Rudolph Eucken Part 3

Eucken finds reality existing in the spiritual life, which while neither material nor merely mental, is superior to both, admits the existence (in a certain sense) of both, and does away with the opposition between the rival types of theories. Eucken does not minimise or ignore the existence of the natural world. The question for him is not the independent existence of the worlds of nature and mind--this he admits; he is concerned rather with the superiority of the spiritual life over the merely material and mental.

The natural life of man has been variously viewed in different ages. The writer of the Pentateuch described man as made in the image of G.o.d, and the natural man was exalted on this account. Some of the old Greek philosophers, too, found much in nature that was divine. Christianity took a different view of the matter--it exalted the spirit, and emphasised the baseness of the material. The growth of the sciences made man again a mere tool of laws and methods, but it considered matter as superior to mind, mind being entirely dependent upon impressions received from matter. The question continually recurs--which is the high, which is the low? Shall nature triumph over spirit, or spirit over nature?

Pantheism replies to the question by denying that there is anything high as distinguished from the low. There is but one; and that one--the whole universe--is G.o.d. There is no evil in the world, says pantheism, everything is good--if we could understand things as they really are we should find no oppositions in the universe, and no contradictions in the nature of things. The world as it is, is the best of all possible worlds--there is perfect harmony, though we fail to appreciate it. Other optimistic theories, too, deny the existence of evil and pain, and try to explain our ideas of sin to be mere "points of view." If we could see the whole, they tell us, we should see how the parts harmonise, but now we only see some of the parts and fail to appreciate the harmony. In this way they try to explain away as unreal the phenomena of evil and pain.

But Eucken has no patience with such theories. For him the oppositions and contradictions of life are too real and persistent. The antagonisms "stir us with disgust and indignation." Evil cannot be considered trivial, and must not be glossed over; it is in the world, and the more deeply we appreciate the fact the better it will be for the human soul.

Man in his lower stages of development is just a child of nature, and his standards of life are those of the lower world. He seeks those things that satisfy the senses, he attempts the satiation of the lower cravings. In the realm of morals his standard is utility--that is good which helps him to obtain more pleasure and to avoid pain. In social life his conduct is dictated by custom--this is the highest appeal. The development of man along the lines of nature ends at this point--and if nothing more is to happen, then he must remain at a low level of development. Matter and mind cannot take him beyond--the mind as such only helps towards the further satisfaction of the lower demands of man.

But there is something far greater in highly developed manhood than the petty and selfish. Man is capable of conceiving and adopting higher standards of morality than those of utility and pleasure, and it is the spiritual life that enables him to do this. It is the spiritual that frees the individual from the slavery of the sense world--from his selfishness and superficial interests--that teaches him to care less for the things of the flesh, and far more for the beautiful, the good, and the true, and that enables him to pursue high aims regardless of the fact that they may entail suffering and loss in other directions. This, then, is the "High" in the world; the natural life is the "Low."

But what is the relation of the natural to the spiritual life? In the first place, the spiritual cannot be derived from the natural, inasmuch as the former is immensely superior to the latter, and that not merely in degree, but in its very essence. The spiritual is entirely on a higher plane of reality, and there cannot be transition from the natural to the spiritual world. The natural has its limitations, and beyond these cannot go. So far as the natural world is concerned man can never rise above seeking for pleasure, and making expediency and social approbation the standards of life, hence there is little wonder that those ethical teachers who make nature their basis, deny the possibility of action that is unselfish and free. "The Spiritual Life," however, as Eucken says, "has an independent origin, and evolves new powers and standards."

Neither do the two aspects run together in life in parallel lines. On the contrary, the spiritual life cannot manifest itself at all until a certain stage of development is reached in nature. It would seem impossible to conceive of the animal rising above its animal instincts and tendencies; its whole life is conditioned by its animal nature and its environment. Man stands at the junction of the stages between the purely natural and the purely spiritual. On the one hand, he is a member of the animal world, he has its instincts, its desires and its limitations; on the other hand, he has within him the germ of spirituality. He belongs to both worlds, the natural and the spiritual.

