(d) THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW TYPE OF LIFE
The conception of the spiritual life here developed gives rise to a particular type of life which can bring about a transformation and elevation of man from two main positions: the union of man with the spiritual life is much closer, and the spiritual life in itself is incomparably more, than is represented by the customary conception of that life. For in our conception man does not merely enter into some kind of relation with the spiritual life, but finds his own being in it, and becomes so completely united with it that it is able to determine him immediately as his own self. The spiritual life is not a particular function among others, not a part or an aspect of a more comprehensive world, but is itself a world, and, indeed, a world in which life first attains to self-consciousness and becomes a complete reality. If this world becomes the immediate possession of man himself, his life must experience a deep-reaching change, indeed a revolution of its usual condition: to trace the main tendencies of this revolution is our immediate task.
(1) Life’s Attainment of Greatness
The placing of man in the spiritual life, becoming aware of its own independence, must make the forms of this life his own, and in this way bring about a reversal of the commonplace of every day. Life is transposed from the narrowness of its merely particular nature to infinity; what was hitherto alien and hostile to man is changed into his own possession, and is able to arouse an animating and elevating love. At the same time a deliverance from subjectivity and its web of interests and ideas is effected, to the advantage of a life-process that takes up the object into itself, and thus advances to independence and sovereign creation; a life is attained that is not spent in movement to and fro between antitheses, but unfolds a content through them. As this life attains to complete independence only because it produces a universal activity in contrast to individual activities, so participation in this life must lead man beyond division to a comprehensive unity. It is this that is sought in the idea of personality—an idea which is often quite obscure and superficial, but which can in this context be elucidated, manifest its complete significance, and prove its power of development.
As the spiritual life is a self-consciousness, so man also wins from it a life that is not exhausted by activity directed upon anything external to this life, and that does not expect its content from outside like an empty vessel, but would be itself and realise the possibilities lying within itself. So far as such a life extends man does not stand on the border of things but in the centre, in the formation and creation of the whole; he experiences the world not as something external but from within. The question of the limits of this life is no longer primary but secondary, and the answer to this question is to be expected from the experience of life, not from preliminary reflections. Since, in this, life has a content in itself and develops this content through its movement, it distinctly grows above all the play of forces with which it is often confused; if such a play of forces suffices for a lower stage it cannot suffice for further development. For the feeling of joyous excitement which accompanies the exertion of power is not sufficient in opposition to the serious perplexities that accompany all spiritual work; indeed, not even against the cares and needs that are involved in the mere preservation of existence in an advancing culture. Life then easily comes to be regarded as full of trouble and of work, and becomes a burden from which one wishes to be delivered. Life is not from the beginning a good, but it must prove itself to be such by its more detailed development. In the spiritual life this comes to pass, since it produces a reality out of itself; it does not become valuable first in its relation to the external world, but it carries a value in itself, as is clearly shown by the joy that permeates all experience of the true, the good, and the beautiful. This joy must be further increased if all the multiplicity of this experience is regarded as the unfolding of a comprehensive and persistent fundamental life.
A life of this kind is no indefinite impulse; it cannot become an independent reality without penetrating into every aspect and making the ordinary state of things everywhere inadequate, indeed intolerable. Since the independent spirituality and spiritual character that is acquired, and that which the particular thing and activity signifies in the spiritual life as a whole, everywhere constitutes the most important question, the problem of truth will be raised at each point; and in this way a sharp division will be made between the genuine and the spurious; everything that strives within us in the direction of the spirit will unite and acquire a more stable basis; everything that would satisfy man in other ways will be seen to be empty and vain. Life now acquires a deeper reality, but this must first be reached and brought to complete effect. New forms, in contrast to the ordinary representations, must also make their appearance if life is to be equal to the task of developing content and character.
Life in the individual must have roots deeper than the immediate psychical life; for psychical life cannot itself produce and make clear that which occurs in it, for this reason at least, that it involves the antithesis of individual and environment, of subject and object, beyond which spiritual creation results. The spiritual impulse that the immediate life of the soul manifests can be based only upon deeper realities and more comprehensive relations. And so a noölogical treatment is to be distinguished from the psychological, not in order to displace or limit the latter, but rather to complete it; and it is a problem to show the point of transition in the immediate life of the soul. The significance of the individual life, as far as content is concerned, will depend upon whether an independent spirituality arises within it, and constitutes it a distinctive life-centre. According to the new standards a free spiritual activity does not suffice, however extended it may be, and however sustained by subjective emotion. For all such activity may be without spiritual substance, and in spite of all external results the life that is nothing but this activity may remain spiritually destitute: how shallow many individuals are whose achievements deserve and obtain the highest appreciation! The inwardness that the spiritual life requires is not simply a reflex of work in the soul—from that little is gained—but the forming of a characteristic spiritual self-consciousness that lifts us above all mere achievement, and also by giving to activity a soul first makes it complete.
We have often seen how the acknowledgment of an independent spiritual life forces us to make a sharper distinction between human history and human society and all merely natural history and merely natural co-existence of men. At the same time, in that which is called history and society, a distinction between an esoteric and an exoteric kind is also required. The value of individual epochs and of history as a whole depends upon the spiritual substance that grows up in them; everything else, to whatever extent it may, with commotion and external result, assume the air of being the chief thing, is only environment or supplement. Similarly, in the case of society, the spiritual content, if it has one at all, and human fortune and conduct must become more distinctly separated. There is far less genuine history and society than is usually assumed; but this little signifies incomparably more than both would imply without the spiritual life.
Similarly, with the acknowledgment of an independent spiritual life in us, a new light is shed upon the individual departments of life, and new tasks are set them. They have now, primarily, not to further human well-being, to be of service in the attainment of narrowly human aims, but they are characteristic unfoldings of the spiritual life. The particular nature of these departments has its basis in that life, and they must prove their capacity by advancing it. They are concerned with man only so far as he participates in the spiritual life; and so they will not so much strengthen him in his human nature as elevate him spiritually, and remould him more and more to the form of the spiritual life. A deliverance from the confusion of that which is narrowly human with the spiritual is also necessary, and, along with this, life as a whole must be more energetically based upon the spiritual life, and the spiritual life itself must be given a more distinct form. From the position of this life, that which has been handed down to us must be evaluated and new paths must be opened up for the future. Religion could obtain no content, and all change in it would be only an advance from a more crude to a more refined anthropomorphism, if it were based solely upon human needs and aided man to attain a supposed happiness. Religion rises above such a condition of doubt only if it exhibits its roots in an independent spiritual life and is able to show its actuality and its power by aiding the development of the spiritual life. At its highest religion has always been concerned with winning a new world and a new humanity, not with the achievement of something within the old world and for the old humanity. And as we need a religion of the spiritual life, we also need a morality, an art, and, finally, an all-comprehensive spiritual culture, through which something really new may be produced and man be elevated in this being, and not simply circle round and round continually in the old paths. Everywhere the matter is one of advance and revelation; from this point of view the complexes of every day must also be seen in a new light, and in what is apparently simple and self-evident great achievements and tasks become manifest. We now, for the first time and in another sense, win again that which we thought we already possessed; indeed, by the revolution to the spiritual life, life as a whole is transformed into a task. Every individual has such a life-embracing task in the cultivation of a genuine personality and a spiritual individuality. Humanity as a whole has such a task in the building up of a kingdom of reason within its domain, in the furtherance of the movement which comes to it from the whole and summons it to co-operation.