If we turn to Immanent Idealism, we discover the same failure.  It emphasises the presence within consciousness of what is idealistic and noble, but it leaves out the objective and imperative character of what is present.  It also forgets that the possession of ideals as ideas is only the initial stage of such ideals becoming a very portion [p.211] of the deepest substance of soul itself.  We may deceive ourselves even with the contemplation of the best ideals; they can never become truly ours until the will is set in motion and the whole nature is stirred to its depths in order to press forward to what it perceives as having infinite value.  Something has inevitably to happen within the depth of the soul before its real creation can advance.  Eucken here, again, has perceived this truth and presents it everywhere with great power.  His Philosophy is an Activism of the most powerful type.  He is aware that to know and to be are so far apart.  But his Activism is not a mere movement of the individual’s will, brought forth by anything that has grown within it as a private inheritance.  The Activism is started and kept going on its course by the over-personal norms and values already referred to.  It is the union of norm and will that constitutes the full action.  Life’s greater meaning and value is, therefore, not a ready-made possession; it is rather something already possessed, and a vision of something more in the distance to be possessed.[73] The presence of the Divine within the soul is not the same prior to the search and after the search.  This is [p.212] one of the most distinctive features of Eucken’s teaching, and constitutes a necessary supplement to certain presentations of Immanent Idealism prevalent in various forms to-day.

When we pass to Materialism in its various forms, we find Eucken conscious of its poverty and its caricature of life.  It is caused by excessive absorption in the sensuous object with all its manifold relations.  But it is possible to believe in all that it states; for it can never really say anything concerning the deeper meaning of spiritual life if for no other reason than that it cannot penetrate into life’s deeper experiences.  It is a stage in human thought which is passing away.  What will become of it after Professor Haeckel’s passing is difficult to imagine.  One thing at least is certain:  as a complete system of the universe or of life it is doomed.[74] A mechanical interpretation of the universe is legitimate:  we may have to adopt more of such interpretations in the future.  But there is no need for any alarm from the sides of philosophy and religion.  Their citadel is not built upon a thing, but upon a thought; and the gap between the two increases in the degree in which our knowledge of Nature and Man increases.  Eucken has many great things to say on this subject in his larger works.  Doubtless he would agree with some of the [p.213] advocates of Naturalism in regard to the meaning of the physical universe, but such agreement would not be an admission that all had been said that could be said concerning the need and the possibility of a Metaphysic of Life.