of the fact that its material comes to it from without.[86] And Eucken shows that it is thus a life partly given to man, and partly created by him.  The “given” elements have to enter into man’s soul.  This they cannot do without much opposition.  With the persistent energy of the total potency of the soul a world of independent inwardness is reached—­a world which will have an existence of its own within the soul, and which will become the standard by which to measure the values of all the things which present themselves.

It is this superiority of the spiritual life which constitutes the essential factor in the evolution of the individual’s personality as well as in civilisation, culture, morality, and all the rich inheritance of the race.  Such an inheritance can be developed farther by the [p.238] full consciousness of the spiritual life and by the exercising of it from its very foundation.

In The Problem of Human Life Eucken sees in the message of every one of the great thinkers of the ages, however much he may differ from them, the vindication of a life higher than that of sense or even of in-intellectualism.  In one form or another, they all present some world of values which is born and nurtured within the mind and soul.  All these thinkers stand for something which is great and good.  Eucken attempts to discover this core in their teaching; and in the midst of all the differences some spiritual truth and value make their appearance.  This volume has undergone many changes, and is now in its ninth edition.

In The Main Currents of Modern Thought Eucken deals, in the first part of the book, with the fundamental concept of spiritual life as this reveals itself in the meanings of Subjective—­Objective, Theoretical—­Practical, Idealism—­Realism.  The middle portion of the book deals with the Problem of Knowledge as this is shown in Thought and Experience (Metaphysics), Mechanical—­Organic (Teleology), and Law.  The third portion of the volume deals with the Problems of Human Life as these are presented in Civilisation and Culture, History, Society and the Individual, Morality and Art, Personality and Character, and the Freedom of the Will.  The final portion deals [p.239] with Ultimate Problems; and the two chapters on the Value of Life and the Religious Problem bring out the deeper meaning of spiritual life.

This volume has undergone many changes.  When it appeared in 1878 it was little more than a history of the concepts we have already referred to.[87] But at the present time it deals with the history of the concepts, a criticism of these, and finally the presentation of the author’s own thesis regarding the reality of an independent spiritual life.