Chapter II: Consideration of the Situation as a Whole and Preliminaries for

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

(a) THE NATURE OF THE NEW AS A WHOLE AND ITS RELATION TO THE OLD

From the description that has been given of the modern systems of life, we have seen that the Modern Age is by no means homogeneous, and that the conception "modern" has more than one meaning. Culture, in particular, has a character fundamentally different according as life finds its basis on the one hand in something external to itself, in nature, or in society, or on the other hand in the subjective states of consciousness. But that a common striving is present in spite of every difference, indeed of every antithesis, is proved by the energy with which all deny and reject the older form of culture and its transcendence of sense experience; by the vigour of the struggle against that which is regarded by the more modern systems as mere phantasy and deception, but which nevertheless continues to dominate social life. The kinship of these systems extends, beyond a common acquiescence in a negation, to a common affirmation. On all sides a thirst after a more forceful reality, and a more imposing immediacy of life, is to be found. Sense experience manifests itself throughout as fuller in content and more plastic; and so the chief point of support is found within it, and, though in different ways, the whole of life is organised from it. Still, granted that this could be effected only in opposition to the traditional conduct of life, the new is by no means desirous of remaining in a state of mere opposition. It seeks rather to unite the opposing elements to itself, to adapt them to itself, and to satisfy to the fullest extent the ideal demands of human nature. It is an attempt entirely to renew and completely to revolutionise life--a vast undertaking! Whether it has succeeded, or whether it is still engaged in bringing the attempt to a successful issue, is the problem that we had to investigate.

As far as our chief question is concerned, our result was a decided negative. True, much that is great and much that may not be lost again has been achieved. The new systems of life have indeed appropriated whole groups of facts; have invigorated whole groups with new powers; have revealed new tasks of the most fruitful kind, not only in the individual but also for the whole; and have given to life dominating impulses and a powerful impetus. But all this becomes a doubtful gain, indeed it threatens to become a loss, if particular experience and achievement desire to govern the whole of life, and to impress upon it their own peculiar stamp. Not only does life become intolerably one-sided in such a case, but its wealth of experience is cut down in order to fit it into the given framework. We also saw that a serious inner inconsistency originates. For a long period this inconsistency may be concealed, but where any great energy is present in life, it must break forth with a disturbing force and become intolerable. Since the modern systems regard the whole of life as arising from relation, whether it be to the environment or to the subjective states of consciousness, they must reduce everything inward and universal to the level of a derived and secondary product; they must repudiate and oppose an original and independent spirituality, a self-conscious inner world. Such an inner spiritual experience has evolved through the whole of history, and transcends all forms of life-organisation: it is impossible to explain it away. The modern systems must themselves experience this. For they could not possibly transform the abundance of diverse appearances into an organised whole; they could not pass from universal to universal, without presupposing and employing the same transcendent and encompassing inner world, which directly they attack. At the same time, however, they give to every factor of life a position and a depth wholly inconsistent with what they are justified in doing with their own mode of thought. They cannot perform their own tasks without drawing incessantly upon another kind of reality, one richer and more substantial. In truth, they are something other, and something far more than they believe themselves to be. Does this not show, beyond possibility of refutation, that they do not fill the whole of life?

The contradiction immanent in the modern systems of life is especially apparent in the fact that they are unable to banish supersensual powers and to limit life to sense experience, without attributing to sense experience more content and more value than that which experience itself justifies, and which, to be consistent, they should not overstep. The naturalistic thinker ascribes unperceived to nature, which to him can be only a co-existence 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 passion, on an invisible community, an ideal humanity, which he clothes with the splendour of a power and dignity that transfigures the immediate appearance of society. It is only in this way that he is able to direct his whole effort upon the welfare of mankind, and to expect a pure victory of reason within its sphere. The individualist in his conception exalts the individual to a height far more lofty than is justified by the individual as he is found in experience; for his thought, the individual is far more powerful and far more prominent and noble than immediate impressions indicate. Only thus is he able, from the freedom and the development of the individual, to hope for the beginning of a new epoch.

In these newer systems of life the conception of reality as a whole is also subjected to the same groundless and, likewise, false idealisation. As in these systems nothing may be acknowledged which transcends sense experience, there can be no universal which pervades and holds together the manifold. This being the case, reality must be a co-existence of single pieces; but no one will readily confess himself of this opinion. A pantheism, vague to the highest degree, is therefore seized upon as a cure-all, that man may have something which permeates and connects; but of this something, however, all more detailed description is lacking, and is carefully avoided. A conception so vague allows us at the same time to think and not to think something; at the same time to affirm and to deny. It seems to accomplish so much and to demand so little; it makes the impossible possible; and offers the most convenient asylum to all indefiniteness and confusion. It is a pity that in all this it is not a reality that surrounds us, but a mere _fata morgana_ which deceives. And a conception so vague is to displace religion and accord support to the new life! Truly, this requires a stronger faith than that with which the older religions were satisfied.

