(a) THE NATURE OF THE NEW AS A WHOLE AND ITS RELATION TO THE OLD
From the description that has been given of the modern systems of life, we have seen that the Modern Age is by no means homogeneous, and that the conception “modern” has more than one meaning. Culture, in particular, has a character fundamentally different according as life finds its basis on the one hand in something external to itself, in nature, or in society, or on the other hand in the subjective states of consciousness. But that a common striving is present in spite of every difference, indeed of every antithesis, is proved by the energy with which all deny and reject the older form of culture and its transcendence of sense experience; by the vigour of the struggle against that which is regarded by the more modern systems as mere phantasy and deception, but which nevertheless continues to dominate social life. The kinship of these systems extends, beyond a common acquiescence in a negation, to a common affirmation. On all sides a thirst after a more forceful reality, and a more imposing immediacy of life, is to be found. Sense experience manifests itself throughout as fuller in content and more plastic; and so the chief point of support is found within it, and, though in different ways, the whole of life is organised from it. Still, granted that this could be effected only in opposition to the traditional conduct of life, the new is by no means desirous of remaining in a state of mere opposition. It seeks rather to unite the opposing elements to itself, to adapt them to itself, and to satisfy to the fullest extent the ideal demands of human nature. It is an attempt entirely to renew and completely to revolutionise life—a vast undertaking! Whether it has succeeded, or whether it is still engaged in bringing the attempt to a successful issue, is the problem that we had to investigate.
As far as our chief question is concerned, our result was a decided negative. True, much that is great and much that may not be lost again has been achieved. The new systems of life have indeed appropriated whole groups of facts; have invigorated whole groups with new powers; have revealed new tasks of the most fruitful kind, not only in the individual but also for the whole; and have given to life dominating impulses and a powerful impetus. But all this becomes a doubtful gain, indeed it threatens to become a loss, if particular experience and achievement desire to govern the whole of life, and to impress upon it their own peculiar stamp. Not only does life become intolerably one-sided in such a case, but its wealth of experience is cut down in order to fit it into the given framework. We also saw that a serious inner inconsistency originates. For a long period this inconsistency may be concealed, but where any great energy is present in life, it must break forth with a disturbing force and become intolerable. Since the modern systems regard the whole of life as arising from relation, whether it be to the environment or to the subjective states of consciousness, they must reduce everything inward and universal to the level of a derived and secondary product; they must repudiate and oppose an original and independent spirituality, a self-conscious inner world. Such an inner spiritual experience has evolved through the whole of history, and transcends all forms of life-organisation: it is impossible to explain it away. The modern systems must themselves experience this. For they could not possibly transform the abundance of diverse appearances into an organised whole; they could not pass from universal to universal, without presupposing and employing the same transcendent and encompassing inner world, which directly they attack. At the same time, however, they give to every factor of life a position and a depth wholly inconsistent with what they are justified in doing with their own mode of thought. They cannot perform their own tasks without drawing incessantly upon another kind of reality, one richer and more substantial. In truth, they are something other, and something far more than they believe themselves to be. Does this not show, beyond possibility of refutation, that they do not fill the whole of life?
The contradiction immanent in the modern systems of life is especially apparent in the fact that they are unable to banish supersensual powers and to limit life to sense experience, without attributing to sense experience more content and more value than that which experience itself justifies, and which, to be consistent, they should not overstep. The naturalistic thinker ascribes unperceived to nature, which to him can be only a co-existence of soulless elements, an inner connection and a living soul. Only thus can he revere it as a higher power, as a kind of divinity; only thus can he pass from the fact of dependence to a devotional surrender of his feelings. The socialist bases human society, with its motives mixed with triviality and passion, on an invisible community, an ideal humanity, which he clothes with the splendour of a power and dignity that transfigures the immediate appearance of society. It is only in this way that he is able to direct his whole effort upon the welfare of mankind, and to expect a pure victory of reason within its sphere. The individualist in his conception exalts the individual to a height far more lofty than is justified by the individual as he is found in experience; for his thought, the individual is far more powerful and far more prominent and noble than immediate impressions indicate. Only thus is he able, from the freedom and the development of the individual, to hope for the beginning of a new epoch.
