Life’s Basis and Life’s Ideal

II The More Detailed Form of Our Spiritual Life

(a) THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH AND REALITY

Whatever there is peculiar in our conception of the spiritual life must be manifested and proved in reference to the problem of truth and reality. In the first place our conception decidedly rejects the widely held view of truth as a correspondence of our thought with an external reality. For the attainment of independence by the inner life makes it impossible for something externally existing to be taken up into life without undergoing an essential change. It is also inconceivable from this point of view how something beyond us could in any way attract and arouse us. The problem of truth can do this only if it originates within our own life: it can become a compelling power only if the attainment of truth aids us to transcend a division within ourselves which has become intolerable. The representation of life, that we have given, makes it quite evident that such a division does spring up within us. Within our own life a certain activity begins, which becomes wider and wider, and which would signify our whole being. But this activity finds limits and contradiction within ourselves: much takes place in our experience independent of this activity and apparently without our co-operation; a certain condition of things exists, and asserts a rigid actuality; and, so far as this condition extends, we are bound; we bear something impenetrable within us. So long as these two sides of our being remain separated life is not complete and genuine: activity lacks a foundation, a content, and a direction that is sure of its aim; and all the bustle of free movements, all effort of reflection cannot conceal the state of spiritual poverty. On the other hand, the fact that we bear so much within us that only half belongs to us and that presses upon us like a fate must cramp and oppress us. And so life does not experience itself as a unity; it lacks an inner truth, since activity presents itself as a whole and yet is not one. Life itself is therefore a problem. The problem must be felt to be the more serious the stronger the desire for a self-consciousness becomes. However, self-consciousness cannot possibly be reached without a transcendence of the division between activity and the given condition of things. Life has first to seek itself, its unity, its perfection; and it is just this that is the problem of truth: and in this problem life is turned not towards externals, but towards itself. We understand now how the desire for truth can exert such an enormous power, for, in this struggle for truth, we fight not for something alien, but for our own being.

This conception of truth determines also the nature of the effort to attain truth. The task cannot be to subordinate one side of life to the other, and to derive one side as far as possible from the other; that is, to transform the given condition of life as far as possible into free activity, or to adapt activity to the given condition in such a way that activity is merged into it; but the task is one of pressing forward to a transcendent active whole which unites the two sides, and develops them both; and in mutual relation gives to activity a content and to the given condition a soul. We have seen how a movement to attain such a unity runs through history and extends into the soul of the individual. That life is in general able to unify and raise itself is the presupposition of all striving after truth: the proof of this, however, is to be found in the actual furtherance of life, in the new contents which are thus obtained.

Such a way of regarding truth, that is, as an upward endeavour of life to its own unity, a unity not forced upon it but immanent, exhibits its unique nature especially in its opposition to the intellectualistic conception of truth, which, notwithstanding that it has been rejected and attacked so often, still continues to assert a mighty power. According to the intellectualist, cognition should treat the problem and solve it of its own capacity; it seems that the synthesis that is sought must be found in the first place in the realm of thought, and thence imparted to the rest of life. As a fact, however, knowledge itself is affected with particular severity by the division of free activity and fixed given condition; and from its own capacity thought cannot attain to a state of full creative activity which alone is able to overcome the division, but for the attainment of this is referred to an advance of life as a whole which alone can reach an essentially new position. To be sure, cognition has particular fundamental logical principles which regulate all its work. But to regulate and to produce are two different things. The most scrupulous adherence to these principles does not lead beyond reflection to an inner relation to the object, to an inner transcendence, a penetration, and an appropriation of the object; it leaves us still in the position of simply attempting to know, in a state of mere reflection and search. All real knowledge involves a spiritual creation, an advance, and a self-formation of life as a whole. The chief epochs of culture have therefore given a distinctly unique character to the inner nature and the fundamental texture of knowledge; the character given to it by one epoch being entirely different from that given to it by another. Modern knowledge does not differ from earlier knowledge only in a quantitative way: as soon as its connection with the chief synthesis characteristic of modern life is revealed, it can no longer be regarded as absolute knowledge, but only as a particular kind of knowledge beyond which there are possibilities of further developments.

From life as a whole the conflict will extend into all its individual departments, and give to the activity in them a greater intensity. Religion, art, and human society all have first to overcome the opposition of subjective power and alien given condition, and thereby to win a truth. In no case does truth mean a taking up of things which are presented to the activity of life—it means rather an advance of life to its own perfection.

In accordance with this conception of truth, that which claims to be true will not be able to prove its right otherwise than through its power, that is, through its capacity to embrace life as a whole and to raise it above opposition into the state of complete activity. Every such attempt must prove its power and its right in opposition to rivals by being able to wrest from them the truth contained by them, and in new relationships to lead beyond the state they reach, and to change life more into a self-consciousness than they are able.

Hence the endeavour after truth here shows more movement, more freedom, more multiplicity: different starting points and different ways may be chosen, and the correctness of the one need not involve the incorrectness of the other. The only indispensable thing is that the movement pass beyond the state of division and reflection to one of complete activity; only in that way can the content of life gain through the movement of life. And so we see the great significance of progress in work, in spiritual work; according as it succeeds, genuine life is distinguished from the mere will to live. To be sure, each piece of work that is here undertaken is a venture; it is far easier and far more secure to continue in the state of mere reflection and reasoning. But the latter does not lead us to an experience and a decision in a matter concerning the development of life, and therefore does not bring us a step further in this chief matter. Work with its failures is better than all subtle contemplation which leads to no activity; for failure can lead us beyond itself to truth, while feebleness and inactivity keep us in the old position.

In our conception of it truth is anything but a system of universal propositions out of which, by deduction, all detail might be derived. Rather the organisation of life into an inner unity, upon which in this view of truth everything depends, will exclude all that is only general and turn towards the differentiation of the whole. The more life progresses in this direction the less is it a mere application of general principles; the less does it find its consummation after the manner of a conclusion from given premises; the more does it become a progressive activity, a new formation and an elevation.

In this conception, there is also room for a truth peculiar to the single individuals. As the comprehensive life-synthesis can permeate every individual detail of existence, so it is necessary for every individual life-centre to realise its own particular synthesis, and that every individual should fight for his inner unity and thus, also, for a truth of his own; he must, however, realise this unity and truth in every particular activity. A truth which is not my truth is, for me, not a complete truth. Only it is necessary that such individualisation be effected within the whole, not independent of it; it must result from the inner necessity of creative activity, not out of a vain wish to excel. In any case, it follows here that, as the immanent and universal form of truth requires more activity and power, it is also able to grant more free movement and multiplicity. Truth and freedom have been thought opposed to one another in the course of history; if the former seemed to require unconditional submission, the latter had a strong tendency to shake off every tie as an oppressive yoke. If we see that truth of life can be reached only through freedom, and also that freedom acquires a content and a spiritual character only through its relation to truth, the opposition by no means entirely disappears, but a basis is won upon which we may strive to attain an agreement and a fruitful interaction between the two.

