great perplexities with it, which make a definite counter-movement
necessary. At first the tendencies characteristic of the individual
departments directly contradict one another; indeed, this is inevitable,
if they are not systematised in some way. For, particular experiences of
human life are present in each department: one feels our greatness more,
another our weakness; one is moved more by the harmony of existence,
another more by the antitheses; one tends rather to exert power upon the
environment, the other to concentration in itself; from these
experiences there must originate different modes of life and different
representations of the world. In this condition of life it is impossible
for the different tendencies not to cross one another and to clash
together; and this threatens to divide our life, and to rob it of all
its inner unity. A glance at the condition of life in the present is
sufficient to convince us that such dangers are more than fancies.
To the difficulty in respect of the relations of the different
departments among themselves, we must add another, if anything greater,
in respect of the relation of each department to life as a whole. To be
well organised each department needs a co-operation of form and content,
of the technical and the personal; the former gives the department its
particular nature; for the latter a relation with life as a whole is
necessary. The work of science, for example, follows certain forms of
thought, which it evolves from itself, and which are equally valid for
all times and parties. But even the most conscientious following of
these laws does not give to science a content and a character; science
can acquire these only in relation with a movement of life as a whole,
which, in its striving from whole to whole, takes up the experiences of
humanity and unites them into a whole. Only in this way does science,
from being simply an arrangement and accumulation, become knowledge, an
inner appropriation of things. If in accordance with this the individual
departments are detached more and more from life as a whole, and are
made dependent solely upon their own capacity, it can hardly be
otherwise than that in the midst of all perfection in execution they
lose more and more all spiritual content and all definite character. At
the same time, it may soon follow that the effect upon humanity as a
whole will become subsidiary and a matter of indifference; the
individual departments will become exclusively a matter of a circle of
specialists, and strive for an effect within this circle only. In this
way an art arises which, in the artist, forgets the man, and which does
not so much convey new content to human life, or help the time to attain
to a characteristic feeling of life, and elevate it above the
meaninglessness and the confusion of commonplace everyday experience,
but which is for the most part mindful of refinement in execution, and
so, easily degenerates into the complicated and the virtuoso. In the
case of science we find the same thing. It may, through exaggerating the
independence necessary to it, assume an air of proud self-satisfaction,
and, by detachment from the movement of life as a whole, that which is
its main concern, namely, knowledge, may suffer. For it soon tends to
become mere erudition, which treats problems as something half-alien,
gains no inner relation to things, does not understand how to animate
reality, indeed even rejects, as unscientific, all striving after such
animation. This tendency produces, to use an expression of Hegel's,
excellent "counter-servers," who do not look after business of their
own, but only that of others.
No people are more threatened by the danger of this tendency than we
Germans; more especially because the tendency is closely related with a
most advantageous quality of our nature--willing subordination to the
object, fidelity to and conscientiousness in our work. But since we
follow this one tendency, aspects and tendencies which are absolutely
necessary to a complete life stagnate and decay. We do not sufficiently
develop a personal life independent of the object; we do not encompass
and transform it from its very base by a transcendent life-process; and
so we are occupied too much with the material, and do not completely
spiritualise it; we do not bring into relief simple lines in the
infinite abundance, which we require and must maintain complete. How
many excellent scholars our time possesses, who are equipped with an
astonishing capacity for work, who are masters of even the most
complicated technical matters, and yet how few spiritual types there are
among them; how few who have anything to say to humanity, and who will
exert their influence in this way beyond the present! The history of
German formative art also indicates a painful divergence between the
amount of untiring work and the carefulness of execution, and the
creation of simple and pure forms that would increase the spiritual
possessions of humanity, and be permanent factors in its movement.
However, the trait is rooted far too deeply in our being for even the
most determined resolution to be able directly to achieve much to
counteract it. Nevertheless, it is not a matter of indifference whether
we give ourselves complacently up to this one-sidedness, and fortify
ourselves proudly in it; or whether we oppose it to the best of our
ability.
We find ourselves therefore in the present in a difficult situation with
regard to the organisation of culture. To give up the independence of
the individual departments, or even only to limit it in any way, would
be an enormous and impossible retrogression; on the other hand, some
kind of inner unity of life must be obtained. A transcendence of the
antithesis must, therefore, be sought; and this needs a distinctive
structure of life. The spiritual life offers such a structure in so far
as it constitutes the development of being. For we saw how independent
centres and characteristic movements arise in an all-comprehensive life.
