preservation of our own life.