An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy Part 1

An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy.

by W. Tudor Jones.

PREFACE

The personality and works of Professor Rudolf Eucken are at the present day exercising such a deep influence the world over that a volume by one of his old pupils, which attempts to interpret his teaching, should prove of a.s.sistance. It is hoped that the essentials of Eucken's teaching are presented in this book, in a form which is as simple as the subject-matter allows, and which will not necessitate the reader unlearning anything when he comes to the author's most important works.

The whole of the work is expository; and an attempt has been made in the foot-notes to point out aspects similar to those of Eucken's in English and German Philosophy.

It is encouraging to find at the present day so much interest in religious idealism, and it is proved by Eucken beyond the possibility of doubt that without some form of such idealism no individual or nation can realise its deepest potencies. But with the presence of such idealism as a conviction in the mind and life, history teaches us that the seemingly impossible [p.8] is partially realised, and that a new depth of life is reached. All this does not mean that the individual is to slacken his interests or to lose his affection for the material aspects of life; but it does mean that the things which appertain to life have different values, and that it is of the utmost importance to judge them all from the highest conceivable standpoint--the standpoint of spiritual life. This is Eucken's distinctive message to-day. The message shows that an actual evolution of spirit is taking place in the life of the individual and of human society; and that this evolution can be guided by means of the concentration of the whole being upon the reality of the norms and standards which present themselves in the lives of individuals and of nations. No one particular science or philosophy is able to grant us this central standpoint for viewing the field of knowledge and the meaning of life. The answer to the complexity of the problem of existence is to be found in something which gathers up under a larger and more significant meaning the results of knowledge and life.

This volume will attempt to elucidate this all-important point of view--a point of view which is so needful in our days of specialisation and of material interests. It may be, and Eucken and his followers believe it is, that the destiny of the nations of the world depends in the last resort upon a conception and conviction of [p.9] the reality of a life deeper than that of sense or intellect, although both these may become tributaries (and not hindrances) to such a spiritual life.

I have to thank Professor Eucken himself for allowing me access to material hitherto unpublished, and for encouraging me in the work. I am bold enough to be confident that could I say half of what our revered teacher has meant for me and for hundreds of others of his old pupils, this volume would be the means of helping many who are drifting from their old moorings to find an anchorage in a spiritual world.

W. TUDOR JONES.

Highbury, London, N.,

_November_ 1, 1912.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION [p.13]

Rudolf Eucken was born at Aurich, East Frisia, on the 5th of January 1846. He lost his father when quite a child. His mother, the daughter of a Liberal clergyman, was a woman of deep religious experience and of rich intellectual gifts. When quite a boy he came at school under the influence of the theologian Reuter, a man of wonderful fascination to young men. The questions of religion and the need of religious experience interested Eucken early, and these have never parted from him during the long years which have since pa.s.sed away.

At an early age he entered the University of Gottingen and attended the philosophical cla.s.ses of Hermann Lotze. Lotze interested him in philosophical problems, but did not [p.14] satisfy the burning desire for religious experience which was in the young man's soul. Lotze looked at religion and all else from the intellectual point of view. His main business was to discover proofs for the things of the spirit, and the value of his work in this direction cannot be over-estimated. Hermann Lotze's works are with us to-day; and he has probably made more important contributions to philosophy and religion from the scientific side than any other writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century.

But he seems to have been a man who was inclined to conceive of reality as something which had value only in so far as it was _known_, and left very largely out of account the inchoate stirrings and aspirations which are found at a deeper level within the human soul than the _knowing_ level. Life is larger and deeper than logic, and is something, despite all our efforts, which resists being reduced to logical propositions. It is quite easy to understand how a young man of Eucken's temperament and training should acquiesce in all the logical treatment of Lotze's philosophy, and still find that _more_ was to be obtained from other sources which had quenched the thirst of the great men of the past.

