Page:Philosophical Review Volume 22.djvu/96

80 content and thus really advance spiritual life. This synthesis will be at once relative and time transcending. The symbolical form is ever relative. Eucken believes that he has pointed out the direction for such work. We must recognize an independent spiritual life and the necessity of our activity. On account of the importance of the latter, and in view of the fact that a new system of philosophy must emphasize the importance of self-conscious activity, he calls his standpoint Activism. Universal history shows a plastic conception of life followed by one of mere activity upon externals. What we need now is emphasis upon self-determining spiritual activity winning its content through activity within experience. Self-consciousness is the framework and it is our task to fill it in with the content which our age is capable of yielding.

Eucken is no eclectic. The material that he appropriates is transformed and gains a new significance through the integrating principle of the whole. His emphasis upon the life-process as the starting point for philosophy and upon the fact that each epoch is capable of a contribution both relative and absolute, is in sympathy with philosophical thought in America today. And, in any case, however much the reader may feel himself compelled to differ from the metaphysical conclusions of the author, he cannot fail to be invigorated and aroused to serious thought by the earnest active idealism so ably presented and supported. Those who know Professor Eucken personally realize that this book expresses the deep conviction of a man whose life is guided by its principles. The man himself is an inspiring illustration of what he means, when he maintains that the acceptance of the spiritual life as the guide of activity leads us into a state of true human culture, as distinguished from the learning which is merely external and selfish.