That, however, is what really happens: it is the case in the relation of the spiritual life to nature, as well as in its relation to humanity; it happens, therefore, in our whole experience. If the spiritual life constitutes the fundamental nature of reality; if, in it, reality first attains to self-consciousness, it is to be expected that when the spiritual life appeared it would create for itself an independent form of existence in contrast to that of nature, and would exercise a superior power in this form of existence, to which nature must accommodate itself. But, as a fact, this is so far from being the case that even the attempt to imagine the spiritual in any way leads immediately to the quixotic. In the experience of humanity the spiritual life is related in its entirety to a natural basis; in no way does it seem able to free itself from this, but in all its activity it remains dependent upon nature. If nature simply follows its own tendencies; if, indifferent to value and lack of value, without aim and ideal, nature lives its life of soulless movement, union with an order so alien and impenetrable must most seriously affect the spiritual life. The world goes on its course unconcerned with the weal or the woe, the persistence or the disappearance of spiritual being, of spiritual relations, indeed of spiritual life in general. Not only do great catastrophes, as in earthquakes, storms, and floods, show how indifferent the existence or the non-existence of spiritual life is to the forces of nature, but the commonplaces of everyday experience and of individual destiny also show the same indifference. In nature we find no difference of treatment in accordance with any distinction of good and evil, great and mean, noble and vulgar. Even the most eminent personality, who may be almost indispensable to our spiritual welfare, is subject to the same contingency, the same fate as all others. Regarded from the point of view of the world of sense, all spiritual life is a chaotic confusion of fleeting appearances, all of which are dependent; it is not an independent world, but a subsidiary addition to a world which is other than spiritual.
Experience of the impotence of the spiritual life in relation to nature has been the cause of mental disquiet from early times. But this experience was not necessarily oppressive so long as mankind was called upon to transform nature into a realm of reason, and so long as there was hope of accomplishing this. For the contrast with the cold and rigid external world has deepened the inwardness of human relationship and made us conscious of the dignity and greatness of spiritual creation. In culture, humanity has formed a characteristic sphere of life, and in doing this has aided the spiritual life to attain a certain reality. In culture, spiritual factors and values win power; and a new order of life in contrast to that of nature is evolved. It cannot be doubted that a new reality makes its appearance; but it is an open question whether this new reality fulfils the hopes which have been placed upon it; and, further, whether perplexities and confusions, which make it doubtful whether anything has been gained, do not arise out of its further development. This question is certainly not answered lightly in the affirmative by the conviction that regards the spiritual life as a turning of reality towards its own truth, which therefore in its development must insist primarily on complete spontaneity and independence. For, if in culture the spiritual life attains an independence over against nature, it is at the same time drawn so deeply into the particularity and limitation of human life, and is associated so much with the merely human, that culture as a whole is anything but the unfolding of a realm of pure, or even of only preponderating, spirituality.
In the first place, the spiritual life does not introduce a definite and fixed content into our experience, and it does not follow paths independent of human striving and error; but arises through hard toil and only slowly finds any unity: in its further endeavour it by no means follows the same tendency, but effects great changes, indeed revolutions, into states the exact opposite of its previous states. When it is so uncertain as to its own aim the spiritual life becomes seriously involved in the seeking and vacillation, in the needs and passions, of man: instead of giving to man an immovable support and pointing out a definite aim for his activity, it seems itself unable to pass beyond a state of uncertain groping and error.
Corresponding to this uncertainty as to its content, there is a want of power on the part of the spiritual life within man. Instead of controlling the conduct of man directly, the spiritual life generally determines it through that which it contributes towards the attainment of his aims. If this is so in the case of the individual, it is even more so in the case of social life, for in it spiritual activity is regarded chiefly as a means to obtain advantages over others, and to advance socially. And so that of which it is the nature to be an end complete in itself is treated as a means to other ends; it is not itself active, and its own power is not a motive force; but even for its own maintenance it needs the help and support of things alien to itself: the artificial mechanism of social organisation must bring forth toilsomely that which, unless it flows immediately from its source, cannot be fresh or genuine. Such a state of human affairs remains far below the aims of the spiritual life; it produces insincerity, a luxuriant growth of hypocrisy and pretence. For all striving for the true and the good involves the assertion that the object is desired for its own sake: if the object really serves the aims of mere man, there inevitably originates a wide divergence between what is willed and what is alleged to be willed. In respect of this, one cannot, with the moralists, lay the blame simply on the will. For, in man, spiritual impulse in general is insignificant; without the compulsion of the social environment it would hardly prevail at all against nature. This social compulsion, therefore, notwithstanding its defects, cannot be dispensed with; however clearly we may see its inadequacy, we cannot renounce it altogether. Society cannot exert such coercive power without presenting itself as the champion of pure reason; without desiring an infallibility for its decisions. This attitude naturally arouses the opposition of individuals and a keen struggle ensues, but as one side may be right the condition of the spiritual life is not much improved by the struggle.
