nd of the ordinary life. It is always a
sign that humanity is drifting to the shallows of life when it looks
upon religion as the flowering of the mere natural life of good custom,
earthly happiness, and ease. Whenever the tragedy born in the conflict
between norms and ordinary life is absent, the very elements which
constitute greatness and the "taste of eternity" are also absent. It is
on account of this fact that Eucken insists that no individual or nation
that loses its own deeper religious experience can be really great or
true; for the purest spring of human life and conduct is wanting, and
the whole life issues from a shallower stream. It is impossible here to
enter into the truth of this matter; but our individual observation
concerning men and communities is almost enough of itself to verify the
statement. That such a higher spiritual life is a reality may be
evidenced further through its effects. It changes the whole relationship
of the man [p.145] who has experienced it to everything he comes in
contact with. New convictions and new points of view have now actually
occurred within his soul; man has become conscious of a spiritual
inwardness, brought forth through the presence of an over-personal
spiritual life coupled with his own spiritual needs. With the possession
of such spiritual elements, how is it possible for him any more to look
upon the world and human life with the same eyes as before? The dawning
of a new reality has made him a new creature; he is now compelled by his
own deeper nature to preserve and to reflect the light which is within
him; and all this brings prominently forward the need of something other
for the progress of the world than the first look of things is able to
show. It is in such manner as this that we must account for all the
ideals which have moved mankind from the level of animalism and greed to
the level of civilisation, culture, morals, and religion. The work is
far from being completed: the world still clings to the old level of
ordinary life, and is so slow to grasp the value of the life of
spiritual ideals. Still, something has been accomplished in the course
of the ages; and although, probably, the progress has not been
continuous, there has been a gain in the "long run." But the point to
bear in mind is that it is the power of the over-individual ideal which
has carried the race along. Ideals have been perverted, it is true; they
have been [p.146] drawn down and mixed wi