their manifold experiences they strive to attain to a harmony and a
union with one another. They can seek these only on the basis of a
self-consciousness of reality; find them only through their unification
in a universal life, to which each individual tendency leads.
Representations of the whole are attempted at the highest points of
creative activity by philosophy, religion, and art; these
representations accompany, indeed govern, the work in these spheres of
life through history. But the limitations of our capacity, through which
we are unable to give a suitable form to necessary contents, and through
which we attribute and must attribute human traits to that which should
lead us beyond the human, are of particular force in this matter of
forming a representation of the whole; and, indeed, this is the more so
the further we remove ourselves from that which may be immediately
transformed in work. These representations of the whole are, therefore,
inadequate; their content of truth is clothed in a wrapping of myth, and
humanity lies under the danger of taking the myth for the chief thing
and thus of obscuring the truth, and this must produce an incalculable
amount of error and strife. Still, it is impossible to give up all claim
to these representations of the whole; for they alone make the fact of
our belonging to the whole and of the presence of the whole in our life
quite clear and enable it to exert a far-reaching influence. Only with
their help can the degeneration of life to the intolerable
insignificance of the narrowly human be resisted; only with their help
can a movement from whole to whole begin.
Thus it is a matter not so much of abandoning these representations of
the whole as of referring them continually to their essence; to those
unfoldings of life which are experienced by us; to test them by these
and to renew them from these. It was the error of the earlier
position--much too indulgent to Intellectualism-that it did not
sufficiently maintain the relation with these living sources, and so
fell into the danger of having no definite tendency, or even of failing
to recognise the relativity of the myth. If a more energetic direction
of life upon its own content and experiences teaches us to preserve
these connections better and to develop them more forcefully, a new type
of representation of the whole is yielded in contrast to the old, and
far more different from it than may appear at the first glance. We may
hope that with its development the truth will be seen more clearly
through the myth, and that the striving, which we cannot give up, to win
a universal life may not lead us astray into a world of dreams.
(c) THE MOVEMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE IN MAN
The question as to in which direction the spiritual life moves in man is
implied through our whole investigation, and in it receives an answer.
Nevertheless, it requires to be definitely stated and treated by itself,
so that the distinctive character of the movement and its influence in
the moulding of life may be fully acknowledged. It has become clearly
evident to us that an independent and, therefore, genuine spiritual
life cannot arise out of life in its usual condition, but only in
opposition to this condition. For, however little this condition of life
may lack spiritual elements, they are mixed and bound up with other
elements far too much to be able to bind themselves immediately into a
whole, and to display an independent power. That the spiritual life must
and can gain a basis independent of this condition of life is the
indispensable, fundamental idea of Idealism. But such attainment of
independence of the usual condition would help little if the spiritual
life which is based upon itself had not a particular nature of its own,
and if from this it did not oppose everything alien and partly alien to
itself. The doctrines of innate ideas, of an _a priori_, and so on,
which have occupied humanity for thousands of years did not intend
anything different from this. The details of the conception of these
were indeed often open to criticism: it was sought to exhibit individual
conceptions and propositions as existing complete at the beginning,
where rather movements or tendencies are in question, which can find
their realisation only within the work of life. Again, the _a priori_
was limited to the intellectual sphere, whereas it is indispensable to
all spiritual activity; for example, how can morality, rising above
merely natural preservation and rejecting all mere utility, as it does,
be conceived without such an _a priori_? To deny to spiritual life an
original nature and power--an _a priori_ in this more comprehensive
sense--means nothing else than to eliminate that life as an independent
factor, and to reduce it to the position of a secondary product. For
without an original nature the spiritual life would be like soft wax
that may be shaped in one form or another to suit our own pleasure: then
the spiritual life could not possibly follow its own aims, could not
possibly attain to an independence in the inner life, in which we
recognised the characteristic nature of the inner life. As certain as it
is that there is a spiritual life at all, so certainly does it bring
certain fundamental tendencies and movements with it; as surely as it
develops in particular directions--and that it does this we have
seen--so surely is this _a priori_ also differentiated. To trace this
fundamental state of spiritual activity in all its relations and
multiplicity is an especially important task of philosophic research.