When Eucken entered the University of Berlin he came into contact with a teacher who helped him immensely in the quest for religion, and in the interpretation of religion as the [p.15] issue of that quest. Adolf Trendelenburg was a great teacher as well as a n.o.ble idealist, and his influence upon young Eucken was very great. Indeed, it seems that Trendelenburg's influence was great on the life of every young man who was fortunate enough to come into contact with him. The late Professor Paulsen, in his beautiful autobiography, _Aus meinem Leben_ (1909), presents us with a vivid picture of Trendelenburg and his work. Under him the pupils came into close touch not only with the _meaning_ but also with the _spirit_ of Plato and Aristotle. The pupils were made to see the ideal life in all its charm and glory. The great Professor had all his lifetime lived and meditated in this pure atmosphere, and possessed the gift of infusing something of his own enthusiasm into the minds and spirits of his hearers. Eucken has stated on several occasions his indebtedness to Trendelenburg. The young student entered the temple of philosophy through the gateways of philology and history. This was a great gain, for the barricading of these two gateways against philosophy has produced untold mischief in the past. At present men are beginning to see this mistake, and we are witnessing to-day the phenomenon of the indissoluble connection of language and history with philosophy. In fact, the new meanings given to language and history are meanings of things which happened in the [p.16] culture and civilisations of individuals and of nations, and such a material casts light on the processes, meaning, and significance of the human mind and spirit.

Eucken learnt this truth in Berlin at a very early age, and his life and teaching ever since have been a further development of it. This fact has to be borne in mind in order that we may understand the prominence he gives to religion, religious idealism, spiritual life, and other similar concepts--concepts which are largely foreign to ordinary philosophy and which are only to be found in that mysterious, all-important borderland of philosophy and religion.

After graduating as Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Gottingen, we find him preparing himself as a High School teacher, in which position he remained for five years.

In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in the University of Basel. In 1874 he received a "call" to succeed the late Kuno Fischer as Professor of Philosophy in the renowned University of Jena. It is here, in the "little nest" of Goethe and Schiller, that Eucken has remained in spite of "calls" to universities situated in larger towns and carrying with them larger salaries. It is fortunate for Jena that Eucken has thus decided. He, along with his late colleague Otto Liebmann, has kept up the philosophical tradition of Jena. In spite of modern developments and the presence of [p.17] new university buildings, Jena still remains an old-world place. To read the tablets on the walls of the old houses has a fascination, and brings home the fact that in this small out-of-the-way town large numbers of the most creative minds of Europe have studied and taught. The traditions of Goethe and Schiller still linger around the old buildings and in the historical consciousness of the people. Here Fichte taught his great idealism--an idealism which has meant so much in the evolution of the Germany of the nineteenth century; here Hegel was engaged on his great _Phenomenology of Spirit_ when Napoleon's army entered the town; here Schopenhauer sent his great dissertation and received his doctor's degree _in absentia_; here too, the Kantian philosophy found friends who started it on its "grand triumphant march"--a philosophy which raised new problems which have been with us ever since, and which gave a new method of approaching philosophical questions; here Sch.e.l.ling revived modern mysticism and attempted the construction of a great _Weltanschauung._ But only a small portion of the greatness of Jena can be touched on. Eucken has n.o.bly upheld the great traditions of the place, not only as a philosophical thinker but also as a personality.

What is the secret of Eucken's influence? It is due greatly, it is true, to his writings and their original contents, for it is not possible for [p.18] a man to hide his inner being when he writes on the deepest questions concerning life and death. A great deal of Eucken's personality may be discovered in his writings. Opening any page of his books, one sees something unique, pa.s.sionate, and somehow always deeper than what may be confined within the limits of the understanding, and something which has to be lived in order to be understood. And to know the man is to realise this in a fuller measure than his writings can ever show. He has to be seen and heard before the real significance of his message becomes clear. His personality attracts men and women of all schools of thought, from all parts of the world, and they all feel that his message of a reality which is beyond knowledge--though knowledge forms an integral part of it--is a new revelation of the meaning of life and existence. Professor Windelband, in his _History of Philosophy_ and elsewhere, describes Eucken as the creator of a new Metaphysic--a metaphysic not of the Schools but of Life. This aspect will be discussed at fuller length in later pages, so that it may be pa.s.sed over for the present.

