Rudolf Christoph Eucken

“ Only thus does life, which otherwise were empty, acquire a content. Then the individual is no longer compelled to develop his powers in conflict with other individuals, but in directing his life towards this infinite spiritual world, in its complete appropriation and organisation. Hence, only that which raises the spiritual content of life can be regarded as good, and goods will be compared in value in accordance with this standard. The more they lead beyond mere results to the development of a new being and self, the more essential they are to spiritual self-preservation ”

“ There can be no doubt that human life is not confined to one single plane,—that all variety of endeavour does not easily unite to form a definite entity, but that heterogeneous elements meet and mingle in man.
Man at first appears to be part of nature, of the world of sense, subject to its laws and impulses. Dim and unreasonable instincts pervade man's soul with compelling force. Our conceptions grow out of sense [Pg 26] impressions, and form at first the purely mechanical concatenation which we term "association," while all our efforts are directed towards individual self-preservation. ”

“ Only a culture of an ethical character can develop an independent and positive spirituality; only such a culture can free the impulse of life from being directed simply to natural self-preservation, and in doing this not make the impulse weaker, but stronger. In nothing have minds been more divided and in nothing will they become more divided than with regard to the question whether, after the perception of the inadequacy of mere nature and society, a new world reveals itself to them, or whether this negation is the ultimate conclusion ”

“ The divine is not so much a power transcending the world as one permeating it and living in it; not something specific outside of things, but their connection in a living unity; it does not make demands and present us with problems so much as give to the world its truth and depth. Thus, reality appears as an inwardly co-ordinated whole: the individual finds his genuine being only as a part of this whole. And so, here, the fundamental relation of life is that to the invisible whole of reality; with the development of this relation, that which seems lifeless becomes animated ”

“ Naturalism denies all independence of the spiritual life, which it regards as nothing more than an adjunct to the realm of nature, and one that can only exist along with sense existence, as a part of or as a supplement to it. Spirituality has, therefore, to subordinate itself and conform entirely to the life of nature; it can never produce and guide a movement from itself, never evolve a basal and comprehensive activity, never withdraw itself into its own sphere as into an independent realm. All self-existent spirituality fades to a world of mere shadows ”

“ If, however, in 96 this activity we should win an inward relation to infinity and a spontaneity of life, then this admission involves a confession concerning reality as a whole which can never be justified by a theory which regards the mere individual as the starting-point. That the idea of personality implies a problem rather than a fact is indicated by the different conceptions of it which we meet in the different systems of life. In considering personality, Religion thinks of the immediate relation of the soul to God ”

“ To know the connection of consciousness with the organic and inorganic world is not to know consciousness in anything more than its history. It may have been similar to, or even identical with, physical manifestations of life, but it is not so now. Eucken admits entirely this fact of the history of mind; but the meaning of mind is to be discovered not so much in its Whence as in its present potency and its Whither. [1] A philosophy of science is bound to recognise this difference, or else all its constructions can represent no more than a torso. ”

“ Impulses and passions, the narrow outlook, the timidity and hollowness of the "small self"—all these, which have previously remained at the centre of life, have to be thrust to the periphery of existence. So that an entrance into the highest spiritual world is not merely something to know, but far rather something to do and to be. This is the meaning of Eucken's activism. It is not the busying of ourselves over trifles; there is no need of encouragement in that direction. It is rather the inward glance on the nature of the over-individual ideals ”

“ The problem of society is closely akin to that of history. In the life around us a certain union is attained in that men dwell together, but this immediate union does not simply of itself produce a spiritual unity, a spiritual whole: if society manifests such a unity, then in it, also, a distinctive revelation of the spiritual must be acknowledged.
Modern science shows clearly and distinctly that the individual is not an isolated atom, but exists in relation with a social environment ”

“ So far as the life of nature 124 extends, the forces and laws of the life of the soul will only refine what the external world exhibits in coarser features. The mechanism of nature also extends into human life; natural impulses of conduct, as well as association of ideas, reveal the fact that the life of the soul is in complete dependence upon natural conditions. From this point of view it seems impossible that inwardness should ever become independent. The actual experience of human life, however, shows that what is thus regarded as impossible is indisputably real. ”

“ The universe now seems to embrace two planes, and to be rising—at least as far as humanity is concerned—from one plane to the other. A new light is cast on reality, which ceases to be a collection of separate and non-cohesive elements, and becomes capable of comprehensive operation and of self-concentration. We realise that what at first appeared to be the whole of reality was only its outer aspect, which is supplemented by the new depth revealed to us. It is only the development of these depths that gives life its real significance ”

“ Man might place the problem on one side without incurring any risk, if the spiritual life when it comes to the fore assumes the guidance of life and manifests itself as world-transcendent power—externally, in that it subordinates to itself and takes up into itself everything else; internally, in that with 263 certain progress it presses forward in the human province, wins the whole soul of man, and becomes more and more his only world. In particular, where the spiritual life is regarded, as we regard it, as the self-consciousness of reality ”