The revelation of such an original fundamental activity of the spirit
must induce us to undertake to form our whole world from this activity,
and to produce from it or to transform into it that which exists over
against activity as an independent realm of experience. This has been
attempted for thousands of years with the summoning of an enormous amount
of spiritual power and the arousing of a proud self-consciousness. But
failure was inevitable because it was not recognised that the development
of the spiritual life in man is conditioned. However certain it may be
that original spiritual movements must be active within us, they are not
so with organised content and overwhelming power from the beginning, but
they acquire content and power only through the process of life itself,
only in grappling with the oppositions of experience and in the
appropriation of the tasks and stimuli which experience brings to them.
The incompleteness and the mutability of what was accepted earlier as a
fixed and unchangeable racial possession of the spiritual life is to-day
quite clearly perceived. What great changes morality, for example, has
undergone in the course of the ages; how toilsomely has much been won
which later ages have considered self-evident! To be sure, morality
remains, even through all such changes, an original spiritual phenomenon,
which can never be derived from an external source, but which could
emerge and establish itself only as an inner necessity of the spiritual
life in opposition to the realm of mere utility. But the actuality of
this original phenomenon gives rise to a difficult problem, for the
solution of which a closer contact with the environment, a fundamental
arrangement with experience, is necessary. And so the problem is traced
to a more ultimate source, and, though this makes the matter less
simple, it gives a higher significance to our work and to the movement
of history.
Even the fundamental forms of thought which are often accepted as of
everything the most fixed share in this gradual amplification. Man, so
far as he participates in spiritual impulse, thinks, of course, in
conceptions; he gives to appearances fixed points of support by the
establishing of things, and relates events causally. But all this is
full of problems and is comprehended only in its upward endeavour; it
raises more problems than it solves; and around the solution of these
the whole work of science moves. What different things the "idea" meant
to Plato and to Kant, and to ancient and to modern thought generally:
how every thinker of moment has given a particular conception of
substance and of causality; how whole epochs have exhibited their
particular nature in the treatment of these problems!
For the sake of its own perfection, therefore, the spiritual life must
continually turn back to the realm of experience, from which, at first,
it tore itself free. Attempts to evolve the whole life from that _a
priori_ have always given as a result something of a bloodless nature,
abstract in the highest degree, a mere web of formulæ, in so far as
experience, which had been relegated to the background, has not
indirectly asserted its right again, and infused the formulæ with life.
Accordingly, our life does not spend itself in one direction, but bears
within it the counter-tendencies of a tearing oneself free from the
world of sense and a returning back to it, of a detachment from it and
an appropriation of it to oneself. But, in this, independent life and
bound life do not become combined; how could that be the case without
the loss of all inner unity? A basis is necessary; and it is furnished
only by self-determining activity. Experience acquires a spiritual
content and value only so far as it is based upon this activity, and is
taken up into a spiritual movement. Experience does not share something
with the spiritual life, but, through stimulation and opposition, it
forces that life to further development within itself. The state in
which the world of sense is first found undergoes an inner elevation in
that appropriation: sense presentation, for example, is to scientific
work something quite different from what it is to naïve perception; even
if it obstinately withstands a complete resolution into magnitudes of
pure thought, it takes up more and more thought elements; it enters into
conceptual relations; it answers questions which the work of thought
sets. To the whole sphere of sense science gives the background of a
world of thought, and transforms mere sense into a spatially bound
spirituality.
The same thing is valid with regard to the things of value in life; in
these, also, sense and spirit are not simply combined; but something of
sense becomes a spiritual good only so far as it serves the spiritual
life in some way; it cannot do this, however, without itself undergoing
a transformation. This is to be seen nowhere more clearly than in
economics. Money and estate had at all times a value for
self-preservation and enjoyment, but in the doctrine of economics and
political economy they could obtain acknowledgment only after a power to
advance the spiritual life had been recognised in them. As culture in
the ancient world had not yet reached this point of view, it branded all
endeavour after material wealth as inferior, and as far as possible
checked such endeavour. Only since the Modern Age has recognised in
money and estate an indispensable means of gaining control over the
surrounding world and of increasing human power have they secured a
place within the spiritual life, and as a result of this have become
more highly estimated. At the same time, however, they have been changed
inwardly in the process, since that which they achieve, not towards
ostentatious display and enjoyment, but towards the increase of human
power over things has become the chief matter.
As in this way the content and the value of that which is offered by the
world of sense shows its dependence upon the condition of the spiritual
life, so in science also a similar relation between experience and the
spiritual life is found. Science appeals to experience with particular
zeal, more especially after it has first accomplished far-reaching
changes in its own thought constructions; only then does experience give
anything new to knowledge and exhibit a greater depth. Experience can
answer only in the measure in which it is questioned; the question,
however, varies according to the stage of development of the spiritual
life.