In these newer systems of life the conception of reality as a whole is also subjected to the same groundless and, likewise, false idealisation. As in these systems nothing may be acknowledged which transcends sense experience, there can be no universal which pervades and holds together the manifold. This being the case, reality must be a co-existence of single pieces; but no one will readily confess himself of this opinion. A pantheism, vague to the highest degree, is therefore seized upon as a cure-all, that man may have something which permeates and connects; but of this something, however, all more detailed description is lacking, and is carefully avoided. A conception so vague allows us at the same time to think and not to think something; at the same time to affirm and to deny. It seems to accomplish so much and to demand so little; it makes the impossible possible; and offers the most convenient asylum to all indefiniteness and confusion. It is a pity that in all this it is not a reality that surrounds us, but a mere fata morgana which deceives. And a conception so vague is to displace religion and accord support to the new life! Truly, this requires a stronger faith than that with which the older religions were satisfied.
The modern systems of life desire a more forceful reality; in this they set work an aim which cannot be rejected. The course they have entered upon, however, does not bring them nearer to this aim, but rather removes them further from it. Neither the self-evidence of the senses nor the oscillation of mood can ever represent genuine reality to a being who, for good or for evil, has once learned to think. Many and varied impressions may come and go in sense experience; but their abundance cannot prevent the chief conceptions, by which they are here accompanied, from receiving a character abstract and vague in the highest degree. We hear continually of the whole, of reason, of power, of evolution; but all these conceptions have no stability and little content; they are like shadows and phantoms which vanish as soon as we wish to take hold of them. So, by an irony of fate, just those modes of thought whose chief impulse was the desire for more reality dissipate, dissolve reality. We see that the spiritual life may be denied by the individual, but not driven from the work of culture. It is true that immediate experience, outer and inner, has become much more to the present age than it was to earlier ages; but it has become so only through spiritual endeavour. If, therefore, the Modern Age now turns definitely against this spiritual activity, to rob it of all independence, it destroys that which first gave it its own power.
The modern systems of life have raised the standard of human existence enormously in regard to power and content; but they have done this at the cost of its spiritual concreteness. They have suppressed the life of inner spiritual experience and denied the problems of man’s inner nature. They know of no grappling of man either with the infinite or with his own nature; they recognise no conflict between freedom and fate, and no inner development of the soul. And all this because their view of life as a whole takes away all depth, and transforms existence into a mere series of appearances. Thus, for anyone who regards such depth as the basis of life, and who, therefore, will not reject the experience and the result of the work of universal history, it becomes a necessity to reject and oppose the modern systems as guides of life. The more explicitly and exclusively they are presented, the more decided must his opposition be. For, what shall all the gain on the circumference of life profit man if through attention to that the centre of his life becomes empty and weak, if there emerges no content and no meaning in life itself? What is the value of all the advancing and refining of human existence if it does not bring with it a genuine spiritual culture and an inward elevation of mankind?
The increasing experience and perception of such limitations in the new may lead men to give more attention again to the old. The striving to transcend mere sense experience can no longer appear as a mere flight into an “other” world of dreams, or as due to a feeble and cowardly disposition; it may now be admitted rather as a deeply rooted endeavour to reach greater depths of life. Yet such a relaxation of the opposition to the old, and such an inclination to estimate it more highly, by no means justifies us in simply taking it up again in the form in which it lies before us. For to this not merely the modern system of life, but the whole development of life and work, is opposed. The contradictions and doubts which have grown up in the course of this development are not in the least overcome by the failure of the modern systems of life. For we do not find ourselves confronted here with an “either—or,” in which the invalidity of the one alternative immediately establishes the validity of the other; but both may be inadequate. So we remain surrounded by the old and the new, under powerful influences from both, but not in a position to accept either the one or the other exclusively.
(b) THE CONDITION OF THE PRESENT
This situation, with its juxtaposition of the new and the old, is so full of confusion and perplexity that only a feeble disposition is capable of acquiescing in it. In the old we respect or surmise a depth; but this depth does not know how to give itself a form suitable to the present, or to influence us with the means available in our own time. The new directs all our attention to the immediate present and fills us with its intuitions; but this present becomes superficial to us, and with increasing power a desire for more substance and soul in life rises up in opposition to it. The old lifted us to the proud height of a new world, but this height showed signs of becoming severed from the rest of existence, and lapsed therefore into a state of painful insecurity. The new builds up from the experience of sense, but it finds no conclusion without going beyond this experience and thus contradicting itself. The old regarded the spiritual life of man, if not man himself, as occupying the centre of all and thereby fell into the danger of a hastened conclusion and of an anthropomorphic conception of reality. The new takes from man every position by which he is especially distinguished, and ignores all connection with ultimate depths, but in so doing it overthrows more than it intends; it undermines nothing less than the possibility of all spiritual work, all science, all culture.