So understood, the problem of truth has the closest connection with that of reality: with regard to the one as to the other we are concerned in a conflict against the external conception common to a naïve state of life, which, though far surpassed by the inner movement of the work of history, obstinately asserts itself through the evidence of the senses in single individuals and hardly ceases to impress men with its apparent self-evidence. The naïve way of thinking understands reality as a space which encompasses men and things; reality seems to be presented, “given,” to man through the senses; only that which is exhibited to man in these sense-relations passes current as real. In this Ptolemaic form of life, dominated by sense impression, everything other than sense fades to a mere illusion, and this includes the spiritual life itself, although in it alone is reality known. Now, however, as science has with no mean power led beyond this Ptolemaic representation of nature, so the development of life has led beyond the Ptolemaic reality. Life could not emancipate itself from its attachment to the environment and develop an inwardness without effecting a revolution in this problem. The inward becomes the first and surest experience, with which all that is to pass current as real must show itself to be in consistent relation: everything external loses its proximity and becomes a problem; it can be established as real only through that which it achieves for the inner nature and in accordance with the standards of that nature. The power to convince possessed by sense impression is now based, not on its obviousness, but on the spiritual activity that it arouses. Here also, only the experiences of the spiritual life itself can lead to the experience of something less than spiritual.

As such a revolution brings clearly to consciousness the spiritual achievement in the formation of reality, so at the same time it gives the object more movement and transforms it in spiritual endeavour. Two things are necessary to the conception of reality: an independence of man, and a realisation of the many as a unity. Now, since that which lies wholly beyond experience must for that reason be inaccessible to us, this assertion of independence can have no other meaning than that, within life itself, something becomes detached from the stream of consciousness and fixes and asserts itself as independent of it. The power thus to transcend the time-process is a characteristic mark of all spiritual activity; this activity evolves within us something in opposition to us, and in so doing accomplishes a marvellous expansion. This is most clearly seen within the sphere of thought. For all the functions peculiar to thought receive their differentiating characteristic only through such a detachment from the flow of sense-presentation and by establishing themselves as independent of it: the concept presents its content as something fixed in contrast to the stream of presentations; the judgment proclaims its connection of concepts to be something that does not pass away with the act of connecting them but persists in face of all the changes of the psychical life. Life accomplishes a gradation within itself and lifts itself above the mere stream of change. Only because life establishes within itself a fixed nucleus, and in this manner wins an independence of its own momentary condition, can it oppose a world to itself, and set itself the task of appropriating this world—that, further, that independent nucleus should remain no mere collection, but should be inwardly unified is again a requirement and an achievement of the spiritual life. How far that requirement will be fulfilled depends upon the nature and the degree of the development of the spiritual life.

Reality, therefore, is to be found chiefly in the self-consciousness of the spiritual life; from this self-consciousness we build up our reality. Since spiritual requirement is from this point of view the measure of human undertaking, our activity is judged by the degree to which the state of the world is changed in it and has thus become our reality. How far our capacity reaches in this matter cannot be decided by preliminary consideration, but only by the progress of life itself: in particular it is not permissible to assume things-in-themselves independent of us and thus to reduce our world to a realm of mere appearances. For, so far as that independence reached, things could never enter our life, and never be inwardly appropriated; at most they could concern us only in their effects. As far as the conception of nature as a mechanism is concerned, which regards all occurrence as a texture of related individual points which exist, inaccessible, behind it, there is much to be said for the view that things are only known in their effects; but this view is an intolerable limitation—dogmatic in the highest degree—if it is meant to represent our fundamental relation to reality and to ourselves. For then we should be related to ourselves as to something alien; all the self-consciousness of life would be destroyed; there could be no development of being in contrast to single acts, but we must be completely resolved in the stream of appearances; there would be no advance in the striving after reality. As a matter of fact, we are concerned primarily with the content that life is able to give to itself; how far it presses forward to reality. Our world is to be measured more especially by the degree in which life becomes deepened. But from the beginning man, so far as he shares in the spiritual life, is not a being adjacent to reality, but within it. He would never be able to attain to a reality if he did not bear it within himself and needed only to develop it. Thus ultimately he does not look inwards from outside, but outwards from within; and his limitation is not the chief thing, but the secondary.

The inner structure of our life corresponds with this conviction. It is characteristic of all spiritual life that it does not pass hither and thither between individual points, but includes and develops a multiplicity within a transcendent unity; by this the spiritual life grows within itself, and more and more acquires a self-consciousness. And it is just in this way that it evolves to a reality. Reality, therefore, here is not a fixed and completed magnitude, but is of different degrees. In the first place there is a difference in the energy which maintains a union of the manifold and a transcendence of the division: according to the nature of this energy the self appears, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker; its power of changing, at one time greater, at another smaller. Again, the force of the resistance that the given condition to be appropriated offers, differs according to the amount of its positive power; and the clash of the given condition and free activity will be harder or more gentle according to this power. One man finds intolerable contradictions where to another all is plain and smooth; one believes that things are transformed in their own being where another holds that only their surface is affected: and so, that which one regards as reality may seem to another only a realm of shadows.

Mere energy, however, is too subjective to be able to obtain a genuine reality from life: for that, a transformation of life in work, an elevation to full activity, is necessary; but the preceding paragraph has shown that this transformation and elevation is of different kinds and of different degrees. The system of the formation of being promises to give to life the most fundamental organisation and the most forceful reality. For into the single elements embraced by the movement of life it is able to breathe a life of their own, to confer upon them an incomparably greater independence than in those systems in which they are regarded as lifeless objects which are acted upon, and which only set isolated forces in motion. When within a comprehensive life different centres of life meet, and in their interaction the activity of the whole wins an ever richer content and a more stable nature, genuine reality must increasingly unfold itself.

Looked at from this position, reality is not a fact but a problem and an ideal; it does not lie at the beginning but at the end of the course: it is different with different individuals, peoples, and times; each in its particular nature and work has its own reality. Thus we cannot comprehend the problem of reality from experience without conceiving reality as existing in flux: the assertion of an independent spiritual life, transcendent over all human undertaking, is a sufficient safeguard against a destructive relativism. It is one of the most troublesome appearances in the conflicts of minds that they fail to recognise the many-sidedness and fluidity of our conceptions of reality; that each takes his conception as the self-evident one and urges it upon the others. In this way originate the many unfruitful disputes concerning this world and the next, immanence and transcendence, in which the most external and superficial conception is usually presented as self-evident; while yet, according to the fundamental relation and the chief basis of life, very different conceptions arise, and as a fact, systems of thought nowhere come into more severe conflict than with regard to their conceptions of reality. Only to a mode of thought which, without further consideration, accepts the world of sense as the genuine and only reality, can philosophy and religion, for example, appear to be occupied with things implying an “other” world, and which, therefore, are incomprehensible. On the contrary, Augustine thought to attain to genuine reality and at the same time a true life only by elevation to a realm above sense, so that to him the world of sense was secondary and derivative.

To-day we are again deeply concerned with the problem of reality. Notwithstanding all the passionate agitation of forces in the incalculable extension of and the breathless haste in work, a genuine reality fails us; our life lacks the proper character of being real; and so, in the midst of all the external results of our work, our life, spiritually discerned, threatens to become destitute and unreal. An eager desire for reality exists in our time; it is often thought possible to satisfy it by the closest possible connection with sense impression and impulse, and by expelling as far as possible all elements of thought. But thought is there, and cannot be expelled; with its power to analyse, it steps continually between us and things, takes away from them the proximity they have for us, and dissolves them into mere pictures and shadows. As a fact, the problem of reality lies primarily within the spiritual life; and it cannot be solved otherwise than in that the spiritual life advances within itself from division to unity, from the movement of forces to self-determining activity, from all mere activity to a formation of being. If thus our life becomes transformed into a self-preservation, if in it we unfold and assert a spiritual being, we become certain of a reality and feel a satisfaction. Never, however, can reality come to us from without.