The modern systems of life desire a more forceful reality; in this they set work an aim which cannot be rejected. The course they have entered upon, however, does not bring them nearer to this aim, but rather removes them further from it. Neither the self-evidence of the senses nor the oscillation of mood can ever represent genuine reality to a being who, for good or for evil, has once learned to think. Many and varied impressions may come and go in sense experience; but their abundance cannot prevent the chief conceptions, by which they are here accompanied, from receiving a character abstract and vague in the highest degree. We hear continually of the whole, of reason, of power, of evolution; but all these conceptions have no stability and little content; they are like shadows and phantoms which vanish as soon as we wish to take hold of them. So, by an irony of fate, just those modes of thought whose chief impulse was the desire for more reality dissipate, dissolve reality. We see that the spiritual life may be denied by the individual, but not driven from the work of culture. It is true that immediate experience, outer and inner, has become much more to the present age than it was to earlier ages; but it has become so only through spiritual endeavour. If, therefore, the Modern Age now turns definitely against this spiritual activity, to rob it of all independence, it destroys that which first gave it its own power.

The modern systems of life have raised the standard of human existence enormously in regard to power and content; but they have done this at the cost of its spiritual concreteness. They have suppressed the life of inner spiritual experience and denied the problems of man's inner nature. They know of no grappling of man either with the infinite or with his own nature; they recognise no conflict between freedom and fate, and no inner development of the soul. And all this because their view of life as a whole takes away all depth, and transforms existence into a mere series of appearances. Thus, for anyone who regards such depth as the basis of life, and who, therefore, will not reject the experience and the result of the work of universal history, it becomes a necessity to reject and oppose the modern systems as guides of life. The more explicitly and exclusively they are presented, the more decided must his opposition be. For, what shall all the gain on the circumference of life profit man if through attention to that the centre of his life becomes empty and weak, if there emerges no content and no meaning in life itself? What is the value of all the advancing and refining of human existence if it does not bring with it a genuine spiritual culture and an inward elevation of mankind?

The increasing experience and perception of such limitations in the new may lead men to give more attention again to the old. The striving to transcend mere sense experience can no longer appear as a mere flight into an "other" world of dreams, or as due to a feeble and cowardly disposition; it may now be admitted rather as a deeply rooted endeavour to reach greater depths of life. Yet such a relaxation of the opposition to the old, and such an inclination to estimate it more highly, by no means justifies us in simply taking it up again in the form in which it lies before us. For to this not merely the modern system of life, but the whole development of life and work, is opposed. The contradictions and doubts which have grown up in the course of this development are not in the least overcome by the failure of the modern systems of life. For we do not find ourselves confronted here with an "either--or," in which the invalidity of the one alternative immediately establishes the validity of the other; but both may be inadequate. So we remain surrounded by the old and the new, under powerful influences from both, but not in a position to accept either the one or the other exclusively.

(b) THE CONDITION OF THE PRESENT

This situation, with its juxtaposition of the new and the old, is so full of confusion and perplexity that only a feeble disposition is capable of acquiescing in it. In the old we respect or surmise a depth; but this depth does not know how to give itself a form suitable to the present, or to influence us with the means available in our own time. The new directs all our attention to the immediate present and fills us with its intuitions; but this present becomes superficial to us, and with increasing power a desire for more substance and soul in life rises up in opposition to it. The old lifted us to the proud height of a new world, but this height showed signs of becoming severed from the rest of existence, and lapsed therefore into a state of painful insecurity. The new builds up from the experience of sense, but it finds no conclusion without going beyond this experience and thus contradicting itself. The old regarded the spiritual life of man, if not man himself, as occupying the centre of all and thereby fell into the danger of a hastened conclusion and of an anthropomorphic conception of reality. The new takes from man every position by which he is especially distinguished, and ignores all connection with ultimate depths, but in so doing it overthrows more than it intends; it undermines nothing less than the possibility of all spiritual work, all science, all culture.