He cannot shake off the natural and remain a man--to separate the two means death to man as we know him. But there is a great difference between his position in the natural world and his position in the spiritual world. He seems to be the last word in the world of nature, he has reached heights far beyond those reached by any other flesh and blood. He is, so far as we know, the culminating point of natural evolution--the final possibility in the natural world. But the stage of nature only represents the first stage in the development of the universe.

There is an infinitely higher stage of life, the spiritual life. And if man is the final point of progress in the world of nature, he is, in his primitive state, only at the threshold of the spiritual world. But he is not an entire stranger to the spiritual--the germ is in him, and the spiritual is consequently not an alien world for him. If the spiritual were something entirely foreign it would be vain to expect much progress through mere impulses from without. On the contrary, it is the spiritual that makes man really great, and is the most fundamental part of his nature.

The two stages of life, then, are present in man--the natural and the spiritual; the former highly developed, the latter, at first, in an undeveloped state.

Now the great aim of the universe is to pa.s.s gradually from the natural to the spiritual plane of life. This does not mean that the latter is the product of the former stage, for this is not the case. It means that the deeper reality in life is the spiritual, and that the spiritual develops through the natural in its own particular way. And this particular way is not a mere development but a _self_-development. The aim of the spiritual is to develop its own self through the human being.

In this way man is given the possibility of developing a self--a personality in a very real sense.

Thus we arrive at some idea of the relation there exists between the spiritual and the natural, and of the place of the spiritual and the natural in man. The spiritual is neither the product nor an attribute of the natural. Man is the border creature of the two worlds; he represents the ultimate possibility of the one, and possesses potentialities in regard to the other. The great object of his life must be to develop, through making use of and conquering the life of nature, his higher self into a free, spiritual, and immortal personality. The progressive stages in this direction must be dealt with in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VI

THE ASCENT TO FREEDOM AND PERSONALITY

In the previous chapter we found that man in his primitive stage is largely a creature of the lower world. His desires are those of the animal kingdom, his ideal is utility, and social approbation his G.o.d. At this stage he is a mere nothing, no better than a slave to his pa.s.sions and to the opinions of his fellow-beings. He possesses neither freedom nor personality--for he is but a tool in the hands of other impulses and forces. There is no controlling self--he is not a lord in his own kingdom. Some men do not get beyond this very low level, but for ever remain mere shuttlec.o.c.ks driven hither and thither by more or less contradictory impulses.

The germ of the higher world that resides within him may sometimes make itself felt, but "so long as there is a confused welter of higher and lower impulses, ... so long is there an absence of anything essentially new and lofty."

Man's aspirations for things that are higher, are at the outset very sluggish and vague, for a being that is so much dominated by the natural world is apt to concentrate its attention upon it and to remain contented with it.

But there comes a time in the lives of perhaps most men when a distinct feeling of dissatisfaction is felt with the life of natural impulse and of convention. The man feels--perhaps in a vague way at first--that there is something too merely animal in the sense world, or that there is an intolerable emptiness and hypocrisy in a life of slavish devotion to the opinions of society. Perhaps he feels that his pa.s.sions govern him, and not he his pa.s.sions. The higher life stirs within him, and he begins to question the rightness of things. He learns to appreciate for the first time that the natural impulses may not be the n.o.blest, and that custom may not be an ideal guide. His soul is astir with the problem of life--the result very largely depends upon the solutions that are presented to him. Perhaps the naturalistic solution is made to appeal to him, and he is taught to trust nature and it will lead him aright. Or maybe the pantheistic theory is accepted by him, and he is led to believe that the world as it is is entirely good, and that he has but to live his life from day to day, and not worry himself about the ultimate end and purpose of things. Or other optimistic theories of life that deny the existence of evil may influence him. All these solutions may give him temporary peace of mind, and perhaps indeed form efficient stumbling-blocks to any further spiritual progress.

But the spiritual beginnings within us often show remarkable vitality.

