The conclusion we are led to is that a new life distinct from that of nature arises in our soul. With a great diversity of manifestations, it surrounds us with an indisputable actuality; no one can fail to recognise that something of importance, something distinctive comes to pass in us. But as soon as we try to comprehend these manifestations as a whole, and to ascertain the meaning of the whole, a difficult problem arises. It is comparatively easy, however, to come to an understanding as to the negative aspect of the matter. It is obvious that the new life is not an embellishment or a continuation of nature; it would bring with it something essentially new. Again, it is obvious that it is not a product of a single psychical function, such as thought or feeling; it would form a whole transcending the psychical functions, and from this whole determine the form of each function distinctively. But what is this new reality and this whole to which the course of the movement trends? The more we reflect over the question the more strongly we feel that it is a direction rather than a conclusion that is offered to us in this matter; something higher, something inward and so on is to evolve, but what is embedded in the inward and in what this supremacy is based is at present not apparent. Further, every attempt at a more definite orientation at once reveals to us a wide gulf, indeed a harsh contradiction, between the content of that which is sought and the form of existence from which it is sought. The chief impulse of the spiritual life is that it wills to liberate us from the merely human; to give us a share in the life of the whole; to remove us from a happening between things to their fundamental happening. Seen from within, the history of humanity is primarily an increasing deliverance of life from bondage to the narrowly human, an emergence of something more than human, and an attempt to shape our life from the point of view of this: it is an increasing conflict of man with himself. At the same time, however, it is a taking up of the whole into himself; since man in all his planning and striving is related to the whole, it seems to him that his own nature must remain alien to himself if the whole does not disclose itself to him and allow him to participate in a life which has its source in ultimate depths; if in the life of the whole he does not find a purer and a more genuine self. The idea of truth impels us beyond all the limitations to which a particular being is subject, beyond all communication of things from without. There must be nothing between us and reality; the inner life of reality must become ours, and thus our life will emerge for the first time from a shadowy existence to full reality, from the narrowness of the mere individual to the comprehensiveness of infinity. The idea of the good makes similar demands. To the spiritual movement, the advancement of merely human well-being is far too mean an aim. This movement makes us clearly conscious of the triviality of mere happiness; of the oppressive and destructive effect of a continual reference to our own subjectivity; and of the unworthiness of treating love and justice as only means to our welfare. It becomes at the same time an urgent duty to break through the narrow limitations of the natural ego, and to conduct our life from the point of view of objective truth and comprehensiveness, and so for the first time to become capable of genuine love and justice.
It is true that these aims are lofty, and, we feel we have the right to say, aims that may not be rejected. But it is not at all evident how they are to be reached from the position of man; it is not at all clear how man shall press forward from mere existence to the creative basis, from the part to the whole: for his particularity and his mere existence hold him fixed. But in his existence nature preponderates by far: individual tendencies of a new order do appear; but how could they in their state of isolation and weakness bring about a revolution and place life on a new foundation? As a matter of fact, we usually find these impulses to a new life drawn into the service of natural and social self-preservation, and, over against the passionate struggle for existence, condemned to complete impotence and shadowiness.
The whole life of culture makes us clearly conscious of this perplexity. The essence of that life consists in this, and by this alone can it be held as true—that it wills to build up a new, spiritual reality within the sphere of humanity. But to what extent is such a reality recognisable on the basis of experience? In and with all civilisation man continues obstinately bent upon the attainment of his own ends: the struggle for material goods exerts an immense influence upon and controls men; an indescribable amount of pretence and hypocrisy accompanies and surrounds the spiritual movement. Between that which man really strives for, and that which he asserts that he is striving for, and which perhaps it is his intention to strive for, there is great divergence. Falsehood like this is not limited to individuals; our whole culture is one monstrous deception in so far as it promises to develop humanity to something new and higher, while in reality the new is occupied mostly with polishing up the old, the life of nature, to give it a glittering appearance. It is on this account that in times of criticism and introspection so much opposition has been offered to culture; that such passionate scorn has been aroused against the hypocrisy and pretence which pervades its whole life. But although we are fully aware of its deplorable state, we do not break its power over us. It is perhaps the most bitter of all our experiences that we are held fast under the spell of a condition of things concerning the vanity and futility of which no one with any insight has the slightest doubt.
However, in moralising over this state of things we ought to guard ourselves from becoming too passionate. For it is a question whether it could be otherwise; whether the fault is in any way in our will, and is not solely and entirely in the nature of our being itself. For it is certainly a contradiction throughout that man, who is an individual being existing by the side of others, and whose life belongs to the domain of experience, should set himself in a universal life transcending all particularity and live from the bases of reality. How can that which is primarily a part of a given world build up a new world? Ideas like those of the true and the good are, from this point of view, simply delusions, manifest impossibilities; man may trouble and weary himself with them, but all his endeavour only leads him into a state of greater confusion. These ideas are to him for ever an “other” world; he may expand himself and develop, but he does not come a step nearer by doing so.