Eucken believes in the reality and necessity of his message. He is aware that that message is contrary to the current terminology and meaning of the philosophy of our day. Some of his great constructive books were written as far back as 1888, and have remained, almost until our own day, in a large measure unnoticed. [p.19] The _Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit_ is a case in point. It is one of his greatest books, and its value was not seen until the last few years.

But the philosophy of the present day in Germany is tending more and more in the direction of Eucken's. Writers such as the late Cla.s.s and Dilthey, Siebeck, Windelband, Munsterberg, Rickert, Volkelt, Troeltsch --naming but a small number of the idealistic thinkers of the present --are tending in the direction of the new Metaphysic presented by Eucken in the book already referred to as well as in the _Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_.

The philosophy of Germany at the present day is making several attempts at a metaphysic of the universe. Much critical and constructive work has been done during the past quarter of a century and is being done to-day.

The attempts to construct systems of metaphysics may be witnessed on the sides of natural science and of philosophy. Haeckel, Ostwald, and Mach have each given the world a constructive system of thought. But these three systems have not, except in a secondary way, attempted a metaphysic of human life. Haeckel's system is mainly poetico-mythical, chiefly on the lines of some of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Ostwald's attempt is to show the unity of nature and life through his principle of Energetics; and Mach's may be described as an inverted kind [p.20] of Kantianism in regard to the problem of subject and object.

None of these has attempted a reconstruction of philosophy from the side of the content of consciousness; in fact, they all find their explanation of consciousness in connection with physical and organic phenomena observed on planes below those of the mental and ideal life of man. Such work is necessary; but if it comes forward as a _complete_ explanation of man, it is, as Eucken points out again and again, a wretched caricature of life. 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. Physical impressions enter into consciousness, [p.21] and doubtless in important ways condition it, but they are _not physical_ once man becomes _conscious_ of them. A union of subject and object has now taken place, and consequently a new beginning --a beginning which cannot be interpreted in terms of the things of sense--starts on its course. This is Eucken's standpoint, and it is no other than the carrying farther of some of the important results Kant arrived at.

This difference between the natural and the mental sciences has been emphasised, at various times, since the time of Plato. But the difference tended to become obliterated through the discoveries of natural science and its great influence during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The key of evolution had come at last into the hands of men, and it fitted so many closed doors; it provided an entrance to a new kind of world, and gave new methods for knowing that world. But, as already stated, evolution is capable of dealing with what _is_ in the light of what _was_, and the _Is_ and the _Was_ are the physical characteristics of things. In all this, mind and morals, as they are in their own intrinsic nature operating in the world, are left out of account. A striking example of this is found in the late Professor Huxley's Romanes Lecture--_Evolution and Ethics_. In this remarkable lecture it is shown that the cosmic order does not answer all our questions, and is indifferent [p.22] and even antagonistic to our ethical needs and ideals. Huxley's conclusion may be justly designated as a failure of science to interpret the greatest things of life. Before culture, civilisation, and morality become possible, a new point of departure has to take place within human consciousness, and the attempt to move in an ethical direction is as much hindered as helped by the natural course of the physical universe. This lecture of Huxley's runs parallel in many ways with Eucken's differentiation of Nature and Spirit, and Huxley's "ethical life" has practically the same meaning as Eucken's "spiritual life" on its lower levels.

Numerous instances are to be found in the present-day philosophy of Germany of the need of a Metaphysic of Life, and of the impossibility of constructing such from the standpoint of the results of the natural sciences either singly or combined.

