Chapter XXI: Conclusion

In conclusion a few words will suffice. The last section showed that the present sets great problems and reveals possibilities in every department of life; but that we men are very far from being equal to cope with these problems. We are limited especially by the fact that we are incapable of elevating ourselves inwardly above the present; that we do not take possession of it sufficiently as a whole, and find an inner independence in relation to it; and that therefore we do not enter with the necessary vigour into the conflict against the trivial and the poor-spirited, the decadent and the sceptical that the present contains. To point out the way to attain such independence appeared to us to be the chief task of philosophy in the present. In the service of this task, which cannot be achieved without the manifestation of a new actuality, without a fundamental deepening of our reality, we have made our investigation, which contains a distinctive conception of the spiritual life. In that everywhere we have pressed back from the results to the experience, and from the wealth of achievement to the generating basis, we have seen nature, history, culture, and human nature as a whole in a new light. We have hoped, by widening and strengthening life itself from within, to supply a substitute for the external supports that life has lost. How far we have succeeded in our endeavour is another question; we shall be satisfied even if our work only contributes to bring the present to a clearer consciousness of the state of spiritual crisis in which it exists and concerning the seriousness of which it deceives itself in a thousand ways. There is an enormous amount of vigorous activity and efficient work, of honest endeavour and serious disposition, in our time, and the tendency to make life more spiritual is also evident. But the movement is still far from attaining the depth which is necessary to the chief question of our spiritual existence; thus the conflict, instead of being between whole and whole, is divided; that which is significant and valuable in the endeavour of the time is in danger of becoming problematic, and of producing the opposite of what it purposes, because it does not fit itself into a universal life, and in this realise its limitations and at the same time its right. A more energetic concentration of life in itself is therefore the first condition of transcending the chaos of the life of the present and of preventing spiritual degeneration in the midst of too intense an occupation with externals. As for the rest, we may say with Plotinus: "The doctrine serves to point the way and guide the traveller; the vision, however, is for him who will see it."

INDEX

Abstractions; their power in modern life, 362 ff.

Activism; profession of faith in, 255 ff.;
how it differs from a system of mere force, 255 ff.;
its ethical character, 256;
how it differs from Voluntarism and Pragmatism, 256 ff.

Æsthetic Individualism, 61 ff.

Æstheticism; its antithesis to Activism, 258 ff.

Antiquity; its distinctive synthesis of life, 208 ff.

_A priori_; its validity and its limitations, 234

Archimedean point in the spiritual life; its impossibility, 94 ff., 154

Art and literature, condition and tasks in the present, 354 ff.

Ascetic organisation of life; rejected, 281 ff.

Being, development of; as a system of life, 212 ff., 314

Catholicism; different tendencies in, 328 ff.

Christianity; its unique character, 6;
the opposition to, 7 ff.;
its permanent truth, 331 ff.;
changes necessary to it, 332 ff.;
Christian and Greek forms of life, 283 ff.

"Classical," the; its significance, 192

Concentration of life (within the whole), 156 ff., 160

Conscience; its significance, 129 ff.

Critical character of modern work; its presuppositions, 250 ff.

Culture, 110 ff.;
genuine and apparent, 269 ff.;
requirements of a new type, 298 ff.;
organisation of, 315 ff.

Democratic tendency of modern culture, 361 ff.

Departments of life; their relation to life as a whole, 316 ff.

Dogmatic sectarian point of view; rejected, 328

Duty; significance of the idea, 184 ff., 231

Education; problems in the present state of, 343 ff.

Enlightenment, the; its synthesis of life, 209 ff.;
how far problematic, 249;
relation of the present to it, 347 ff.

Equality; problems of the present conception of, 362

Eternity; how far implied in the life of the individual, 372

Ethical character of life; how to be understood, 256, 258;
of spiritual culture, 309 ff.;
its necessity, 337 ff.

Ethics (morality); different types in the present time, 336 ff.;
conditions of a morality, 338 ff.;
requirements of morality in a spiritual culture, 339 ff.

Evil; the problem of, 263 ff.;
the way in which it is solved, 279 ff.

Evolution, doctrine of; spiritual, its limitations, 194 ff., 257 ff.

Experience; its significance for the spiritual life in man, 235 ff.

Freedom; its nature, 174 ff.;
its conflict with destiny, 181 ff.;
genuine and false, 323 ff.;
inconsistency in contemporary treatment of the problem, 360 ff.

German character; its greatness and its dangers, 317 ff., 368 ff.

Goethe; characteristic influence, 299

Good, the (idea of the good); how it differs from the Useful, 119 ff.;
apparent inconsistency, 138 ff.;
more detailed determination, 185 ff.

Great man, the; his relation to his time, 292

Greek and Christian forms of life, 283 ff.

Hegel; relation of the present to him indefinite, 348

Historical and social organisation of life; its limitations, 200

Historical Relativism; rejected, 290 ff., 323 ff.

History; the spiritual conception of, its conditions, 188 ff.;
esoteric and exoteric history, 243 ff.

Human life; how far it is from the spiritual life, 161 ff.

Idealisation, false; of immediate existence, 83 ff., 362 ff.

Idealism and Realism; their unification in a spiritual culture, 312 ff.

Ideas in history; their unique character, 126 ff., 188 ff.

