themselves, to shake away the
shackles of matter and vicinity, and to delve deep into the profounder
world?
If we can find what it is that makes all this possible, then surely we
have found the greatest thing in the world--the reality. And Eucken's
answer is clear and definite. It must be something that persists, is
eternal and independent of time, and it must extend beyond the
individual to a universal whole. This must be "the Universal Spiritual
Life," which, though eternal, reveals itself in time, and though
universal, reveals itself in the individual man, and forms the source
from which the spiritual in man "draws its power and credentials."
This, then, is the result of Eucken's search for reality--he has found
it to exist in a Universal Spiritual Life. Of course he has not arrived
at his conclusion by a system of rigid proof; it has already been
pointed out how impossible it is to arrive at the greater truths of life
in such a manner.
He has done, however, that which can be reasonably expected in such
cases. To begin with, he has given us a striking analysis of the
essential characteristics of human life, and he has found there a
yearning and a void. He has given us a masterly discussion of eternal
truth as contrasted with the temporary expressions of it. He has taught
us how the present can overcome the past, and how man can ascend beyond
the subjective and material. And he has led us to feel that reality must
lie in the eternal that appears to be at the basis of the highest and
greatest in man.
Moreover, he has given a fair and thorough treatment of the solutions
that have been offered in the past. He has shown how inadequate they are
to explain life. He has shown how the modern solutions "cannot perform
their own tasks without drawing incessantly upon another kind of
reality, one richer and more substantial." This in itself shows "beyond
possibility of refutation that they do not fill the whole of life." He
has demonstrated how the acceptance of these systems depends upon an
implicit acceptance of a higher life. "The naturalistic thinker ascribes
unperceived to nature, which to him can be only a coexistence of
soulless elements, an inner connection and a living soul. Only thus can
he revere it as a higher power, as a kind of divinity; only thus can he
pass from the fact of dependence to a devotional surrender of his
feelings. The socialist bases human society, with its motives mixed with
triviality and
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