(b) MAN AND THE WORLD

Through our whole investigation we have expressed the conviction that man acquires a secure relation to the world only through his belonging to a spiritual life acknowledged as independent; otherwise, all entrance to the world is shut off. The growing independence of the inner life has broken down the immediate connection which dominates the naïve way of thinking: if, however, man once finds himself set in a position of independence of the world, he can hardly draw it back to himself simply of his own capacity. All appeal to subtlety and reflection seems only to widen the gulf still more. Only the acknowledgment of an independent spiritual life offers a way out of such a desperate situation: if in the spiritual life the world attains to a self-consciousness, and if, on the other hand, the spiritual life is present and active within man, there is a possibility that man and the world are united; and that, at the same time, human life also becomes cosmic. But it is a question how far the possibility comes to be realised; how far the union that exists in the innermost basis can be developed and transformed within us in the work of life. Only the actual experience of life can answer this question. We must ascertain whether there are any particular developments of life which are not productions of the human, but which manifest the operation of a transcendent world; and, further, whether these developments are able to find a more detailed formation in their contact with the world around us, and to adapt themselves to the multiplicity of this world. Such a turning to the individual thing would be impossible if a complete life-form ruled within us and impressed itself on things only from the outside. For in this case this form must inevitably be uniformly effective in its whole extent; in appropriating the multiplicity it could not itself advance to greater concreteness. If such an advance is effected, there is a contact within life between the one and the other; and so the world acquires an inner connection with our activity, and the spiritual movement can take possession of the breadth of our life and with its differentiation gain a greater intuitiveness.

An immediate union of man and world is indeed opposed to the fact that the spiritual life which should unite them always exists, for us, in its particular form in human existence and that this form cannot be projected beyond man into the whole. The form of human existence constitutes an insuperable boundary; if it governed our life as a whole, then man could never overstep his narrow, particular sphere. But it is a conviction that is fundamental to our investigation that our whole life does not come under this form, but that there are tendencies in life which are operative beyond this form of existence, and attain to an independence of it. So far as these life-tendencies may be detached and developed, man may confidently take up the problem of the world, and feel related to the world around him; he can try to transform its life into his own. The particularity of his manner of presentation and perception then simply sets the limitation, that that which may be admitted to be certain and true in its fundamental content can be presented only through the medium of human peculiarity; the more detailed amplification of the representation is always only of a symbolic character. We see from this fact that there is a contradiction ever present within our life that prevents it from ever gaining an ultimate conclusion; however, it does not take from us the possibility of an inner union and a community with the whole. Indeed, the contradiction itself, and the powerful movement that it calls forth, are to the train of thought here indicated a witness to a fundamental expansion of our life.

An attempt to unite our life with the whole appears in the first place in thought, in its work of obtaining knowledge. This emergence of thought involves a transformation of life that could never be occasioned by mere man, but can be understood only as the revelation of a new stage of universal life. In thought, the intellect, otherwise bound to the mechanism of the sequence of presentations, attains an independence. It places itself in a position independent of the world, and seeks to comprehend it as a whole, to appropriate it as a whole. The primary connection with things is dissolved, to become established anew upon a higher level and with an important transformation of its nature; through the deviation a real appropriation is achieved. All this is incomparably more than a merely becoming conscious of a given world, which is an experience that could arise in some way at isolated points; thought contains a development of the world which ultimately can proceed only from the power of the world itself. How can the individual matter be elucidated if the whole remain obscure? How can the desire for enlightenment obtain such a power over man, and assert itself in him in opposition to the interests of his physical self-preservation, if a universal movement were not operative in him? Man does not elucidate the world, but the world elucidates itself within him. What is thus reached is valid not for him alone, but universally; the development of this universal movement of thought enables him to win a closer relation to the world, a life embracing the world.

Our thought cannot advance in the definite work of building up science without producing and employing a definite logical structure with fixed principles: these principles are immanent in the work of thought; they are above all the caprice and all the differences of the individuals. This logical structure cannot be carried over and applied to the world around us, as all scientific research carries it over and applies it, without implicitly presupposing an objective logic of things, a conceivability of experience: in this, man does not simply project externally and apply mechanically forms already existing in a complete and final state within him. For the multiplicity of things not only gives to those principles a particular form, in the production of which they must themselves participate, but through the relation to the world the fundamental forms are also further developed in their nature as a whole; it is only with the co-operation of both sides that the thought-structure achieves what is ultimately reached. The chief thing is that thought actually transcends the state of contemplative reflection, and advances to fully active work; that out of the movement of our thought proceed further developments, which extend to the object also; that, moreover, we come under the compulsion of inner necessities, and, possessing the highest freedom, are raised securely above all caprice. This creative thought in us, which is at the same time our own thought, constitutes a witness to a meeting of our thought with a thought that has its basis in things and in the whole. Inability to imagine such a thought should never lead to the denial of an absolute logic, with which all scientific research stands or falls. The disclosure of this relation, however, gives to our thought, in the midst of all doubt, a firm foundation, a joyful certainty, an infinite task.

Artistic creation and appreciation brings another characteristic unfolding of life; and this also demonstrates an inner relation of man to the world, and can be developed only when this relation is acknowledged. In the first place, for this creation and appreciation a deliverance of life from the turmoil of ends and interests, which at first sway our existence, is essential; artistic creation and appreciation involves a resting and a tarrying in itself. If the world were no more than this turmoil, if it did not in some way attain to self-consciousness, how could such a deliverance be brought about? If a self-conscious life were not present in man, how could a longing for an artistic moulding of life arise in him? But an arousing of an inner life in things, the revelation of a soul, is accomplished not through imparting something from without, but through a meeting together of things and human endeavour. On the other hand, the spiritual expresses itself in a visible form and in doing so moulds itself. The chief thing in this connection is not mere beauty, a preparation for idle enjoyment, but a truth, a revelation of contents, a further development of life through and above the antithesis. How could something invisible and something visible, to express the matter briefly, find a common ground and combine together in a common action if nature were not more than the mere web of relations into which the mechanistic conception of it transforms it; if spiritual life were not more than the subjective form of life that it is supposed to be, according to general opinion; if from that form of life an inner life did not arise, and beyond all subjectivity attain to a full activity, and thus to the building up of a reality within its own province? That we do not simply become aware of a movement within ourselves, and then read it into nature, but only take up and lead to its own truth that which strives upward in nature, is again testified by the inner advance of this striving through its contact with the world, and by the infinite abundance of particular contents which are revealed to us in the world and which continually aid in our development. Again, our life experiences the most important elevation in that it takes up and carries further a movement of the whole, and is liberated from the narrowness of the particular sphere, without merging into a vague infinity. To realise clearly that we belong to the world, and energetically to amplify this relation, is of the greatest significance for artistic creation and appreciation. For it is only by becoming firmly established in these relations that artistic endeavour is able to resist the tendency to degenerate into play and pleasure—a tendency which threatens it with inner destruction; as in a similar manner the work of thought must guard itself from degenerating into mere reflection. In the realms of thought and art there remains much that is alien, ever surmise and symbol; but even symbol is not to be disdained, if it serves an important truth.

