whole multiplicity of life; it can include and estimate the most diverse
relations and experiences of our existence. But whatever is thus brought
under the sway of the morality of the spiritual life must undergo an
essential change, and must be elevated above the nature of that which is
not taken up in this manner. By an ethical formation and development of
art and science we do not mean that the individual should be loyal and
straightforward in their pursuit, and should follow honest aims; this
conception would be much too narrow. But it is that we should take
possession of and treat as our own life and being that which otherwise
remains outside as something half alien to us; that the work should
acquire the power and fervour of self-preservation; and that in this
unification the necessity of the object becomes a definite demand of our
life, and the gain of the object an advance of our life. Only such a
life which transcends the antithesis of subject and object gives to the
object a soul, and freedom a content.
The experience of history also makes it clearly evident to us that the
spiritual life first acquires a secure position and an indisputable
supremacy over nature by its acknowledgment and appropriation in
self-determining activity. For history shows that wherever morality is
not central, the spiritual life, even in the midst of the most
magnificent results in external matters, languishes inwardly and loses
its hold. With individuals also the final decision concerning the
problems of the world and of life always depends upon whether they do or
do not recognise that man has an inner moral task in his nature as a
whole. If this is acknowledged, then--and this just in oppositions and
conflicts--a realm of inwardness is assured us which all apparently
contrary experiences of the external world cannot expel from its central
position; but if there is no such acknowledgment, the triumph of these
experiences and the collapse of the spiritual life cannot be avoided.
The morality of the spiritual life, as we advocate it, will have
distinctive features in comparison with other conceptions of morality;
of these we can mention but a few here. The acknowledgment of an
independent spiritual life makes life as a whole a task, since it
requires that as a whole it should be changed into a state of
self-determining activity; that everything must be aroused and set in
motion. Thus the morality of the spiritual life is constructive and
progressive, and not simply regulative in character; it is not its
purpose simply to place life under regulations and to let activity wait
until there is an opportunity to fulfil them; but, calling forth all
our powers, morality must work and create, arouse and prepare the
opportunities, so that in everything the realm of the spirit may be
increased within the province of humanity. Like the spiritual life
itself, the morality proceeding from it must be of a transcendent
nature. To-day or to-morrow may not be considered beyond good and evil;
morality may not sink to being a mere means of realising the wishes of
the time. If, however, morality transcends time, and is able to separate
the transitory and the eternal in time, then, within its task, it may
very well acknowledge distinctive situations and problems, and present
different sides; indeed, only by a close relation with the time and by
penetrating deeply into the experiences of the time will morality
acquire the necessary proximity and impressiveness. To this extent,
therefore, we also insist upon a modern morality, however decidedly we
reject that which to-day is called "modern" morality, and which for the
most part is no more than a surrender of morality to the wishes and
moods of the individual.
If in these features the morality of the spiritual life already
manifests a distinctive character, this distinctiveness is further
increased by the particular nature of the actual relation of man to the
moral task, as it appears here. The highering of the ideal will
necessarily increase its divergence from man, as he is. It will become
quite evident that morality is not a continuation of nature, a natural
attribute of man, or a product of social relationship, but the most
pronounced expression of a great change in the direction of life, the
institution of a new order of things. If at the same time life is to be
fashioned morally, a conflict is inevitable; and the general outlook of
life and of conduct will depend upon where we find the centre of
opposition and what is the main direction of the conflict. In the first
place, morality must take up a definite attitude towards the
sense-nature of man; that nature must be subordinated to the aims of the
spirit. But we have already seen that there is a danger that the ethical
task will lose its depth, and that life as a whole will be perverted,
if the rights of nature are misunderstood and there arises the desire to
suppress it completely, and if, in a tendency to asceticism, this
suppression is made the chief concern. The chief moral task is the
development and establishment of a genuine and real spiritual life, as
opposed to a false and merely apparent one, which is found in human
conditions, not only in the state of society but also in the soul of the
individual: thus a mere transition from society to the individual can
never give any aid. The condition in which life is generally found
evolves no independent spiritual life; but it uses the spiritual impulse
that is present within it simply as a means to other ends, and thus the
result is an inner perversion; at the same time man is generally
zealously occupied with giving himself the appearance of intending to
follow the spiritual for its own sake, and of sacrificing everything to
it. In opposition to such radical insincerity, to acquire a sincere and
genuine life is the chief task and the chief desire of morality; for the
establishment of sincerity and truth in face of an opposing world the
soul needs before all else loyalty and courage.
