l
often represent the good of a section alone, and all other sections have
to become convinced that this is a good. Thus many Life-systems present
themselves. Each of these includes a good. The problem is, How is each
section to realise that there is a good present in what each other
section presents? [p.110] There must be some common standard by which
the ideal of each section of the community can be measured, for it is in
the light of such a standard alone that the lower good receives its true
place, meaning, and value. There are, beyond all sectional over-personal
ideals, values which connote the highest welfare of everyone "who
carries a human face." These values are the results of the partially
collective experiences of the deepest in life, and have been gained in
the history of the race. They are the values which are the needs and
rights of all. Justice, Sympathy, Love--these and others are the highest
syntheses. They have, as yet, been only partially reached; and this
partial realisation is the possession of a few, and has not yet
succeeded in becoming the necessary standard which shall pass judgment
on all lower ideals. "Rights are rights," we are told. This may be true,
but something higher has to interpret them, or else one set of rights
comes into conflict with other sets and stands but little chance of
realisation. And even if realised, a whole series of complexities
immediately arises. This has been, in the main, the history of human
society. And are we able to say that society has progressed much during
the past century in this direction of illuminating lower needs in the
light of higher ones which include the good of all? Eucken doubts
whether the progress has been great. And here once more, [p.111] in
connection with the deepest meaning of society and the individual, he
sees the need of ideals which are universally true and universally
valid. This means that the spiritual life as it presents itself in the
universally true, good, and beautiful, must become the sun which will
shine upon all that is below it; it is the Whole in which the Parts must
find their function and meaning. If the life of society relates itself
to anything lower than this, the best within it cannot come to flower
and fruit. In other words, society will have to return to a conception
and utilisation of an _absolute spiritual life_ before it can gain any
new territory of eternal value. Probably quite as much attention will
have to be de