If a self-conscious life unfolds itself with an increasing content through all departments and activities of life, then these departments will have their meaning and their value primarily in that which they accomplish for the further development of that life, and in the particular tendencies that they add to it: this yields a treatment and a standard of value different from those which we are led to if we make the psychical states of the individual our starting-point. The treatment of religion, for example, as a mere occurrence of an unrestrained psychical life may understand by religion a particular agitation of this or that psychical function; but with this we do not obtain a spiritual content. Again, it is not evident how a world of thought formed from such an individual psychical life could acquire an independence of man, and lift him above the position in which it finds him. The problem of religion attains quite a different basis if the spiritual movements and contents which emerge with it are emphasised; with this it develops and discloses the reality of the spiritual life more deeply. Then through it we may discover and win something that alters the condition of life, transcends the immediate life of the soul, and is able to exert an elevating influence upon man. The value and the truth of a particular religion will be judged in the first place by the nature of the spiritual substance that it offers, and the degree in which, in its advance, it is able to join itself to the movement of life as a whole and to guide it further. A great divergence is possible between this spiritual substance and the movement and passion that call forth a religion on the basis of humanity: the real is, in human relations, by no means without further consideration to be regarded as rational.
The case of the other departments of life is the same as that of religion: the character and the value of all achievement depend entirely upon the range and the kind of substantial spirituality that they evolve. The same is valid of whole epochs and cultures, of peoples and individuals. The exertion of the greatest energy upon externals and the most revolutionary transformation of human conditions cannot protect us from becoming inwardly destitute, or lead us beyond mere appearance to genuine reality. On the contrary, the experience of history shows often enough that spiritual revivals have been accompanied in their origin and growth by manifestations externally insignificant; and that something which struggles against the broad stream of human life fundamentally changes the standards and values of our existence.
Our whole spiritual life, therefore, constitutes a problem; it is an indefatigable seeking and pressing forward. In self-consciousness the framework is given which has to be filled; in it we have acquired only the basis upon which the superstructure has to be raised. We have to find experiences in life itself, to reveal something new, to develop life, to increase its range and its depth. The endeavour to advance in spirituality, to win itself through struggle, is the soul of the life of the individual and of the work of universal history: where there is no endeavour of this kind, there is no true life and no genuine history; our activity in relation to the world as a whole assumes a different form, and the world is represented differently and presents to us different problems according to that which is attained here in the basal structure of life. Life’s struggle for itself, for its own content, its own truth, is the greatest and most intense of all struggles.
The passion which animates all the endeavour after a revelation of life and to win life itself is no other than the desire for a genuine reality: for a being within the activity, for a full as opposed to an empty life. If the formation of reality from within once begins, and the desire for a substantial inwardness gains the day over the merely subjective, then the intolerable inadequacy of all that is usually called life is bound to be strongly felt. The growth of intelligence has led man beyond the life of nature and its blind actuality. In intelligence, the inner life already proves far too independent to be satisfied with being a mere appearance accompanying nature. With this evolution the psychical powers win a greater freedom, and man is able to face his environment more boldly: indeed, in his thought he can grasp an infinity; and in arousing and using all his powers he may hope from his own position, in the interaction of subject and environment, to give to life a content, and thus to make it a genuine life. But here the limitation of man and the contradictory character of life as it is immediately experienced soon come to be felt. All the rousing of forces, all the passing backwards and forwards between subject and object that we experience in the immediate condition of life, does not lead beyond interaction, and yields no content: it does not raise life to a self-conscious and self-determining life; so that, in spite of all its activity, our life in this condition remains inwardly alien. There is thus an enormous disparity between the means that are offered and the aims that are reached; an inward unrest; an incessant conflict, without any prospect of victory, against the ever-recurring tendency to become spiritually destitute; a state of dissatisfaction in the midst of all results of an external kind. Only the revelation of a self-conscious life, a life which itself evolves as a reality, can be the source of progress, and lead from appearances and shadows to a genuine life.
It is apparent that with such an aim a task is presented that dominates and comprehends the whole extent of our existence. We have to take up everything into that self-conscious and self-determining life and to transform the condition of life as it lies immediately before us. A demand of this kind is not limited to a change of this or that; it implies a complete transformation and renewal. It not only involves the whole multiplicity of life, but it must also itself tend to bring about an increase in the multiplicity; indeed, this task first gives the multiplicity a firm foundation and an inner value. For the development and the formation of self-conscious life, it is essential, as we saw, that life concentrate in particular tendencies and departments; that the whole place itself in them, and return to itself from them; and that by this they develop a life of their own and give rise to their own experiences. To act thus, to advance the whole in its own development, the individual concentrations of life must possess an inner spiritual unity which comprehends and dominates all multiplicity. This is seen in the case of individuals, peoples, epochs, and whole civilisations: only by overcoming the state of confusion and division in which they at first find themselves do they come to wrestle with the spiritual life as a whole and win a spiritual character. These unities of life, however, will enter into the most diverse relations with the whole and with one another; and since in so doing they further self-conscious and self-determining life, they develop reality without limit. From all the facts we have considered we see that, with the attainment of independence by the spiritual life, there emerges a distinctive kind of being which everywhere exerts its activity, holds up a new aim, and desires a transformation: life is for the first time placed on a firm foundation, and taken possession of in the deepest source of its movement.
