will contain characteristic spiritual motives, movements, and demands,
and will be especially qualified to convey certain contents to man, to
open up certain experiences to him, and to point out certain directions.
All these must be appropriated by anyone who wishes to transcend the
original state of emptiness, and to advance to spiritual creation and to
a spiritual fashioning of life. In consequence of this a more friendly
attitude may be taken up towards time; and we shall be far more grateful
to it--though perhaps not with explicit consciousness, perhaps even in
contradiction to definite purpose--than we could ever be with regard to
the experiences on the surface of time. However low, for example, the
estimate Plato may have formed of "the many" around him; and though with
the whole passion of his soul he may have insisted upon a transformation
of the immediate condition of life, what he offered of his own and the
new that he required, with all its originality and uniqueness,
contradicts neither the natural spirit of the Greek nor the contemporary
Greek culture: Plato can be regarded only as a Greek of a particular
time. His conflict with the time is not the conflict of an incomparable
individuality with his environment, but a selection and a unification of
the possibilities existing in time; it is an arousing to life of the
deeper realities of time against its superficialities, of spiritual
necessities in opposition to the conduct and interests of men. In this
manner the great man also is a child of his age, and is unintelligible
out of relation to it. Could one think of Goethe as living in the Middle
Ages, or of Augustine as living in the age of the Enlightenment?
Indeed, we may carry our contention further, and say that the great has
been just that which has had the closest relation with the time; and
that it has reached a permanent significance, just because it expressed
the unique nature and the inner longing of the time, that which was
incomparable and inderivable in it. That which has been able to work
permanently beyond the time in which it made its appearance was born not
from a timeless consideration of things, but from the deepest feeling of
the needs of the time; only thus can we escape from the feeling of
unreality which otherwise accompanies the striving after spirituality.
This consideration must commend to spiritual work the closest possible
relation with the time, and the spiritual life may hope for an essential
advance of its own striving as a result of this relation.
Still, the matter is not so simple as it is often thought to be. The
spiritual content of the ages is not a complete fact that permeates life
with a sure and definite effect, so that it could be taken up by
activity. Rather, that which is great and characteristic in the ages is
found only in creative spiritual activity, abstracted from which it is
no more than a possibility; a suggestion that is inevitably lost, if an
advancing spiritual activity is lacking. Spiritual creation is not a
mere copy, an employment of an existent time-character. Rather, time
first attains a spiritual character through spiritual activity, and by
spiritual creation possibility first becomes complete reality. This
spiritual creation is not simply a summation but a potentialisation, an
essential elevation of that which exists in time. Without this activity
the spiritual elements in time remain merely coexistent, and have no
living unity; they realise no life of the whole, no being within the
activity, nothing that means to us development of being. Temporal life
then remains only a half-life, a life of pretence; it lacks complete
self-consciousness and true stability and joy, and at the same time it
lacks a genuine present. To attain such a present thus appears to be a
difficult task, the performance of which is not so much presupposed by
the different branches of spiritual life as is an object of their work.
Art, for example, is rightly required to express the feeling of the life
of the time; yet it does not find such a feeling of life already
existent, but it must first wrest it from the chaos of the general
condition of life. Art is great in giving to the time that which it did
not already possess, but which is, nevertheless, necessary to the
complete reality of its life. Spiritual work, therefore, is not
something just added in time, but that which first gives to time a
genuine life and a genuine present. This task may be achieved with quite
different degrees of success; it is not all times that reach this
elevation and attain to a genuine present; those that do so we call
great and "classical" times. The general state of our life--which,
however, does not imply time as a whole--appears from this point of view
to be especially afflicted with the defect and fault of insincerity; our
age does not so much live a life of its own as a strange life; and yet
this life is represented as being a life of our own. And it is
especially so in our own time, when along with a state of division in
our own purposes we are inundated by systems of thought alien to us. We
are thus in danger of becoming half-hearted and living a life of
pretence: in religion we assert the profession of faith and the feelings
of times long gone by to be our own conviction and feelings; we build
our cathedrals in styles that correspond to another spiritual condition
and another tendency of life; in philosophy we hang upon systems and
problems of other times; in everything we lack sincerity. But why is
this so, and why do we renounce all claim to a life in accordance with
our own nature? Certainly not because our time lacks problems and tasks
of its own, or because it is deficient in spiritual possibilities and
necessities; for, of these there is an abundance; in this matter our
time is not behind any other. But there predominates a wrong relation
between these tasks and the central power of the spiritual life, which
is equal to cope with them and out of the possibilities create a
reality.
