In all this we notice something in the new world of consciousness similar to what happens within the physical world.  In the world of nature no animate (and probably no inanimate) thing has received a donum which it may preserve as its own without effort.  Everything that has value has to be preserved through [p.29] struggles necessitated by the changing conditions of the impinging environment as well as struggles between contrary characteristics within the nature of the thing itself.  Otherwise nothing could maintain its identity and individuality at all.  There must be some core in everything which exists as an individual thing.  This individuality is seen more clearly as the scale of existence is mounted.  In the organic world each thing lives in a more or less degree its own life, however much that life is conditioned and even hindered by the environment.  What is it, then, that keeps the thing together?  It is some point of union of elements otherwise scattered.  When we come to man we see this more clearly than in the world below him.  This core is a kind of Whole made up of isolated impressions mingling with a potency different in nature from themselves, and transmuting them to its own nature in the forms of self-consciousness, meanings, values.  This potency—­this Whole—­although present from the very beginning as the condition of becoming conscious of anything, yet remains in constant change.  Impressions pour in through the senses, enter the Whole that is already present; they drop their content into that Whole by means of the senses, and the miracle of transmutation, entirely mysterious, takes place.

This point is not new.  It is a fact well [p.30] known in the history of psychology, and played a very prominent part in the psychology of Kant.  But Eucken has deepened the conception in such a way as to be able to rid himself of the postulates of Kant concerning God, Freedom, and Immortality.  The germs of these, according to the meaning of Eucken, are within the spiritual life itself, and not transcendent in the form presented by Kant or external as presented by Hegel.  There is, then, within consciousness a process in many respects analogous to the natural process.  And as the meaning of the physical universe has become clearer through the conception of evolution, so the meaning of consciousness, originating in a higher world than Nature, will become clearer if viewed in a similar manner.  Let us then turn to one of the most important aspects of Eucken’s work, Evolution and Religion.

Eucken’s deepest, and consequently the most difficult, account of the meaning of religion is to be found in his Truth of Religion and his Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt. It is important to deal with the concept of the spiritual life at this stage of our inquiry, for it is the pivot around which the whole of Eucken’s philosophy turns.

The essence of religion is conceived by him as the possession by man of an eternal existence in the midst of time; of the presence of an over-world in the midst of this world [p.31]—­guiding man to the revelation of a Divine Will.