Life's Basis and Life's Ideal: The Fundamentals of a New Philosophy of Life

by Rudolf Eucken

However, our attitude in regard to this problem has, indeed, been essentially changed by modern thought. There can be no further talk of a vague freedom of the will, of a capacity to act in one manner or another unaffected by anything that preceded and by the whole environment; the fact of the subjection of man to a destiny, both external and internal, is forced upon us with overwhelming power. Whether the idea of freedom in every sense is shown to be invalid is another question; perhaps the problem is not so much solved as put on one side. In any case, if a fundamental problem—one that has been discussed from the earliest times—is suddenly declared to be finally solved, the suspicion must soon arise that the solution appears to be self-evident only because certain presuppositions which are in no way self-evident are implicitly assumed in it.

The surrender of every kind of freedom meets in the first place with the suspicion that thereby far more is lost than we think or intend; that much is lost to which it is impossible to surrender all claim. Great trouble is taken to prove that the denial of freedom by no means does away with the possibility of an ethical moulding of life. Yet it might be shown without difficulty that, in attempts of this kind, either the freedom, rejected in its ordinary sense, finds entrance again altered and deepened—as, for example, in the philosophy of Spinoza—or the ethic that remains after freedom has been denied retains only the name, and in itself signifies something merely mechanical. But why do we insist upon the ethical; why does so much depend upon its continuance? For this reason: that upon it depends whether life merely happens to us or also from us; whether we are simply parts of a rigid world-mechanism or self-determining co-operators in the building up of reality. If the former hypothesis is true, we are no more than the platform upon which events become connected; and we can possess no other unity than a summation of the multiplicity. A unity of this kind could not possibly attain to independence and transcendence; could not make an inner judgment upon events; could not take up a conflict in opposition to the condition of life as it is immediately experienced. The conception of conduct would inevitably be degraded to that of mere occurrence. We should cease to have inner unity and be comprehensive selves; we should not be able to speak of disposition and conviction: for it is of the essence of all these things that they cannot be imparted, but must arise newly and spontaneously just in the individual, and for this a concentration of life, an elevation to self-conscious and self-determining activity, is necessary.

Where inner unity and such an activity are lacking, a true present does not exist. For if, through the all-dominant relation of cause and effect, that which comes later proceeds in certain sequence from that which came earlier, our whole existence is only a stream of occurrences, and that which is called present is nothing more than the point of transition from the past to the future. Now, a real present can be reached from such an apparent present only if an independent task originates at this point, and a decision has to be made: the more our whole life and being here become a problem again, the more securely might we trust to the possibility of advancing beyond all previous achievement, and of a spontaneous breaking forth of new powers, the more will our life be transformed into a genuine present. A genuine present does not exist within the sequence, but above it; it cannot come to us opportunely, but must be attained through our own activity: it is our own work. It is, therefore, not a common and equal possession, but is differently constituted according to the individual. The present is the more real and comprehensive for us the more spiritual power we evolve and the more spiritual content we give to life. Thus the present is not a mere point in the succession of times, a mere ripple in the stream of appearances, but involves a counteraction to this flow; its formation is to be accomplished only by the placing of life in the region of the spontaneous, the independent, the time-transcendent.

All the losses in individual matters are, however, only appearances and parts of a universal loss that the surrender of freedom involves. This loss is no other than that of an independent nature-transcending spiritual life in general. Spontaneity is no subsidiary quality, the disappearance of which might only involve a modification; with it, the spiritual life as a whole stands or falls. The experience of history also shows clearly enough that that which has in any way reached a spiritual height never persists by simply existing, but that, if it is not to degenerate rapidly, it must proceed ever anew from spontaneous creative activity. The law of nature, that everything remains in its existent state of rest or motion until it is acted upon from without, is not true of the spiritual: of it nothing abides that is not continually brought forth anew.

The surrender of freedom, therefore, means no less than the inner destruction of the spiritual life. And before we submit to this we shall feel compelled to make a more careful inquiry, to see whether the arguments against freedom are really so cogent as they are represented. They do exert a compelling force, but only so long as their presuppositions are admitted and held to be unassailable. That they are not unassailable will become evident as soon as we clearly recognise their nature and implications.

If the world forms a closed and “given” system, in which every particular is determined completely by its position in the whole, there is no place for spontaneity. The question of freedom has no meaning for man if he belongs solely and entirely to such a world, and within it has only to weigh aims one against another. But in accordance with the results of our investigation we contest these two presuppositions most decidedly. To an investigation that begins with the life-process as the basis of its treatment, it is certain that a “given” world never can be primary, but only secondary. That it may attain to an inner present it needs a life that is not itself “given,” but with its activity encompasses a multiplicity, unifies, and makes it definite; for anything to be experienced as “given” a self-conscious and self-determining activity is necessary. If this self-determining activity can struggle upwards to complete power and consciousness only slowly, still it is the first and the sustaining world; and at the same time it can never be asserted that the forms of its life are only ideas and appearances. Life is not formed from existing individual points, and does not pass between such points, but all multiplicity is sustained by an active whole, and from this whole animated ever anew. This active whole may not be conceived as dependent upon another, and it is quite capable of advance. We have endeavoured to show that the matter is not one of subtleties of thought, but of different natures of the world and of activity; and that with the attainment of independence a new world emerges. We have also shown that in us the new world must first wrestle with another, to which we primarily belong; that inner changes must take place in us; and that, if all our toil is not to be in vain, the relation of the two worlds must be changed.

Man, therefore, has a special significance in that the two worlds meet together within him, and in that there can be no change in their relation to each other at this point without his co-operation. The problem of his life concerns more than his conduct, it extends to his being; the question is, how far the different worlds may become his own world, his life. The matter is one of shifting the centre of life from the position in which it is in immediate experience. Thus, the tension and the conflict involve the ultimate elements: each of the worlds has its own tasks and evaluations; things do not affect man with a given and fixed value, but they receive their value first from their relation to the main course upon which his life enters; and so all conflict concerning particular matters implies a decision concerning the whole. Of course, such a decision is not being made from moment to moment; and more especially, it is not made simply by reflection, but it is involved in the whole of life. Only that which in him, in endeavour and work, participates in such decision is true life; individual acts of external conduct only bring to expression that which has happened and still continues to happen inwardly and in the whole.

In all this the possibility of an inner elevation is presupposed. Everyone who strives for an inner development of man; everyone who, with clear insight into the meanness of the general condition of human affairs, unswervingly continues to strive for the advancement of humanity, relies on this possibility: without it there is no hope of a development and a growth of one’s own life, of an elevation of it above the condition in which it is first experienced. And so without this possibility endeavour loses all its true tension, and all that we are able to accomplish in ourselves and in others is no more than a dexterous use of existent forces. But is this condition of the matter, spiritually discerned, more than a mere discipline?

It is true that the possibility of an elevation has its fixed conditions; it necessitates particular convictions with regard to the world and to man. We must view the world as being still in a state of flux and regard man as not being simply a closed and limited individual. The infinite spiritual life must be present as a whole to him, and arouse a new world to life in him; his conduct must be rooted in the power and content of the infinite life: only thus can we understand that in man also a movement begins and a change is brought about. And so it remains ever an inderivable, original phenomenon, which we must acknowledge as a fact, that a spontaneous life breaks forth in man, a new and relatively independent life-centre originates. We always come back in the long run to original phenomena; the origin of living being in general is also an original phenomenon. May we deny the fact of such original phenomena, because they make our representation of the world less uniform and simple? To do so would be nothing else than to make our previously formed conceptions the measure of reality; it would be a new, specifically modern anthropomorphism.