Between these movements there may be manifold relations and antitheses,
but they are within a vital whole and with their experiences can aid its
further development. Viewing the departments of life from this position,
it will be necessary to show that each individual department has a root
in life as a whole and a significance for this life; only thus can the
power of this whole life be exerted in the individual departments, and
penetrate them. But the department does not receive its form simply from
the whole by way of derivation; but it can take up and treat the problem
independently, and with its own means; that which exists in the whole as
an affirmation may be only a question and a suggestion in the individual
department. Yet this is in no way without value: for, nevertheless, it
leads us beyond the indefiniteness of the original condition, and guides
effort in circumscribed paths. What gives work in the individual
departments special significance and intensity is the fact that they
take up the problem of the whole in a particular sphere, and can treat
that problem in a characteristic manner; that they are not mere aids and
assistants, but independent co-operators. In this connection it is of
especial importance that the spiritual life is not conferred upon man in
a finished form; but that within him it must first be worked towards
with great toil and through doubt and error, from indefinite outlines to
more detailed development. It is obvious that the form of the whole will
ever be questionable; and that the individual departments must
co-operate in the examination and justification of the forms proposed.
Indeed, it is just the mark of great achievements in the individual
departments that, while they transform their own sphere, they at the
same time develop the whole. It is this that distinguishes Leibniz from
Wolff, and Kant from Herbart.
Such an organisation gives to life a movement in two directions: it must
be conducted from whole to part, and from part to whole. The individual
departments must be developed far enough to reveal their particularity
and to produce a characteristic tendency of their own; but they must
remain within a whole, to receive from it and to lead back to it. The
relations between the individual departments will be distinctive in such
a system; the influence of one upon another will be without suspicion,
and advantageous, only when it is exerted through the mediation of the
whole; while disturbances are inevitable, when one conveys immediate
experiences to another and imposes its nature upon another. It was
necessary, for example, to reject the earlier encroachments of religion
upon other departments of life; art, too, often found it necessary to
resist the tendency to subordinate it to morality; and to-day there is a
strong inclination to shape every department of life in accordance with
the instructions of natural science. Yet although such encroachments
must be rejected, and the independence of each in relation to the others
preserved, the changes that are effected in one department are by no
means indifferent and lost to the other departments. For, if through
these changes life as a whole is developed, then the effect of the
change must extend to the other departments. In this manner of mediation
religion has exercised a strong influence upon the other departments of
life; and in this sense, to-day, an influence of natural science upon
the whole circle of existence will be readily acknowledged. But this
does not involve a limitation or an enslaving of other departments,
because the change in life as a whole must now be ascertained first;
and, besides, each individual department must test by its own
experiences the suggestion coming from the whole.
When we take all these facts into consideration we see that the
organisation of culture is a difficult problem and that our organisation
is unstable. In culture, different tendencies will cross one another;
antitheses cannot be avoided, and collisions will not be lacking. But
that which life loses in completeness and exclusiveness, it gains in
wealth and movement; and division need not be a cause of anxiety so long
as a powerful spiritual life embraces and unifies the multiplicity.
Without such a counteraction by the spiritual life we must drift
towards ever greater specialisation; and, with this, we should not only
see life become more and more disintegrated, but we should also become
less and less spiritual, and be transformed into a soulless mechanism.
II. THE FORM OF THE INDIVIDUAL DEPARTMENTS
_Preliminary Considerations_
Before we proceed to discuss the individual departments of life we may
briefly consider the common task that is imposed upon them all by the
distinctive condition of the time: they must become independent in
relation to the earlier as well as to the more modern conceptions of
them, and, if necessary, take up a conflict against both. The course of
our investigation can have left no doubt with regard to the state of
prostration of the older forms of life: the uncertainty affects the
whole and the fundamental principles much more than it has ever done
before. Formerly the struggle was concerned rather with individual
departments or individual tendencies of life; it was carried on more in
reference to the conception and meaning of fundamental truths than with
regard to the validity of those truths themselves. The passionate
struggles of the period of the Reformation left the fundamentals of
Christianity untouched; in a similar manner the later attacks upon
ecclesiastical religion usually had a basis of firm faith in morality,
and derived their power more especially from it. To-day the authority of
morality is just as seriously shaken as that of religion; and the
conception of truth is itself in the same condition of uncertainty.