Such a view fully appreciates the significance of life-work, and must
strive energetically to gain its acknowledgment. This work is not a
carrying out of a complete scheme in a given condition of things, an
application of firmly rooted principles to particular cases, but a
self-realisation and self-perfecting of the spiritual life which builds
up a self-conscious reality. In this our life is not divided between two
different realms, but, in a comprehensive spiritual world, different
stages of reality meet together, which must be brought into relation and
developed. To be sure, the world of sense retains a certain
independence; it resists a complete transformation into spiritual
magnitudes, and our life, therefore, retains a certain restriction and
impenetrability. But the self-consciousness of the spirit becomes more
and more the chief basis and sphere of life: this self-consciousness
continually takes up more into itself; it makes the world that was to us
at first primary, indeed the only world, more and more secondary and
subordinate.
This increasing spiritualisation of human life never becomes a sure
possession that calls for no toil; ever anew it demands our attention
and activity; it has continually to be won anew as a whole. As soon as
the tension slackens, the world of experience with its appeal to sense
preponderates, and it soon appears to be man's sole world, one which
cannot tolerate anything beyond itself. For the spiritualisation of
human life, a longing rooted in the whole being is primarily necessary;
for with the keen feeling of the vanity of the world of sense
experience, this leads to the removal of the centre of life into the
invisible world of self-determining activity. Further, a clear
presentation of this invisible world is needed; and in this the help of
the visible is not to be dispensed with. For its own establishment the
realm of the invisible must borrow means of expression from the visible,
which now governs human presentation; must transform and refine them for
its aims; prepare out of them an impressive presentation of the whole.
Along with the energy of turning to the spiritual life a creative
imagination is required, through which the invisible may become equal to
holding its own against the visible.
The help of such imagination is indispensable for religion, in order
that the supernatural world advocated by it may gain an effective
presence in the province of humanity. And so with bold upward flights of
imagination the heroes of religion have projected a new condition of
reality as a whole, a kingdom of justice or of love, and have judged
human existence by the standard of this new condition. Similarly,
philosophy did not become an independent world of thought without the
help of imagination; and of how indispensable it is to art we need not
speak at all. Again, work in political, social, educational matters, at
least as far as radical renewals are concerned, has really been taken up
and carried on, and has won a triumphant power, only where the state
striven for has been presented as something visible and clearly present;
this alone has united the multiplicity, and has led with compelling
force beyond the extant situation as though that were something
intolerable. Humanity as a whole must be present in an ideal condition
to our minds for us to be aroused sufficiently from our indolence.
Our life, therefore, contains movements which tend in opposite
directions: there are a pressing forward and a turning backward, a
detachment from experience and a taking up again of experience; and so
we may well speak of an action and reaction within its movement. But
the antitheses that arise aid in advancement only so long as they are
encompassed by a whole of activity. In that the course of history
increases far more than it diminishes the antitheses, the dangers grow
more and more, the possibilities and the tasks of human existence,
however, also grow.
(d) THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW TYPE OF LIFE
The conception of the spiritual life here developed gives rise to a
particular type of life which can bring about a transformation and
elevation of man from two main positions: the union of man with the
spiritual life is much closer, and the spiritual life in itself is
incomparably more, than is represented by the customary conception of
that life. For in our conception man does not merely enter into some
kind of relation with the spiritual life, but finds his own being in it,
and becomes so completely united with it that it is able to determine
him immediately as his own self. The spiritual life is not a particular
function among others, not a part or an aspect of a more comprehensive
world, but is itself a world, and, indeed, a world in which life first
attains to self-consciousness and becomes a complete reality. If this
world becomes the immediate possession of man himself, his life must
experience a deep-reaching change, indeed a revolution of its usual
condition: to trace the main tendencies of this revolution is our
immediate task.
(1) _Life's Attainment of Greatness_
The placing of man in the spiritual life, becoming aware of its own
independence, must make the forms of this life his own, and in this way
bring about a reversal of the commonplace of every day. Life is
transposed from the narrowness of its merely particular nature to
infinity; what was hitherto alien and hostile to man is changed into his
own possession, and is able to arouse an animating and elevating love.