And so we find ourselves in the midst of contradictions, drawn first in one direction, then in another: that we are at a crisis in life as a whole and in culture, that we are in state of spiritual need, cannot fail to be recognised. This crisis is made all the more acute through the peculiarity of the historical circumstances which have led up to it and the social conditions which surround us. Historically, we are under the influences of two cultures: one older, which up to the seventeenth century was in undisputed supremacy and which has asserted its authority up to the present day, especially in regard to the arrangements of social life; and one newer, which, after the influence of many varied preliminary tendencies, has arisen since that time with the energy of youth, and which, in the minds of individuals, has easily become the dominant power. The two cultures had different starting-points and followed different main courses. The old culture carried within itself the experiences of Greek life, the inner progress of which may be seen especially in the development of its philosophy. In the old culture endeavour was driven more and more beyond the world of sense to a world of thought, in which it went on from a universal to an ethical and ultimately to a religious conviction. To the thought of Greece, as she grew old, the world of sense experience sank more and more in reality and value, and life found its basis and chief realm of experience in a region transcending sense. Christianity definitely established this view of life, and made the invisible Kingdom of God the true home of man, the most immediate and the most secure that this life knows.

New peoples then grew up in this way of thinking; peoples who still had their work before them; to these, the break with the world of sense came more as the imposition of an overpowering authority than as due to their own experience. This fact constituted a point of weakness in every way; but no serious complication arose so long as these peoples were not yet ripe for spiritual independence. As soon, however, as this was the case, it was inevitable that contradictions should manifest themselves, and that a newly awakened impulse should urge the movement into an entirely opposite direction.

That is what really happened; the main tendency of life is now directed just as much upon the world as earlier it went beyond it; it has been transferred from the invisible to the visible, from the supernatural to the natural. We see this most clearly in the case of religion, which, as though with immanent necessity, runs through the sequence of a predominant transcendent Theism, a Panentheism, a Pantheism--gradually becoming colourless--an Agnosticism, and a Positivism. Everything supernatural disappears from thought, and life is concerned solely with sense experience. Thus, finally, we appear to have arrived at the same point as that from which the Greeks started out: the Monism of the most modern coining, for example, is hardly to be distinguished from the Hylozoism of the ancient Ionian thinkers. But is the whole result of the movement of universal history really only a deception? Has it simply brought us back again, from the false paths that we have tried, without according us any kind of positive profit whatever? We have become men of another kind; we think and feel differently; we have built up a rich culture, have transformed the world, have created a spiritual atmosphere; and we are capable of striving after infinite life and ultimate truth. Could all of this spring out of mere error? If that were so, should we not be compelled to reject the whole of this as phantasy and deception? But if the error was a means and an instrument in the attainment of truth, and if mankind in its going out from itself and in its return to itself is inwardly developed, where does the boundary between truth and error lie, and what is the meaning of the whole? So here again we lapse into uncertainty; history, to other ages a secure support, leads us into still greater doubt.

Finally, we must add to this crisis of culture the onward march of the social movement, which continually increases in power; the passionate longing of ever-growing groups of men for immediate participation in culture and the joys of life. Such movements may accomplish themselves within a fixed and acknowledged sphere of culture and of life; what changes they then bring lie within this sphere; they do not place the whole in question. Thus, the democratic movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries left certain principles of religious conviction untouched; they left the conception of the world entirely unchanged. But the matter is quite otherwise when a movement of this kind comes in contact with a culture which is inwardly unstable and which is growing uncertain concerning its final aims. We cannot fail to recognise what a great danger of degeneration there is under such circumstances. The masses, thus struggling upward, then seek their own way of life, and in so doing they naturally concentrate their attention upon that which lies immediately before their eyes and affects their immediate well-being. From this position they will advance all the more quickly to a certain conclusion, in that they are unconcerned with the experiences and perplexities of the work of universal history, and therefore, with unclouded enthusiasm, expect complete truth and pure happiness from freer exercise of their powers and the rejection of all authority. If we wish to ignore the dangers to culture which thus grow up, we must either estimate man as he is too highly, or spiritual tasks too meanly. Until the present, an independent spiritual life, making man more comprehensive in being, raising and freeing him, has manifested itself only at individual points; in the first place in chosen individuals, from whom it has been conveyed to the common life. The spiritual world made its appearance as a power superior to the interests and the opinions of individuals and of the masses. Only in such transcendence of the merely human did it develop any characteristic content, find an inner unity, arouse respect, and lead man beyond mere nature. If all this should now become different, if man in the mass should come to feel himself to be the measure of all things, and should relate all to his perception as the centre of infinity, would not a severe contradiction arise between human enterprise and spiritual necessity, and would not the full development of this opposition threaten the whole state of culture with a violent convulsion? Ultimately the inner necessities of our being would certainly win the day against all errors of superficiality, but what severe conflicts and losses the division must cost!