They may under certain conditions lead us to appreciate the existence of a distinct opposition in the world--the opposition between the lower world and the higher self. Man finds that the natural is often low, evil, and sordid, and at this stage the higher spiritual world makes a strong appeal to him. By degrees he comes to feel the demands of the lower world to be a personal insult to him. What is the lower material world that it should govern him, and he a _man_? The claims of pleasure and utility to be standards of conduct strike him as arrogant, and he revolts against the a.s.sumption that higher aims can have no charm for him. His previous acceptance without consideration of the moral standard of the community he now looks upon as a sign of weakness on his part--for is he not himself, a person with the power of independent judgment and evaluation? It is the first great awakening of the spiritual life in man, when his whole soul is in revolt against the low, sordid, and conventional. What shall he do? There is only one course that is worthy of his a.s.serting personality--he must break with the world. Henceforth he sees two worlds in opposition--the world of the flesh on the one hand, the world of the spirit on the other, and he arrays himself on the side of the higher in opposition to the lower.

When he does this the spiritual life in him makes the first substantial movement in its onward progress--this movement Eucken calls the _negative movement_. It does not mean that the man must leave the world of work and retire into the seclusion of a monastery--that means shirking the fight, and is a policy of cowardice. Neither does it mean a wild impatience with the present condition of the world--it means rather that man is appreciating in a profound way the oppositions that exist, and is casting his lot on the side of right. He renounces everything that hinders him from fighting successfully, then goes forth into the thick of the battle. The break must be a definite one and made in a determined manner. "Without earnestness of renunciation the new life sinks back to the old ... and loses its power to stimulate to new endeavour. As human beings are, this negation must always be a sharp one."

The negative movement, then, is the first substantial step in the progress of the spiritual life. The man's self breaks out into discontent with nature, and this is the first step to the union of self to the higher reality in life. The break with the world is in itself of course but a negative process. This must attain a positive significance.

If the self breaks away from one aspect of life, it must identify itself more intimately with another. This occurs when the individual sets out definitely on a course of life in antagonism to the evil in the world.

When this takes place, there arises within him a _new immediacy_ of experience. Hitherto the things that were his greatest concern, and that appealed to him most, were the pleasures of the natural world. But these things appeal to him no longer as urgent and immediate--but as being of a distinctly secondary character. A new immediacy has arisen; it is the facts of the spiritual world that now appeal to him as urgent and immediate. "All that has. .h.i.therto been considered most immediate, as the world of sense, or even the world of society, now takes a second place, and has to make good its claim before this spiritual tribune.... That which current conceptions treat as a Beyond ... is now the only world which exists in its own right, the only true and genuine world which neither asks nor consents to be derived from any outside source."

This new immediacy is the deepest possible immediacy, it is an immediacy of experience where the self comes into contact with its own vital principle--the Universal Spiritual Life--and brings about a fundamental change in the life of the individual. The inner life is no longer governed by sense impressions and impulses, but the outward life is lived and viewed from the standpoint of the inward life.

But a new immediacy is not all that follows in the train of the negative movement--on the contrary, the highest possible rewards are gained, for freedom, personality, and immortality are all brought within the range of possibility.

Once a human being decides for the highest he is on the highroad to complete freedom. The freedom is not going to be won in a moment, but must be fought for by the individual through the whole course of his life. His body is always with him, and will at times attempt to master him--he must fight continually to ensure conquest. Difficulties will arise from various quarters, but he is not going to depend only upon his own resources. All his activity involves in the first place the recognition of the spiritual world, but more than this, he appropriates unto himself of the spiritual world--this in itself is an act of decision. And the more we appropriate unto ourselves of the Universal Spiritual Life, the more we decide for the higher world, the freer we become. Indeed, "it is this appropriation ... of the spiritual life that first awakens within the soul an inward cert.i.tude, and makes possible that perfect freedom ... so indispensable for every great creative work." By continually choosing and fighting for the progress of the Universal Spiritual Life, it comes to be our own in virtue of our deed and decision. Hence man has attained freedom--the lower world no longer makes successful appeal. He has become a part of the spiritual world, and his actions are no longer dictated by anything external, but are the direct outcome of his own self. He has freely chosen the highest, and continually reaffirms his choice--this is perfect freedom.

Man gains for himself, too, a personality in the true sense of the term.

