mind, even though that mind did
not believe in any of the traditional systems. Some would emphasise the
fact that religion should concern itself with the establishment of a
relationship between the human and the Divine.

But Eucken does not find religion to consist in belief, nor in a mere
attitude towards the mysteries of an overworld. In keeping with the
activistic tone of his whole philosophy he finds religion to be rooted
in life, and would define religion as an action by which the human being
appropriates the spiritual life.

The first great concern of religion must be the conservation--not of
man, as mere man, but of the spiritual life in the human being, and it
means "a mighty concentration of the spiritual life in man." The
essential basis that makes religion possible is the presence of a Divine
life in man--"it unfolds itself through the seizure of this life as
one's own nature." Religion must be a form of activity, which brings
about the concentration of the spiritual life in the human soul, and
sets forth this spiritual life as a shield against unworthy elements
that attempt to enter and to govern man.

The essential characteristic of religion must be the demand for a new
world. "Religion is not a communication of overworld secrets, but the
inauguration of an overworld life." Religion must depend upon the
contradiction and opposition that exists in human life, and upon the
clear recognition of the distinction between the "high" and the "low" in
life. It must point to a means of attaining freedom and redemption from
the old world of sin and sense, and to the possibility of being elevated
into a new and higher world. It must, too, fight against the extremes of
optimism and pessimism, for while it will acknowledge the presence of
wrong, it will call attention to the possibility of deliverance. It must
bring about a change of life, without denying the dark side of life; it
must show "the Divine in the things nearest at hand, without idealising
falsely the ordinary situation of life."

The great practical effect of religion, then, must be to create a demand
for a new and higher world in opposition to the world of nature. For
this new life religion must provide an ultimate standard. "Religion must
at all times assert its right to prove and to winnow, for it is
religion--the power which draws upon the deepest source of life--which
takes to itself the whole of man, and offers a fixed standard for all
his underta