And so morality involves life in a great division: it cannot possibly
take up a friendly attitude towards everything and readily admit
everything: its chief task must be to arouse life from its confusion and
apathy. But this does not prevent a morality of the spiritual life
striving for universality in its inner nature. The morality of the
spiritual life must, therefore, establish a definite relationship on the
basis of the present with the prevailing types of morality which were
previously mentioned. If the morality of the spiritual life is certain
of its own nature, it is quite possible for it to recognise a certain
validity in every other kind of morality without degenerating into a
feeble eclecticism. The relation that we recognised between the
spiritual life and religion also makes religion valuable to morality:
the moral significance of culture may be especially acknowledged where a
universal character is desired for the spiritual life; the relation of
man to man may also become inwardly important where it is necessary to
the inner construction of the life of society. Again the morality of the
spiritual life fully agrees with the demand for an independence of
morality and for an elevation above narrowly human aims, in the manner
that the morality of reason advocates; finally, individuality also can
obtain its due in the spiritual life. All this, however, is valid only
with the presupposition that we acquire a position above the antitheses
of experience and not between them, and an inner independence in
relation to the chaos of time. Only from this position and this
independence can we advance in any way, even within time.
3. EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTION
Education and instruction are especially affected by the difficulties
that are engendered by the lack of a main tendency in life and of a
transcendence of the superficiality of time. For the lively interest
which its questions provoke, the incalculable amount of work and
activity that is called forth in this department, do not produce their
full result, because we do not possess enough life of our own of a
definite character to be able to test and sort, to clarify and deepen,
that which is presented to us. And so in conflict with one another we
use up much power without making much progress in the most important
matter.
Educational reform is the catchword, but we have no philosophy of
education that is based upon a securely established conviction
concerning life as a whole, and we trouble ourselves very little to
obtain one. We wish to improve education, and yet we have not come to an
understanding with regard to its ideals, its possibility, and its
conditions. Education must be fundamentally different in character,
according as man is regarded as a particular and exclusively individual
being, or as a being in whom a new and universal life seems to emerge;
according as he is only an elevated being of nature or in the highest
degree possible a spiritual being; according as the higher proceeds from
the lower gradually and surely after the manner of organic growth, or we
must find a new starting-point and accomplish a revolution. Further, an
individualistic training, as it dominated the classical systems of
pedagogy, is no longer sufficient; the relation to society must also be
fully appreciated, and be effective. But attention to this requirement
involves us in the danger of treating the problem of education too
externally, and of bringing all more or less to the same level; and this
danger must be overcome. Yet how can it be overcome, unless we possess
securely a depth, unless we acknowledge the presence of the infinite
within the human being, as it is comprehended in our conviction of the
spiritual life?
The form of instruction suffers from the ceaseless onflow of new
material, the constant increase in the number of claims. In itself each
single demand may be quite justifiable; but whether it is better than
the others can be decided only from an idea which governs the whole. If
no such idea exists, a gain in the individual departments may be a loss
to the whole; and an enrichment in one department may lead to a decline
of the whole. In face of that which has been handed down from the past
and that which arises in the present, it is difficult to come to a
balanced judgment; the parties may be right in their attacks one upon
another, but this does not imply that they are right in their own
assertions. The immediate impression tends to give the balance in favour
of the requirements of the present; from the point of view of the
immediate impression, all occupation with the past may appear to be a
flight from the living to the dead. The advocate of the claims of
history may reply to this that man as a spiritual being is not a child
of the mere moment, and that we concern ourselves with the past not on
account of what is transitory in it, but for its eternal content. But he
who thinks thus must throw the eternal content into relief and separate
it sharply from that which is simply temporal; he must establish a
relation between this content and his own life, and make that which is
externally alien his inward possession. This does indeed come to pass in
a few cases; but can we say that it comes to pass generally or
predominantly? We Germans in particular have far too strong a tendency
to substitute scholarly occupation for inner animation, and instead of
spiritual substance to offer academically correct knowledge. It is
therefore not without good reason if Classical Antiquity does not so
much inspire as weary our youth; yet the blame for this does not rest
upon Antiquity, but on ourselves, and upon the manner in which we treat
it with calm scholarship, without transforming it into our own
possession. For how could that influence the whole man which does not
come from the whole man? Everything points again and again to the same
thing--we lack spiritual independence, inner transcendence of history
and environment, we lack a characteristic life as a whole. The contact
with the incalculable abundance of impressions that we experience must
therefore remain an external one; and with all our increasing wealth of
knowledge we threaten to become spiritually poorer.