In this condition of things an appeal to history cannot be employed as
proof of any position; a patchwork of our own and of something alien
gives us still less a position above perplexity: there is no other way
than to take up the problem with the means of the present itself. For
this the acknowledgment of the independence of the spiritual life forms
a fit foundation. The spiritual life is not dependent upon and fixed to
particular temporal conditions; ever anew it can break forth
spontaneously, and from the particularity of the time advance to eternal
truths. It is to us a source of joy that a time has come again when we
need not follow other paths, but must go our own; when nothing can bind
us but that which has been approved by our own being and our own
conviction. It is not necessary for a time such as this to take up an
attitude of hostility towards the whole past; rather--and especially
when it thinks worthily of itself--it will seek a friendly relationship
with history. But this is possible only when the present has attained
complete independence, and only from this independent position; only
when an eternal content is revealed in that which history conveys to us.
In opposition to submission to authority such a time makes a demand for
unlimited freedom and complete spontaneity; such freedom and spontaneity
are essential if life is again to find the truthfulness and the inner
power that we so painfully miss.
Such a requirement of life and thought arising out of the immediate
present may easily lead us to separate from those to whom the crisis
does not seem so serious, and who believe that it is possible to
transform the old in a quiet and inhostile manner into the new. The
conflict will be far more acute with those who, with us, make the demand
for an independent present; but who, by the conceptions of an
independent present, freedom and spontaneity, understand something
totally different from that which we ourselves understand by them from
the point of view of an independent spiritual life. In all times of
spiritual revival the freedom and immediacy which the spiritual life
needs for itself have been usurped by mere man as though they were a
right pertaining to him: and then it appears that only the complete
emancipation of individuals, a severance of all connections,
unconditional submission to the passing moment, are necessary in order
to lead life to truth and greatness, and man to a glorious state of
happiness. Such a movement cannot spread without making the antitheses
of life appear less acute, concealing its problems and its depths, and
falsely idealising man with all the contingency of his experience: with
all the bustle of its preparation and all its agitation the movement
must terminate in a state of spiritual destitution; it threatens life
with inner destruction. With a modernity of this kind we have nothing in
common.
We must, therefore, with all our power, wage war against the narrowly
human and imaginary freedom on behalf of one that is genuine and
spiritual: this conflict is exceptionally complicated and difficult,
because real life does not make such a clear distinction between the
genuine and the false as the conceptions do, but rather allows them to
be confused. For this reason the conflict will be carried on not only on
the right hand and on the left, but also against the confusion that
obscures the great "either--or," without the distinct presence of which
a spontaneous life does not acquire power and consciousness. A way must
be found by which, notwithstanding manifold dangers and complications,
we may advance to a life that combines depth with freedom, stability
with movement: this is an inner necessity of the age, and once it is
recognised and taken up as such, it will in some way be realised.
(a) RELIGION, MORALITY, EDUCATION
1. RELIGION
In no sphere of life is there more inner division and uncertainty at the
present time than in that of religion. To one, the rejection of all
religion seems to be indispensable to the sincerity of life and to the
attainment of healthy conditions, because, as a pernicious legacy from
past ages, it oppresses our life, confuses our thought, paralyses our
power of activity, and provokes men to the greatest hatred of one
another. To another, on the contrary, religion seems to be the only
firm support in face of the needs and confusions of the age--the only
thing that inwardly unites men and elevates each individual above
himself, the only thing that reveals a depth in life and allows life to
share in the infinite and the eternal. The adherents to each of these
views show the greatest earnestness and zeal; we cannot treat the
negation lightly and dispose of it with the convenient catchword
"unbelief," if only for the reason that on the part of many this
negative attitude is due to a sincere anxiety for the truthfulness of
life. To rise above this conflict in regard to religion we must, in the
first place, estimate the points at issue impartially; and nothing else
is more called upon to do this than philosophy.
Philosophy will not make light of the prostration of religion; for a
survey of history shows that the state of life has undergone a complete
change since the epoch when religion exercised an undisputed supremacy.
