The union of the spiritual life with man, its being firmly rooted in him, is seen to be at the same time something old and something new—something old in so far as it must have been existent and in some way effective from the beginning, something new in so far as its distinct emergence and its transition to a state of self-determining activity must alter the condition of things essentially; in fact, must turn life as a whole into a problem. Where the reality of man is reduced, as by Hegel, solely to an unfolding of thought and cognition, the present may find its most important task in the complete clarification and appropriation of the past; life comes to complete satisfaction in the drawing of historical achievement to itself. Where it is a question of the building up of a reality based on self-conscious and self-determining activity, when we ourselves share in such activity, we must find ourselves in an essentially different relation to things; and with all the connection with the past, life will press forward, changing and elevating in contrast with the whole past.
A contact, indeed a union, must therefore be established between the independent spiritual world—which in some way must be operative in us—and the activity of our own which struggles upward; and, through the gain of such a contact, that world must be led to more complete organisation, and that which strives upward made secure, unified, and advanced. In this it is essential that the movements and the demands which the fundamental idea of the spiritual life contains be present to our minds. The spiritual life appears, so we saw reason to believe, in the first place, to be something essentially new in contrast to the life of nature. The spiritual life is not the product of a gradual development from the life of nature, but has an independent origin, and evolves new powers and standards: new beginnings must, therefore, be recognisable in us if the spiritual life is to become our life. The new, however, manifested a development of the inner life to independence in opposition to its state of subjection at the level of nature, and so thus in man also the inner life must in some way come to itself and attain to freedom. We saw, further, that this development to independence cannot be brought about through new achievements in a given world, but that it needs the building up of a new world—a new basis for life: it extends even to the final basal forms; not any kind of activity could suffice, but a being within the activity, or, rather, a division of activity into something sustaining and comprehending on the one hand, and something demonstrating and producing on the other, is necessary. It is only thus that life becomes turned toward itself and elevated to a self-conscious life; activity to self-determining activity; experience to self-conscious experience. Man could not participate in such a self-conscious and self-determining life, if in him also a new life, a spiritual self, had not begun to be in some way. It is impossible for this self to be merely individual in nature: it can change the form of things and convey a new world only if it encompasses the multiplicity and experiences it as its own. An infinite self-conscious and self-determining life must not only include man within itself; it must become his own life, his true self.
To realise this life, this self, in more detail and to pass from mere impulse to fruitful work, such as the building up of a new reality necessitates, man must in some way transcend in his own sphere the mere juxtaposition of individual powers. Connections must be formed within the realm of man that somehow deal with that task and advance towards its accomplishment in a way that is beyond the capacity of individuals. A transcendence of the antithesis of subject and object, that dominates the greater part of life, is also essential to the new life; an energetic revolution must raise life to a state of resting upon itself, to autonomy: and so in man also movements must appear in opposition to this antithesis—condensations and concentrations, in which life from being a movement hither and thither becomes a forming of reality from within. In these connections only out of a self-development of life has a reality arisen at all; and its content was not there complete at the outset, but was yielded only through the continuance of that self-development: it must be shown, therefore, that in man also life begins to turn toward itself, and that this makes it possible to attempt tasks which to our capacity are otherwise inaccessible.
It is necessary to acknowledge that in all the spiritual movement which appears in the domain of man, there is a revelation of the spiritual world: as merely human power cannot lead the whole to new heights, in all development of the spiritual life the communication of the new world must precede the activity of man. At the same time, where we are concerned with a life that is independent, and of which the activity is conscious and self-determined, the change cannot possibly simply happen to man: it must be taken up by his own activity; it needs his own decision and acceptance.
