An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy

by W. Tudor Jones

CHAPTER XII

PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

In this chapter some of the most important problems of the present day will be touched upon in the light of Eucken's Philosophy of Religion. Reference has already been made to Eucken's account of the limitations of various Life-systems, of their struggle with one another, and of the necessity for a religious synthesis which will include their most important results within itself.[71] The answer as to the possibility and necessity of such a synthesis constitutes the kernel of Eucken's Philosophy of Religion. He has succeeded in a remarkable manner in assessing the results of science, philosophy, sociology, art, and religion. In them all he has discovered the presence of a reality which is non-sensuous in its nature, and, which reveals itself in judgments of value that carry within themselves their own necessity and self-subsistence. This is his conclusion in regard to the work of the spirit of man on whatever plane of knowledge or experience that spirit works. Man's spirit has to carry all its knowledge and experience into its own conative spiritual potencies. We thus see that everything becomes an aid to the unfolding of an ever greater degree of reality within the spirit of man. It is then within the spirit of man that everything finds its interpretation and value. Whatever interpretation is given to anything apart from the union of the whole potency and cognition of man's spirit is only a partial interpretation. And it is in the failure to recognise this truth that so many Life-systems have set themselves against the higher aspects of philosophy and religion. The most important question has not been asked: What is the relation and value of all results in connection with the deepest potency and necessity of man's spirit? Are these results capable of enriching that spirit of man when he becomes conscious of them? These are the questions which Eucken continually asks and answers in his great works; and it is this fact which makes his teaching so valuable and superior to all the Life-systems of our day. It is difficult to think of any aspect of experience which Eucken has left out of account. He has not, indeed, interpreted in detail all the Life-systems in vogue, and no human being is capable of achieving such a task; but he has clearly perceived the flaws which lie in them all. And this discovery of his has revealed a flaw common to them all. That flaw consists in ignoring the presence of a spiritual life as the great workshop where every form of reality finds its truest meaning. This flaw is so serious in that several Life-systems have thus over-estimated the importance of their results by neglecting to take into account the potentialities and necessities of man's spirit. Let us, then, try to trace this defect in connection with some of the most important Life-systems in vogue to-day. When the various systems of Idealism are estimated, they seem to present aspects of reality with vast portions of human potencies and experiences left out of account. Absolute Idealism is based upon the demands and implications of logic. Its doctrines would have taken a very different colouring had it considered that the necessities of Logic have to be adjusted to the necessities of Life. Such systems are of little value to the soul, because the needs of the soul were not taken into account when they were formulated. This fact was the main cause of the late Professor James's rebellion against all forms of Absolute Idealism. He felt that they bore no relationship to human life and its needs, and consequently could not exercise any important influence on life; they could not move the will, for no possibility of reaching the Absolute was offered to man. All the conclusions were in the realm of an intellectual universal and not in the realm of spirit. They must be unreal in the highest sense on account of this very failure. They have presented their half-gods as realities outside Nature, human nature, the pressing ideals of life, and even God Himself.

Eucken shows that any true Life-system has to start with Life itself. There may be interpretations needful which have no implications for Life, and these have a right of their own; but when such interpretations are carried further, when the subject who knows such interpretations and who uses them is taken into account, then the interpretations found on this level are something quite different from what they were when the whole spirit of man was not taken into account. Eucken consequently comes to the conclusion that philosophy has not completely fulfilled its vocation until it has become a philosophy of Life—until the truest meaning of every object is discovered in its relation to all the necessities of the spirit. And it is here that his teaching comes into conflict with so much that goes by the name of Idealism. How can any system be more than a half-truth when its final meaning is presented with but little attention to the highest aspect we know in the world —to human life in its struggles and conquests, in its living and loving, and its forward movement towards some distant goal? The special value of Eucken's teaching lies, then, in the fact that it interprets what happens, can happen, and ought to happen within life itself. No system which leaves out the soul with its possibilities is complete. This has been done too often in the past, and is being done to-day. Is it, then, a wonder that philosophy has given so very little help to Life in its complex problems without and its sharp opposites and contradictions within? Life is more and needs more than a philosophy of words, devoid of power, can offer it. Life, when at its best, believes in the all-power of its own spiritual potency; it has faith in the possibility of ascent from height to height, as well as in the possibility of an incessant progress not only of individuals but of the whole of mankind.[72] A System stands or falls according as it is able to conceive of Life in such a manner. And Eucken has done this as probably no other living philosopher has done it.

