[15] The New Republic, July 1, 1916.
[CHAPTER VI]
RUDOLF EUCKEN
APOSTLE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
To the history of and criticism of these conceptions and their terminology Professor Eucken has brought thorough and careful reading, acute and candid criticism, and a clear and solid style. While he is at home among the systems of the past, he seems equally familiar with the controversies of the present. Above all, he has studied brevity, and has mastered the art of expressing in a few words the results of patient research and critical discrimination.
The writer of this notice was constrained to recommend the work for translation to his friend and former pupil by his estimate of the intrinsic value of the treatise and the desire that it might be brought within reach of English readers as eminently suited to the times. He can say with assured confidence that there are few books within his knowledge which are better fitted to aid the student who wishes to acquaint himself with the course of superlative and scientific thinking and to form an intelligent estimate of most of the current theories.[1]
These were the words with which Professor Eucken was introduced to the American public in 1880 by one who was a good judge of men and books, the primary qualification of a college president. Thirty-two years later Professor Eucken came to America; this time in person, but under the auspices of Harvard and the University of New York, instead of Yale. This time he reached a larger audience; partly owing to his greater fame, partly to a change in the popular attitude toward the views he presents. In 1908, when Eucken received the Nobel prize for the greatest work of idealistic literature, there was no book of his accessible to the English reader, for the translation instigated by President Porter was out of print. Since then all his important works have been brought out in England and America; and the periodical indexes record a growing interest in his thought, corresponding to that which is manifested in Germany.
The Nobel prizes have failed to carry out the intention of their founder, which was to place $100,000 or so immediately into the hands of a man who had made a signal contribution to science, literature, or peace. Instead of this, the Nobel committees absorb a liberal moiety of the income of the fund in local "administrative expenses" and usually give the residue, now amounting to some $37,000, to men whose reputations have long been established; for example, in literature, Sully-Prudhomme, Mommsen, Björnson, Mistral, Kipling, and Heyse. But in so interpreting their mandate the Nobel committees have fulfilled another useful function, possibly as much needed as that conceived by Alfred Nobel. If they have not discovered original genius, they have at least pointed it out to the world at large. The men thus distinguished as having contributed to human progress have extended their influence over their contemporaries, as well as received a due appreciation of their efforts. The Nobel prize does not add to the stature of a man, but it does elevate him to a pulpit.
In the case of Eucken the value of this is evident. He did not need the assistance of the Nobel fund in order to prosecute his researches, for the laboratory expenses of a metaphysician are but slight, and Jena is as cheap a place to live as can nowadays be found in civilized lands. The award of the prize did not, of course, add to his reputation in philosophical circles, but Eucken does not believe that the influence of a philosopher should be confined to philosophical circles. He repudiates entirely the aloof, impartial, disinterested spectator attitude which philosophers in general have thought it necessary to pretend to assume. The question is, in short, what kind of a scientist the philosopher should imitate: the chemist who transforms the world in which he lives, or the meteorologist who merely records the atmospheric currents without attempting to guide them? Eucken is not only a teacher; he is a preacher. He has a message which he believes of vital importance to his contemporaries, so it cannot be a matter of indifference to him that he is, in his later years, gaining a wider audience, that his works are the most widely current philosophical writings of the present day in Germany,[2] and are being extensively translated into other languages.