(b) SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
Science, with its innumerable branches and its powerful penetration of
life, is indisputably a strong feature of the age. Its effect is not
exhausted in the abundance of particular achievements; by the
objectivity of its work it has brought the world much nearer to us, has
led our life to greater clearness, has made us more alert, and given us
a secure dominion over things. Science, therefore, must also be a factor
in the determination of a philosophy of life, and must raise the whole
position of man. Of course, as soon as we survey and estimate its work
from the life-process we find that there is no lack of difficult
problems in science. Since the magnificent results of the natural
sciences often give rise to the tendency to force their particular bent
and methods on the human sciences, to which our conception of the
spiritual life gives a characteristic sphere of their own, there is a
danger that the balanced development of the individual sciences and the
complete organisation of what is distinctive in them will be prevented.
However, we do not lack energetic resistance of this danger; and
ultimately it is less science itself than the movement to popularise it
that falls into this danger. Further, the results of science with regard
to the object easily tend to obscure the subjective element, the
spiritual activity, the characteristic synthesis, which forms an
organised collection of pieces of knowledge into the unity of a science.
It is apt to appear as though science needs only to construct further on
a given basis and in a given direction; while both of these are open to
much dispute: different possibilities, prospects, types may be revealed;
the work of history has run through different stages, and has certainly
not already exhausted its possibilities. Nevertheless, the subjective
element with its freedom, mobility, and many-sidedness is becoming more
adequately appreciated, and there is no reason to fear that science will
become dogmatically pursued in paths that have become fixed. Finally,
the problem of the relation of thought to life is the source of much
perplexity: we Germans, for example, have a strong tendency to take mere
knowledge for inner appropriation of the object, and instead of
spiritual substance to offer an abundance of scholarship. This, however,
is not a defect in science itself, but an error on the part of man, who
has no life of his own with which to meet the onflow of impressions from
the environment; and so our estimate of science and our acknowledgment
of its magnificent achievement cannot be affected by this charge.
Philosophy is in quite a different position: its present state cannot
satisfy anyone who seeks rather for a universal science than for an
academic discipline. For our philosophical efforts lack a common aim and
close relation with the innermost need of the time; they do not even
show any definite and energetic attempt to overcome the confusion from
which our world of thought suffers. A great stream of philosophic effort
came to an end with the speculative philosophy of the first decade of
the nineteenth century. After a temporary ebb of this philosophic
effort, we now wish to take up the work again with fresh power, but we
have not yet acquired inner independence; and therefore, in sifting and
collecting, we are unable to direct the age to definite aims, or
radically expel the inconsistencies into which an indefinite relation to
the past has led the present.
There are three main streams of thought which come to us from the past,
and we can neither completely take them up nor withdraw ourselves from
them: the Enlightenment, with its philosophic summit in Descartes; the
critical philosophy of Kant; and speculative philosophy, with its
consummation in Hegel. It has been thought that the Enlightenment, with
its starting out from the subject, its unadorned intellectualism, its
formal ratiocination, its rejection of everything that is not
comprehended in clear and distinct ideas, was transcended at the height
of German classical literature, because at that time a life rich in
content was set in contrast with it. But, as a fact, no adequate
settlement with the Enlightenment has been arrived at; the supposed
transcendence is not final, because the elements of truth in the
Enlightenment, especially its turning from history to the immediacy and
independence of spiritual life, were not properly acknowledged. But
to-day it is less the elements of truth of the Enlightenment that are a
force than that which is trivial and narrowly human in it--the
ratiocination of the subject which, the more empty it is, the more it
feels itself to be the measure of all things, and, rejoicing in
negation, applies the results of the natural sciences in an attempt to
bring about the greatest possible suppression of all spiritual
relations. In this form the Enlightenment gains acceptance by the
masses, which formerly had seemed inaccessible to it; and thus it
becomes an instrument by which life is dissipated and made shallow.
From its position of research, philosophy looks down upon this tendency
with contempt; but it produces no movement that is able to take up the
struggle with this tendency to shallowness, and pass through the
struggle victoriously. Kant is often lauded as the spiritual guide of
our time; and it is overlooked how much that was certain for him has
become doubtful; how many new facts, new problems, new prospects, which
cannot be lost to the world of thought we have received from the
nineteenth century with its historico-social culture and its
overwhelming widening of the horizon. Kant's critique of the reason is
based on a conception of science; on a faith in the possibility of a
knowledge of truth; on a conviction of a spiritual organisation of man,
which are rather in contradiction than in harmony with the main
tendencies of the present. His absolute ethic, the pillar of his
constructive thought, is incompatible with the empirical and social
treatment of morality to which the present does homage. But at the same
time we cannot free ourselves from the influence of Kant. For we cannot
refute his critique of the reason, breaking up, as it does, the old
representation and conception of truth; and, without his ethic, our
ethic would lose the appearance of truth and greatness. In the judgment
of the present, Hegel experiences a treatment that is just the opposite
of that which Kant receives: if in reference to the latter we do not
notice what divides us, so in reference to the former we fail to
recognise what joins us. For if Hegel's exaggeration of the power of the
human spirit and his identification of spirit and thought appear alien
to us, yet his idea of evolution, which embraces all multiplicity, and
represents all realities and conceptions as in a state of flux; his
elevation of spiritual factors to the form of independent powers which
develop and establish their own necessities undeterred by the preference
of man; his emphasis on the fact of the power of contradiction and
opposition in history--all this, often in spite of our own conceptions,
exerts an enormous influence over us; and we cannot shake it off
without surrendering a considerable portion of our spiritual possession.