The consideration of all these facts reveals us under the power of different, indeed antagonistic, movements, and most especially in the midst of the great struggle for supremacy between the visible and invisible world, as the conflict between Positivism and Idealism gives expression to it. Life for us contains two movements, one of which starts from the centre and the other from the circumference; the former cannot embrace the fullness of reality, and its basis is also insecure; the latter gives no inner unity to life and lowers the standard of the whole. As each of these main tendencies again divides, movements the most varied surround us, tear us asunder, and crush our souls under their oppositions. God and reason have become uncertain to us, and the substitutes that are offered--nature, society, the individual--fail to satisfy us. The unrest and uncertainty that arise from this are not limited to a single sphere, they extend to the ultimate basal principles of life. The new mode of thought declares the chief world of the ancients to be a delusion; but we saw its own world dissolved in shadows and schemes by spiritual activity. Since the one dissolves the reality of the other, we are threatened with the loss of all definite results; our own being becomes a dark problem to us; we know neither what we are nor what we are not.

The impression that we get of the condition of the present as a whole may also be represented in the following manner: the historical movement of humanity unfolds an incalculable wealth of life; this life, however, cannot reach its own highest point and cannot win a character of a spiritual kind unless it organises itself into a whole, unless it attains an inner synthesis transcending all isolated states. Such syntheses have been realised, and have led to distinctive organisations of life; but these organisations have all proved to be too insignificant and too narrow, and none has been able to overcome the rest and to embrace the whole wealth of life. So life as a whole has broken them down; and since it has thus lost all inner structure, it must inevitably fall into a state of rapid degeneration, and must threaten to lose all content and meaning.

The evil effects on the development of life that are caused by this convulsion and division, and by the lack of a dominant tendency; how this condition leads to the destruction of everything simple and self-evident, and lends to an unrestrained reflection an unwarrantable power; how it robs endeavour of all its main tendencies, and permits true and untrue, good and evil, to run confusedly together, all this and much else is to-day so much and so widely discussed, and presents itself with such overpowering clearness to our vision, that its description need not detain us even for a moment.

Ought we to submit to this disintegration and degradation of life as to an inevitable destiny, or is it possible to work against it and to strive after a unity transcending the division? The fact that the division makes so strong an impression on us and that we feel it to be so intolerable is at once in favour of the latter alternative. How could this experience be possible if all multiplicity did not fall within a comprehensive whole of life--if our nature were not superior to the oppositions and did not drive us compulsorily to seek a unity? The life which, in distinct contrast to decaying Antiquity, flows through our age in a powerful, ceaselessly swelling flood; the unwearied activity of this age; the excellence of its work; its passionate longing for more happiness and fullness of life, all forbids a hasty and light renunciation. It is true that there are hard contradictions, and that spiritual power is at present not equal to cope with them; but this power is not a given and fixed magnitude: it is capable of an incalculable increase. Thus we ought not to be too ready to assert that the limitations of the age are identical with the bounds of humanity, and we ought not faint-heartedly to discontinue the struggle for a unity and a meaning in life.

This problem cannot be acknowledged without at the same time being admitted as the most important and the most urgent of all problems. For, on the decision concerning the whole, that concerning the spiritual character of life depends, and, as this character extends through the whole of life, every single matter will be differently decided according to the decision concerning the whole. Only purely technical and merely formal matters of work may remain unaffected by the problem, but wherever a content comes into question it will at once arise and manifest its urgency. This problem, therefore, will not suffer itself to be thrust into the background; we can neither dally with it nor turn aside from it. The individual, indeed, in his sphere of free decision and of independent action can withdraw himself from the question, but he can do so only at the price of the debasement of the quality of his life, only in that, from an independent co-operator in the building up of the ages, he becomes a dependent under-worker.

(c) THE FORM OF THE PROBLEM

Only a few words are now necessary to come to a more definite understanding concerning the form of the problem, which, with compelling force, rises into prominence out of all this complexity. Where the convulsion is such a fundamental and universal one as it shows itself to us to be, it is of the first importance to rise above the existing chaos, and to avoid all that which, even indirectly, would lead us back to it. Many of the aids which would-be healers of the time's evils recommend with vigour therefore need not be considered.

Every attempt to make a direct compromise between the different forms of life, to appropriate eclectically this aspect from one and that aspect from another, is inadequate. The view that none of the systems of life could have won so much power over mankind without containing some kind of truth, which may not be lost, has, to be sure, a good deal of truth in it. It is first necessary, however, to attain a position from which this truth in each case may be ascertained and rightly appreciated; and we can only reach such a position in opposition to the confusion which surrounds us.