We shall consider the question of the possibility of this almost immediately: so much, however, is certain—that this necessity of a decision by man himself makes the matter far more complex and of far greater risk. The establishment of an independent spiritual life in man finds its chief enemy not in nature, but in the limitation and perversion of spiritual impulse through man’s subordinating it to his own ends. The chief conflict is not between spirit and nature, but between real and false spirituality. Thus thought emerges in man, seeks a representation of the world and would in this attain to truth; but when this striving first appears, man is wont to treat himself as the central point of the whole, to measure the whole of infinity according to what it achieves in relation to him, and to see reflections of himself throughout its whole extent. And so we have the anthropomorphic way of thinking, the nature of which we have become aware of only through toil during the progress of the work of culture; a way of thinking from which it has needed even more toil to protect ourselves, and which, in forms often hardly noticeable, is ever ready to appear again and to draw the spiritual movement into its paths. With the emergence of the spiritual life, man becomes more free in relation to his environment; more free also in relation to the necessities of mere nature: his activity can exert itself more independently, concern itself with lofty aims, strive towards the infinite. But all this capacity becomes drawn into the service of the human; the wishes and the desires of the individual grow to an enormous extent. Since out of the struggle for existence, with its natural limitation, an interminable struggle for more existence arises, naïve self-preservation becomes transformed into an unrestricted egoism. That the more-than-human which appears in the domain of man should be employed to the advancement of the merely human is a danger that is present even at the highest stages of development: at one time man would prove his own power in the more-than-human; at another, and this more especially, he treats it as a means to attain his material welfare. Religion, for example, would reveal to man a new depth of reality, and so create a new life for him; and yet, how often even this new reality is degraded to a means for the preservation of his insignificant personality, and regarded as something which on his behalf guides the whole world aright!
The development of the spiritual life in the human sphere can thus be seen to be anything but a sure and steady progress; every step forward brings new dangers; unutterable confusion arises through the use and the perversion of the new in the interests of man. But, if the development of the spiritual life within man is thus an unceasing conflict against human error, this conflict, despite its exhibition of the littleness of man, is at the same time a witness to his greatness. For it shows not only that the spiritual movement needs the active co-operation of man, but also that there is a conflict within humanity itself against the perversion of the spiritual; that there must be more within man and operative in him than the narrowly human. Indeed, in nothing does man seem greater than in this development of a more-than-human within the domain of man, in this severe and untiring conflict with himself. How could this conflict arise and become the soul of universal history if man did not possess a life and being transcending his particularity, and if he did not realise more in himself than we at the first glance see in him? The error of Positivism is that, although it shows most clearly how this spiritual movement dissolves the forms of life as it is immediately experienced, it does not perceive and value the fact that, at the same time, a new life, an inner life emerges; that, indeed, the negation itself is possible only through a more comprehensive spiritual revelation. To consider the negative and the positive in their relation to each other, and to weigh them one against the other, is the indispensable condition for the adequate understanding of human life.
(b) The Nature of Freedom
The arousing of a new world to life within man is a problem and a task: it cannot be effected unless the spontaneity and self-determining activity that are distinctive of this world also manifest themselves within him. Further, it cannot be effected unless within man, who with the greater part of his being belongs primarily to nature, a deliverance from nature is accomplished and the centre of life is removed to its spiritual side; and this cannot happen without the co-operation of man. We need freedom, therefore, in two senses: as the presence of an independent inner life, and as man’s capacity to change—and we cannot fail to recognise that these are closely related.
Now, the impressions and experiences of modern life are opposed to freedom in both of these senses; indeed, with apparently insuperable force they oppose freedom in every sense. Modern science most clearly shows that man belongs to a great world-whole and world-movement; his life and work seem to be completely determined through his relations in this whole; his whole life is subject to an irresistible destiny, and in all his undertakings and conduct he can only follow the course directed by it. This destiny assumes for us the most diverse forms; and through this diversity surrounds us on all sides. Through the power of heredity we enter life with a definite nature: in the family, the state, and the society a particular kind of environment surrounds us and gives to our nature its more detailed colouring: the age meets us with particular tendencies, takes us up into itself with a supreme power, and just as decidedly directs us towards certain ends as it diverts us from others.
Even in earlier times all this was not ignored, so far as the individual aspects are concerned; but the Modern Age was the first to conceive the problem as a whole, and with this it has pursued the idea of determination even into the inner structure of the life of the soul, with the demonstration that here also nothing is spontaneous, nothing unmeditated, but that even down to the most primary impulse everything depends upon something else, and proceeds from definite relations. From this point of view the idea of freedom, and in particular that of a freedom of choice, appears to be only a remnant of an unscientific way of thinking. The fact that man feels—as an immediate impression—free in cases of hesitation between different possibilities has lost its power to convince the individual of the Modern Age. For the new mode of thought has evolved point for point along with an increasing divergence from the naïve manner of representation, and it has won its greatest victories in opposition to this manner of representation. The revolution that Copernicus accomplished in the representation of the world has become typical of the whole of modern work; and as regards our problem also, dissent from ordinary opinion is less a cause for doubt than a recommendation.