If we turn to Immanent Idealism, we discover the same failure. It emphasises the presence within consciousness of what is idealistic and noble, but it leaves out the objective and imperative character of what is present. It also forgets that the possession of ideals as ideas is only the initial stage of such ideals becoming a very portion of the deepest substance of soul itself. We may deceive ourselves even with the contemplation of the best ideals; they can never become truly ours until the will is set in motion and the whole nature is stirred to its depths in order to press forward to what it perceives as having infinite value. Something has inevitably to happen within the depth of the soul before its real creation can advance. Eucken here, again, has perceived this truth and presents it everywhere with great power. His Philosophy is an Activism of the most powerful type. He is aware that to know and to be are so far apart. But his Activism is not a mere movement of the individual's will, brought forth by anything that has grown within it as a private inheritance. The Activism is started and kept going on its course by the over-personal norms and values already referred to. It is the union of norm and will that constitutes the full action. Life's greater meaning and value is, therefore, not a ready-made possession; it is rather something already possessed, and a vision of something more in the distance to be possessed.[73] The presence of the Divine within the soul is not the same prior to the search and after the search. This is one of the most distinctive features of Eucken's teaching, and constitutes a necessary supplement to certain presentations of Immanent Idealism prevalent in various forms to-day.

When we pass to Materialism in its various forms, we find Eucken conscious of its poverty and its caricature of life. It is caused by excessive absorption in the sensuous object with all its manifold relations. But it is possible to believe in all that it states; for it can never really say anything concerning the deeper meaning of spiritual life if for no other reason than that it cannot penetrate into life's deeper experiences. It is a stage in human thought which is passing away. What will become of it after Professor Haeckel's passing is difficult to imagine. One thing at least is certain: as a complete system of the universe or of life it is doomed.[74] A mechanical interpretation of the universe is legitimate: we may have to adopt more of such interpretations in the future. But there is no need for any alarm from the sides of philosophy and religion. Their citadel is not built upon a thing, but upon a thought; and the gap between the two increases in the degree in which our knowledge of Nature and Man increases. Eucken has many great things to say on this subject in his larger works. Doubtless he would agree with some of the advocates of Naturalism in regard to the meaning of the physical universe, but such agreement would not be an admission that all had been said that could be said concerning the need and the possibility of a Metaphysic of Life.

The one word More constitutes all the difference. This More, with Eucken, is the beginning of a new order of existence and of value where the physical order ends. His work consists in interpreting this More, and we have already seen whither the More leads us: it leads us into spiritual norms and their values, and these in their turn led us into Infinite Love in the Godhead. The failure to see the value of all this is due to the inattention of the advocates of Naturalism in regard to the non-sensuous structure of mind: the Thing and its relations monopolise them so completely that they are blind to every reality non-sensuous in its nature, although they possess some amount of such reality in their very knowledge and adoration of the Thing. Our troubles will continue to accumulate, and the prospect of the future will grow extremely dark, if the grip which physical things have on the world to-day be not relaxed. The very physical powers which we have helped to create, and which hitherto have proved of service to men, will mean our destruction unless something of the More which is beyond them be found as a possession and an activity within the governing centre of life. This is Eucken's plea over against the various forms of the Naturalism and Materalism of our day. These are not enough for man. But man is so slow in recognising this fact. The appeal of Spiritual Idealism is considered to be something which is vague and useless. Our deepest reality and the source of all true energy have been robbed of their efficacy by our absorption in scraping together physical elements of chaff and dust. How often does Eucken show our dire poverty in the midst of all this external plenty! The all-sufficiency of all forms of Naturalism condemns itself through its failure to pass beyond itself. Had there not been some who did pass beyond the Thing and its relations the spiritual values of the race would have been annihilated. "As soon as we demand to pass beyond mere awareness to a genuine knowledge, we discover our deplorable poverty, and must confess that what is termed certain seems on clearer investigation to rest upon a totally insecure foundation."[75] "It is not natural science itself which leads to naturalism, for, indeed, no natural science could arise if reality exhausted itself in the measurements of naturalism; but it is rather the weakness of the conviction of the spiritual life; it is the failure of certitude in regard to the presence of a spiritual existence; it is the unclearness concerning the inner conditions of all mental and spiritual activity which a shallow and popular philosophy presents—it is all this which turns natural science into a materialistic naturalism."[76] The strength of materialistic monism does not lie in any proof of there being nothing but mechanism in this wide universe, but in its energetic propaganda against certain traditional theological forms of ecclesiastical religion—forms which are rapidly being disowned by the leaders of religious thought. Even monism concedes that "it is better being good than bad, better being sane than mad." This concession, and the attempt to live according to it, constitute a proof of the presence in some form of a non-sensuous reality and value in the constructions of materialistic monism itself. Hence, Eucken's conception of spiritual life cannot be got rid of after all. It will remain so long as men live above the animal level and strive to ascend to something higher still.