A recourse to history and an adherence to a high achievement of the past promise just as little help. One thing is certain: history cannot be eliminated from our life; its highest achievements invite us to consider them again and again. But what is to be accepted by us as "high," indeed, what as "spiritual" history, is not at all definite without further consideration. It is what is esteemed in our own conviction as true and great which decides in this matter. We look at history from the position of the present and with the spirit of the present. If, therefore, as we saw, the present has fallen inwardly into a state of complete uncertainty and doubt, our consideration of history must be affected in the same way; and, of course, not its external data, but its inner spiritual content and meaning must be made uncertain. At the same time, we cannot fail to recognise that in reference to the central problem with which we are concerned, the present situation is quite peculiar, and lacks historical parallel. Sharp contrasts have always been found in human experience; and in transitional periods in history they have been felt with painful acuteness. But never did they so extend over the whole of life and so deeply affect fundamentals; never was there so much uncertainty with regard to what should be the main direction of endeavour, and the meaning of all human existence and man's relation to the universe, as in the present. Everything which to earlier ages appeared an inviolable possession has become to us a problem. What gain, therefore, in respect of the chief matter could a return to the past bring? In his investigation of the far-off ages the scholar may for a time forget the present: the attitude of mind which may result in bringing him fame for his work would be dangerous and destructive as a disposition of the whole of mankind. For we cannot treat that which is foreign to our nature as something of our own, without losing our distinctive character and degrading our own life to one of mere imitation.

Further, it has become impossible to strive for the ideal by selecting from the realm of experience a single point and treating it as an archimedean point, as absolutely fixed, and shaping our life from it. Descartes attempted to do this with his "I think," and Kant with his "I ought." But it is very doubtful whether there is an archimedean point in man; whether to make such an assumption is not to over-estimate man. The experience of history shows further that that which some have taken as absolutely primary and axiomatic has been regarded by others as derivative, and has been explained in an entirely different manner. The presentationalist does not deny the actuality of thought, or the naturalistic thinker conscience; but he understands it as a subsidiary phenomenon, and therefore can find no support in it. How then can that overcome all doubt which itself calls forth serious doubt?

A whole sphere can be withdrawn from the confusion and used to overcome it just as little as can a single leading point. For the uncertainty with regard to the whole extends far into every individual sphere; and such a sphere may appear, to one in one way, and to another in another.

Science is not infrequently treated as though it were enthroned on high, supreme above all the struggles and the doubts of existence, and as though, from its sovereign capacity, it were able to give a secure content of truth to life. It is true that science has much in its forms and in its work which is not the subject of dispute; but that with which we are here concerned--its intrinsic value, its spiritual character, and its place in life as a whole--is by no means a matter beyond dispute. As a matter of fact, every system of life has its own assertion in reference to this problem: to each to know signifies something different and is capable of something different. Whoever decides for one of these assertions concerning the nature of knowing has at the same time made a decision concerning the systems of life. He stands not outside, but in the midst, of the struggle. The same thing holds good with regard to morality, which is often welcomed as a secure refuge from the doubts of science. For, however certain it may be that in this sphere also there is no difference of opinion in respect of many things, as, for example, concerning the goodness or badness of certain types of conduct, still, the more we come to be concerned with principles the more do problems arise. In the immediate present the fact is most unmistakably clear that in this field also the fight does not rage around the interpretation of a given and acknowledged fact, but around the fact itself. What a different purport and meaning morality has in the systems of Religion, Immanent Idealism, Naturalism, Socialism, and Individualism respectively!

Finally, the attempt to give to life stability and peace by turning to the subject, to personality, as to a point removed from all perplexity, also fails. We should be the last to place a low estimate upon personality, but the conception receives its meaning and value only in its spiritual connections, and without these it soon becomes nothing more than a mere term, which blurs and blunts the great antithesis of existence. If that which is called personality exists as a merely individual point by the side of things, then we can never discover how occupation with things is capable of transforming life as a whole. If, however, in this activity we should win an inward relation to infinity and a spontaneity of life, then this admission involves a confession concerning reality as a whole which can never be justified by a theory which regards the mere individual as the starting-point. That the idea of personality implies a problem rather than a fact is indicated by the different conceptions of it which we meet in the different systems of life. In considering personality, Religion thinks of the immediate relation of the soul to God; Immanent Idealism, of the presence of the infinite at the individual point; Individualism, of the supremacy of the free subject over against the social environment. It is only by reason of the common terminology that we fail to recognise how great the differences are in the thought on the matter; how that which one regards as of value in personality is severely attacked by another.

