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

by Rudolf Eucken

The acknowledgment of a self-conscious inwardness, of a world-transcendent spirituality, together with the recognition of another kind of world, full of oppositions, must give a characteristic form to our conception of our reality. Here, a rational solution of the world-problem is for ever excluded, and the world present to man must be accepted as a particular kind of reality, which cannot be regarded as the only and ultimate one. From this point of view the whole life of humanity must appear to be a mere link in a great chain; an act of a drama, the course of which we are unable to survey; the fundamental idea of which, however, glimmers through sufficiently clearly to point out a direction to our life.

Through the emergence of a world-transcendent inwardness there appear characteristic tasks and complications, also for the more detailed development of our life. Unqualified esteem for that inwardness has often led religions to demand that life should be placed solely and entirely in that transcendent sphere, in the realm of faith and of disposition, and to free life as far as possible from the work of the world; the former life seemed to excel the latter as the divine the human. But this comparison does not hold good; for the divine is to us not only a world-transcendent sovereignty but also a world-pervading power: to honour the former preponderatingly may be the only salvation for times and individuals in a state of prostration and collapse, and in this way life would be given a preponderatingly religious character; but this form of life can never be accepted as the normal one and the one alone worth striving for. For one thing, that transcendent world, as far as its contents and tasks are concerned, is presented to us only in outline; all its more detailed nature must result from the world of our activity, and must retain a symbolic character. If the connection of the spiritual world with the empirical world is broken it falls into the danger of becoming destitute; so that religion may come to be simply a revelling in feeling; or a devotion, indifferent to all content and which, therefore, judged by spiritual standards, is worthless. It is by hard work alone, in relation to men and things, that our life acquires a spiritual character. Religion does, indeed, elevate life above work, and give to life its full depth. Still, movement and differentiation must be included within a vital whole; and the relation to activity which is the chief factor in life cannot be given up even at its greatest depth. The high estimate of spirituality may not rightly lead to a mean estimate of nature, to a conflict with nature such as has been the case in the realm of religion in the tendency to asceticism. For as certainly as our acknowledgment of an independent spirituality involves a subordination of nature, this subordination does not imply a mean estimate, still less a rejection. Asceticism which appears to be the attainment of a high level of spiritual life soon leads to an inward degeneration. For in asceticism the chief task is not the powerful development and courageous advance of spirituality, but simply a negation and suppression of sense. Reflection and thought will thus be centred upon just those things beyond which the spiritual movement wishes to lead. Particular temporary circumstances may make the tendency to asceticism comprehensible; such times were over-refined and diseased, and the diseased may not rightly give to life its rule.

But if, in this way, we oppose a specifically religious or ascetic form of life we are not prevented from acknowledging the strong and fruitful influence of a world of transcendent inwardness upon life as a whole. For its perfect health and breadth, our life needs two tendencies which, though they directly contradict each other, must, nevertheless, within us be complementary to each other: it needs an energetic conflict against all that is irrational, and at the same time to be elevated into a sphere in which everything is rational, into a realm of peace and perfection. Within the spiritual life itself, tasks are given their form and are estimated on the one hand from the human point of view, and on the other from an ultimate, one might say an absolute, view of things. The significance of this distinction is to be seen most clearly in history, and, perhaps, in the contrast between the Greek and the Christian character. The former places man in the midst of the world, and requires him energetically to take up the struggle for the cause of rationality and decisively to reject the irrational. Suffering and pain were to be avoided; man was never to submit to them. Courage appeared to be the chief quality of this form of life, and in relation to others justice was its determining idea. But if this idea demands that each should receive according to his achievement, then the higher and the lower, the noble and the common, must be distinctly separated and never allowed to be confused. That the noble form a small minority, and that history hardly promises any change in this matter, is a fact that has not escaped perception; and the permanence of the antithesis of an esoteric and an exoteric form, therefore, appears to be inevitable. The difference that exists is regarded as due primarily to nature, not to free decision. To make nature completely active, and to unify that which it offers in a scattered and an unsystematic manner, appears to be our whole life-work.

The result, therefore, is a powerful, active, self-conscious life, which not only affects us by its results but to which we must assign a permanent significance. But as the only and exclusive form of life, it involves great restrictions and rigour; its limitations may remain hidden in days of joyful creative activity and in the highest circles of society, but they must be keenly felt if life falls into a condition of stagnation, and man, as man, asks questions with regard to the happiness of life. This destiny may then become an intolerable compulsion; mere courage, an over-exertion of human power; mere justice, severity and unmercifulness; the sharp distinction between men, an actual separation, which tends on the one side to proud haughtiness and on the other to doubt and depression. A keen perception of such limitations and dangers must necessarily force life into new paths.

The counter movement has won the victory in Christianity, which makes not work in the world but the relation to a world-transcendent spiritual life the chief thing. Man does not in the first place trust a nature that safely leads him but at the same time limits him; but his nature seems full of problems, and to need a complete transformation, which only a miracle of grace can accomplish. Men are not regarded as being separated by fixed differences, but in comparison with the divine perfection all differences vanish, and from the relation to God the feeling of equality and brotherhood is evolved. Thought of in relation to the requirement of a pure inwardness of the whole being, differences in achievement are totally insignificant: justice gives place to an infinite love that dispels all harshness, makes all differences consistent and harmonious, and tolerates no feeling of hostility.

The antithesis of a nature which is operative within the world and which elevates above the world must permeate life as a whole and must give rise to opposite tendencies in every part of life. On the one hand, there is a distinct formation in finite relations, an insistence upon plastic organisation and complete consciousness of life; on the other, an aspiration towards the infinite, a more submissive faith, a more unrestrained disposition, a higher estimate of the naïve and the childlike. In the former, man, full of confidence in his own power, himself produces a rationality of reality, and disdains all aids alien to himself; in the latter, life is sustained by a trust in an infinite good and power which, in a way transcending the capacity of man, guides to the attainment of the best; in short, as a whole and in its individual aspects each is a fundamentally different type of life from the other.

The type of life advocated by Christianity has resulted in a great deepening of life; it cannot possibly be given up again in favour of an earlier type. But this Christian type also does not suffice for the moulding of life as a whole. Most severe complications would ensue if the position of Christianity were taken up as an ultimate conclusion and an absolute evaluation in the conditions which at present exist, and its principles without further consideration were applied to our life as a whole. The annulling of all differences, even of spiritual capacity; the displacement of justice through pity; the cessation of the conflict against evil; the low estimate of man’s own power, would all endanger most severely the rational character of life; an adoption of this type of life in its entirety would lead to the discontinuance of the work of culture; in particular, it is inconsistent with any kind of political organisation. Finite conditions are not to be judged by infinite standards; and we men are, after all, in the finite and remain so.

And so, from the earliest times since Christianity, from being merely one of opposing systems, became the dominant power, compromises have been sought. The system of the development of power and of justice has nevertheless asserted its influence, and though Christianity has had an external supremacy, this system has forced characteristically Christian life to be regarded as a matter of mere subjective disposition and of private life. But as such compromises do not fully and truly express spiritual necessity, they easily lead to falsity. To rise above this tendency to make such compromises, the acknowledgment of the right and of the limits of each type, the acknowledgment of the necessity of both within a comprehensive whole, is necessary. Such a whole and along with it a common ground, upon which the movements meet together, and can strive to understand one another, is given to us by the spiritual life, acknowledged in its independence. It is not for us to force our life into a finished scheme, but to develop fully and to acknowledge the movements and oppositions which exist in our life. True, life will ever remain unfinished, but can we wish to make it more complete than it can be, and can the incompleteness cause us anxiety, when we are sure of its main direction?