reader if the latter course were adopted.
Thousands who have heard the name of Eucken and have read frequent
references to him are asking, "What has Eucken really to say?" and we
have attempted to give a systematic, if brief, answer to the question.
Having done this it will be well to mention some of the main points of
criticism that have been made, and to call attention again to some of
the remarkable aspects of the contributions he has made to philosophy
and religion.

Several critics complain of the obscurity of his writings, of his loose
use of terms, and of his tendency to use freely such indefinite and
abstruse terms as "The Whole," "The All," &c., and of his tendency to
repeat himself. Of course, if he is guilty of these faults, and he
certainly is to some extent, they are merely faults of style, and do not
necessarily affect the truth or otherwise of his opinions. In the matter
of clarity he is very variable; occasional sentences are brilliantly
clear, others present considerable difficulty to the practised student.
His more popular works, however, are much clearer and easier to
understand than the two standard treatises on _The Truth of Religion_
and _Life's Basis and Life's Ideal_. His tendency to repetition is by no
means an unmixed evil, for even when he appears to be repeating himself,
he is very often in reality expressing new shades of meaning, which help
towards the better understanding of the first statements.

The slight looseness in the use of terms, and a certain inexactness of
expression that is sometimes apparent, must of course not be
exaggerated; it is by no means serious enough to invalidate his main
argument. It gives an opportunity for a great deal of superficial
criticism on the part of unsympathetic writers, which, however, can do
little harm to Eucken's position. One has to remember that it is
difficult to combine the fervour of a prophet with pedantic exactness,
and that an inspired and profound philosopher cannot be expected to
spend much time over verbal niceties.

Of course one would prefer absolute clarity and exactness, but we must
guard against allowing the absence of these things to prejudice us
against the profound truths of a philosophical position, which are not
vitally affected by that absence.

Frequent criticism is directed towards the incompleteness of Eucken's
philosophy. He does not introduce his philosophy with a systematic
discussion of the great epistemological and