At that time the world and human life received all meaning and value
from their relation to an invisible and supernatural order. The course
of the Modern Age has made the world that surrounds us ever more
significant, and since man has directed his activity upon this world,
the world of faith has been allowed to recede more and more. The
movement that led to our present position attained increasing power and
consciousness through three stages: at the height of the Renaissance the
divine was revered less in its world-transcendent sovereignty than in
its world-pervading operation; then, the Pantheism of a speculative and
æsthetic culture associated the world and God together in one reality;
finally, in the investigation of inimitable nature and the formation of
political and social relations the world of sense gives man so much to
do, fetters his power so much, and gives him at the same time such a
proud consciousness of this power, that the conception of a transcendent
world fades entirely; and an Agnosticism that rejects as superfluous and
unfruitful all reflection upon and care concerning such a world gains
ground.
This change in the direction and in the disposition of life must itself
have forced religion more or less out of the field of our attention. But
it is fraught with far more dangers to religion that the work of the
Modern Age in all its main tendencies is directed against the principles
of the life upon which the development of religion rests. Modern natural
science has dispossessed man of the central position that he formerly
attributed to himself, and has deprived nature of its soul. The modern
science of history, with its demonstration of ceaseless change in all
that is human, has undermined the faith in an absolute truth. At the
same time, with regard to the beginnings of Christianity, there is a
wide divergence between the traditional conception of faith and the new
conception obtained by historical research. The tendency of modern
culture has been to make the increasing of power, in work upon things
and in their control, the highest ideal; from the point of view of this
ideal of impersonal power, the world of pure inwardness, the home of
Christianity, has been able to appear to be simply a subjective and
subsidiary accompaniment of the life-process. He who estimates rightly
the fact that all these tendencies of modern life work together and
strengthen one another cannot fail to recognise that they force religion
from the centre of life to its circumference, and transform it from an
impregnable fact into a difficult problem; they destroy that
self-evidence of religion which previously made life secure and calm.
If, however, religion no longer springs up in the consciousness of
contemporaries from a necessity of their own life, it is not difficult
to understand that the complications of the problem are too great for
many of them; that the burden of obsolete forms over-balances the power
of their own impulse, and thus, by a sudden revolution, to reject it
seems the only way to save truth. Then religion seems to be only a
delusion that arose in a past age--a delusion similar to astrology and
alchemy; one which, in face of growing enlightenment, must ultimately be
completely dispelled.
But if the philosophic treatment understands the negation rightly, it
can only warn us against being hasty in our acceptance of it. To be
sure, quite apart from all the caprice and purpose of man, the condition
of life has become very much changed; but it was less the state of
affairs itself that permitted the changes to clash so irreconcilably
with religion than the interpretation which it received and the
exclusiveness which was attributed to it. The decision in this matter
has depended in particular upon what is called the spirit of the age,
which is often nothing more than the inclination and disposition of man;
such inclination, as history shows, may change into the direct opposite;
it does not form a sure touchstone of truth.
These considerations, indeed, do not make much headway in opposition to
the storm and stress of the movements of the age: that which operates far
more strongly in favour of religion is the experience and the feeling
that the attempted negation of religion by no means easily and directly
solves the problem of life; and, further, that along with religion much
becomes untenable to which even the modern man cannot lightly renounce
all claim. Whatever there may be in religion, it has brought man into
union with the deepest basis of reality, and at the same time revealed to
him a life of pure inwardness: it has set a task for life as a whole and
has given to life a meaning and a value; it has counteracted the lower
impulses and the egoism of mere self-preservation; and has organised
humanity spiritually. These aims have hardly become superfluous and
worthless: even without religion, and after abandoning its principles, it
would be necessary to accomplish these aims in other ways. It is in the
attempts at reconstruction that the futility of the negation of religion
becomes painfully evident. Phrases concerning the greatness and
noble-mindedness of all that bear human features; a blind faith in the
elevating power of intellectual enlightenment or even of external
organisation; a confusion of thought which, unobserved, rejects and
elevates its own principles, and so maintains in the conclusion that
which it rejected in the premises; all these things can deceive him alone
concerning the spiritual poverty and the complete powerlessness of what
is offered in them, whose zeal in his antagonism to religion has deprived
him of balance of feeling and impartiality of judgment. If it is inquired
what content and value human life still retains after the surrender of
all relation to the whole and of all inner relation, it will be
recognised that the complete negation of religion consistently carried
out must lead to an appalling convulsion of human existence as a whole.