All these attempts therefore prove to be inadequate because they lead back to the state of uncertainty they were meant to overcome. To reject them, however, involves us in a certain assertion, which to some extent points out the main direction which further investigation must follow. No external compromise can help us, but only the winning of a transcendent position which is capable of giving to each factor its right without reduction; no flight into history can lead us to the truth, but only an activity of the present, not, however, of the present of the mere moment, but which embraces the work of universal history; no placing a single point or sphere into a supreme and all-dominant position can help us to overcome division, but only a conflict for a new whole; no mere turning to personality is of value before a sure basis is given to it from the whole! All leads us to this conclusion: we must strive for a new system of life. And to achieve this is not impossible, for, as we saw, a system of life is not imposed upon us by fate, but must arise from our own activity. If the systems which have previously been formed no longer satisfy, why cannot mankind evolve others? Or is it proved that the existent forms exhaust all possibilities? A too narrow conception of life was seen to be a common defect of all these systems; its richness broke through the attempted unifications, and with this they fell into irreconcilable contradiction. Should not a synthesis be possible which would do more justice to the whole extent of life; which need not deny and exclude so much; and which might also unite what at first seems absolutely contradictory? Doubtless such a synthesis would not be achieved all at once; it is inevitable that growing life should involve many discords and movements within itself. Yet this synthesis would present itself at least in a manner similar to that of the extant systems; and, since it strives after something human, it must always be mindful of its limits.

Should such a universal synthesis be at all possible, it must certainly be something which is to be found and disclosed rather than something which simply is to be produced from ourselves. How could we hope to advance to it if it were not somehow involved in the depth of our being, and in our fundamental relation to the world, and if it did not already exist here in some way? It is a matter, therefore, of arousing to fuller independence and at the same time of raising inwardly something which exists within us; of recognising something new and even astonishing in the old and the supposedly self-evident, so that the truth of the universe may become our truth and give power to our life.

A task of this kind is a matter of the whole soul and not merely of the understanding; it is a concern of humanity, not of the individual alone. Of that which the single individual may contribute towards the attainment of the aim it is hardly possible to think humbly enough. And yet each has to use his power to the best of his ability; if in cases of great necessity and of ill-fortune in matters of an external kind the individual considers it only right to hasten to help, how could he withdraw himself where the task is the satisfying of a spiritual need of mankind? Still less than in the former case is he able to disregard the matter as something alien and indifferent to himself. For, in the struggle for the whole, he fights at the same time for the unity of his own being, for a meaning for his own life.

II

THE OUTLINE OF A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND CONSIDERATIONS

Our inquiry ended in a definite negation; it showed the present condition of things to be marked by severe internal conflict and in danger of dissolution from within. Many movements of thought and life cross, disturb, limit, and oppose one another. Since what to one seems a wholesome truth seems to another pernicious error, all inner community of life disappears, and with it all firmness of conviction and joy of creative activity. The more these conflicting tendencies develop the more do they crush and destroy all the traditional elements of our life; the more are the spiritual contents and goods, which the necessities of life compel us to adhere to, deprived of their basis in the depths of the soul. The confusion which prevails in the present time, with its continual change, its rapid alteration of circumstances, its power to convey the most diverse impressions, its production of ever new combinations, might even attract and entertain us if it were no more than a drama. But if the confusion is more than this, if it includes our destiny and is meant to signify the whole of our life, then, by reason of its detrimental effects upon the whole of life and upon man's inwardness, and by reason of its lack of content and soul, it must completely fail to satisfy us, and must provoke an energetic resistance. True, a condition of things so full of contradictions has also its advantages; it accords to the activity of the individual the greatest liberty and gives him a feeling of supremacy; its dissolution of everything previously regarded as fixed enables uncontrolled feeling and unstable mood to acquire power, and at one time to flatter man pleasantly, and at another to carry him away impetuously. The individual's attainment of freedom, however, gives as yet no content to life; and the feeling of supremacy is as yet not a real supremacy. These feelings and tendencies, which, within a wider whole of life, certainly serve to add to its animation, inevitably lead to a state of vagueness and emptiness when they put themselves forward as the whole. The supposed aids which are offered us are no more than mere pretences; and they become dangerous and harmful so far as they deceive us concerning the seriousness and tension of the situation.

