Page:Philosophical Review Volume 22.djvu/94

78 an object. It exhibits meaning complexes which demand for their explanation something more ultimate than the man vs. world conception of life. What Eucken is seeking is a life-principle which will synthesize the spiritual content of life for the individual and for the race. He really makes use of the transcendental method. He maintains the fact of spiritual life and then seeks the necessary conditions of its existence.

Eucken admits the necessity of a transition to metaphysics at this point, but says it is a metaphysics which arises out of a vital demand of life as a whole and its adequacy must be judged by its ability, when appropriated, to satisfy the demand of life for an inner elevation and a deeper unity. His position is as follows. The phenomenon in man of independent, self-conscious, self-determining activity according to spiritual ideals, forces us to the recognition of a universal self-conscious life which reveals itself to man and can be appropriated by him if he will. The life of man exhibits two levels—man as a part of nature and as part of a spiritual order of reality. The latter cannot be derived from the former, hence it must be the manifestation of an absolute life. Were spirituality a mere addition to nature, man would be Prometheus-bound; but it is more than this, for, once recognized as the center of life, it frees man from nature so far as the direction of his life is concerned. Its appropriation brings about a revolution and entire reorganization of life. The external now becomes a means toward advancement of the inner life. The movement is no longer from subject to external object but is one within life itself, which struggles toward its own perfection. The inward life becomes fundamental and that which sustains a world which, from the merely human point of view, seems to be non-spiritual but which, doubtless, is a lower stage of reality. Life as a whole, if we understand Eucken aright, is a process in which the world struggles toward self-consciousness. The life of the world has a history and its appearance in man marks a new stage of its development. In him a truly self-conscious life reveals itself under the limiting conditions of the lower stage of reality which we call the world of experience. This world is essential; for through activity in it, spiritual reality wins a concrete form. It sets itself in individual points and advances through their activity. Since, then, in man's activity the world as a whole is elucidating itself, his activity, in so far as he allows himself to be elevated into this universal world, becomes cosmic and objective in its nature and results. The further development of self-conscious reality is thus dependent upon man's endeavors. If he refuse to