(c) The Spiritual Basis of the System of Life
There can be no doubt that the acknowledgment of the independence of the spiritual life involves the recognition of a new fundamental relation of our life. This relation is no other than that of man to the spiritual world, which is immanent in him and at the same time transcends him. It is more original than the relations implied in the systems of the present day; for these, even though contrary to their own knowledge and intention, all presuppose this fundamental relation to the spiritual life. Religion could not be so violently attacked and so zealously denied by so many, if the relation of life to God were the absolute relation and were present before all others. The value of religion depends essentially upon the content of the spiritual life which it serves. With the mere relation of life to a supernatural power, the nature of which is not more closely defined—with mere blind devotion—nothing of value is attained. An honest religious attitude of a formal kind can go together, on the one hand, with spiritual poverty and blindness, and, on the other, with hatred and passion. How sad the condition of things in general has often been even when religion has shown a strong development of power! How often the help of divine power has been invoked even in the commission of crime! If, however, the value of religion and its effect on the substance of life are measured according to its spiritual content, then this content necessarily becomes the chief object of attention and conduct. We can assure ourselves of the relation to a supernatural power only from the experiences of the spiritual life, and not previously to this life and independently of it. The relation of life to the spiritual life must therefore necessarily precede its relation to God; life must be certain of a universal spiritual character before it can assume a truly religious one.
We find the case to be no different as regards the system of Immanent Idealism. It is open to considerable doubt whether the world as it lies before us can be looked upon as a pure unfolding of the spiritual life, as this Idealism asserts. In any case, for the spiritual life to comprehend the world within itself it must itself be established as a universal power, and clearly distinguished from mere man. Otherwise the way of Immanent Idealism leads to an anthropomorphism of a more refined kind; and there is a danger that the whole world which this system champions may be criticised hostilely and rejected as simply human. Immanent Idealism, therefore, also points to the problem of substantial spiritual life.
The naturalistic systems do the same thing in a different way, and this, indeed, in contradiction to their main contention. For, when they attempted to produce a system from themselves, they could achieve their object only in that they were implicitly based upon the spiritual life, and introduced again indirectly that which they had previously rejected. They are developments of the spiritual life in particular directions and under particular circumstances: they think that they are able to accomplish out of their own resources something which they accomplish only with the help of a fundamental spiritual life; and so the more consistent they are in their denial of an independent spirituality the more inevitably they lose all internal coherence.
Thus from whatever point we start we come to the question of an independent spirituality; an answer to this question is involved in every system of life. But as its implications are not distinctly recognised, it does not receive its proper due. If we consider the question adequately, it will be found that a universal life must precede all differentiation and division; and that from this life each movement must receive a new elucidation. A multiplicity within the whole is quite intelligible, because it is a development of the spiritual life, not absolutely, that is in question, but in relation to the position of man and under the conditions to which he is subject. The desire to give greater stability to our life in opposition to the never-ceasing flow of appearances that constitutes our immediate existence, also compels us strongly to emphasise the importance of the relation to the spiritual life, which is acknowledged as independent. Without an elevation above this constant change all spiritual work must inevitably become disintegrated, and no truth of any kind would be possible to us. In the Modern Age especially there is a keen desire for a firm basis, as a secure support of life as a whole. But it is useless to seek this basis in life as we immediately experience it, whether in thought, in activity, or in anything else; for in the whole life of immediate experience there is nothing that is free from change. To seek this basis in a particular point is also to no purpose, even if one could be raised to a position above change; for it could not operate beyond itself in such a way as to support the rest of life. If, therefore, we would not submit to a dissolution of life, we must seek a basis for it beyond its immediate state and in a whole of life. Such a whole of life is offered only by the spiritual life, which, transcending man, is also immanent in him. Of course this cannot be taken possession of immediately at the beginning of the journey of life; but it is held up to us as an aim, and we can only gradually approach it. But how could it operate within us thus, if our life had not some kind of participation in it from the beginning; if our life were not in some way based in the spiritual life, and in progressive activity only developed the spiritual that is in it? For unless we are based in the spiritual life we should drift helplessly to and fro in uncertainty, and our endeavour would never be intelligible. From this point of view also, our relation to the spiritual life is seen to be the fundamental problem that must precede all others.