When the neo-Kantian movement is examined, we find that its long and honourable history presents us with gains which cannot be measured. But we have already noticed that in so far as this movement has specialised within the domain of the connections of mind and body, and has attempted to reduce psychology to the limits of the relations between the two, it is largely outside the inner meaning and value of the life of consciousness. Its work has proved useful in many important respects. It has made man realise that the connection of body and mind is not so simple a matter as materialistic naturalism would lead us to suppose; and it has shown, on the whole, the impossibility of reducing consciousness to mechanical elements. Even in the various forms of psycho-physical parallelism the factor of mind and meaning stands apart in its origin from the factors of bodily movement. But neo-Kantianism has developed on higher lines than those of physiological psychology. It has dealt with the presence of an inner world of thought—a world of values and judgments of values, of norms, imperatives, and ideals—realities which are not presented in any scheme of natural science. It is impossible to read such a great book as the late Professor Otto Liebmann's Analysis der Wirklichkeit[77] without discovering this truth. In this great work, as well as in his Gedanken und Thatsachen, Liebmann shows how man is more than a natural product. "Natural science," he tells us, "is a very useful, and, indeed, an indispensable handmaid to philosophy, but it is in no manner the first, the deepest, the most original basis of philosophy."[78] Liebmann's successors, especially Windelband, Rickert, Münsterberg, Adickes, and Vaihinger, work on similar lines. And there is a great deal in Eucken's teaching which tends in the same direction. But he goes a step further than all the neo-Kantians. We have already noticed how he gives judgments of value and spiritual norms a cosmic significance. He finds that when these norms and values have awakened with great clearness within man's spirit they inevitably lead to the conception of the Godhead. And it is in this work that Eucken's Metaphysic of Life becomes a religious metaphysic. As values and norms mean so much when a reality is granted them by the truest of the neo-Kantians, they come to mean infinitely more when they are acknowledged as somehow constituting the foundation and the acme of all existence. Eucken's main desire is to establish such norms and values beyond the possibility of dispute and beyond the constant changes of Life-systems. They mean for him what is present within their spiritual content as a realisation as well as the More to which they still point. His teaching is not contradicted by anything in the neo-Kantian movement; he accepts its transcendental reality and lifts it out of the realm of individuality and of history into a cosmic realm. After having followed the implications of the neo-Kantian movement so far, he feels compelled to take the next step. For unless that next step is taken, some of the deepest potencies of human nature fail to come to flower and fruit. When the step is taken, they do blossom and bear fruit. Is not this a sufficient justification for taking the "next step"? It is; for man cannot allow any potency of his being to remain dormant without suffering a loss; and on this highest level of all the loss must be incalculable. "Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart will never find its rest until it rests on Thee." That confession of Augustine is Eucken's confession also; and it is the implication which such a confession contains that constitutes the significance of his message to the world. He is in the line not only of the philosophers but of the prophets and the mystics. The ladder of knowledge reaches, like Jacob's ladder, up to heaven itself—to that pure atmosphere where knowledge, merged in a deeper reality, becomes something so different from what it was before. An eternal blessedness has now become the possession of man.

Eucken has a great deal to say regarding the Historical Life-systems of the present day. He is aware that the neglect by German thinkers of the fundamental importance of Hegel's teaching on this question has meant a heavy loss. That loss is already perceived, and Hegel's value in the realm of the Philosophy of History is being rediscovered. Men are more and more feeling the necessity of conceding a validity and objectivity to the concepts of History. The work of the late Professor Dilthey[79] in this respect is of great importance, and has strong affinities with Eucken's teaching on the same subject. But Dilthey's objectivity and validity stopped short of religion in the sense in which religion is presented by Eucken. Dilthey gave the norms of History a transcendental objectivity and considered them sufficient for man. But Eucken, as already stated, while granting all this and even insisting upon it, finds that the norms of History do not include the whole that human nature needs. The "next step" has to be taken whereby a reality is revealed beyond the confines of the best collective experiences of the human race. Once more, we are landed in the conception of the Godhead. The step became inevitable, because the best historical concepts, in their totality, pointed to something still beyond themselves.

During the past few years Eucken has devoted much attention to the Life-system presented in Pragmatism. He is alive to the value of much of the work of the late Professor William James and of Dr F.C.S. Schiller. He feels that Absolute Idealism is too abstract and too remote from life to move the human will. It is too much like placing a man before a mountain, and asking him to remove it. The very magnitude of the object weakens instead of strengthening the will. Pragmatism has the merit of insisting that the task be done piecemeal, so that man may not lose heart at the very outset. And some kind of goal is present in Pragmatism. But Eucken's main objection to Pragmatism is that, however adequate it may be at the beginning of the enterprise, it will tend, as time passes, to turn man in the direction of the line of least resistance, and so be degraded to the level of the ordinary life and its petty demands.[80] His Activism is entirely different from James's Pragmatism. James depended too much upon the "span of the moment" and its immediate experience. There is in this "span" often no cosmic conviction present in consciousness to proclaim that the action is "worth while" at all costs. While constantly demanding the need of effort in order to experience the deeper potencies of spiritual life, Eucken insists that such effort can enter into a current only in so far as norms and values are clearly perceived as the meaning and goal of spiritual life. A universal of meaning and value must be perceived, however imperfectly it may be, before the individual can call his deepest nature into activity. And what is such a universal but something beyond the flow of the moment and beyond the realm of ordinary daily life? Such a universal, too, must have an existence of its own—an existence and a value which are beyond the opinions of any individual or of any group of individuals, even if such a group were to include the whole human race. It is clear, then, why Eucken parts company with Pragmatism.