“ Few will disagree with his negative view that Religion—at least as ecclesiastically presented—Immanent Idealism, Naturalism, Socialism, and Individualism involve limitations, and sometimes unjustifiable tendencies and claims, and are inadequate to satisfy the age. His next and chief endeavour is to indicate the direction in which a new philosophy is to be sought, and also tentatively to sketch the outlines of such a philosophy. In the nature of the case—as life is a process—no such philosophy can be regarded as complete. ”

“ If we declare that man is completely absorbed in such concatenation, we must assume what is by no means unassailable: that man is simply part of a given order of things, of a natural mechanism, of a network of causality. Were he in reality no more than this, there would be no possibility of his own decision, no freedom of action, and consequently no morality. This would destroy, not morality alone, but much that its opponents could not well give up. If our life were merely part of a natural mechanism, it would necessarily cease to be our own life ”

“ There could be no spontaneity of action in single cases, if a world of independent and spontaneous life did not exist and embrace us from within. Thus the individual appertains to the whole, even in the exercise of freedom. That of which he is capable by himself alone, is only his ability to bring his own will into accordance with higher laws. All deep thinkers have seen, in the grasp of the essence of life and the development of its possibilities by means of this individual capacity, not an achievement of man alone, but the manifestation of a higher power, a gift of grace. ”

“ Work not only leads to a unity of life in the case of individuals; but, further, without a union of individual forces for a common end, without an organisation of all human work, we should stand defenceless in face of the infinity of the world, and we could never advance to a state of culture. In such community of work man creates a new sphere of existence for himself; he forms his world of work and sets it in contrast to everything which does not come within it. This world of work transcends the individual ”

“ Instead of controlling the conduct of man directly, the spiritual life generally determines it through that which it contributes towards the attainment of his aims. If this is so in the case of the individual, it is even more so in the case of social life, for in it spiritual activity is regarded chiefly as a means to obtain advantages over others, and to advance socially. And so that of which it is the nature to be an end complete in itself is treated as a means to other ends; it is not itself active, and its own power is not a motive force ”

“ This is his conclusion in regard to the work of the spirit of man on whatever plane of knowledge or experience that spirit works. Man's spirit has to carry all its knowledge and experience into its own conative spiritual potencies. We thus see that everything becomes an aid to the unfolding of an ever greater degree of reality within the spirit of man. It is then within the spirit of man that everything finds its interpretation and value. Whatever interpretation is given to anything apart from the union of the whole potency and cognition of man's spirit is only a partial interpretation. ”

“ Whenever he becomes conscious of the fact that in his own soul a new phenomenon has made its appearance, he begins, after the willing acknowledgment of the reality of such a phenomenon, to exercise its potency over against the external world and over against much that is present in his own psychical life. A Higher and a Lower present themselves to him. The two alternatives force themselves, and there is no third: either this deeper kernel of his life must mean the possibility and, in a measure, the presence of a new land of reality ”

“ As this life of independent spirituality is possible only by detachment from the chaotic condition of life as we find it at its general level, the development of the spiritual life must make us clearly conscious of the spiritual destitution of the majority; and especially must it oppose the attempt on the part of such a life as that of the majority to present itself as the whole, and to make itself the standard of human endeavour. In such an attempt the trivially human inevitably preponderates, and this now, at its highest points, invests itself with ostentatious pomp and a feeling of power ”

“ But although the possession of individuals and above Nature, the consciousness that knows Nature is still carried beyond its own individual life. The meaning of the physical world appears in consciousness, through the syntheses it forms, as objective, although it is not an object of sense but of thought; and, further, this very objectivity subsists in the form of generalisations and meanings which create standards for each individual in his relations with the physical world. Eucken then concludes that there is a trans-subjective aspect present in the conclusions of physical science itself. ”

“ Similarly, peoples have in their nature, environment, and history definite conditions of their being, from which they cannot withdraw. But spiritual creation and inward greatness do not grow simply out of these conditions, however favourable they may be, but out of a spontaneous activity which takes up that which has been presented to it, gives it a central point, and from this develops it. The deciding question is always whether and how far individuals and peoples attain to and preserve such a self-determining activity. This activity alone makes it possible for life to be unified inwardly ”

“ Reality will then burst asunder the framework into which Naturalism desires to press it.
The type of life which Naturalism gives rise to also contains more than Naturalism is able to explain. At first sight it seems as though man is taken up completely into a wider conception of nature; as though his life obeys its 32 forces and impulses exclusively; as though all his asserted superiority to nature is simply imaginary. As a matter of fact, in this turning to nature, man, with his spiritual activity, stands not within, but above, nature. ”

“ The tendency to think that man may be transformed inwardly and the whole condition of life raised by changes in external organisation is most definitely felt in the social 366 movements of the age. In this there is a clearly marked opposition to the earlier mode of thought, which, placing a low estimate upon everything external, and finding greatness too easily in disposition, overlooked how much the organisation of the conditions of life means for men in whom the spiritual is only in process of development ”