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CHAPTER XIII [p.227]

EUCKENS PERSONALITY AND INFLUENCE

In this chapter an attempt will be made to present in a brief form some of the most important aspects of Eucken’s personality and influence.  His training and the relation of his teaching to the German philosophical systems of the present have already been touched upon in some of the earlier chapters.  But no account of Eucken’s teaching is complete without a knowledge of his personality.

We cannot understand his personality without bearing in mind Eucken’s nationality.  He is a man of the North.  A mere glimpse of the deep blue eyes reveals this immediately.  His ancestors lived in close contact with Nature, and faced the perils of the great deep.  The history of the men of the North has witnessed, along the centuries, a struggle for existence as severe as any struggle known in the history of our world.  A trait of Eucken’s character almost entirely unknown in England is his deep sympathy with the small nations [p.228] of Europe, and especially with those of the North.  He has written and pleaded on behalf of Poland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.  He finds that small nations, when their independence is preserved, have the tendency to bring forth original characteristics of thought and life, which are only too apt to get lost in the bustle and mechanism of the great nations.  He has shown us on several occasions how much the world is indebted to its small nations for the ideas and ideals which have shaped its destiny.  He believes with his whole soul that size does not necessarily mean greatness.  When we compare the greatness of Palestine and Greece with that of the larger countries of the world, the latter sink into insignificance when weighed in the balances of the spirit.  He has, during the past few years, several times pointed out a danger to personality and character from the vast organisations which have been created in the various departments of life during the latter half of the nineteenth century.  The deeper personality of man has receded more and more into the background through the growth of such organisations.  This fact is clear in the realms of commerce and of politics.  We call a nation “great” in the degree in which it succeeds in outstripping other nations in its exports and imports, or in forming alliances with its neighbouring states or with other nations.  A large portion of the gains which accrue from such [p.229] unions is purely accidental, and these gains cannot possibly touch the essentials of life.  The explanation of this is the fact that the centre of gravity has been shifted from mental and moral racial qualities to qualities which are far inferior in mental and moral potency and content.  Thus, we witness the painful inversion of values which has taken place during the past fifty years.  Every “small nation” has to take a secondary