Eucken does not mean by personality "mere self-a.s.sertion on the part of an individual in opposition to others." He means something far deeper than this. "A genuine self," says Eucken, "is const.i.tuted only by the coming to life of the infinite spiritual world in an independent concentration in the individual." Following a life of endeavour in the highest cause, and continual appropriation of the spiritual life, he arrives at a state of at-one-ness with the universal life. "Man does not merely enter into some kind of relation with the spiritual life, but finds his own being in it." The human being is elevated to a self-life of a universal kind, and this frees him from the ties and appeals of the world of sense and selfishness. It is a glorious conception of human personality, infinitely higher than the undignified conceptions of naturalism and determinism.

And if man wins a glorious personality, he may gain immortality too.

Unfortunately, Eucken has not yet dealt fully with this question, but he is evidently of the opinion that the spiritual personalities are immortal. As concentration points or foci of the spiritual life, he believes that the developed personalities are at present and in prospect possessors of a spiritual realm. But there will be no essential or sudden change at death. That which is immortal is involved in our present experience. Those who have developed into spiritual personalities, who have worked in fellowship with the great Universal Life, and become centre-points of spirituality, have thus risen supreme over time and pa.s.s to their inheritance. Those who have not done so, but have lived their lives on the plane of nature, will have nothing that can persist.

Hence it is that the negative movement leads to freedom, personality, and immortality; the neglect to make the movement consigns the individual to slavery, makes a real "self" impossible, and at death he has nought that a spiritual realm can claim. The choice is an all-important one; for, as a recent writer puts it, "In this choice, the personality chooses or rejects itself, takes itself for its life-task, or dies of inanition and inertia."

CHAPTER VII

THE PERSONAL AND THE UNIVERSAL

In the last chapter the ascent of the human being from serfdom to freedom and personality was traced. In doing so it was necessary to make frequent reference to the Universal Spiritual Life.

When we turn to consider the characteristics of the Universal Spiritual Life, many problems present themselves. How can we reconcile freedom and personality with the existence of an Absolute? What is the nature of this Absolute, and in what way is the human related to it? What place should religion play in the life of the spiritual personality? These are, of course, some of the greatest and most difficult problems that ever perplexed the mind of man, and we can only deal briefly with Eucken's contribution to their solution.

Can a man choose the highest? This is the form in which Eucken would state the problem of freedom. His answer, as already seen, is an affirmative one. The personality chooses the spiritual life, and continually reaffirms the decision. This being so, it is now no longer possible to consider the human and the divine to be entirely in opposition. And the more the spiritual personality develops, so much the less does the opposition obtain, until a state of spirituality is arrived at when all opposition of will ceases--then we attain perfect freedom. "We are most free, when we are most deeply pledged--pledged irrevocably to the spiritual presence, with which our own being is so radically and so finally implicated." Thus freedom is obtained in a sense through self-surrender, but it is through this same self-surrender that we realise spiritual absoluteness. Hence it is that perfect freedom carries with it the strongest consciousness of dependence, and human freedom is only made possible through the absoluteness of the spiritual life in whom it finds its being.

English philosophers have dealt at length with the question of the possibility of reconciling the independence of personality and the existence of an Absolute. From Eucken's point of view the difficulty is not so serious. When he speaks of personality he does not mean the mere subjective individual in all his selfishness. Eucken has no sympathy with the emphasis that is often placed on the individual in the low subjective sense, and is averse from the glorification of the individual of which some writers are fond. Indeed, he would prefer a naturalistic explanation of man rather than one framed as a result of man's individualistic egoism. The former explanation admits that man is entirely a thing of nature; the latter, from a selfish and proud standpoint, claims for man a place in a higher world. There is nothing that is worthy and high in the low desires of Mr. Smith--the mere subjective Mr. Smith. But if through the mind and body of Mr. Smith the Absolute Spirit is realising itself in personality--then there is something of eternal worth--there is spiritual personality. There will be opposition between the sordidness of the mere individual will and the divine will, but that is because the spiritual life has not been gained.

When the highest state of spiritual personality has been reached, then man is an expression--a personal realisation of the Absolute, is in entire accord with the absolute, indeed becomes himself divine.