Professor Rickert's investigations are having important effects in this respect. In his works he has made abundantly clear the difference between the methods and results of the sciences of Nature and the sciences of Mind. And even amongst the mental sciences themselves, all-important aspects of different subject-matters present themselves, and render themselves as of different _values_.

Professor Munsterberg has worked on a similar path, and has insisted once more on the nature of reality as this expresses itself in [p.23] a meaning which is over-individual. Professor Windelband's writings (_cf.

Praludien, Die Philosophie im XX. Jahrhundert_, etc.) have emphasised very clearly the need of the presence and acknowledgment of norms in life, and of the meaning of life realising itself in the fulfilment of these norms.[2]

When we turn to the great neo-Kantian movement, we find alongside of discussions concerning psychological questions important ethical aspects presenting themselves. The works of the late Professor Otto Liebmann of Jena (_cf_ the last part of his _a.n.a.lysis der Wirklichkeit_) and of the late Professor Dilthey and Dr. G. Simmel point in the same direction.

Professors Husserl, Lipps, and Vaihinger, as their most recent important books show, work on lines which insist on bringing life as it is and as it ought to be into their systems. The same may be said of Professor Wundt's works in so far as they present a constructive system.

But the ground was fallow twenty-five years ago when some of Eucken's important works made their appearance. Even as late as 1896 he complains of this in the preface of his _Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_: "I am aware that the explanations offered in this [p.24] volume will prove themselves to be in direct antagonism to the mental currents which prevail to-day."[3] He states that his standpoint is different from that of the conventional and official idealism then in vogue. By this he means, on the one hand, the "absolute idealism" which constructed systems entirely unconnected with science or experience--systems whose Absolute had no direct relationship with man, or which made no appeal to anything of a similar nature to itself in the deeper experience of the soul; and, on the other hand, the degeneration of the neo-Kantian movement to a mere description of the relations of bodily and mental processes.

Probably enough has been said to show that the idealistic systems of Germany are tending more and more in the direction of a philosophy which attempts to take into account not only the results of the physical sciences and psychology, but also those of the norms of history and of the over-individual contents of consciousness.

It has been stated by several critics in England, Germany, and America, that Eucken has ignored the results of physical science and psychology.

This was partially true in the past, when his main object was to present his [p.25] own metaphysic of life. The problems of science and psychology had to take a secondary place, but it is incorrect to state that these problems were ignored. It is remarkable how Eucken has kept himself abreast of these results which are outside his own province.[4]

But he has been all along conscious of the limitations of these results of natural science and psychology. The results fail to connote the phenomena of consciousness and its meaning. While Eucken has accepted these results, I have not seen any evidence that any of his conceptions concerning the main core of his teaching--the spiritual life--are disproved by any of them. He shows us, as will be elucidated later, that as sensations point in the direction of percepts, and percepts in the direction of concepts, so concepts point in the direction of something which is beyond themselves. And as the meaning of reality reveals itself the more we pa.s.s along the mysterious transition from sensation to concept, so a further meaning of reality is revealed when concepts search for a depth beyond themselves. This is the clue to Eucken's teaching in regard to spiritual life. It is a further development of the nature of man--a development beyond the empirical and the mental. And the object of the following chapters will be to show this from various points of view.

CHAPTER II [p.26]

RELIGION AND EVOLUTION

Eucken accepts gladly the theory of descent in Darwinism, but insists that the theory of selection must be clearly distinguished from it.