The feeling of tension was increased through the historical treatment which accompanied our inquiry. For, from the point of view of history, the present confusion shows itself to be not a temporary obscuring of an indisputable truth, or a tendency on the part of man to become feeble and weary in the appropriation of such a truth, but to involve in doubt the basal nature of truth itself: the meaning of our life as a whole was seen to have fallen into uncertainty. The systems of thought, in the light of which we have hitherto regarded reality and steered the oncoming flood of appearances, have broken up and dissolved. We have become defenceless in face of the impressions of the environment which affect us with increasing force, and impel us now in one direction, now in another. It is not simply this or that aspect in human existence, but the whole of man's nature which has become problematical in this dissolution. Formerly, the chief result of the effort of universal history had seemed to be that man rises more and more above nature and builds for himself a realm with new contents and new values. Now, the desire to be something higher than nature appears to be a bold presumption; the idea that man has a special position is ably contested, and every distinctive task is denied him. Man appears to be far too insignificant and to possess far too little freedom to be able to take up arms against the world and to obtain the mastery of it. Doubts such as these are all the more painful because they are the result of our own work; in that we toiled, investigated, and pressed forward, we undermined the foundations of our own life; our work has turned with destroying power against ourselves. With the increase of external results, life as a whole has become increasingly hollow; it has no longer an organising and governing centre. Is it to be wondered at if the finer spirits of our age are weary, disheartened, and repelled by the feeling of the disharmony of the whole of present culture, which calls for so much effort from man and yields him so little genuine happiness; speaks of truth and lives from semblance and pretence; assumes an imposing mien and utterly fails to satisfy when confronted with ultimate problems? Is not the power of attraction, which the figure of St. Francis of Assisi was recently able to acquire, an eloquent witness to the reality of the longing for more plainness and simplicity in life? And yet we cannot take up again the position occupied by an earlier age; we cannot take up a past phase unchanged. No return to the conditions of the past can bring satisfaction to the spiritual needs of the present, for a device of this kind always leads by a detour back again to the starting-point. Ultimately, it is from ourselves alone that help can come; and we can have recourse to no means other than those of the living present.

First of all, our state of necessity must be admitted to the full, and the danger of a further degeneration of life in respect of its spiritual nature adequately estimated. It is always a gain to obtain a clear idea of the condition of the matter in question and to grasp the problem as a whole. For, through this, we are saved not only from illusions leading to error, but also from the authority of the mere present and from a feeling of anxiety and fear in the presence of contemporary opinion. If this age is in a state of such uncertainty; if it achieves so little for that which concerns the foundations of our spiritual existence, then neither its agreement can impress us, nor its opposition appal us; but the endeavour to make life firm again can seek confidently what is needful for it, and, with care in regard to what it shall affirm and deny, can follow the way which its own necessities point out.

One fact in particular must tend to increase our confidence in this endeavour: the fact, namely, that a negative result, which proceeds from our own work, cannot be a mere negation, but must contain an affirmative element within it. From what reason could the traditional systems of life have become inadequate to man other than that they do not satisfy a demand that we ourselves make upon them, and must make upon them? It is plain that we need and seek more than we possess, and this seeking betrays that our being is wider or deeper than was assumed in those systems. Why did each of the different systems become inadequate, unless it was that life itself rejected as too narrow the standard involved in them? Why was it impossible to regard the different systems as having a certain validity, to allow them to continue side by side, and divide our existence amongst them, if not because we cannot possibly give up all claim to an inner unity? If, then, the present confusion is rooted in a wrong relation between our desire and our achievement, we need not faint-heartedly surrender ourselves to it. It is plain that there is something higher in us, which we have to arouse to life and realise to its fullest extent. We may be confident that the necessity of our being, which gave rise to the desire, will also reveal some way by which it may be satisfied.

A closer consideration of the results of our inquiry leaves no doubt with regard to the direction which research has to take to accomplish its task. Diverse, fundamentally different systems passed in review before us; each came forward as the unadorned and true expression of a reality that seemed common to them all; their struggle appeared to be a conflict concerning the interpretation of this reality. It became evident, however, that the conflict is, on the contrary, in regard not to the interpretation but the fundamental nature of reality; different realities arise which are irreconcilably opposed. The systems do not originate in a common and secure basis: the basis itself is sought, and may assume various forms. The conflict therefore is much more over ultimate problems than is usually supposed; it arises primarily out of the nature of life itself, out of the inner movement which advances against the illimitable world around us, and seeks to gain the mastery over it. Our life and our world acquire a definite character only by our taking up such a movement of counteraction, the particular nature of which decides over all further moulding of life. We have seen that when we ourselves became active we took up and emphasised one of the possibilities which lie within the range of our life, and held it as supreme over all the rest; we took as the fundamental relation one of the relations of which our life is capable, as, for example, the relation to God, to the immanent reason of the universe, to nature, to society, to one's own individuality. A particular sphere of life was thus marked out; a scheme of life was yielded which appeared capable of taking up all experience into itself: according to the starting-point adopted, we sketched a distinctive outline and sought to include the whole content of human industry, man's universe of work--as we might call it--in order to lead to our own perfection. This scheme, assumed to be true, then had to show what it was capable of; a powerful effort was brought forth to overcome the resistance of a world which, even when it was grasped from within, still remained alien to our nature; and, ultimately, to form the whole into a unity. We were not, as it were, an empty vessel into which a content flows from outside, but we generated from within a movement which went onward and onward, and desired to take up everything in itself; it was a matter of radically transforming the external into an inner life. We could succeed in this only in that life self-consciously pressed forward to win new powers; formed connections, branches, and graduations; accomplished an inner construction; and with progressive self-elevation became an all-inclusive whole, which did not possess a reality by the side of itself, but itself became complete reality. Thus, life took possession of the world only in that it widened itself from within to the world, and, in the appropriation of everything alien to it, advanced from the original outline to full concreteness.