At the same time a deliverance from subjectivity and its web of
interests and ideas is effected, to the advantage of a life-process that
takes up the object into itself, and thus advances to independence and
sovereign creation; a life is attained that is not spent in movement to
and fro between antitheses, but unfolds a content through them. As this
life attains to complete independence only because it produces a
universal activity in contrast to individual activities, so
participation in this life must lead man beyond division to a
comprehensive unity. It is this that is sought in the idea of
personality--an idea which is often quite obscure and superficial, but
which can in this context be elucidated, manifest its complete
significance, and prove its power of development.
As the spiritual life is a self-consciousness, so man also wins from it
a life that is not exhausted by activity directed upon anything external
to this life, and that does not expect its content from outside like an
empty vessel, but would be itself and realise the possibilities lying
within itself. So far as such a life extends man does not stand on the
border of things but in the centre, in the formation and creation of the
whole; he experiences the world not as something external but from
within. The question of the limits of this life is no longer primary but
secondary, and the answer to this question is to be expected from the
experience of life, not from preliminary reflections. Since, in this,
life has a content in itself and develops this content through its
movement, it distinctly grows above all the play of forces with which it
is often confused; if such a play of forces suffices for a lower stage
it cannot suffice for further development. For the feeling of joyous
excitement which accompanies the exertion of power is not sufficient in
opposition to the serious perplexities that accompany all spiritual
work; indeed, not even against the cares and needs that are involved in
the mere preservation of existence in an advancing culture. Life then
easily comes to be regarded as full of trouble and of work, and becomes
a burden from which one wishes to be delivered. Life is not from the
beginning a good, but it must prove itself to be such by its more
detailed development. In the spiritual life this comes to pass, since it
produces a reality out of itself; it does not become valuable first in
its relation to the external world, but it carries a value in itself, as
is clearly shown by the joy that permeates all experience of the true,
the good, and the beautiful. This joy must be further increased if all
the multiplicity of this experience is regarded as the unfolding of a
comprehensive and persistent fundamental life.
A life of this kind is no indefinite impulse; it cannot become an
independent reality without penetrating into every aspect and making the
ordinary state of things everywhere inadequate, indeed intolerable.
Since the independent spirituality and spiritual character that is
acquired, and that which the particular thing and activity signifies in
the spiritual life as a whole, everywhere constitutes the most important
question, the problem of truth will be raised at each point; and in this
way a sharp division will be made between the genuine and the spurious;
everything that strives within us in the direction of the spirit will
unite and acquire a more stable basis; everything that would satisfy man
in other ways will be seen to be empty and vain. Life now acquires a
deeper reality, but this must first be reached and brought to complete
effect. New forms, in contrast to the ordinary representations, must
also make their appearance if life is to be equal to the task of
developing content and character.
Life in the individual must have roots deeper than the immediate
psychical life; for psychical life cannot itself produce and make clear
that which occurs in it, for this reason at least, that it involves the
antithesis of individual and environment, of subject and object, beyond
which spiritual creation results. The spiritual impulse that the
immediate life of the soul manifests can be based only upon deeper
realities and more comprehensive relations. And so a _noölogical_
treatment is to be distinguished from the psychological, not in order to
displace or limit the latter, but rather to complete it; and it is a
problem to show the point of transition in the immediate life of the
soul. The significance of the individual life, as far as content is
concerned, will depend upon whether an independent spirituality arises
within it, and constitutes it a distinctive life-centre. According to
the new standards a free spiritual activity does not suffice, however
extended it may be, and however sustained by subjective emotion. For all
such activity may be without spiritual substance, and in spite of all
external results the life that is nothing but this activity may remain
spiritually destitute: how shallow many individuals are whose
achievements deserve and obtain the highest appreciation! The inwardness
that the spiritual life requires is not simply a reflex of work in the
soul--from that little is gained--but the forming of a characteristic
spiritual self-consciousness that lifts us above all mere achievement,
and also by giving to activity a soul first makes it complete.
We have often seen how the acknowledgment of an independent spiritual
life forces us to make a sharper distinction between human history and
human society and all merely natural history and merely natural
co-existence of men. At the same time, in that which is called history
and society, a distinction between an esoteric and an exoteric kind is
also required. The value of individual epochs and of history as a whole
depends upon the spiritual substance that grows up in them; everything
else, to whatever extent it may, with commotion and external result,
assume the air of being the chief thing, is only environment or
supplement. Similarly, in the case of society, the spiritual content, if
it has one at all, and human fortune and conduct must become more
distinctly separated. There is far less genuine history and society than
is usually assumed; but this little signifies incomparably more than
both would imply without the spiritual life.