Imagination; indispensable in all departments of life, 239

Immanent Idealism, its rise and fall, 15 ff.

Immanental treatment (from the life-process), 107 ff.

Individual, the, and the Society; problems of their relation, 364 ff.

Individual, the; his significance in the new relations, 246, 369 ff.

Individual, life of the; its form in the new system, 369 ff.

Individuality (spiritual); as a problem, 132 ff., 181 ff., 370

Instruction; problems in the present time with reference to, 343 ff.

Inwardness; its attainment of independence in man, 123 ff., 146 ff.;
as the inner life of reality, 148 ff.;
inwardness and the inner world, 303

Irrationality, of existence; in what manner overcome, 279

Kant; inconsistency in the relation to him in the present time, 348

Knowledge; its form in the new system, 351

Life; its detachment from the mere individual, 119 ff.;
the two movements in it, 282 ff.

Life-process; as the fundamental principle of investigation, 104 ff.,
305 ff., 349 ff.

Life's attainment of greatness, 240 ff.

Life-work; its significance in acquiring stability, 253

Love; as a witness to the union with the whole, 231

Man; as a being of nature, 110 ff.;
growing beyond nature, 113 ff.;
his union with the whole, 226 ff.

Masses, the culture of the; its problems, 89 ff.

Mass-movements; their dangers and limitations, 363 ff.

Metaphysic; in what sense necessary, 141 ff.

"Modern," the; double meaning, 296

Modern Age, the (in a broad sense); the characteristic in its nature,
9 ff.

"Modern" Morality; discussed and rejected, 364 ff.

Movement, of the spiritual life in man; its uniqueness, 233 ff.;
its increase in the new system of life, 247 ff.

Mysticism; in what sense justifiable, 246

National Character, 198, 367 ff.

Nationality, the idea of; its problems, 366 ff.

Naturalism; its significance and its limitations, 24 ff.

Nature and Spirit, 270 ff.

Negation; impossibility of an absolute, 267 ff.

Newer Systems of Life; what they have in common, 22 ff., 81 ff.

Noölogical Method; distinguished from the psychological and the
cosmological, 243, 352

Norms; their significance, 184

Pantheism; vague character of the general conception of it, 84

Past; impossibility of flight to the, 93 ff.

People and nation, 366 ff.

Personal conviction, concerning reality as a whole; where the decision
is made, 253, 281, 311 ff., 340, 372

Personality; the difficulty of the conception, 95 ff.;
no mere gift of nature, 311, 370

Philosophy; its present position, 346 ff.;
its three main tendencies in the present time, 347 ff.;
chief demands, 349 ff.

Philosophy of life; the conception of a, 3 ff.

Political and social life; condition and tasks in the present time, 358
ff.

Present, the; difficulties of determining its extent, 289 ff.

Protestantism; the different tendencies in it, 329

Public opinion; manner of its formation, 364

Reality; difficulty of the conception, 84 ff.;
longing for, 159 ff.;
new conception of, 220 ff.

Relation (fundamental), of man to reality; new, from the point of view
of the spiritual life, 152 ff.

Religion; the system of life of, 6 ff.;
its form and its justification, 273 ff.;
its necessity in a spiritual culture, 312 ff.;
its present condition, 324;
its requirements in a spiritual culture, 330 ff.;
specific religious system of life rejected, 281 ff.

Romanticism; its significance and its limitations, 258 ff.

Science; its present greatness and problems, 345 ff.

Self-preservation, spiritual; distinguished from natural
self-preservation, 126

Sense; its estimate, 260

Simplification (in revivals), 128

Socialistic system; its significance and its limitations, 41 ff.

Society; the spiritual conception of, 196 ff.;
emphasis upon society in the nineteenth century, 358 ff.

Spiritual culture, and human culture, 308 ff.

Spiritual life; its independence a necessity, 141 ff.;
as the fundamental principle of a new organisation of the individual
departments of life, 157 ff., 244 ff.

Spiritual work; its relation to time, 290 ff.

Stability in life; how won, 251 ff.

State, the; the greater emphasis upon it in the nineteenth century, 359
ff.

Suffering and spiritual destitution, 314

Syntheses of life; in history, 207 ff.

Theodicy; rejected, 279 ff., 371

Thought; its relation to life, 108, 126 ff., 141 ff., 349 ff.;
its unique operation (in distinction from association), 125 ff.

Time; fundamental relation of man to, 116 ff.

Transcendent Spirituality; as the fundamental principle of religion,
278 ff.

Transcendental method; in what sense justifiable, 248

Truth, conception of; its history, 138;
new conception, 216 ff.

Work; its distinctive character, 122;
its power to develop, 201 ff.;
the world of work, 201 ff.

World, conceptions of the; chief types, 353 ff.

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RUDOLF EUCKEN'S

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The New Idealism: Eucken's Philosophy a Rallying-point for Idealistic
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His Theory of Knowledge
His Philosophy of History
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The Break with Aristotelianism and Aquinism
Eucken's Criticism of the Naturalistic Syntagma
The Great Alternative: Individuality or Personality
The Category of Action
Eucken's View of Revelation
The Problem of the Union of Human and Divine
The New Spiritual Immediacy
The Spiritual Life as Eucken conceives it: its Intrinsically
Oppositional Character
Eucken's Philosophy as a Philosophy of Freedom
The New Idealism as a Religious Idealism

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