The whole meaning here is that something sub specie aeternitatis has to take the foremost place in life.  We are beings who perpetually move.  Eucken and Bergson are both emphasising this to-day.  But the latter deals with the movement alone; he has no notion whither we are going, nor can he possibly have until he revises very largely his conception of the function and meaning of intellect in life.[45] But [p.132] Eucken states that we do know whither we are going.  What are the over-personal spiritual norms and standards but stars by which to steer the direction of our course over the tempestuous sea of time?  Everyone who guides his life in connection with reason guides it by means of some norm or other.  Even the daily avocation requires this in order to be fulfilled.  And the norms which furnish guidance to the spiritual life have originated and are utilised in precisely the same manner as those of the daily avocation.  The only difference is that there is more meaning and value in the former than in the latter.  But each is a Sollen and constitutes a beyond.  This Sollen is a certainty; it exists, and its existence is in itself. It is the star for the Wollen.[46] The Will is our own; the Ought is not our own; the fact that we possess it as an idea is no proof that it has become a possession of the whole of life.  In this sense the Ought has an objectivity and a subsistence of its own.  The Will has to travel in the direction of the Ought, and its course is mapped out by this Ought at every step of its progress.  Hence, in order to reach towards the Sollen the nature of the Sollen must become known.  As noticed in previous chapters, such a movement towards so high [p.133] a goal becomes a difficult task—­a task which demands the activity of the whole spiritual nature.  Man’s dependency and the meaning of his life are thus set before his eyes, and the aspects of momentary existence are valued as of secondary importance.  Unless this meaning of the norm becomes clear, life will revolve around the reality nearest-at-hand, and will consequently fail to unfold the deeper spirituality of its nature.  “And if all depended on the brief flash of the moment, which endures but the twinkling of an eye, only to vanish into the dark of nothingness, then all life would mean a mere exit into death.  Thus, without eternity there is no spirituality, and without connection there is no content of life.  But what is enthroned in itself above Time becomes for the man who wins such a spirituality, first of all, an immense task which allows itself to be grasped on the field of Time alone; and, also, the Eternal which works within us and which hovers before us on the horizon of Eternity can become our full possession only through the movement of Time.  To wish to check the course of Time means not to serve Eternity, but to ascribe to Time what belongs to Eternity."[47]

It is not said by Eucken anywhere in his writings that the natural sources at which Life drinks must be abandoned.  These remain with us as long as we are in this world of space and [p.134] time.  But these are not found in the same place, neither is the same importance attached to them, once the meaning and value of the over-personal norms and the potency of spiritual creativeness have come into union with one another.