A universal character is shown most clearly by the movements that co-operate towards the ethical moulding of life. Without freedom there is no such moulding; but we saw above that freedom requires a world of spontaneous life and its presence within man. However, when freedom is thought of in these relations, it is elevated above the usual conception of it and also above the usual criticism. All moral life is pretence and delusion without the arousing and fundamental idea of duty. But where is the truth more clearly expressed than in duty, that what man does by no means concerns himself alone; and that nothing can constrain him but what he acknowledges as his own will, his own being? As duty is concerned ultimately not with something isolated but with a whole, not with a performance within the old order but with the creation of a new order, so in the moral life a whole new world appears to be taken up into man’s own will and being. Duty exhibits the new world particularly in relation and in opposition to the old; the new world appears in itself to be pre-eminently a kingdom of love. Love is primarily not a subjective emotion, but an expansion and a deepening of life, through life setting itself in the other, taking the other up into itself; and in this movement life itself becomes greater, more comprehensive and noble. Love is not a mere relation of given individuals, but a development and a growing in communion, an elevation and an animation of the original condition. And this movement of love has no limits; it has all infinity for its development; it extends beyond the relation to persons to the relation to things; for things also reveal their innermost being only to a disposition of love. Again, the striving after truth in science and art cannot succeed without love and an animation that proceeds from it, without inwardly becoming one with the object. How could this unity and activity in the whole be possible, how could it even become an object of desire, if the whole itself did not strive? And how could such a wealth of cultures proceed out of this movement if that which was striven towards at one time was not taken up and carried further by other times; how could the single movements tend together without the unifying and elevating power of a universal life? As a phenomenon to the individual, the movement involves a definite contradiction: wherever it has been further and more freely developed it has been directed to a kingdom of love; and this has necessarily been thought of as the soul of reality, and a severe conflict has been taken up against the world of self-assertion. Thus in the realm of morality also we find ourselves in world-movements, we create out of the whole, work towards the whole, and are borne on the flood of infinite life.

Accordingly, life-developments of various and related kinds arise: with their manifold experiences they strive to attain to a harmony and a union with one another. They can seek these only on the basis of a self-consciousness of reality; find them only through their unification in a universal life, to which each individual tendency leads. Representations of the whole are attempted at the highest points of creative activity by philosophy, religion, and art; these representations accompany, indeed govern, the work in these spheres of life through history. But the limitations of our capacity, through which we are unable to give a suitable form to necessary contents, and through which we attribute and must attribute human traits to that which should lead us beyond the human, are of particular force in this matter of forming a representation of the whole; and, indeed, this is the more so the further we remove ourselves from that which may be immediately transformed in work. These representations of the whole are, therefore, inadequate; their content of truth is clothed in a wrapping of myth, and humanity lies under the danger of taking the myth for the chief thing and thus of obscuring the truth, and this must produce an incalculable amount of error and strife. Still, it is impossible to give up all claim to these representations of the whole; for they alone make the fact of our belonging to the whole and of the presence of the whole in our life quite clear and enable it to exert a far-reaching influence. Only with their help can the degeneration of life to the intolerable insignificance of the narrowly human be resisted; only with their help can a movement from whole to whole begin.

Thus it is a matter not so much of abandoning these representations of the whole as of referring them continually to their essence; to those unfoldings of life which are experienced by us; to test them by these and to renew them from these. It was the error of the earlier position—much too indulgent to Intellectualism-that it did not sufficiently maintain the relation with these living sources, and so fell into the danger of having no definite tendency, or even of failing to recognise the relativity of the myth. If a more energetic direction of life upon its own content and experiences teaches us to preserve these connections better and to develop them more forcefully, a new type of representation of the whole is yielded in contrast to the old, and far more different from it than may appear at the first glance. We may hope that with its development the truth will be seen more clearly through the myth, and that the striving, which we cannot give up, to win a universal life may not lead us astray into a world of dreams.

(c) THE MOVEMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE IN MAN

The question as to in which direction the spiritual life moves in man is implied through our whole investigation, and in it receives an answer. Nevertheless, it requires to be definitely stated and treated by itself, so that the distinctive character of the movement and its influence in the moulding of life may be fully acknowledged. It has become clearly evident to us that an independent and, therefore, genuine spiritual life cannot arise out of life in its usual condition, but only in opposition to this condition. For, however little this condition of life may lack spiritual elements, they are mixed and bound up with other elements far too much to be able to bind themselves immediately into a whole, and to display an independent power. That the spiritual life must and can gain a basis independent of this condition of life is the indispensable, fundamental idea of Idealism. But such attainment of independence of the usual condition would help little if the spiritual life which is based upon itself had not a particular nature of its own, and if from this it did not oppose everything alien and partly alien to itself. The doctrines of innate ideas, of an a priori, and so on, which have occupied humanity for thousands of years did not intend anything different from this. The details of the conception of these were indeed often open to criticism: it was sought to exhibit individual conceptions and propositions as existing complete at the beginning, where rather movements or tendencies are in question, which can find their realisation only within the work of life. Again, the a priori was limited to the intellectual sphere, whereas it is indispensable to all spiritual activity; for example, how can morality, rising above merely natural preservation and rejecting all mere utility, as it does, be conceived without such an a priori? To deny to spiritual life an original nature and power—an a priori in this more comprehensive sense—means nothing else than to eliminate that life as an independent factor, and to reduce it to the position of a secondary product. For without an original nature the spiritual life would be like soft wax that may be shaped in one form or another to suit our own pleasure: then the spiritual life could not possibly follow its own aims, could not possibly attain to an independence in the inner life, in which we recognised the characteristic nature of the inner life. As certain as it is that there is a spiritual life at all, so certainly does it bring certain fundamental tendencies and movements with it; as surely as it develops in particular directions—and that it does this we have seen—so surely is this a priori also differentiated. To trace this fundamental state of spiritual activity in all its relations and multiplicity is an especially important task of philosophic research.

The revelation of such an original fundamental activity of the spirit must induce us to undertake to form our whole world from this activity, and to produce from it or to transform into it that which exists over against activity as an independent realm of experience. This has been attempted for thousands of years with the summoning of an enormous amount of spiritual power and the arousing of a proud self-consciousness. But failure was inevitable because it was not recognised that the development of the spiritual life in man is conditioned. However certain it may be that original spiritual movements must be active within us, they are not so with organised content and overwhelming power from the beginning, but they acquire content and power only through the process of life itself, only in grappling with the oppositions of experience and in the appropriation of the tasks and stimuli which experience brings to them. The incompleteness and the mutability of what was accepted earlier as a fixed and unchangeable racial possession of the spiritual life is to-day quite clearly perceived. What great changes morality, for example, has undergone in the course of the ages; how toilsomely has much been won which later ages have considered self-evident! To be sure, morality remains, even through all such changes, an original spiritual phenomenon, which can never be derived from an external source, but which could emerge and establish itself only as an inner necessity of the spiritual life in opposition to the realm of mere utility. But the actuality of this original phenomenon gives rise to a difficult problem, for the solution of which a closer contact with the environment, a fundamental arrangement with experience, is necessary. And so the problem is traced to a more ultimate source, and, though this makes the matter less simple, it gives a higher significance to our work and to the movement of history.

Even the fundamental forms of thought which are often accepted as of everything the most fixed share in this gradual amplification. Man, so far as he participates in spiritual impulse, thinks, of course, in conceptions; he gives to appearances fixed points of support by the establishing of things, and relates events causally. But all this is full of problems and is comprehended only in its upward endeavour; it raises more problems than it solves; and around the solution of these the whole work of science moves. What different things the “idea” meant to Plato and to Kant, and to ancient and to modern thought generally: how every thinker of moment has given a particular conception of substance and of causality; how whole epochs have exhibited their particular nature in the treatment of these problems!