In any case spiritual work has a great deal to do with the time; and in
regard to this it finds itself in no simple situation. Spiritual work
must acknowledge a given condition, which it cannot alter to suit its
own preferences; but it can make something else out of this condition
and also see something else in it than immediately meets the eye. The
possibilities of a time are revealed only in spiritual work, and through
it alone are they separated from the human additions that usually
overgrow them. These possibilities cannot become clearly evident, unless
a close relation to history is won: they are not suggestions simply of
the moment, for they have been prepared by the whole work of history.
History acquires quite a different--a far more positive--meaning when
the spiritual life is acknowledged to be independent, and when it is
admitted that spiritual life is not just the embellishment of a reality
other than spiritual, but the formation of the only genuine and
substantial reality, the transition to a self-consciousness of life.
For, as such a formation of reality, this creative activity extends
beyond the particular time in which it originates, and becomes part of a
time-transcending present. True, this activity always appears in a
garment that seems simply temporary; but this garment does not
constitute its being: the imperishable in it, its fundamental life,
remains inwardly near and present even after great changes of temporal
condition; and within the sphere of spiritual work is always capable of
new effect.
Christianity, for example, in spite of the attacks that are and have
been made upon it, still asserts itself as a living power. Yet there
cannot be the slightest doubt that in everything that lies on the
surface of our life we are as far as possible removed from the centuries
of its formation; that not only the view of the world but also the tasks
of life and the nature of feeling and disposition have become radically
different. But life is not exhausted in these activities on the surface,
which must be regarded as external manifestations that proceed from an
inner unity. That which these centuries have performed for the essence
of life: the realisation of a freedom of spiritual inwardness, the
acknowledgment of an independent spiritual world with great aims and
tasks, may, indeed, become obscured for the consciousness of individuals
and of whole periods; it remains, however, an essential part, a
presupposition of all further spiritual life.
As in this manner in the case of Christianity, spiritual reality has
also been evolved otherwise in some creative epochs; and in the movement
of history they have all together produced a certain condition of
spiritual evolution which constitutes the invisible basis of our own
activity, and from which it is first possible to elucidate the spiritual
nature of a particular time. This universal, historical state of
spiritual evolution indicates a level, to which must correspond all
work, which desires not simply to attain the aim of the moment but also
to serve in the building up of a spiritual reality within the domain of
humanity. This historical condition of the spiritual life is not
conferred upon us by history; rather history only mediates an incentive
that must first be transformed by our own activity and conviction. Only
a mode of thought which transcends the movement of history can recognise
a spiritual content in history and in our own time, and use this content
for our own striving.
Spiritual work, therefore, and philosophy as part of it, has a twofold
relation to time, a negative and a positive: it must possess an
independence of time, and it must seek an intimate relation with it. The
"modern," according to the sense in which it is taken, will arouse us at
one time to energetic opposition, at another to the closest intimacy;
the former when it desires to subject us to the contemporary conditions
with all their contingency, the latter when it champions the spiritual
possibilities of the time and the state of spiritual evolution in
contrast with the human. We are concerned in a conflict for genuine
against false time; we are to distinguish clearly between the merely
human and the spiritual present; the spiritual life must first give a
genuine reality to time, and in doing this must advance in itself.
