as somehow constituting the foundation and the acme of all existence.  Eucken’s main desire is to establish such norms and values beyond the possibility of dispute and beyond the constant changes of Life-systems.  They mean for him what is present within their spiritual content as a realisation as well as the More to which they still point.  His teaching is not contradicted by anything in the neo-Kantian movement;[p.218] he accepts its transcendental reality and lifts it out of the realm of individuality and of history into a cosmic realm.  After having followed the implications of the neo-Kantian movement so far, he feels compelled to take the next step.  For unless that next step is taken, some of the deepest potencies of human nature fail to come to flower and fruit.  When the step is taken, they do blossom and bear fruit.  Is not this a sufficient justification for taking the “next step”?  It is; for man cannot allow any potency of his being to remain dormant without suffering a loss; and on this highest level of all the loss must be incalculable.  “Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart will never find its rest until it rests on Thee.”  That confession of Augustine is Eucken’s confession also; and it is the implication which such a confession contains that constitutes the significance of his message to the world.  He is in the line not only of the philosophers but of the prophets and the mystics.  The ladder of knowledge reaches, like Jacob’s ladder, up to heaven itself—­to that pure atmosphere where knowledge, merged in a deeper reality, becomes something so different from what it was before.  An eternal blessedness has now become the possession of man.

Eucken has a great deal to say regarding the Historical Life-systems of the present day. [p.219] He is aware that the neglect by German thinkers of the fundamental importance of Hegel’s teaching on this question has meant a heavy loss.  That loss is already perceived, and Hegel’s value in the realm of the Philosophy of History is being rediscovered.  Men are more and more feeling the necessity of conceding a validity and objectivity to the concepts of History.  The work of the late Professor Dilthey[79] in this respect is of great importance, and has strong affinities with Eucken’s teaching on the same subject.  But Dilthey’s objectivity and validity stopped short of religion in the sense in which religion is presented by Eucken.  Dilthey gave the norms of History a transcendental objectivity and considered them sufficient for man.  But Eucken, as already stated, while granting all this and even insisting upon it, finds that the norms of History do not include the whole that human nature needs.  The “next step” has to be taken whereby a reality is revealed beyond the confines of the best collective experiences of the human race.  Once more, we are landed in the conception of the Godhead.  The step became inevitable, because the best [p.220] historical concepts, in their totality, pointed to something still beyond themselves.