According to the results of our inquiry, the chief decision in the struggle with regard to the nature of the world also depends upon our type of life. We convinced ourselves that there was no conception of life common to the different systems, but that from its starting-point, throughout its whole development, each of them shaped life differently from the others; and we saw that the differences even went as far as complete opposition. Each system of life had its own kind of experience; each formed its own instruments for the appropriation of the world; each saw of the infinite that in particular which corresponded to the main direction of its own movement. A consideration of all the facts makes it quite clear that a decision depends neither upon externals nor upon the individual, but upon the inner life and the whole; and further, that cognition does not give a solution to the problems of life, but that life itself has to reach a solution through its own organisation and construction, its own advance and creative activity.

However, that which was the compelling and deciding power in the systems of the present day--the struggle for life itself--has not attained to complete recognition in them. Rather, they were too quick to begin to occupy themselves with objects, and sought to show themselves superior in this respect to their rivals; the attention to results prevented the correct appreciation and estimation of experience itself. The impossibility of coming to an agreement concerning the object then forced us back to the life-process; and we were led to the view that the object appeared different because we ourselves placed something different into it, and that we saw less the object itself than ourselves and our life in the object. Thus we were induced to place our attention chiefly on the subject; but then there was a strong tendency to leave the world outside as a special realm; and the division of work between subject and object drove us still further into uncertainty. In the midst of such confusion, we did not come to the point of making a decision; we did not attain the position from which alone an agreement is possible; at one time one system, at another time another carried us away. We failed to recognise that, however much we come into contact externally, we live spiritually in separate worlds; that, while using the same expressions, we speak different languages, and therefore cannot possibly understand one another.

The gain is by no means an insignificant one, and a distinctive treatment arises, if we become clearly conscious of the fact that the shaping of the process of life itself is the chief object of conflict; that the movement is not one between world and life, but lies entirely within life; and that the essential matter is the perfecting of life itself. The recognition of this fact leads us to an immanent mode of treatment that has many advantages. The facts involved are now seen to lie deeper. The source of experiences is not so much the relation to the environment as the movement and expansion of life itself. Striving and conduct may now involve a certain concreteness; indeed, the actual experiencing of limitations and negations may lead to an elevation above them. The type of life does not seek to justify itself, to show its truth, through harmony with an external world; it is justified by its own advance, its increase in strength, and its upward growth. It is only a justification of this kind, a justification within its own realm, that can acquire a power to convince and to restore again to life that concreteness of which, in opposition to the excess of unrestrained reflection and vague feeling, it is to-day in the direst need. If we desire to arise above this state of division, and to attain a greater unity, we can achieve our aim only by the power of an inner unification of our life.

Instead, therefore, of considering the internal from the point of view of the external, we must consider the external from the point of view of the internal; our knowledge must be essentially a knowledge of self, our experience an experience of self, if we would come any nearer to the attainment of the aim. Our inner nature is not given to us as something complete; it has first to be aroused to life and developed; we need to attain to a state of self-determining activity if we would reach the highest that we are capable of. From the recognition of the necessity of greater activity, and of seeking the roots of the problem at greater depths, we become aware of a new relation of thought to life. Although thought may involve certain fundamental forms, and may adhere to them in all its activity, it is life in its totality, as we understand it, which first gives to thought its more detailed form, a characteristic nature, clear aims and sure tendencies. Thought, therefore, is inseparable from the movement and the advance of life; all hope of progress rests on the hope of a further deepening of life; a revealing of new relations, and a development of new powers. It is not from mere knowledge, but only from the movement of life as a whole that we can make any advance; but the life here referred to is one that includes knowledge, and not one that takes up a position independent of knowledge, and, in opposition to it, bases itself on supposed practical needs.

A treatment such as the one we have indicated has to be followed in the investigation upon which we are about to enter. The chief aim of this investigation is to reveal and to call forth life; it is not its chief aim to interpret life in conceptual terms. It is from this position, therefore, that we ask the question--which the conflict of the different systems of life forced upon us--whether a unity transcending the oppositions exists in us and can be aroused to life through our self-determining activity. It is from this position also that we ask the further question--which springs out of the struggle between the older and the newer modes of thought--whether ultimately man must give up the superior position which from early times he has adjudged himself, or whether an inner elevation is possible which gives him the power to cope with new tasks and new conditions. Whether such a treatment leads to a positive result is a question of fact; and what the answer to this is cannot be decided by a preliminary consideration, but only by the actual investigation.