You say that we are a nation militarist and greedy for conquest. Permit us a few questions with regard to that rash statement.
First.—How do you explain that in times gone by Germany did not take advantage of the difficulties of her present opponents—as, for instance, England's difficulty during the Boer war or Russia's difficulty during the Japanese war? If we had meant conquest should we have chosen the very moment when half the world was against us, and we were numerically in the minority? Do you really think that we are as stupid as all that?
Second.—Next, how do you explain that all parties in Germany approve of the policy of the government and loyally hold together, including the Social Democrats? Yesterday they were our decided opponents. Do you believe that the Socialists have overnight, as it were, become changed from decided opponents to adherents of militarism?
Third.—How do you explain the fact that the Americans who were in Germany at the outbreak of the war in an overwhelming majority sided with us? Does not the opinion of those who see events quite near—nay, who live through them—carry greater weight than the view of such as observe occurrences from a remote distance?
Fourth.—You believe that the Germans are oppressed and narrowed down by the rule of militarism. How do you explain that education and technical and scientific research are so highly developed and universally esteemed in Germany and that for this reason so many Americans come to Germany in order to study sciences and arts?
Fifth.—You always discuss war with regard to Belgium, France and England only. Have you forgotten Russia, with her one hundred and fifty million inhabitants and her army, which is by far the largest in the whole world? Russia is a danger to Germany and to the whole of Europe and just now insists on the possession of Constantinople. Have you forgotten that Russia, by interfering with the Servian murder case, began the war, and that England, according to the parliamentary statement made by Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, was determined, even before the German invasion of Belgium, to abandon her neutrality in favor of France?
Sixth.—You generally argue that all Europe was in profound peace and that only the greed of Germany disturbed that peace. Have you forgotten that long before the war there was a triple entente which was directed against Germany and that the entente newspapers openly discussed the war plans hatched against Germany and even recommended 1916 as a suitable year for commencing hostilities?
Seventh.—You want to be good Christians and as such work for peace among the nations. Can you reconcile such Christianity with the fact that your country sends huge consignments of arms and ammunition to our opponents and thus intensifies and lengthens the war? Can you further reconcile that with neutrality, a neutrality in spirit and not merely in the letter?
Eighth.—Do not you think that a great nation with a glorious past should see the events of the day with its own eyes and that such independence of thought is the highest test of true liberty? But you contemplate present history more or less through English spectacles, as if your country were still a British colony and not an independent empire with its own goals and standards. In such a passion-stirred age as ours neutrals have the lofty duty to keep out of party strife and to endeavor to be just and impartial to both sides. This endeavor is lacking in Germany's American opponents.
That even the antagonisms aroused by the war have not shaken Eucken's faith in the power of religion and philosophy to heal the wounds of humanity is shown by a recent article on "The International Character of Modern Philosophy" in the Homiletic Review of New York. In this he discusses with great impartiality the contributions which England, France, Germany, and Italy have made to philosophy and concludes as follows:
After all, philosophy is summoned to proclaim the unity of mankind over against the present split among the peoples. To be sure, this does not mean that individual philosophers are less earnest to put forward the claims of their own people than the claims of others; for they are not mere scholars, they are also living men and citizens of their own nation. When they see this assaulted and its existence put in peril, it is for them a holy duty to come to the defense of the fatherland—if not with the weapons of war, at least to do their best with the weapons of the intellect. Meanwhile, the belief is entirely proper that the intellectual gains which are the result of philosophical labor remain unharmed by war, that a realm of intellectual creation will retain full recognition beyond the enmities of man. Keenest blame is deserved by the attempt to array against each other the intellectual leaders of a people which is for the moment a foe, or to disparage the entire mental character of the opponent. That is the stamp of a small and vengeful disposition—he who aims to depreciate others to whom great thanks are due dishonors himself. Let each, therefore, remain true to his own people, but never forget the task and aim of philosophy—to consider things under the form of perpetuity, maintaining for humanity in the present a world superior to all the littlenesses of human action.
A further and much more weighty task is from this arising for philosophy—to work mightily for the inner unity of human life and endeavor; the lack of such a unity has contributed not a little to whet the antagonisms of the nations.... Only when we are convinced that we belong together essentially, that we have a great work to accomplish in common and have to raise mankind from the stage of nature to that of intellect—that we have to carry on unitedly a fight against the manifold unreason of life—only by the strengthening and operation of such convictions can the division of humanity into hostile nationalities be successfully withstood. Not through elegant addresses and articles, only by means of a dynamic deepening of life and the introduction of new power can we progress in the solution of these problems.[10]
HOW TO READ EUCKEN
Eucken is not a man of one book. He has put forth his ideas in many different forms; large volumes and little, works historical, expository, argumentative, theoretical and practical, but his point of view has remained throughout his long productive career essentially unchanged, and is so clearly indicated in all his works that one may be sure of obtaining the fundamental principles of his philosophy from whatever volume he selects. If, however, I am expected to prescribe a particular book as an introduction to Eucken, I should say that the general reader who is interested in the relation of philosophy to religion—and one who is not interested in that would not care to read Eucken anyway—would find "Christianity and the New Idealism" (translated by Lucy Judge Gibson and W. R. Boyce Gibson, Harper) most suitable for the purpose. It is a small volume, as easy reading as anything of Eucken's, and discusses frankly the present crisis in religious thought and indicates what he believes the churches ought to discard and what they must maintain of their inherited doctrines and forms. "The Truth of Religion" (translated by W. Tudor Jones, Putnam) covers similar ground, but in a more thorough and theoretical manner.
The volumes entitled in their English version "The Meaning and Value of Life" (Gibson translation, Macmillan); "The Life of the Spirit" (translated by F. L. Pogson, Putnam), are intended for the non-philosophical reader; while "Life's Basis and Life's Ideals" (translated by Alban G. Widgery, Macmillan); "Main Currents of Modern Thought: A Study of the Spiritual and Intellectual Movements of the Present Day" (translated by Meyrick Booth, Scribner); and "The Contest for the Spiritual Life" (Putnam) are of a more technical character.
"The Problem of Human Life as Viewed by Great Thinkers from Plato to the Present Time" (translated by Williston S. Hough and W. R. Boyce Gibson, Scribner) differs decidedly from the ordinary history of philosophy in that the author is not trying to set at odds and overthrow the successive philosophers, but is seeking for whatever in them is good and permanent, finally coming to "see them linked together as workers in one common task: the task of building up a spiritual world within the realm of human life, of proving our existence to be both spiritual and natural."
Single lectures and articles by Eucken readily accessible in English are: "Religion and Life" (Putnam); "Back to Religion" (Pilgrim Press); "Can We Still Be Christians?" (Macmillan); "Naturalism or Idealism" (the Nobel Lecture). Twenty of his papers are included in "Collected Essays of Rudolf Eucken" (Scribner, 1914).
The titles of Eucken's chief works in German and in the English versions are as follows: "Die Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart" (The Main Currents of Modern Thought), 1878; "Die Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit", 1888; "Die Lebensanschauungen der Grossen Denker" (The Problem of Human Life), 1890; "Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt", 1896; "Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion" (The Truth of Religion), 1901; "Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung" (Life's Basis and Life's Ideal), 1907; "Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der Gegenwart" (Christianity and the New Idealism), 1907; "Sinn und Wert des Lebens" (The Meaning and Value of Life), 1905; "Einführung in eine Philosophie des Geisteslebens" (The Life of the Spirit), 1908; "Erkennen und Leben" (Knowledge and Life, 1912).