Every particular philosophic conviction must justify itself in its
treatment of this problem; it must be in a position to wrest the truth
from the error in time; to understand and to estimate the endeavour of
the time without yielding to it; to comprehend as a whole the manifold
elements of truth in the life of the present, and to elucidate them from
a transcendent unity. Without doubt great problems and fruitful
possibilities exist in the time, but we often feel the most painful
contrast between their demands and the achievements of man. To diminish
this divergence; for the time to attain more to its own perfection and
become a genuine present, is an urgent task in the performance of which
philosophy also must co-operate; and by this endeavour philosophy can
also gain much for itself.
I. REQUIREMENTS FOR THE FORM OF LIFE AS A WHOLE
(a) THE CHARACTER OF CULTURE
The term "culture" received its present meaning in the latter half of
the eighteenth century; culture itself reaches back to the beginning of
the Modern Age. The whole evolution of the Modern Age is a striving
beyond the religious form of life which prevailed in the Middle Ages,
and which began to be felt to be narrow and one-sided. In opposition to
this type of life a new type arose, increased in strength, and finally
we became fully conscious of it in the idea of culture. The new type has
been felt to be far superior to the old in many ways; it is not limited
to one side of human nature, but desires to take it, and to develop it
as a whole; it does not refer man to any kind of external aid, but makes
his life depend as much as possible upon his own power, and finds an aim
fully sufficient in the limitless extension of this power; it directs
man's perception and endeavour not so much beyond the world as to it,
and hopes by this means to give a stability to his striving, and a close
relation with the abundance of things. The movement has brought about a
far-reaching transformation of life: that which was lying dormant has
been aroused; the rigid made plastic; the manifold woven into a whole of
life; the whole range of life has acquired more spontaneous freshness
and inner movement. The result of the work of history now becomes for
the first time a complete possession, since above everything contingent
and accidental it elevates an essential, and above everything tending to
separation and hostility, a common humanity.
The animating and ennobling influence of modern culture is nowhere more
manifest than in the life-work of Goethe. For we recognise the greatness
of his nature primarily in that, with the acutest vision and the
greatest freedom, he entered into the multiplicity of experience and
events; with placid yet powerful dominance stripped off all that was
mere semblance and pretence, all that was simply conventional and
partial, and fully realised the genuine, the freshness of life, and the
purely human. (_V._ "The Problem of Human Life.") His treatment of
Biblical narratives is a good example of this: that a king reigned in
Egypt who knew not Joseph suggests to him how quickly even the most
magnificent human achievements are forgotten; that Saul went forth to
find his father's she-asses, and found a kingdom, symbolises to him the
truth that we men often reach something totally different from, and also
much better than, that for which we strove and hoped; the miracle of the
walking on the water is to him a parable of unflinching faith--the
holding fast to apparent impossibilities--without which there can be no
great creation.
If, with this achievement, modern culture may have the feeling of being
the fulfilment of the strivings of the ages, yet its own course has
produced oppositions, and engendered perplexities that culminate in a
dangerous crisis. Culture, as it was represented at the height of German
spiritual life, was directed chiefly towards the inner development of
man; it was called with especial satisfaction "spiritual culture." Its
adherents were concerned not so much with finding a better relation to
the environment as with growing in the realm of their own soul, and with
employing whatever the experience of life brought in the development of
a self-conscious personality, of pure inwardness. Only in this way did
they seem to advance from the previous state of limitation to the
complete breadth of existence, and the exercise of all their powers. A
joy in life, a firm confidence in the rationality of reality gave this
inner culture a soul; and a bold flight bore it far above the narrowness
and heaviness of daily life; æsthetic literary creation became the
chief sphere of its work, and the chief means for the development and
self-perfecting of personality.