These tendencies all whirl confusedly together and draw us now in one
direction, now in another; we can get beyond the state of decadence only
when we have succeeded in giving to the world of thought an independent
character, which corresponds with the spiritual condition of the
present, and which can do justice to the old as well as the new
experiences. After the whole course of our investigation, only a brief
account is necessary to indicate the directions the system of life here
advocated points out to reach this; a fuller treatment would make a
particular theory of knowledge necessary. We must bring into prominence
three of the chief points.
(1) Only the life-process can be the starting-point of philosophy, not
some kind of being more ultimate than this process, whether we conceive
of such being as an external world or as a subject existing independent
of the world: the ideas of "world" and "subject," as also that of
"being," can be evolved and made clear only within the life-process; at
the same time, they remain in a state of flux, and never are so directly
opposed to one another as modern thought has represented them as being.
Philosophy, with this starting-point, would, however, attain an
independence in relation to the special sciences only if it were
possible within the life-process to form a unity and a distinctive
synthesis, which should deepen our view of reality and set it as a whole
in a new light. (2) Such a synthesis must transcend the state of change
of all the relations and caprice of men; this is possible only by the
revelation and appropriation of an independent spiritual life withdrawn
from the life of sense. Without such a spiritual life there is no
release from the chaos of subjective experiences and opinions; only from
the position of the spiritual life is it possible for a spiritual
occurrence to be revealed in the province of man, so that we do not need
to infer from man to the world, but that within him a universal life can
be immediately experienced. (3) As, on the one hand, the spiritual life
is an indispensable presupposition, so on the other it is an infinite
task; the former as far as the fundamental fact is concerned, the latter
in reference to its detailed content. This content can be acquired only
through the movement of history as a whole; thus a constructive
philosophy--and not merely a critical one--could arise only where the
spiritual life as a whole had acquired a characteristic form. In this
case, philosophy was not simply an offspring of life, not merely
something for life to occupy itself with. By its demand for a thorough
clarification of our ideas and life, and by its raising the question of
absolute truth, philosophy has exercised no little influence upon the
progress of life. But that which it achieved of a fruitful nature, it
achieved not in detachment from, but only in relation to, life, and by
interaction with it, however much this relation may be concealed at the
first glance.
Such a connection of philosophy with life as a whole is by no means new;
it has existed in all times. Never has the world of thought acquired a
distinctive character except in close relation with life as a whole: it
is only from life as a whole that thought has received its problems, the
nature of its procedure, and the demarcation of its work. A survey of
the history of philosophy makes it evident that the leading thinkers
differ mostly, and differ from the beginning, in that which they regard
as the essence of life. In what they regard as the essence of life they
have found the firm point of support for their work; from that the
direction of their research has been determined; and from that the
questions arose to which they required an answer from the universe. And
we all know that in these matters the question often implies more than
the answer, that it often carries the answer within itself.
If, therefore, this connection of philosophy with the life-process
signifies an old and indisputable truth, this truth is not sufficiently
acknowledged. Its adequate acknowledgment gives rise to a new situation;
indeed, it tends to the development of a new type of philosophy. With
the critical tendency of the Modern Age, this type shares the desire not
to surrender thought to a state of defencelessness in face of the stream
of appearances, but would primarily concentrate it in itself, and in an
inner independence find a standard for all further undertaking. But this
attainment of independence in thought is not accomplished by turning to
the mere subject, but to a central occurrence, transcending the
antithesis of subject and object. If thought cannot begin from such an
occurrence, and understand the movement of life as an unfolding and
perfecting of this comprehensive occurrence, then there is no truth for
man. Truth, as a relation of two series absolutely alien to each other,
is an absolutely nonsensical conception: truth must be immanent, in the
sense that one life embraces both subject and object, and that in the
movement of life there is as much a coming together of subject and
object as a coming together of activity from the centre and from the
circumference.