II
THE OUTLINE OF A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND CONSIDERATIONS
Our inquiry ended in a definite negation; it showed the present condition of things to be marked by severe internal conflict and in danger of dissolution from within. Many movements of thought and life cross, disturb, limit, and oppose one another. Since what to one seems a wholesome truth seems to another pernicious error, all inner community of life disappears, and with it all firmness of conviction and joy of creative activity. The more these conflicting tendencies develop the more do they crush and destroy all the traditional elements of our life; the more are the spiritual contents and goods, which the necessities of life compel us to adhere to, deprived of their basis in the depths of the soul. The confusion which prevails in the present time, with its continual change, its rapid alteration of circumstances, its power to convey the most diverse impressions, its production of ever new combinations, might even attract and entertain us if it were no more than a drama. But if the confusion is more than this, if it includes our destiny and is meant to signify the whole of our life, then, by reason of its detrimental effects upon the whole of life and upon man’s inwardness, and by reason of its lack of content and soul, it must completely fail to satisfy us, and must provoke an energetic resistance. True, a condition of things so full of contradictions has also its advantages; it accords to the activity of the individual the greatest liberty and gives him a feeling of supremacy; its dissolution of everything previously regarded as fixed enables uncontrolled feeling and unstable mood to acquire power, and at one time to flatter man pleasantly, and at another to carry him away impetuously. The individual’s attainment of freedom, however, gives as yet no content to life; and the feeling of supremacy is as yet not a real supremacy. These feelings and tendencies, which, within a wider whole of life, certainly serve to add to its animation, inevitably lead to a state of vagueness and emptiness when they put themselves forward as the whole. The supposed aids which are offered us are no more than mere pretences; and they become dangerous and harmful so far as they deceive us concerning the seriousness and tension of the situation.
The feeling of tension was increased through the historical treatment which accompanied our inquiry. For, from the point of view of history, the present confusion shows itself to be not a temporary obscuring of an indisputable truth, or a tendency on the part of man to become feeble and weary in the appropriation of such a truth, but to involve in doubt the basal nature of truth itself: the meaning of our life as a whole was seen to have fallen into uncertainty. The systems of thought, in the light of which we have hitherto regarded reality and steered the oncoming flood of appearances, have broken up and dissolved. We have become defenceless in face of the impressions of the environment which affect us with increasing force, and impel us now in one direction, now in another. It is not simply this or that aspect in human existence, but the whole of man’s nature which has become problematical in this dissolution. Formerly, the chief result of the effort of universal history had seemed to be that man rises more and more above nature and builds for himself a realm with new contents and new values. Now, the desire to be something higher than nature appears to be a bold presumption; the idea that man has a special position is ably contested, and every distinctive task is denied him. Man appears to be far too insignificant and to possess far too little freedom to be able to take up arms against the world and to obtain the mastery of it. Doubts such as these are all the more painful because they are the result of our own work; in that we toiled, investigated, and pressed forward, we undermined the foundations of our own life; our work has turned with destroying power against ourselves. With the increase of external results, life as a whole has become increasingly hollow; it has no longer an organising and governing centre. Is it to be wondered at if the finer spirits of our age are weary, disheartened, and repelled by the feeling of the disharmony of the whole of present culture, which calls for so much effort from man and yields him so little genuine happiness; speaks of truth and lives from semblance and pretence; assumes an imposing mien and utterly fails to satisfy when confronted with ultimate problems? Is not the power of attraction, which the figure of St. Francis of Assisi was recently able to acquire, an eloquent witness to the reality of the longing for more plainness and simplicity in life? And yet we cannot take up again the position occupied by an earlier age; we cannot take up a past phase unchanged. No return to the conditions of the past can bring satisfaction to the spiritual needs of the present, for a device of this kind always leads by a detour back again to the starting-point. Ultimately, it is from ourselves alone that help can come; and we can have recourse to no means other than those of the living present.
First of all, our state of necessity must be admitted to the full, and the danger of a further degeneration of life in respect of its spiritual nature adequately estimated. It is always a gain to obtain a clear idea of the condition of the matter in question and to grasp the problem as a whole. For, through this, we are saved not only from illusions leading to error, but also from the authority of the mere present and from a feeling of anxiety and fear in the presence of contemporary opinion. If this age is in a state of such uncertainty; if it achieves so little for that which concerns the foundations of our spiritual existence, then neither its agreement can impress us, nor its opposition appal us; but the endeavour to make life firm again can seek confidently what is needful for it, and, with care in regard to what it shall affirm and deny, can follow the way which its own necessities point out.