into external work, the more it ceases to be an inner personal experience, and the more alien we become to ourselves.  And yet the fact that we can be conscious of such an alienation—­an alienation that we cannot accept indifferently —­is a proof that more is firmly implanted in us than the modern direction of life is able to develop and satisfy.  We acknowledge simultaneously that we have gained much, but that the loss is a painful one.  We have gained the world, but we have lost the soul; and, along with this, the world threatens to bring us to nought, and to take away our one secure foothold in the midst of the roaring torrent of material work."[37]

Eucken shows that the individual will obtain his true place in Society and the State only when spiritual ideals have become fixed norms—­norms which form the highest synthesis to be conceived of.  And Society and the State will discover their vocations in precisely the same manner.  It is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that things are not well with the world to-day.  The growth of the material [p.117] interests of the world and of life has become a menace on a scale unknown in the previous history of civilisation.  There is only one refuge in the midst of all this welter and chaos.  That indestructible refuge is “an inner synthesis and spiritual elevation of life.”  It is this alone which can prevent the disintegration that is bound to follow in its absence.  The petty human element cannot be eliminated from this; and the mere life of the hour—­the life that has no substance of duration within itself—­cannot be stopped on its reckless career without the presence of spiritual ideals within and without.  If the world proceeds in its denial of the reality and need of spiritual life and its over-world, the negation, when it reaches its climax of disaster and despair, will “turn again home”—­to the necessity of spiritual values—­and out of the ruins a new humanity will emerge.

Thus, once more we are landed into the province of a religion of spiritual life as a necessity in the affairs of the world and of the State.  Eucken’s great plea is that the civilised nations of the world should become aware of all this before it is too late to turn back—­before the boat has reached too near the rapids to avoid disaster.  The remedy is in our own hands.  How to create the consciousness of the situation is the problem of problems, and all individuals are called to bring the whole of their energies to its solution.

[p.118] It is evident that some kind of uneasiness has to take place in the deepest recess of the human soul, but the best ways and means of doing this are not yet quite evident.[38] We know what we need and what prevents decadence of individuals and nations.  “If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them” (Gospel of John).  The bridge between a knowledge of the Ought and its possession is difficult to construct, but its importance is necessary to be brought constantly before the people.  The