The state of life, uncertain of its aims and inadequate in its means, is rather a paltry substitute for a realm of reason than such a realm itself. A noisy and self-conscious agitation, much unrest and excitement, but little substance and soul; a ceaseless anxiety concerning the means of life and hurried pursuit of them, and in the occupation with the means forgetfulness and neglect of life itself; much self-glorification and ostentation, and little reverence for the spiritual life—such is social life in general. Where the vanity, emptiness, and falsehood of the social machinery have come to be clearly perceived, man has become absolutely wearied and satiated, and has often fled from society to nature, to seek therein simple truth and enduring peace. But he could believe it possible to find such in nature only because he read this truth and peace into it from himself; as, nevertheless, he must ultimately return to those of the same nature as himself: thus he remains in a state of vacillation between nature, which is indifferent to the spiritual life, and humanity, which corrupts the spiritual life by drawing it down to the level of the narrowly human. If the spiritual life nowhere attains to pure unfolding and certain effect within our experience, how can the spiritual life be accepted by us in this experience as the essence of reality? In the midst of such doubt, the original suspicions, which may have receded before the hope of the emergence of a new world, also become felt again—the insignificance of the external manifestation of the spiritual life in contrast with the immeasurableness of nature; the late appearance of the spiritual life in the world-process, and its probable disappearance as a result of the expected changes in the conditions of nature. Does not everything tend to give us the impression that the spiritual life signifies no more than an episode in the world-process; an episode which passes fleetingly, and does not affect the fundamental nature of reality at all? The necessity of such a conclusion remains concealed so long as man, in an undeveloped state of life, is able to fill the world with forms similar to himself, and to understand the control of nature on an analogy with human conduct. But the progress of culture and especially the growth of scientific knowledge have, with irresistible power, taken us beyond that state; have led us from dream and illusion to a state of complete alertness. Has not all independence of the spiritual life become doubtful with this progress of culture and scientific knowledge, and must we not give up all claim to subject our existence to its sovereignty, and to determine our life and effort spiritually? For there cannot be any doubt that, with the spiritual life, the characteristic organisation of our existence also falls. It may be that we have thought superficially and confusedly enough to declare something to be in itself falsehood and deceit, and at the same time to give to it the guidance of our life.
(b) CONSIDERATION AND DEMAND
The previous train of thought may appear to be a plain and straightforward negation, a complete renunciation of the spiritual life as the most adequate solution of our problem. But that train of thought is itself the result of a superficial treatment; every deeper consideration inevitably contradicts such a summary procedure. A contradiction of that train of thought is found especially in the fact which governs the whole course of our investigation, that with the transition to the spiritual life there appear essentially new magnitudes and values, new forms and contents of life, which advance beyond not only the nature but also the capacity of mere man. Whence all these, if spiritual life is only delusion? The new in us may be never so powerless; still, the fact that it emerges in our world of thought and hovers before us as a possibility proves that it has a certain reality also within us.
Further, is the spiritual life, ultimately, in every sense so powerless as it at first appears? That it does not pass by as a phantom among our presentations is shown by the fact that we do not simply receive the existing condition of things, and its degrading oppression of the spiritual life, but we feel it to be a cause of harm and of pain to us. Could we experience this if we belonged entirely to that condition of things; and is not Hegel right when he says that he who feels a limitation is already in some way above it? We feel the insufficiency, the feebleness, the threadbareness of all human morality; could we feel this if we did not experience a longing for a more genuine morality? And whence arises this longing in opposition to an entirely different world, if not from a spirituality implanted within our own being? We perceive the limitations in our knowledge; a growing insight into all its conditions and oppositions may lead us in this matter almost to complete scepticism: but whence came the desire for an inner elucidation of reality; and how did even the idea of it originate, if we belong entirely to the darkness of a nature that is less than spiritual, and if there is no fight at all within us? We feel that the rapid flow of time, its change and course, its sudden revolutions sometimes even into the complete opposite of the previous state, is a defect, a source of serious danger to truth: could we feel this to be so if our whole being were centred in the passing moment; if we did not survey and compare the different times; if our being did not participate in something super-temporal? And lastly, if the feeling that culture is inadequate and indeed nothing but a pretence is so strong and so painful, then here again we set ourselves in a position independent of the condition of things, and judge that condition by a transcendent standard which only our own being can supply. If all these aims were only invented by man and applied to life in an external manner, failure to realise them could not agitate us as it does.
Besides, the matter is not by any means at an end with the feeling of the inadequacy of our position; a movement in opposition to this condition is also not lacking. For, as has been seen throughout our whole treatment, spiritual operation, creative activity is to be found within human experience. It meets us with especial clearness at the heights of the work of history; but these also belong to humanity as a whole, and the light kindled there is not entirely lost in the mist of the commonplace circumstances of every day. In relation with these heights of endeavour there is, in humanity as a whole, a movement in opposition to the tendency of mediocre culture to fill life entirely; a longing for a more spontaneous, a purer, and a more genuine life. Our own power of creation may be dormant; only the advent of a strong suggestion, or a serious convulsion, is necessary and it breaks forth forcefully, and shows distinctly that there is more spirituality in man than the circumstances of every day allow us to perceive. The spiritual movement manifests itself also in private life and in the relation of individual to individual. He who does not measure spiritual greatness by physical standards will often find more genuine greatness in the simplicity of these relations than in the famous deeds of history; and at the same time he will find that through these relations an effective presence of the spiritual life within human experience is strengthened.
If in its opposition to human perversion of it genuine spiritual life does not always reach a definite positive result, the operation of that life as the law and the judge of human things is all the more distinct. Man may try to withdraw himself from the spiritual life; he may reject and mock at that which the age presents to him as an aim; he may seek to fill his life completely with human interests and inclinations: but he cannot do this without degenerating into a state of destitution, which even he himself soon finds to be intolerable, and without being forced, with the compulsion of necessity, to surrender much which it is impossible for him to surrender. The catastrophes of history in which that which has been found insignificant sinks, and that which carries a spiritual necessity within it rises, careless, as it seems, of the weal or the woe of man, show in letters of brass that the spiritual life may not be modified by man at his pleasure, in this way or that, in accordance with his circumstances and his mood.