This does not rob the term personality of its meaning, for each personality does, in some way, after all, exist for itself. Each individual consciousness has a sanct.i.ty of its own. But the being-for-self develops more and more by coming into direct contact with the Universal Spiritual Life.

Here, then, we arrive at something that appears to be a paradox. We have the phenomenon of a being that is free and existing for itself, yet in some way dependent upon an absolute spiritual life. We have, too, the phenomenon of a human being becoming divine. How is it really possible that self-activity can arise out of dependence? Eucken does not attempt to explain, but contends that an explanation cannot be arrived at through reasoning. We are forced to the conclusion, we realise through our life and action that this is the real state of affairs, and in this case the reality proves the possibility. "This primal phenomenon," he says, "overflows all explanation. It has, as the fundamental condition of all spiritual life, a universal axiomatic character." Again he says, "The wonder of wonders is the human made divine, through G.o.d's superior power." "The problem surpa.s.ses the capacity of the human reason." For taking up this position, Eucken is sharply criticised by some writers.

When we approach the problem of the nature of the Absolute in itself, the main difficulty that arises is whether G.o.d is a personal being. G.o.d, says Eucken, is "an Absolute Spiritual Life in all its grandeur, above all the limitations of man and the world of experience--a Spiritual Life that has attained to a complete subsistence in itself, and at the same time to an encompa.s.sing of all reality." The divine is for Eucken the ultimate spirituality that inspires the work of all spiritual personalities. When in our life of fight and action we need inspiration, we find "in the very depths of our own nature a reawakening, which is not a mere product of our activity, but a salvation straight from G.o.d."

G.o.d, then, is the ultimate spirituality which inspires the struggling personality, and gives to it a sense of unity and confidence. Eucken does not admit that G.o.d is a personality in the sense that we are, and deprecates all anthropomorphic conceptions of G.o.d as a personal being.

Indeed, to avoid the tendency to such conceptions he would prefer the term "G.o.dhead" to "G.o.d." Further considerations of the nature of G.o.d can only lead to intellectual speculations. For an activistic philosophy, such as Eucken's philosophy is, it would seem sufficient for life and action to know that all attempts at the ideal in life, originate in, and are inspired by, the Absolute Spiritual Life, that is by G.o.d.

We cannot discuss fully the relation of human and divine without, too, dealing with the ever urgent problem of religion. This is a problem in which Eucken is deeply interested, and concerning which he has written one of his greatest works--_The Truth of Religion_--a work that has been described as one of the greatest apologies for religion ever written.

What is religion? Most people perhaps would apply the term to a system of belief concerning the Eternal, usually resting upon a historical or traditional basis. Others would include in the term the reverence felt for the Absolute by the contemplative mind, even though that mind did not believe in any of the traditional systems. Some would emphasise the fact that religion should concern itself with the establishment of a relationship between the human and the Divine.

But Eucken does not find religion to consist in belief, nor in a mere att.i.tude towards the mysteries of an overworld. In keeping with the activistic tone of his whole philosophy he finds religion to be rooted in life, and would define religion as an action by which the human being appropriates the spiritual life.

The first great concern of religion must be the conservation--not of man, as mere man, but of the spiritual life in the human being, and it means "a mighty concentration of the spiritual life in man." The essential basis that makes religion possible is the presence of a Divine life in man--"it unfolds itself through the seizure of this life as one's own nature." Religion must be a form of activity, which brings about the concentration of the spiritual life in the human soul, and sets forth this spiritual life as a shield against unworthy elements that attempt to enter and to govern man.

The essential characteristic of religion must be the demand for a new world. "Religion is not a communication of overworld secrets, but the inauguration of an overworld life." Religion must depend upon the contradiction and opposition that exists in human life, and upon the clear recognition of the distinction between the "high" and the "low" in life. It must point to a means of attaining freedom and redemption from the old world of sin and sense, and to the possibility of being elevated into a new and higher world. It must, too, fight against the extremes of optimism and pessimism, for while it will acknowledge the presence of wrong, it will call attention to the possibility of deliverance. It must bring about a change of life, without denying the dark side of life; it must show "the Divine in the things nearest at hand, without idealising falsely the ordinary situation of life."