If we can find what it is that makes all this possible, then surely we have found the greatest thing in the world—the reality. And Eucken's answer is clear and definite. It must be something that persists, is eternal and independent of time, and it must extend beyond the individual to a universal whole. This must be "the Universal Spiritual Life," which, though eternal, reveals itself in time, and though universal, reveals itself in the individual man, and forms the source from which the spiritual in man "draws its power and credentials."
This, then, is the result of Eucken's search for reality—he has found it to exist in a Universal Spiritual Life. Of course he has not arrived at his conclusion by a system of rigid proof; it has already been pointed out how impossible it is to arrive at the greater truths of life in such a manner.
He has done, however, that which can be reasonably expected in such cases. To begin with, he has given us a striking analysis of the essential characteristics of human life, and he has found there a yearning and a void. He has given us a masterly discussion of eternal truth as contrasted with the temporary expressions of it. He has taught us how the present can overcome the past, and how man can ascend beyond the subjective and material. And he has led us to feel that reality must lie in the eternal that appears to be at the basis of the highest and greatest in man.
Moreover, he has given a fair and thorough treatment of the solutions that have been offered in the past. He has shown how inadequate they are to explain life. He has shown how the modern solutions "cannot perform their own tasks without drawing incessantly upon another kind of reality, one richer and more substantial." This in itself shows "beyond possibility of refutation that they do not fill the whole of life." He has demonstrated how the acceptance of these systems depends upon an implicit acceptance of a higher life. "The naturalistic thinker ascribes unperceived to nature, which to him can be only a coexistence of soulless elements, an inner connection and a living soul. Only thus can he revere it as a higher power, as a kind of divinity; only thus can he pass from the fact of dependence to a devotional surrender of his feelings. The socialist bases human society, with its motives mixed with triviality and passion, on an invisible community, an ideal humanity.... The individualist in his conception exalts the individual to a height far more lofty than is justified by the individual as he is found in experience." All these assume more or less unconsciously the existence of that "something higher" which they attempt to deny.
So far, then, we have seen how Eucken proves the inadequacy of the realistic conceptions of life, and how they really depend for their acceptance upon the assumption of a Universal Spiritual Life. We have still to see how he attempts to prove that basing human life upon an eternal spiritual life satisfies the conditions he himself has laid down for a satisfactory solution of the problem. He has to show that the theory gives a satisfactory explanation of human life, that it gives a firm basis for life, that it releases man from being governed by low motives, and admits of the possibility of human personality, freedom, and creation. We shall see in the chapters that follow that he makes a convincing case for accepting the belief in the Universal Spiritual Life as the basis of human life and endeavour.
CHAPTER V
THE "HIGH" AND THE "LOW"
Eucken makes the recognition of the existence of a Universal Spiritual Life the starting-point of his constructive work. He takes up a position which he calls the nöological position. Many theories take up a materialistic position; they assert the reality of the material world, and endeavour to explain the world of matter as something independent of the human mind. Other theories assert the superiority of mind over matter, and endeavour to examine the mind as though it were independent of the material world. These two types of theories have been in continual conflict; the one has attempted to prove that thought is entirely conditioned by sense impressions received from the material world, the other regards the phenomena of nature as really nothing other than processes of the mind.
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 God, 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?