It is true that in striving for truth, man advances beyond sense presentation to the activity of thought; but the thoughts always remain his—thoughts of mere man. However much he may widen his own sphere as a consequence of his reflection upon them, he does not go beyond it. In history also the striving for a scientific comprehension of truth appears to be a vain struggle; the passing through different phases has not brought it nearer its aim so much as, with ever-increasing clearness, it has manifested the impossibility of attaining what is sought.
The ancient conception of truth, with its belief in a relationship of the being of man with the whole; with it assumption of an easy transference of life from one to the other; with its view of truth as an agreement of thought with an external reality, has through the course of life become untenable; it has been rejected through the influence of the tendency of our being to become more inward. For this tendency necessarily led to a detachment from the environment of the world, and to a separation of the two sides of our experience. We became clearly conscious of this separation at the beginning of the Modern Age. We saw that, if we were not to give up all claim to truth, only one course remained possible: to make a division within the human domain, a division between a merely human and something else which might be regarded as the presence of universal and genuine life in man. And so Spinoza distinguished an objective thought from the springs of the emotions; Kant distinguished practical reason from the theoretical which is bound up with the limitations of human nature; and Hegel elevated the thought-process, which manifests itself in the work of universal history, far above the opinions and the wishes of individuals. Each of these championed a distinctive conception of truth and a characteristic form of the spiritual life; but with regard to all attempts we come to doubt whether even that proclaimed as more than human is not still within the domain of man; whether in every case we do not wrongly declare the last point which we reach to be the deepest basis of reality.
The position is somewhat similar with regard to the idea of the good. In the attempts to which we have referred, it passed current as a deliverance from all selfish happiness, which was felt to be intolerably narrow. A new, purer, and more comprehensive life is to proceed from the winning of a new position. Now, there are many different conceptions of happiness, and higher levels are distinguished plainly from lower. But the highest level does not transcend human desire; man must bring all into relation with his own well-being. He cannot in opposition to his own well-being adopt something alien as an end in itself; his activity can be aroused for nothing which has not some value for himself. In this case also, therefore, the bounds of his life hold him fast, and, unless these bounds are transcended, the good cannot be distinguished from the useful. Of this a clear confirmation is furnished by the experiences of religions. In their origin they wished to free man from himself and to set him in a new life—whether they promised tranquillity in a surrender to the infinite whole or won a positive content by the revelation of a kingdom of divine love. How soon the succession of events has led back to a quest of happiness! How soon has it become evident that the religions have far less revealed a new world to the majority of mankind than chained them more firmly to the old; and that they easily arouse to greater power the raw instinct of life, which they desired to overcome!
We seem to be shut in on all sides: it seems a monstrous inconsistency to wish to build up from man a world transcending man; to remove him into a world other than that of a man. A world of this kind is, however, essential to the spiritual life; with its abandonment that life is only a delusion; and the less intelligent people who reject as a meaningless folly all striving for the true and the good seem to be right.
Why do we refuse to adopt this view, and to discontinue an endeavour the aims of which appear to be unattainable? In the first place, because the movement cannot be given up so easily as those critics imagine who adopt this view; for it does not consist simply of explanations and theories that might be completely refuted by rigorous argument, but a certain reality has been evolved, desires aroused, forces called into life, and movements inaugurated. Even if they halt in their course they were something; they do not disappear therefore before the attacks of Scepticism; further, however mean their results may be, they prove to be strong enough to indicate the limitations in the life of nature, and to make it inadequate for us. The matter is the more mysterious in that the striving is anything but a product of the natural desire for happiness. For the movement disturbs all our complacency; it leads man to be discontented with that which hitherto had fully satisfied him; it surrounds him with fixed organisations; desires from him much labour and sacrifice, and makes existence, not easier, but more difficult for him. Delusions are wont to deceive us by pleasing pictures; to attract us with the promise of pleasure and enjoyment. How does a delusion, that imposes so much toil and trouble upon us, win so much power over us? There is another matter to be considered in this connection. A complete renunciation can appear possible only because it is not clearly perceived how much which we cannot give up and which ultimately we have no desire to give up is involved in it. Only a want of clearness of thought, and still more a weakness of character, could wish to retain in the particular case what was given up as a whole; could affirm as effect what it denied as cause. As soon as this course is recognised to be impossible, it becomes evident that with the rejection of the spiritual life everything is abandoned which gives to our life dignity, greatness, and inner unity, and joins us to others with an inward bond. Realities such as love and honour, truth and right, must be regarded as empty forms; and even science must come to an end, because there is no longer any inner unity of work, no objective necessity.
Such considerations again show us that a complete negation is impossible; and it seems that we must remain for ever in painful suspense between an unattainable affirmation and an impossible negation. We might be able to endure this condition of affairs if it concerned a problem which arose in reference to something of little importance to our life, something that we could relegate to the background, and simply permit to lie there, without compromising our life. But our problem lies at the centre of life; is, in fact, itself the centre. To be left in suspense here means to condemn life as a whole to a state of paralysis, to surrender it to complete dissolution. Against this everyone who has any vital energy in him will contend; with his whole might he will seek to escape from a condition so intolerable; he will not hold back from making a bold venture, mindful of the words of Goethe, “Necessity is the best counsellor.”