(d) Human Existence
For the construction of a new system of life, this independent nature of the spiritual life is primary and most essential. Such construction is dependent in the second place upon the relation in which the development of the self-conscious and self-determining life of reality stands to the position and to the activity of man; in particular whether it wins this position and activity for itself with ease or meets with definite opposition. Now, there cannot be any doubt that the recognition of the fact of the development of the spiritual life to independence of man, as we traced it, must make us feel that the state of things at the usual level of human life is most unsatisfactory. It is not that one or another aspect is inadequate, but that as a whole it is definitely opposed to the requirements of an independent spiritual life. For the spirituality that is evolved here is treated for the most part as a mere means in the pursuit of human welfare. Civilisation, at the level at which we are most accustomed to it, lifts man above mere nature, but at the same time it forces him into rivalry and conflict with his equals, and leads him to expect happiness from victory. This is the case not only among individuals but also among nations. Since the desire and the conflict for more generate an indescribable amount of excitement and passion, life seems to be full, whereas in reality it is entirely lacking in content, and behind the tumult is felt to be empty. But man has no intention of giving up all claim to a share in genuine spirituality: and so he gives a better outward appearance to his endeavour and his conduct, and practises deceit upon himself as well as upon others. Genuine spiritual life cannot possibly proceed from circumstances so contradictory and so confused. Neither can such circumstances produce the concentration of life that is necessary for the strengthening and advancement of the spiritual life. It is not the abuse of some one thing that provokes attack: it is not a particular failing, but the ordinary daily course which, unresistingly, man is accustomed to accept as his world, that shows in its successes no less than in its failures the greatest divergence from genuine spirituality. It is just at the point where man becomes proud of his own doings and makes much ostentatious display that he can least of all conceal the spiritual poverty and the foolishness of his way of thinking.
Attempts to attribute the responsibility of all limitation to man and his will, to find the root of all evil in the moral failings of humanity, have not been wanting. Universal religions have given these attempts an embodiment. It has seemed as though the harmony of reality is only disturbed by man, and as though his moral restoration were the only thing necessary to lead to all good. To be sure, such a way of thinking manifests a disposition of great seriousness, and it may appeal to the fact that the perplexity of our existence is nowhere more real than in reference to the ethical problem. Still, there is no possibility of doubt for the man of the Modern Age that this conception is too narrow; that it not only contradicts indisputable impressions and experiences, but also takes the question much too subjectively and too anthropomorphically, and thus falls into the danger of doing harm to the cause that it wishes to serve. It is not simply our disposition, it is our being as a whole and the circumstances that we are in, which obstinately oppose the emergence and the development of an independent spiritual world. It is the most elementary forms of life themselves that prevent the elevation of our existence to the level of a genuine spiritual life. We cannot blind ourselves to the fact that the greater part of our life is bound up with a form of existence in which it is not able to embrace the spiritual life. Any kind of appropriation of the spiritual—if it is at all possible—can be effected therefore only in opposition to that form of existence. In genuine spiritual life all movement should proceed from the whole and should be sustained by the whole, even when it is concentrated in the individual departments and tendencies. Human existence presents the spectacle of individuals ranged side by side; and if a movement to overcome the original inertia is to begin at all, their impulses, their desire for happiness, and their conflicts are necessary. The spiritual life knows no limits; it works and creates from the infinite whole: the individual is narrowly limited, and with all his activity and work constitutes but a tiny point in the infinite whole. The spiritual life presents its content as transcending time; even if for us it is only gradually revealed, time is in this a mere means to the presentation of an eternal and immutable truth: man, however, drifts with time; is dependent upon the momentary situation, and experiences himself in an incessant change: how can he comprehend the eternal? Spiritual creation is effected in the transcending of the antithesis of subject and object: human endeavour is conditioned by this antithesis. The former with its self-determining activity overcomes from within the attachment to sense: man even in the highest flight of his endeavour cannot withdraw himself from it. From the altitudes occupied by the spiritual life submission to the impulses and the goods of sense seems to be something mean and base: and yet without these man cannot possibly preserve his life; he has not conferred sensuous needs and desires upon himself by an act of will, but finds himself endowed with them from the beginning. Spiritual life with its formation from within banishes from itself all mechanism; all compulsion of blind actuality: without a mechanism in thought and in conduct, without habits and methods determined by custom, human life cannot attain to an enduring stability either in the case of the individual or in that of society. Thus, through the ever-present necessity of self-preservation and self-renewal, human life is compulsorily related to something, bound to something, that not only is not adequate to fulfil the tasks of an independent spiritual life, but is directly opposed to them. There is something in our life which we cannot dispense with, yet which, from the spiritual point of view, it is an imperative duty to shake off.
We see clearly enough that it is not merely our will that is in play, but that two worlds conflict within us, and that the world to which we primarily belong, according to the testimony of experience, holds us fixed with superior power, and draws back to itself all movement which strives upward. If, in particular, the dimness and the weakness of the spiritual life in man; its severance from its source; its disintegration into isolated powers; and, finally, the moral perversity which human existence exhibits, and the debasement of spiritual power to a mere means for natural or social self-preservation, become clear to us, then it is evident that a compromise between such a pitiable and shallow confusion and a genuine spiritual life is absolutely impossible. The acknowledgment of an independent spiritual world tends only to increase the contradiction and make us more clearly conscious of it.