Page:Philosophical Review Volume 22.djvu/95

79 appropriate it as the guide of his work, then spiritual life will stagnate. Mere activity on man's part is not enough. It must be self-conscious activity proceeding from the necessity of the object, i.e., activity based in the absolute life which is ready to break forth in him when he is willing to transfer the center of life to this realm. The decision can be made at any point. The spiritual life is in so far democratic. Spiritual reality has its a priori, i.e., it has inherent laws, but it presents itself to man as a possibility which must be turned into a complete reality by his efforts. It is an ideal toward which man in his individual life and humanity as a whole can only approach by incessant activity. Freedom is made possible by it and demanded by it. Man must be free to make the transition and free to obey its self-determining laws. Man's work is, then, creative in the sense of actually determining reality further. His life wins a new relation, that to an absolute life transcending him as an individual. His work in all departments, so far as spiritually guided, is genuinely productive and transcends the antithesis of subject and object which the psychical activities as purely subjective cannot overcome. The work in these departments must be judged ultimately by the gain for life as a whole. The results of one form of activity cannot be applied directly to another but must be mediated through the whole.

Eucken repudiates Intellectualism, Voluntarism, and Æstheticism because they are products of an overestimation of human faculties. It is the spiritual life as a whole which determines the function of each of these activities. As Eucken has promised us a theory of knowledge this year, a word will suffice here as to the problem of knowledge. Thought does not find its goal in itself as mere erudition, or in a mere human utilitarianism, but in the advancement of spiritual unity which its work in the world brings to individual and race. That life can unify itself is the presupposition of truth. Its proof lies in the actual elevation to a state of self-determining activity which its acceptance brings about. Every individual and every epoch has its own peculiar unity inherent in it. Reality is in flux and we determine its form further. Spiritual reality develops in time but, once won, it transcends time. This saves us from relativism. Spiritual life has its evolution, hence the significance of history which enables us to determine our position in the process.

This brings us to Part III in which Eucken makes a most earnest appeal to the present to seek the meaning of life peculiar to it. The spiritual content of the present is not something clearly given but it must be won by spiritual activity. If we will, we can secure this