For the sake of its own perfection, therefore, the spiritual life must continually turn back to the realm of experience, from which, at first, it tore itself free. Attempts to evolve the whole life from that a priori have always given as a result something of a bloodless nature, abstract in the highest degree, a mere web of formulæ, in so far as experience, which had been relegated to the background, has not indirectly asserted its right again, and infused the formulæ with life. Accordingly, our life does not spend itself in one direction, but bears within it the counter-tendencies of a tearing oneself free from the world of sense and a returning back to it, of a detachment from it and an appropriation of it to oneself. But, in this, independent life and bound life do not become combined; how could that be the case without the loss of all inner unity? A basis is necessary; and it is furnished only by self-determining activity. Experience acquires a spiritual content and value only so far as it is based upon this activity, and is taken up into a spiritual movement. Experience does not share something with the spiritual life, but, through stimulation and opposition, it forces that life to further development within itself. The state in which the world of sense is first found undergoes an inner elevation in that appropriation: sense presentation, for example, is to scientific work something quite different from what it is to naïve perception; even if it obstinately withstands a complete resolution into magnitudes of pure thought, it takes up more and more thought elements; it enters into conceptual relations; it answers questions which the work of thought sets. To the whole sphere of sense science gives the background of a world of thought, and transforms mere sense into a spatially bound spirituality.

The same thing is valid with regard to the things of value in life; in these, also, sense and spirit are not simply combined; but something of sense becomes a spiritual good only so far as it serves the spiritual life in some way; it cannot do this, however, without itself undergoing a transformation. This is to be seen nowhere more clearly than in economics. Money and estate had at all times a value for self-preservation and enjoyment, but in the doctrine of economics and political economy they could obtain acknowledgment only after a power to advance the spiritual life had been recognised in them. As culture in the ancient world had not yet reached this point of view, it branded all endeavour after material wealth as inferior, and as far as possible checked such endeavour. Only since the Modern Age has recognised in money and estate an indispensable means of gaining control over the surrounding world and of increasing human power have they secured a place within the spiritual life, and as a result of this have become more highly estimated. At the same time, however, they have been changed inwardly in the process, since that which they achieve, not towards ostentatious display and enjoyment, but towards the increase of human power over things has become the chief matter.

As in this way the content and the value of that which is offered by the world of sense shows its dependence upon the condition of the spiritual life, so in science also a similar relation between experience and the spiritual life is found. Science appeals to experience with particular zeal, more especially after it has first accomplished far-reaching changes in its own thought constructions; only then does experience give anything new to knowledge and exhibit a greater depth. Experience can answer only in the measure in which it is questioned; the question, however, varies according to the stage of development of the spiritual life.

Such a view fully appreciates the significance of life-work, and must strive energetically to gain its acknowledgment. This work is not a carrying out of a complete scheme in a given condition of things, an application of firmly rooted principles to particular cases, but a self-realisation and self-perfecting of the spiritual life which builds up a self-conscious reality. In this our life is not divided between two different realms, but, in a comprehensive spiritual world, different stages of reality meet together, which must be brought into relation and developed. To be sure, the world of sense retains a certain independence; it resists a complete transformation into spiritual magnitudes, and our life, therefore, retains a certain restriction and impenetrability. But the self-consciousness of the spirit becomes more and more the chief basis and sphere of life: this self-consciousness continually takes up more into itself; it makes the world that was to us at first primary, indeed the only world, more and more secondary and subordinate.

This increasing spiritualisation of human life never becomes a sure possession that calls for no toil; ever anew it demands our attention and activity; it has continually to be won anew as a whole. As soon as the tension slackens, the world of experience with its appeal to sense preponderates, and it soon appears to be man’s sole world, one which cannot tolerate anything beyond itself. For the spiritualisation of human life, a longing rooted in the whole being is primarily necessary; for with the keen feeling of the vanity of the world of sense experience, this leads to the removal of the centre of life into the invisible world of self-determining activity. Further, a clear presentation of this invisible world is needed; and in this the help of the visible is not to be dispensed with. For its own establishment the realm of the invisible must borrow means of expression from the visible, which now governs human presentation; must transform and refine them for its aims; prepare out of them an impressive presentation of the whole. Along with the energy of turning to the spiritual life a creative imagination is required, through which the invisible may become equal to holding its own against the visible.

The help of such imagination is indispensable for religion, in order that the supernatural world advocated by it may gain an effective presence in the province of humanity. And so with bold upward flights of imagination the heroes of religion have projected a new condition of reality as a whole, a kingdom of justice or of love, and have judged human existence by the standard of this new condition. Similarly, philosophy did not become an independent world of thought without the help of imagination; and of how indispensable it is to art we need not speak at all. Again, work in political, social, educational matters, at least as far as radical renewals are concerned, has really been taken up and carried on, and has won a triumphant power, only where the state striven for has been presented as something visible and clearly present; this alone has united the multiplicity, and has led with compelling force beyond the extant situation as though that were something intolerable. Humanity as a whole must be present in an ideal condition to our minds for us to be aroused sufficiently from our indolence.

Our life, therefore, contains movements which tend in opposite directions: there are a pressing forward and a turning backward, a detachment from experience and a taking up again of experience; and so we may well speak of an action and reaction within its movement. But the antitheses that arise aid in advancement only so long as they are encompassed by a whole of activity. In that the course of history increases far more than it diminishes the antitheses, the dangers grow more and more, the possibilities and the tasks of human existence, however, also grow.

(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.

Human life by participation in the spiritual life finds its basis in the inward and spontaneous, in the infinite and eternal. The development and the experiences of the spiritual life and its conflict with a world, which is only being won, are here the chief content of human life and unite individuals inwardly; the destinies of individuals receive their particular nature from such a common life. As this life of independent spirituality is possible only by detachment from the chaotic condition of life as we find it at its general level, the development of the spiritual life must make us clearly conscious of the spiritual destitution of the majority; and especially must it oppose the attempt on the part of such a life as that of the majority to present itself as the whole, and to make itself the standard of human endeavour. In such an attempt the trivially human inevitably preponderates, and this now, at its highest points, invests itself with ostentatious pomp and a feeling of power; now, almost as a whole, relies on the reason of the masses, which loudly and noisily proclaims that those things which according to human opinion are valuable are of all things the highest; confidently makes its judgment and its task the standard of truth; and, with arrogant presumption, demands a reverence towards itself that is due solely to the spiritual world. From of old there have been many indictments of this, but as long as a new life, based in the spiritual world in contrast with merely human life, was not attained to, these indictments did not lead to a deliverance. Under the guidance of religion humanity has evolved such a life and for thousands of years has found support in it. However, humanity has lost this life and this support, in its old form, and the loss was inevitable. If humanity will strive after a new form and at the same time transcend mere appearance, it can attain to this only on the basis of the spiritual life, that is acknowledged to be independent. Only on this basis can it enter into the conflict on the side of gods against idols, for truth against appearance and emptiness.

The new life cannot develop without elevating the individual in his spiritual nature above all environment. For, as surely as the construction of a spiritual reality within humanity needs a union of all powers, there is a spontaneous springing up of the independent spiritual life only within the soul of the individual. All social and all historical life that does not unceasingly draw from this source falls irrecoverably into a state of stagnation and desolation. The individual can never be reduced to the position of a mere member of society; of a church, of a state; notwithstanding all external subordination he must assert an inner superiority; each spiritual individual is more than the whole external world. But as the individual does not derive this superiority from himself, not from a natural particularity and peculiarity in distinction from others, but only from the presence of a spiritual world, so he is securely guarded from all vain self-assurance and the arrogance of the idea of the Superman, which grotesquely distorts the great fact of the revelation of a universal life at individual points.

