We shall therefore have to consider first of all how such a point of view may be attained.
II The Ethical Principle
II
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE
The intricate situation of to-day necessarily incites us to reflection. We must consider our life as a whole; we must ask ourselves whether human existence comprises various kinds and gradations of life, and whether a task thus arises which embraces all man's endeavour. There can be no doubt that human life is not confined to one single plane,—that all variety of endeavour does not easily unite to form a definite entity, but that heterogeneous elements meet and mingle in man.
Man at first appears to be part of nature, of the world of sense, subject to its laws and impulses. Dim and unreasonable instincts pervade man's soul with compelling force. Our conceptions grow out of sense impressions, and form at first the purely mechanical concatenation which we term "association," while all our efforts are directed towards individual self-preservation. In all this, man is entirely within the limitations of nature. Yet though this natural life at first predominates, it does not represent the whole of our life. We become aware of new features, which we characterise as "spiritual." We see how man grows independent of his environment, and strives to subdue it from without and within. By thought he frees himself from the shackles of his environment, and asserts himself against the whole world; at the same time he is driven back to the world, and feels impelled to fathom it and to make it his own by personal experience. His actions do not always remain a mere part of nature's concatenations. He can detach himself from all cohesion. In unbridled egoism he can subordinate every event and action to his own well-being; or he can absorb into himself all that at first existed beside him and apart from him, and that often appeared hostile, and can thus manifest boundless love and sympathy. His natural instinct of self-preservation will then appear too small and insignificant; he can even come to feel its narrow restrictions as intolerable.