revealed a flaw common to them all. That flaw consists in ignoring the
presence of a spiritual life as the great workshop where every form of
reality finds its truest meaning. This flaw is so serious in that
several Life-systems have thus over-estimated the importance of their
results by neglecting to take into account the potentialities and
necessities of man's spirit. Let us, then, try to trace this defect in
connection with some of the most important Life-systems in vogue to-day.
When the various systems of _Idealism_ are estimated, they seem to
present aspects of reality with vast portions of human potencies and
experiences left out of account. _Absolute Idealism_ is based upon the
demands and implications of logic. Its doctrines would have taken a very
different colouring had it considered that the necessities of Logic have
to be adjusted to the necessities of Life. Such systems are of little
value to the soul, because the needs of the soul were not taken into
account when they were formulated. This fact was the main cause of the
late Professor James's rebellion against all forms of Absolute Idealism.
He felt that they bore no relationship to human life and its needs, and
consequently could not exercise any important [p.209] influence on life;
they could not move the will, for no possibility of reaching the
Absolute was offered to man. All the conclusions were in the realm of an
_intellectual universal_ and not in the realm of _spirit_. They must be
unreal in the highest sense on account of this very failure. They have
presented their half-gods as realities outside Nature, human nature, the
pressing ideals of life, and even God Himself.

Eucken shows that any true Life-system has to start with Life itself.
There may be interpretations needful which have no implications for
Life, and these have a right of their own; but when such interpretations
are carried further, when the subject who _knows_ such interpretations
and who _uses_ them is taken into account, then the interpretations
found on this level are something quite different from what they were
when the whole spirit of man was not taken into account. Eucken
consequently comes to the conclusion that philosophy has not completely
fulfilled its vocation until it has become a philosophy of _Life_--until
the truest meaning of every object is discovered in its relation to all
the necessities of the spirit. And it is here that his teaching comes
into conflict with s