The desire for the presence of the infinite at the individual point may be characterised as an approximation to mysticism. Indeed, we need both a metaphysic and a mysticism; but we want both in a new form, not in the old. It seems to us preposterous to declare that necessary demands of the spiritual life are finally disposed of, because the older solution has become inadequate. If man does not in some way succeed in appropriating the spiritual life, if it is not actively present as a whole within him and animating him, then his relation to the spiritual life remains for ever an external one; and this life cannot acquire a complete spontaneity in him, can never become a genuine life of his own. But the older mysticism was the offspring of a worn-out age, which primarily reflected upon quietness and peace, and was under the influence of a philosophy that sought the truth in striving towards the most comprehensive universal, and saw in all particularity a defect (omnis determinatio negatio). And so, to be completely merged in the formless infinite could be regarded as the culmination of life. As the spiritual life is to us, on the contrary, an increasing activity and creation, a world of self-determining activity, so its being called to life at individual points is a rousing of life to its highest energy; in this also, a continual appropriation is necessary. Further, the movement of the spiritual life does not appear to us as an advance from particular to universal, but as one from differentiation to the living whole; from the indefiniteness of the beginnings to complete organisation and distinctive form. The inwardness that we advocate is not a feeble echo and a yearning for dissolution, but is of an active and masculine nature, and rests on ceaseless self-determining activity. One may or may not call this mysticism; in any case mysticism of such a kind cannot be charged with that which now appears to us to be defect or error in the older form.

(2) The Increase of Movement

As certainly as a universal life must surround us and, with efficient power, in some way be implanted within us, yet only our own activity can appropriate and amplify that life for us. As the transition to the independent spiritual life changes the problem so that no achievement in a given world will satisfy it, but only the winning of a new world, our existence must become much more active; our life must be made not only much more comprehensive but also inwardly transformed and deepened.

Naïve opinion is accustomed to presuppose a fixed sphere for our activity; it is possible for it to do this only because it confuses the spiritual and that which is less than the spiritual and leaves them undifferentiated. Since the attainment of independence by the spiritual life makes this confusion impossible, it may at the same time be recognised that the fixed relations in which we seem to be are also in reality due to our own activity. From this fact a method of treatment is justified, the introduction of which constitutes one of the greatest services of Kant. This method in his own terminology is the transcendental method. Unlike ordinary opinion, it does not regard the relation of the departments of life and all its activities as being self-evident, but it enquires into the inner possibility of this relation, that is, it indicates the conditions without which the union of the manifold could not be accomplished; it reveals the spiritual activity that exists in the whole. It reveals a far finer texture of life; it shows syntheses from the whole to the elements; it indicates clearer limits and makes us more definitely recognise what differentiates the individual departments. This is what Kant did in the case of scientific knowledge, of morality, and of the realm of the beautiful. The transcendental method itself is first indisputably justified and given a secure foundation with the acknowledgment that a world of independent spirituality emerges in man, and this through his own activity, not by a mere favour and gift of destiny. For, when this independent spiritual world is acknowledged it first becomes a matter beyond doubt that the basis, and the bonds which unite the whole, could not be given, but must proceed from our own activity. The transcendental method must therefore be applied not only to the individual branches but also to the whole, and the possibility of a spiritual life in man in general made a problem. Then from the whole the method must also be extended to the departments that are not brought into prominence by Kant; it must discuss, for example, the possibility of history in a characteristically human sense. Since our reality is thus dependent in the first place upon our own activity, life and movement acquire a wider scope and a greater value.

The movement of life also tends to be increased by the fact that in our conviction the more detailed form of the spiritual life itself must first be won by our activity, and that this detail can be acquired only little by little through attempts, experiences, convulsions; that for man the spiritual life with its actuality forms a difficult problem. What more particularly separates us from the Enlightenment is that while for it the ultimately valid form of the spiritual life appeared to be immediately present and to need only an energetic working out, we extend the historical treatment not only to the representation, but also to the nature, of the spiritual life; and so the ultimately valid form of the spiritual life appears to be a high ideal, to which man can only gradually approximate. The fact that endeavour is centred not upon externals but primarily upon our own being must make our activity far more significant and more intense; and this leads to a higher estimate of history as well as of a historical treatment. As hence epochs are no longer distinguished simply by their achievements, but by the nature of their spiritual life, so the life of the present must also be given its place in the moving stream, and so our innermost nature also depends on spiritual work.

If with such an increase of movement much is mutable that otherwise seemed to be as firm as a rock; and if, in particular, the foundations of life themselves also suffer change, life seems to lose all support and to fall into an unlimited relativism. Indeed, life must thus lose all stability if in the spiritual sphere movement does not involve something in opposition to change: and this as a fact it does involve. As the spiritual life cannot develop a content without presenting it as timeless, there is no great achievement in history that does not include some kind of timeless truth, and the movement of the spiritual life is not merely a flowing onward with time but also an elevation above time. In spiritual work, therefore, the achievements of the ages can be surveyed and examined; indeed, in distinguishing between past and not past the sequence of times can be transformed into a timeless present. Of course this is valid only with the presupposition of an absolute spiritual life, which is present in all the uncertainty and change of human undertaking, and does not allow it to become fixed in error. Unless an immanence of the absolute spiritual life is acknowledged, an essential characteristic of the spiritual work of the Modern Age remains absolutely unintelligible, namely, its critical character. Modern work is not completely objective, and occupation with the object does not completely exhaust that work; but activity realises its independence of the object, investigates its relation to the object, surveys that which has been achieved, and tests it by transcendent standards. Such a critique belongs especially to the fundamental nature of the Enlightenment, to the proud self-confidence of which a conscientious self-examination forms a necessary antithesis. The critical method reached its highest point in Kant, and we can never go back again upon the transformation of life that has been effected by it. But how could the critique be justified and exercise such far-reaching influence as it has done, if it were not more than a product of a subjective reflection that accompanies the object, and that has to do with the object externally? The critique could effect an inner transformation and elevation of work only because it set new forces in motion. And it did this in that it measured all human achievement by the demands of a transcendent spiritual life and out of it developed inner necessities, to which all achievement had to correspond. So the movement was not lost through the lack of an aim; and life did not flow onward with the stream of presentations, but found a support in itself; it was able to exert a powerful counteraction; it did not need to acknowledge anything that had not proved its validity before the judgment-seat of immanent reason. This emergence of the question of validity in contrast to that of actuality must inwardly raise and ennoble the movement of life; it reveals to man an active relation not only to the environment but primarily to himself; it leads to a ceaseless differentiation and examination of the quality of life.

It is true that the Enlightenment, which acknowledged that alone to be true which was clearly and distinctly cognised, exercised this critique in a too narrow manner; yet notwithstanding all that may be problematical in its application to details, the right and the necessity of the fundamental idea are not thereby overthrown: the question remains; it can be fully justified only in the relations that we have indicated; but at the same time it must be transferred from the merely intellectual to the spiritual as a whole, and form in relation to the whole that which in the state of culture contains and develops an independent spirituality and a self-conscious life; but by this it gains a content of truth. This self-consciousness alone can be regarded as essence and genuine reality, while everything else is reduced to mere environment and becomes matter of secondary importance, if not of mere appearance. Task after task is revealed, more especially for the present; we see how, with the attainment of independence by the spiritual life, the movement is not only extended, but also grows inwardly and tends towards the elevation of life.

(3) The Gain of Stability

The movement of the spiritual life as not only directed towards the outside but also turned inwards towards itself gained for us a greater independence. But even that which emerges from within exists only in the process of formation, and in this that which satisfies us to-day may to-morrow be uncertain; and so we cannot dismiss the question whether the spiritual life lacks the necessary stability; whether, in the midst of all becoming and change, caprice and subjectivity are not without the necessary opposition. In any case, the question of fixation must have a different appearance within a system of life based upon activity from that it would have within a system which proceeded from a given world: in the former, that which is fixed cannot be introduced from outside, but must exist within the movement itself; it can manifest itself only through a movement of a kind and form which transcend the utmost capacity of the mere subject.

