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CHAPTER XII [p.206]

PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

In this chapter some of the most important problems of the present day will be touched upon in the light of Eucken’s Philosophy of Religion.  Reference has already been made to Eucken’s account of the limitations of various Life-systems, of their struggle with one another, and of the necessity for a religious synthesis which will include their most important results within itself.[71] The answer as to the possibility and necessity of such a synthesis constitutes the kernel of Eucken’s Philosophy of Religion.  He has succeeded in a remarkable manner in assessing the results of science, philosophy, sociology, art, and religion.  In them all he has discovered the presence of a reality which is non-sensuous in its nature, and, which reveals itself [p.207] in judgments of value that carry within themselves their own necessity and self-subsistence.  This is his conclusion in regard to the work of the spirit of man on whatever plane of knowledge or experience that spirit works.  Man’s spirit has to carry all its knowledge and experience into its own conative spiritual potencies.  We thus see that everything becomes an aid to the unfolding of an ever greater degree of reality within the spirit of man.  It is then within the spirit of man that everything finds its interpretation and value.  Whatever interpretation is given to anything apart from the union of the whole potency and cognition of man’s spirit is only a partial interpretation.  And it is in the failure to recognise this truth that so many Life-systems have set themselves against the higher aspects of philosophy and religion.  The most important question has not been asked:  What is the relation and value of all results in connection with the deepest potency and necessity of man’s spirit?  Are these results capable of enriching that spirit of man when he becomes conscious of them?  These are the questions which Eucken continually asks and answers in his great works; and it is this fact which makes his teaching so valuable and superior to all the Life-systems of our day.  It is difficult to think of any aspect of experience which Eucken has left out of account.  He has not, indeed, interpreted [p.208] in detail all the Life-systems in vogue, and no human being is capable of achieving such a task; but he has clearly perceived the flaws which lie in them all.  And this discovery of his has revealed a flaw common to them all.  That flaw consists in ignoring the presence of a spiritual life as the great workshop where every form of reality finds its truest meaning.  This flaw is so serious in that several Life-systems have thus over-estimated the importance of their results by neglecting to take into account the potentialities and necessities of man’s spirit.  Let us, then, try to trace this defect in connection with