The development of natural science and especially the theory of evolution have led to the identification of man with nature. Yet the very fact that we have come to know that we belong to nature shows that we are more than nature.
A transcendence of nature is already accomplished in the process of thought. A consideration of all the facts leads us to the result that a life consisting solely of nature and intelligence involves an intolerable inconsistency; form and content are sharply separated from each other; thought is strong enough to disturb the sense of satisfaction with nature, but is too weak to construct a new world in opposition to it. Life is in a state of painful uncertainty and man is a Prometheus bound in that he must experience all the constraint and meaninglessness of the life of nature, and must suffer therefrom an increasing pain without being able to change this state in any way.[5]
From time to time in the course of history, spiritual impulses arise which are fundamentally different from physical self-preservation. "They force human activity into particular channels; they speak to us with a tone of command and require absolute obedience. Neither the interests of individuals nor those of whole classes prevail against them; every consideration of utility vanishes before their inner necessity." Religious movements show life in a particular form; something emerges in it which, unconcerned with the weal and the woe of man, follows its own course and makes absolute demands. Man is not altogether the creature of his environment, nor are his moral standards determined by society. The individual is able in the light of his own conscience to approve and value something which all around him reject; and conversely to condemn and reject something which all around him esteem and respect. This opposition of individuals to the condition of things in the social environment has been the main source of all inner progress in matters of morality.
This line of thought leads Eucken to the conclusion that a new life distinct from that of nature arises in our soul. The spiritual life is not the product of a gradual development from the life of nature, but has an independent origin and evolves new powers and standards. We must recognize in the spiritual life a universal life which transcends man, is shared by him and raises him to itself. The philosophical treatment of history ought first of all to trace the liberation of life from the mere human; the inner elevation of our being to a more than human.
In discussing the question of how man attains the spiritual life, Eucken steers carefully between the position of Buddhism, that each man must work out his own salvation without any aid from above, and the extreme Calvinistic position, that man is purely passive and altogether undeserving. Or to quote his own words:
It is necessary to acknowledge that in all the spiritual movement which appears in the domain of man, there is a revelation of the spiritual world; as merely human power cannot lead the whole to new heights, in all development of the spiritual life the communication of the new world must precede the activity of man. At the same time, where we are concerned with a life that is independent, and of which the activity is conscious and self-determined, the change cannot possibly merely happen to man; it must be taken up by his own activity; it needs his own decision and acceptance.
Only through ceaseless activity can life remain at the height to which it has attained.
This leads to the distinctive form of Eucken's philosophy of life, known as Activism. This is like Pragmatism in its rejection of the mere intellectualistic view of life and in basing truth upon a more spontaneous and essential activity. But Eucken's objection to Pragmatism is stated in the following language:
Pragmatism, which has recently made so much headway among English-speaking peoples and beyond them, is more inclined to shape the world and life in accordance with human conditions and needs than to invest spiritual activity with an independence in relation to these, and apply its standards to the testing and sifting of the whole content of human life.
At its highest, religion has always been concerned with winning a new world and a new humanity, not with the achievement of something within the old world and for the old humanity.
It will be seen that Eucken does not fall in with the tendency of the times to subordinate the individual to society. The spiritual life springs up, not in the "social consciousness", but in the soul of the individual, elevating his spiritual nature above all environment. But such a person is guarded against the arrogance of a superman by realizing that this superiority is not due to personal merit, but solely to the presence of the spiritual world.
This, as Eucken recognizes, may be called a form of mysticism, but it differs decidedly from the older mysticism in some important respects. It is not Quietism, but its opposite, Activism. Eucken does not regard the individual as seeking a peaceful haven by absorption into the infinite; on the contrary, the infinite enters the individual and rouses him to intensest and creative activity.