Our investigation as a whole contends that the fixity is of this kind; and at this point only a short revision and a summing up are required. All spiritual activity is, as we saw, a transcendence of the antithesis of subject and object; it is progressive and formative universal activity. But this activity cannot be produced and formed according to desire or fancy; we must be elevated into it; and, as a result of this, we feel that we are under the compulsion of an inner necessity, which distinctly counteracts the caprice of the mere subject. We saw, further, that within the life-process spiritual contents are raised out of the stream of events, and that they unite so as to form a world in contrast with that stream, a world greater and more comprehensive, which nevertheless continues within our life. This applies to all the branches of our work; everywhere the deciding step to joyful advance is when activity proceeds from mere search and contemplation under the necessity of the object. No resolution, however, or even the most sincere volition, can of itself force us to this decisive step. Man must be taken possession of by a spiritual activity and power, and elevated above the state of groping and doubt. This is shown in all scientific work and artistic creation; everywhere success does not appear to be the work of the human, but a gift and a grace from higher forces; everywhere those who have created have felt guided and sustained by such forces. Beyond individuals humanity as a whole develops complexes in science, in law, and so on, which evolve inner necessities and require their recognition and fulfilment by man, and follow courses of their own regardless of the weal or the woe of individuals; so far as life follows these tendencies, it is elevated above doubt to a state of stability and joyfulness.

Such movements appear at first as a multiplicity, and are most directly effective through that which is distinctive in the particular departments of life. But through all multiplicity and above it, there is a striving towards a comprehensive unity; every advance towards this unity is an immediate gain in stability and certainty. Nothing helps the individual to become inwardly firm more than the unification of his life in a whole of activity, more than becoming certain of an inward all-comprehensive task in the development of a spiritual individuality. The development of a spiritual individuality is a task that comes to him from within, and which, while it is more than anything else his own, is yet above all caprice. This task may tend little to promote that which is usually called happiness; the striving to fulfil it may transform the whole of existence into a state of toil and trouble, of conflict and care; and yet it alone gives to life a meaning and a value, a sure direction and a secure self-consciousness, and by assuring man of a spiritual existence of his own makes him certain of the spiritual life as a whole. Such a unification of the manifold activities so as to form a life-work, an incomparable kind of spiritual being, is something entirely axiomatic, which is in no way derived from outside. Again, this unification does not depend upon particular representations of the world; only the fanaticism of party can bind it to definite doctrines of the human and the divine. It itself, however, is a secure starting-point for the development of convictions; its acknowledgment involves the acknowledgment of a spiritual world independent of and operative within us, and summoning us to co-operation, even though this implication is often concealed from consciousness. Where our own life lacks such a fountain-head the conviction of a spiritual life never attains to axiomatic certainty, but depends on the thin threads of reasons and proofs, and therefore is most easy to overthrow. And so, for the overcoming of doubt and faintheartedness everything depends upon attaining to a unity of activity and creation which inwardly embraces life as a whole, and with this, upon being something, not simply doing something.

What is valid of individuals is valid also of peoples and epochs, of humanity as a whole. Whether a people feels certain of a spiritual life, and is thereby elevated to a state of inward joyfulness, depends primarily upon whether it recognises and acknowledges in itself a common spiritual task: if this is not the case, the acutest apologetic cannot prevent the increase of doubt and faintness of heart. Similarly, the disposition and life-feeling of epochs is decided primarily by whether their endeavour unites them inwardly or whether it is divided, and at the same time becomes inconsistent. The endeavour of our own time does suffer from such division and inconsistency; it is this in particular that gives the negative tendency so much power over us and in the midst of all greatness of achievement in external matters makes us inwardly despondent. Humanity as a whole can attain to a stable spiritual life which is more than that of the particular times and peoples only by the revelation and appropriation of an all-comprehensive task which governs it with inner necessities. Such a task alone makes life a preservation of spiritual character; and gives conviction an unshakable firmness, and a joyous confidence of victory. And so everywhere only the formation of life itself is able to guarantee to it inner stability; the movement itself by its elevation above all caprice and its inner unity is alone able to overcome the dangers which the transformation of life into activity brings with it.

(e) ACTIVISM: A PROFESSION OF FAITH

The system of life here developed receives its distinctive colour and tone chiefly because it brings into prominence the fact that we do not belong to a world of reason, which from the beginning had only to be perceived and enjoyed, but that we have first to advance to such a world; and for this we require a revolution of the first condition of things. The basis of true life must continually be won anew; and even the individual achievement always contains a decision between one and another type of life. Only through ceaseless activity can life remain at the height to which it has attained; that which life experiences and receives is judged according to the more precise form of activity. Since it gives this precedence to activity, to such activity, this system may be called “Activism.” Activism, however, demonstrates its unique character and develops its capacity only if it is definitely distinguished from all other apparently related tendencies. Neither a sudden resolution nor even a mere incitement of power brings us at once into the condition of activity. For at first we are surrounded and embraced by a world of inflexible nature and of feeble spirituality, which is at the same time mixed with human pretence: this world binds us so strongly, and suppresses all independence with such force, that the mere individual remains entirely powerless in opposition to it, and could soar to no higher wisdom than that of an involuntary submission to it. Activity without release from the given world is an absurdity; but such release is attainable only through the living presence of a world of self-determining activity; the power of such a world alone is able to arouse the individual to self-determining activity. But how could man appropriate this world to himself without changing its life into his own; without acknowledging its content as valid for himself also; without making its laws norms of his conduct?

Activity in this way acquires an ethical character; it is this which draws the boundary line between spiritual activity and merely natural impulse, and distinguishes genuine from imaginary self-determining activity. Ethical relation does not mean a submission to alien and unsympathetic regulations, but a taking up of the infinite spiritual world into our own volition and being: this relation brings things close to us and reveals them, so that they are able to impart their life to us, and we are able to grow with their growth. So understood, ethical relation is primarily not regulative but productive; it is not merely being prepared to fulfil certain demands, when they are made upon us, to live in accordance with strict regulations, but it involves the motive of aiding in the development of the world, of advancing everything good and true: it requires an untiring forward endeavour and advance to the building up of a kingdom of reason and love. If in this way conduct is lifted above the pursuit of that which pleases and interests the mere subject, this is not on behalf of something alien, but for the elevation of our own being, for the sake of this genuine being, for the sake of our spiritual self.

It is this inner elevation and this demand for a new world that distinguishes Activism from all mere Voluntarism and Pragmatism, to which it appears to approximate, and with which, in its negative aspect, it is, indeed, associated. For it shares with them the rejection of an intellectualistic view of life, in which cognition is regarded as finding truth of its own power and as conveying it to the rest of life. Further, Activism desires, as do Voluntarism and Pragmatism also, the basing of truth upon a more spontaneous and essential activity. But the flight to the will is more a reaction against Intellectualism than an overcoming of the difficulty. As such the will does not yield a new world and a transcendent power; it may, therefore, be that mere volition is implicitly transformed into a self-determining activity encompassing the whole extent of life. Pragmatism, also, which has recently made so much headway among English-speaking peoples and beyond them, is more inclined to shape the world and life in accordance with human condition and needs than to invest spiritual activity with an independence in relation to these, and apply its standards to the testing and sifting of the whole content of human life. But after the experiences of history the claim to this latter can scarcely be given up. After man has been seen to be particular and limited in nature, as things first present themselves, he no longer suffices for the starting-point of the endeavour for truth, but to attain to this starting-point an elevation above the human into a universal spiritual life is necessary. And that is the intention of Activism.