Inner culture has by no means vanished from our life; effects of many
kinds are felt from it in the present. But it has been forced to resign
its supremacy in favour of a realistic culture, which makes the relation
to the environment the chief matter, and removes the centre of life to
the intellectual and practical control of this environment. In realistic
culture the inner development of work, of work in the direction of
natural science and technical art, as well as in politics and social
endeavour, is less occupied with the acquiring of a powerful
individuality than with the establishment of an agreeable condition of
society as a whole. Since activity is related more and more closely with
things, and receives laws and directions from them, culture is freed
from dependence upon man and his subjectivity. Culture is an impersonal
power in contrast with man; it does not lead ultimately to a good to him
so much as make him simply a means and an instrument of its progressive
movement. An immeasurable structure of life, a ceaseless self-assertion
and self-advancement, an arousing and an exertion of all powers that can
bring man into relation with the environment, are manifest in this
culture: but at the same time there is an increasing transformation of
our life into a mere life of relation and mediation, a deprivation and a
vanishing of self-consciousness. In the midst of the magnificent
triumphs in external matters there is an increasingly perceptible
contrast between an astonishing development of the technical, and a
pitiful neglect of the personal side of life: in regard to the former we
surpass all other times, as much as we fall below most in regard to the
latter. Along with a ceaseless increase of technical capacity, there is
a rapid degeneration of personal life, a pauperising of the soul. Where
the matter is one of a technical nature there is a magnificent
condition, definite progress in all departments, work conscious of its
aim; but there is a painful groping and helpless hesitation, a
stagnation of production, an emptiness that is only just hidden by a
veneer of academic education, where powerful personalities and
impressive individualities are required.
For a time we were carried away entirely by the tendency to place our
attention solely upon the environment, and we seemed to be satisfied
absolutely by it. But the inner life that has been evolved within human
experience by the work of thousands of years, and through severe
convulsions, prevents this condition being accepted as a conclusion;
that which has once become an independent centre cannot possibly permit
itself to be degraded to the position of a mere means and an instrument.
It is impossible to give up all claim to self-conscious and
self-determining life and a satisfaction of this life. Our spiritual
nature compels us to ask questions and to make claims; if they are not
satisfied, then, notwithstanding all the wealth of experiences, the
feeling of poverty spreads and we seek for aids, and, first, we turn
back to that inner culture from which we had turned away. But we find
the ways shut off; a direct return is impossible. This culture had
characteristic principles and presuppositions; and the course of modern
life itself has, if not overthrown them, involved them in serious doubt.
We have become clearly conscious of the limitations which this inner
culture had without itself feeling them; movements which it united have
now separated, and have become hostile. Inner culture rested on a firm
faith in the power of reason in reality, and this faith begot a joyful
confidence. For it the world was sustained and determined by inner
forces: we feel the rigid actuality of occurrences, the indifference of
the machinery of the world towards the aims of the spirit, and the
contradictions of existence. In the former case the greatness of man was
the predominant faith; and this greatness was sought in his freedom: we,
however, feel much more our bondage to obscure powers and at the same
time our insignificance. In the former again, it aroused no opposition
to call only a chosen part of humanity, the creative, to full and
complete life, and to assign a most meagre portion to the majority: we
cannot possibly renounce the concern for all mankind and for the
welfare of every individual. In the former, morality and art were
harmoniously united in the ideal of life; in our time they have
separated and are at deadly enmity with one another. Everywhere life has
given rise to more problems, more inconsistencies, more obscurities;
thus, with all its external proximity, the joyfully secure ideal of life
of our classical writers is inwardly removed far from us; without
insincerity we cannot proclaim it to be our profession of faith. In
particular the resort to Goethe, as to one with a secure standard of
life, is in general no more than an expression of perplexity, no more
than a flight from a clear decision of our own: the universality and the
flexibility of his spirit permit a point of contact with him to be found
by those whose views directly contradict those of one another, and
allows each to abstract, and make a profession of faith of that which is
preferable and pleasing to himself.