He agrees with Edward von Hartmann that the doctrine of selection is inadequate to explain the phenomena of life. But, as he points out, there is much which is true and helpful in the theory of selection even in regard to human life. "In all quarters there is a widespread inclination to go back to the simplest possible beginnings, which exhibit man closely related to the animal world, to trace back the upward movement not to an inner impulse, but to a gradual forward thrust produced by outward necessities, and to understand it as a mere adaptation to environment and the conditions of life. It seems to be a mere question of natural existence, of victory in the struggle against rivals."[5] But he is not satisfied that such an explanation covers the [p.27] phenomena of consciousness. If there were no more than this at work in the higher forms of life, the things of value--the things which have meant so much in the upward development of humanity--would be reduced to mere adjuncts of physical existence. If mental and moral values mean no more than this, they are simply annihilated. But the values of life are something quite other than any physical manifestation; and however much they are conditioned by physical changes it is inconceivable that what is purely physical should be the sole cause of them. Man would never have risen so far above Nature, and become able to be conscious of his own personality and of the meaning of the world, had there not been present from the very beginning some spiritual potency which could receive the impressions of the external world and bind them together into some kind of connected Whole. This connected Whole may be no more in the beginning than a potency without any content, and its roots may be discerned in the world below man; but without such a potency, different in its nature from physical things, the whole meaning of the evolution of mind and spirit is utterly unintelligible. But what can this potency mean but something which includes within itself the germ of that which later comes out in the form of the values which have been gained in the life of the individual and of the race?

[p.28] In order to understand Eucken's conceptions concerning Spirit, Whole, Totality, and other similar terms, this fact has to be borne in mind. The capacity for _more_ is present in man's nature. It may remain dormant in a large measure, but it is not entirely so, as witnessed by the fact that men have scaled heights far above Nature and the ordinary life of the day. And humanity, on the whole, has climbed to a height to give some degree of meaning to the life of the day--a meaning superior to physical impressions, and which is able to see somewhat behind, around, and beyond itself. Wherever this happens, it comes about through the presence and activity of the life of the spirit within man. The spiritual life is, then, a possession of man, but it is a possession only in so far as it is used. It is subject to helps and hindrances from the world; it is not freed from its own content; it can never say, "So far and no further according to the bond and the duty"; it has to undergo a toilsome struggle before it can ever become the possessor of the new kind of world to which it has a right.

In all this we notice something in the _new world of consciousness_ similar to what happens within the physical world. In the world of nature no animate (and probably no inanimate) thing has received a _donum_ which it may preserve as its own without effort. Everything that has value has to be preserved through [p.29] struggles necessitated by the changing conditions of the impinging environment as well as struggles between contrary characteristics within the nature of the thing itself. Otherwise nothing could maintain its ident.i.ty and individuality at all. There must be some core in everything which exists as an individual thing. This individuality is seen more clearly as the scale of existence is mounted. In the organic world each thing lives in a more or less degree its own life, however much that life is conditioned and even hindered by the environment. What is it, then, that keeps the thing together? It is some point of union of elements otherwise scattered. When we come to man we see this more clearly than in the world below him. This core is a kind of Whole made up of isolated impressions mingling with a potency different in nature from themselves, and trans.m.u.ting them to its own nature in the forms of self-consciousness, meanings, values. This potency--this Whole--although present from the very beginning as the condition of becoming conscious of anything, yet remains in constant change. Impressions pour in through the senses, enter the Whole that is already present; they drop their content into that Whole by means of the senses, and the miracle of trans.m.u.tation, entirely mysterious, takes place.

This point is not new. It is a fact well [p.30] known in the history of psychology, and played a very prominent part in the psychology of Kant.

But Eucken has deepened the conception in such a way as to be able to rid himself of the postulates of Kant concerning G.o.d, Freedom, and Immortality. The germs of these, according to the meaning of Eucken, are within the spiritual life itself, and not transcendent in the form presented by Kant or external as presented by Hegel. There is, then, within consciousness a process in many respects a.n.a.logous to the natural process. And as the meaning of the physical universe has become clearer through the conception of evolution, so the meaning of consciousness, originating in a higher world than Nature, will become clearer if viewed in a similar manner. Let us then turn to one of the most important aspects of Eucken's work, Evolution and Religion.

Eucken's deepest, and consequently the most difficult, account of the meaning of religion is to be found in his _Truth of Religion_ and his _Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt._ It is important to deal with the concept of the spiritual life at this stage of our inquiry, for it is the pivot around which the whole of Eucken's philosophy turns.