Here Eucken shows a striking similarity to Bergson. The Geistesleben might be regarded as a higher development or manifestation of the élan vital. Both involve the conception of an upward impulse acting at individual points which thus become centers of spontaneous vital activity. It is curious that this view, so characteristically modern and as novel as anything can be in the realm of metaphysical speculation, should have simultaneously and independently been made a fundamental doctrine by two philosophers so unlike in temperament and training, the French philosopher starting from the standpoint of mathematical physics and Spencerian evolution, and the German from academic metaphysics and Christian theology. Such a coincidence, as well as the reception which the teachings of Bergson and Eucken have received in many lands, show that their common principle is in harmony with the spirit of the age. Eucken and Bergson met for the first time at Columbia University in 1912.
It might be feared that Eucken, emphasizing as he does the individualistic origin of religious inspiration and realizing as he does the injury done to the Christian cause by clinging to antiquated formulas and medieval conceptions, would be inclined to undervalue ecclesiastical institutions and to advocate too violent a break with historic Christianity. But here again his moderation and sanity are manifest. He cannot be called orthodox from the standpoint of the established Lutheran Church. He agrees entirely with his colleague Haeckel in condemning the union of Church and State, but for opposite reasons; Haeckel because the Church receives thereby artificial support; Eucken because the Church is thereby hampered in its freedom of development.
He never, however, falls into the error of thinking that a "new" religion can be made to order to suit the times, or even the needs of any one person. He finds in historic Christianity all the essentials of a permanent and universal religion, capable, when properly understood and presented, of satisfying the severe requirements of modern thought and feeling. But this is not to be accomplished by merely eliminating whatever the modern mind finds objectionable.
A religion is not primarily a mere theory concerning things human and divine—such a theory can, of course, be quite easily put together with a little ingenuity—it discloses ultimate revelations of the spiritual life, further developments of reality, great organizations of living energy, movements, in a word, which have convulsed the age in which they came victoriously to birth, and have subsequently proved themselves strong enough to attract large portions of mankind, weld each of these inwardly together, and set an invisible world before it as the main basis of life. In such upheavals of the life of the people there is opened a rich mine of fact which becomes the property of all men, and includes valuable experiences of humanity as a whole. He who would cut himself off from this great stream of experience, inward as well as outward, will soon find out how little the isolated individual can do in matters of this kind. It is easy to find fault with what tradition hands down, no less easy to draw up vague views of one's own, but how immense is the distance which separates procedure such as this from the creative effort which urges its sure way forward, from the synthesis which embraces all men's lives and exercises an elemental compulsion upon them.[6]
Eucken's clairvoyant faith sees through the present anti-religious atmosphere the dawning of a new era in which the spiritual life shall again be dominant. Yet no one has recognized more clearly the alienation of the Church from the cultural and the practical life of the day. This chasm is no doubt greater in Germany, where the Catholic and Protestant churches are State institutions and identified with reactionary elements, than it is in our own country, where there is fortunately no Church, but many churches, all equally free to adapt themselves to changing conditions and to prove themselves useful to society in their own way. But it must be admitted that our churches are not availing themselves of this exceptional freedom and do not show the originality and diversity which is characteristic of life and growth.
Eucken is conciliatory, but no compromiser. He does not solicit for religion a humble place in modern life by using arguments like those employed in the sale of "patent medicines", that it is innocuous at the least and may somehow do some good. He meets modern science upon her own ground. He claims for religion an equal practicality and efficiency; he demands for it a greater certitude, and he is willing, as Jesus was willing, to put it to the pragmatic test.
Since we have found that religion is linked thus closely with the whole, we need not make any timid compromise with certain superficial contemporary movements and content ourselves with a lower degree of certainty, saying, for instance, that we can never altogether eliminate the subjective element, and that religious truths can never have the certainty of such formulae as 2 x 2 = 4. On the contrary, we maintain that it is a very poor conception of religion which deems any certainty superior to hers, and does not claim for her truth a far more primary certainty than that of the formula 2 x 2 = 4. Only a shallow and perverse conception of truth can allow the certainty of the part to exceed the certainty of the whole.[7]
Either religion is merely a product of human wishes and ideas under the sanction of tradition and social convention—and then neither art nor might nor cunning can prevent so frail a fabrication from being whelmed by the advancing spiritual tide—or else religion is based on facts of a suprahuman order, and in that case the most violent onslaught cannot shake her; rather will it help her in the end, through all the stress and toil of human circumstance, to discover where her true strength lies, and to express in purer ways the eternal truth that is in her.[8]
POSTSCRIPT, 1917
I have thought best to leave the article on Eucken just as I published it in The Independent of February 27, 1913, with only a few slight changes in tense and time references. It presents a picture of German life and thought as I saw it shortly before the war, and it would be impossible for me to bring it up to date now when the British censorship prevents German books and papers from reaching America. I can only add some quotations from Eucken's recent writings to show his attitude toward the war.
In the fall of 1914, Eucken joined with his colleague in the university and his opponent in philosophy, Professor Ernst Haeckel, in a public statement charging that British greed and egotism had caused the Great War.[9] In the following spring Eucken sent an appeal to the American people in the form of eight questions which I quote entire.