The unique character of Activism becomes clearer especially in comparison with organisations of life, of which one indeed makes activity the chief thing, but gives to it the character of a mere process; while another thinks of the fundamental relation of man to reality in general not under the ideas of conduct and progress but under those of contemplation and enjoyment. The idea that life constitutes a process transcending all human endeavour and decision has shown a strong power of attraction in the Modern Age; and, in the system of Hegel especially, has found an imposing embodiment. This idea is asserted most definitely in the evolutionary conception of history, since it regards the motive power of history as striving to its aim, certain of accomplishing it, and unaffected by human opinion and preference. By this deliverance from the insignificance of human motives and the variations of human conditions the object seemed to gain incomparably in greatness; but it was considered that this deliverance from man involved an elevation above the ethical conception, which then appeared to be something subjectively human. But not only does this conception of a process that ceaselessly advances with compelling necessity contradict the actual state of things as they are found in history, which shows so much stagnation and retrogression, and so many different spheres of culture existing side by side indifferent to one another, but the transformation of life into a mere process, if consistently carried out, must also destroy or seriously debase its spiritual character. If life were a mere process it would be nothing other than a soulless mechanism; only in the case of such a mechanism can one phase proceed immediately from the others without at the same time a whole of life becoming active and exercising an animating power within the whole process. As a fact, the process is usually supplemented in thought by a universal life unifying, sustaining, and controlling the individual phases; however, so far as such a life does not simply come to us, but needs our own activity, the deed comes before the process; and a new world reveals itself to us. The disregard of the ethical element by the systems which make mere process their fundamental idea is explained by the fact that they understand the ethical only as a decision and turning of man, accompanying the spiritual life, not as the motive and progressive power of the spiritual life itself. They know only a human ethic, not an ethic of the spiritual life—as a self-assertion and a self-elevation, through which it first attains its complete freedom and independence. Still, to trace this further is the less necessary since this mode of thought lives rather from earlier achievements than works from fresh impulse springing up in the present.

The relation of Activism to the æsthetic mode of thought requires closer consideration; we indicated at the beginning of our investigation that Æstheticism forms one of the chief streams of the life of the present day; at this point, only its relation to Activism need be examined. This Æstheticism has its definite conditions. Where the contemplation and enjoyment of the world and its beauty are to constitute the essence of life, we must be assured that the world is a kingdom of reason and beauty, so that the condition in which it is incites us to no far-reaching change. Further, there must be no perplexities in our soul, and no deep conflicts within our being, so that this contemplation may occupy us completely, and be a source of happiness. Lastly, we must be closely and surely united with the world so that a change of life may be accomplished easily and smoothly. If one of these requirements is not satisfied; if, instead of this harmony, the world manifests severe conflicts and harsh contradictions; if such exist also within our soul; if, lastly, there appears to be a deep gulf between us and the whole, then the æsthetic solution of the problem of life is an impossibility. If in spite of these contradictions we attempt to entertain this solution, our life will become insincere, and will lose all spiritual productivity, and, as a whole, our life will be spent in subjective mood, empty enjoyment, and become feeble. Now, however, the Modern Age develops in a direction which is directly opposed to the requirements of the æsthetic form of life. The great world appears to us to be a meaningless machine; and in the struggle for existence the earlier harmony is forgotten. We perceive in man far too much that is insignificant and far too much selfishness, emptiness, and mere show for us to be able to regard him as being inwardly complete. Lastly, the modern strengthening of the subject and the ceaseless growth of reflection have so fundamentally overthrown the immediate relation of man to the world that only a far-reaching transformation of life can prepare for a reunion. If our life is so full of problems and tasks; if we do not find ourselves in a completed world of reason; but if we must, with all our powers, work toward such a world, we shall turn to Activism as the only help possible. But we shall resolutely reject Æstheticism as a veiling of the real condition of things and a too facile solution of the great problems of life.

Activism does not imply that immediately and at one stroke our life may be transformed into spiritual activity and may quickly establish a positive relation to reality: that would be to fail to recognise the conditions under which man exists, and the necessity of undergoing experiences and changes. Such an attitude might easily lead to the formation of syntheses of life that would be much too hasty and far too narrow; and the necessary breaking up of these would arouse a keen distrust of the whole undertaking. The power which the Romantic movement from time to time wins over minds is based on the fact that it warns us against an over-estimation of our activity; that it demands that the soul should be open to the influences of the world; that its impressions should be appropriated without restriction and permitted to fade away completely; that in opposition to all the limitation and organisation of life, it still longs for the infinite; and that it also to some extent satisfies by turning to unrestrained feeling. At the same time, the Romantic movement makes us clearly conscious of the power of destiny, the transcendence of external and internal necessities above all human intention and utilitarian conduct. In this way life acquires a much greater comprehensiveness and freshness; it seems to return to its source, to retain far more immediacy. But it is one thing to acknowledge the importance of this, another to make it the essence of life. When such precedence is given to this Romantic tendency life threatens to become delicate, feeble, effeminate; it knows no energetic opposition to the flow of presentations; instead of a definite union it offers aphoristic thoughts and stimuli; through the lack of logical acuteness it falls into the direst contradictions; it sacrifices all distinct form and organisation to a revelling in vague moods. As in such a state of weakness the spiritual life does not succeed in gaining complete independence in face of the natural conditions of our existence, so it does not attain the necessary ascendancy over sense. Sense, in its own province entirely incontestable, raises doubts in us in that it flows together with the spiritual, is undifferentiated from it, brings it under itself, and turns it from its course. And, in this, sense does not possess the naïve freshness and the natural limitation of its original state, but it is over-refined and too full of excitement.

To recognise all this clearly is at the same time to acknowledge the superiority of Activism over all mere Romanticism. However much may still be lacking in Activism, through the fact that man often regards the difficult and complicated task as easy and simple, and thus sets too low an estimate upon the distance between himself and the spiritual world, there is still the objective necessity of the requirement to transform our life as far as possible into a state of independence, to achieve independence in opposition to a world confused and only half rational. Such a self-determining activity is by no means simply a matter of subjective disposition; it requires a particular form of life. In opposition to the desultoriness and change of the life of sense it needs a powerful unification and organisation. It advances to methods and laws of the object in contrast to playful caprice; to a logic of the object in opposition to a persistence in contradiction; to a further construction of the first impression in contrast to comfortable complacency; to a courageous continuation and building up of life in opposition to a complacent acceptance of destiny. It gives to life a dramatic character in contrast to a lyrical, sentimental one, and along with this it can acknowledge fully that a genuine drama usually contains much that is lyrical.

It is detrimental to Activism itself if it takes the problem of life lightly. It is vital that it should not forget or underestimate the fact that the effort to solve the problems of life meets with great difficulties, that the solution costs incalculable trouble and work, and that even when the best is achieved it is only approximate. When Activism recognises this fact it may acknowledge a certain validity in the positions of its opponents and may learn from them. But there is a harsh contradiction that extends to the innermost basis of life, an implacable “either—or,” whether man simply receives the world and accompanies it with his own mood, or whether he finds courage and power to take up a conflict against confusion and irrationality, to co-operate in the building up of a kingdom of reason. For the latter, the affirmation of reason in the innermost basis of reality as a whole and of his own being is necessary. Whether men and times find a way to such an inner establishment, to such transcendence of all external and internal limitation, is that which decides the main tendency of their life.