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 certitude, 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-assertion on the part of an individual in opposition to others." He means something far deeper than this. "A genuine self," says Eucken, "is constituted 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 pass 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.