If there can be no doubt that the problem of life is comprehended most universally when we view it in relation to the spiritual life, there may be all the more uncertainty whether all characteristic form and, with it, all deep-reaching effect are not lost by reason of this universality. If the conception of the spiritual life involved its usual vagueness, this would in reality be the case, for recourse to it would not effect any fundamental transformation of the immediate condition of life; and we should not rise above the mere combination of its various movements. The case is quite otherwise if the spiritual life is distinguished clearly from the human and is acknowledged to be an independent world. So understood, it must show a particular content, a new structure of life, and must give a distinct form to everything that it takes up into itself. It is necessary to consider, also, its relation to the world of sense, and we may expect to be faced in this matter with complications and problems that will agitate our life in its whole extent, and set it in a new light.
In the spiritual life we recognised a new world, a realm of inwardness, which has become independent. Within this realm life cannot be directed to something alien, but can be occupied only with itself, with its own development. Its experiences cannot be related to externals; they must lie in itself. Now, have we any knowledge of a movement that reaches back in this manner to the elements of life? We perceive a movement of this kind clearly enough. In the first place, all development of the spiritual life shows, even within the individual, the attribute that a universal mode of thought, conviction, disposition, sets itself in the single function and continues present within it. The tendencies and manifestations of the spiritual are not all at the same level of development, but since a universal activity, a comprehensive and persistent deed, is present in the particular manifestation, the process acquires a depth, and a single act is able to give expression to a tendency of the whole as well as to react upon it.
But this movement extends beyond the immediate state of the soul of the individual to spiritual work, and gives it a particular form. Life as a whole, as reality’s consciousness of itself, may be regarded as throughout capable of a multiplicity, as containing within itself different sides and possibilities. Since its evolution produces this multiplicity, life as a whole can express itself in the individual aspects and tendencies; expand them till they become different departments; experience itself in particular ways in these departments, and in so doing achieve a development of its own; it is able also to bring these departments and their developments into their relation to one another. Since thus, within the world as a whole, life concentrates in different ways, and the particular tendencies which thus arise meet and enter into conflict with one another, and since their conflict is in particular a contest to determine the form of the whole, there is revealed the prospect of a wealth of experiences which come not from without but out of the movement of life itself, and spring from its occupation with itself. The conflict between the different movements of life must bring the whole into a state of tension and lead it to further development. In the progressive formation of itself, in the development of a reality conscious of itself, life through its movement finds itself and develops a content. This movement will summon all the psychical powers of man to activity; it cannot possibly proceed from them. If we are to take part in the building up of that inner world, a spiritual creative activity from the basis of our being must be operative through these psychical functions, uniting them, and applying them as means and instruments.
If, for us men, life becomes conscious of its content only through movement and conflict, nevertheless this content may not be regarded as ultimately proceeding from them. If, as a whole, life did not transcend movement and conflict, if the latter were not included within a self-conscious and self-determining life, then they could yield no inner result, and could not lead to the further development of the whole. The attempts to derive this self-conscious and self-determining life from ontological conceptions such as “being,” “whole,” “movement,” and so on, as the older metaphysics often undertook to do; or the tendency to treat it only as a supplement to them, are to be dismissed most decisively. The fundamental qualities that the spiritual life evolves always presuppose a self-conscious life and become intelligible only in relation to it. Without it, the conceptions of the true and the good remain in complete obscurity, as will be shown later in more detail.
If our human reflection often advances from the indefinite to the definite, from the abstract to the concrete, this does not involve that the latter is originated from the former: the advance could not be achieved unless that which comes at the end was operative from the beginning as its basis and presupposition.