But the ground was fallow twenty-five years ago when some of Eucken’s important works made their appearance.  Even as late as 1896 he complains of this in the preface of his Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt:  “I am aware that the explanations offered in this [p.24] volume will prove themselves to be in direct antagonism to the mental currents which prevail to-day."[3] He states that his standpoint is different from that of the conventional and official idealism then in vogue.  By this he means, on the one hand, the “absolute idealism” which constructed systems entirely unconnected with science or experience—­systems whose Absolute had no direct relationship with man, or which made no appeal to anything of a similar nature to itself in the deeper experience of the soul; and, on the other hand, the degeneration of the neo-Kantian movement to a mere description of the relations of bodily and mental processes.

Probably enough has been said to show that the idealistic systems of Germany are tending more and more in the direction of a philosophy which attempts to take into account not only the results of the physical sciences and psychology, but also those of the norms of history and of the over-individual contents of consciousness.

It has been stated by several critics in England, Germany, and America, that Eucken has ignored the results of physical science and psychology.  This was partially true in the past, when his main object was to present his [p.25] own metaphysic of life.  The problems of science and psychology had to take a secondary place, but it is incorrect to state that these problems were ignored.  It is remarkable how Eucken has kept himself abreast of these results which are outside his own province.[4] But he has been all along conscious of the limitations of these results of natural science and psychology.  The results fail to connote the phenomena of consciousness and its meaning.  While Eucken has accepted these results, I have not seen any evidence that any of his conceptions concerning the main core of his teaching—­the spiritual life—­are disproved by any of them.  He shows us, as will be elucidated later, that as sensations point in the direction of percepts, and percepts in the direction of concepts, so concepts point in the direction of something which is beyond themselves.  And as the meaning of reality reveals itself the more we pass along the mysterious transition from sensation to concept, so a further meaning of reality is revealed when concepts search for a depth beyond themselves.  This is the clue to Eucken’s teaching in regard to spiritual life.  It is a further development of the nature of man—­a development beyond the empirical and the mental.  And the object of the following chapters will be to show this from various points of view.

* * * * *

CHAPTER II [p.26]

RELIGION AND EVOLUTION