Thus to-day we are in a state of uncertainty and indefiniteness in
reference to the problem of culture. Since the new does not suffice, and
the old cannot be taken up again, we are in doubt with regard to the
whole conception of culture; we know neither what we have of it nor what
it demands from us. We cannot give up our claim to being something more
than nature, without sinking again to the level of the mere animal; but
in what this "more" consists and how it is at all possible to surpass
nature is to us completely obscure. A developed historical consciousness
and the free unfolding of the powers of the present permit many things
to rush in upon us; and we are involved in much inconsistency. We have
seen diverse systems of life arise and attract man to themselves; their
conflict relegates to the background all that is common to them,
produces the greatest uncertainty, and gives rise to the inclination, in
order to avoid all perplexities, to regard life as being made up
entirely of that which occurs within sense experience; and to acquire
aims from this experience, as well as to derive powers from it. But in
this we fall into the danger of idealising sense experience falsely,
and of expecting achievements from movements within it which are
possible only if these movements flow from deeper sources. We flee to
morality to become free from all religion and metaphysics; as though
morality, elevating man, as it does, above simply physical preservation
and the compulsion of mere instinct, is not itself a metaphysic, and as
though it does not of necessity require the existence of an order
superior to nature. Then we flee to the subject with its unrestrained
inwardness and contrast this inwardness with all the restricting
relations of life; as though the subject had any content and any value
without an independent inner world, the recognition of which involves a
complete revolution of the representation of reality; as then according
to the witness of history also humanity has reached such an inner world
only through wearisome toil and forceful resolutions. The whole course
of Antiquity had been leading up to this inner world, but the collision
of Antiquity at the time of its decay, with Christianity which was then
arising, first developed it clearly. Such an inner world must ever be
justified anew; and for this our own activity and conviction are
necessary. If we surrender its basis, it becomes dead capital which,
little by little, is inevitably spent, and then the appeal to the
subject that has lost its spiritual content is but a mere semblance of
help, which deceives us concerning the seriousness of the situation with
sweet-sounding words like "personality," "individuality," and so forth.
If the spiritual life is not strengthened and does not energetically
counteract this tendency, then, notwithstanding all external progress,
we must inwardly sink lower and lower.
It is obvious that there is already such a counteraction in existence;
otherwise, how could spiritual destitution and the insignificance of the
merely human be so keenly felt in the present; how could so ardent a
desire for an inner elevation spread amongst men as we experience it
around us? There is no lack of attempts and endeavours after new aims
and new ways. But much is still lacking for these attempts to be equal
to satisfy the requirements of the matter. We place far too much hope
in external reforms, instead of primarily strengthening the inner basis
of life; we fix our attention far too much upon individual tasks instead
of seizing the whole; we have far too much faith that we can rise to a
new life out of this chaotic condition, instead of insisting upon an
attainment of independence in relation to this condition.
How could independence be attained except by an energetic reflection of
man upon himself, upon his fundamental relation to reality, upon the
life dwelling in him, in short, except by self-consciousness? It is not
the first time that, in the course of the ages, to satisfy such a demand
has become the most urgent of all tasks. The work of history has not
unshakable foundations from the beginning; but the spiritual nature of
epochs always involves the activity and the decisions of man; it
involves, therefore, presuppositions that for a long period may be
accepted as established truths, and which, yet, finally become
problematic. At the beginning of the Modern Age, especially in the
transition to the Enlightenment, apparently established truths became
problematic in this way: the present is in a similar situation. The
threads that we have hitherto followed break; all external help is
rejected, as is also the authority of history; nothing else remains to
us than our own capacity, and the hope to find in it a new support and
the basis for a new construction. Only by our own power, and after a
break with the immediate present, shall we be able to strive after a new
idea of culture which corresponds to the historical position of
spiritual evolution, and which can take up into itself the experiences
of humanity. Such times of error, of vacillation, of searching, of
necessary renewal, are disagreeable and severe, but it depends only on
the summoning of spiritual power whether they become great and fruitful.
For, with regard to these central questions the times do not make men,
but men make the times, not, of course, in accordance with their own
preferences, but by seizing and realising the necessities that exist in
the spiritual condition of the time.