l-ROM THl-; SAe^E ENDOWMENT FUND Henvij Vi. Sage f\.^ ^ «" \ A _- The date shows when this volume was taken. To renew this bonk coin 'licrall N."t>. and j^'\< to the librarian XO £ An® HOME USE RULES. All Books^ubject lo Recall. Boooks, when the giver wisiies it, are not allowed to circulate. Readers are [asked to report all cases of books marked or muti- lated. Do not deface books by marks and writing. Cornell University Library BL51 .E86 1911 The truth of religion olin 3 1924 031 017 936 3i- 5"! Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924031017936 THEOLOGICAL TRANSLATION LIBRARY VOL. XXX EUCKEN'S THE TRUTH OF RELIGION >AV^ ^beological trranslatton 3Librars NEW SERIES Vol. XXX.— THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. By Dr Rudolf EucKEN, Senior Professor of Philosophy in the University of Jena. Vols. XXVIII. and XXIX.— THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF THE ANCIENT EAST. By Alfred Jeeemias, Pastor of the Lutherkirche, and Lecturer at the University of Leipzig. Two vols., with numerous illustrations and maps. Vols, not sold separately. Vols. XXVII., XXVI. and XXII. — PRIMITIVE CHRIS- TIANITY: Its Writings and Teachings in their Historical Connections. By Otto Pfleideeer, Professor of Practical Theology in the University of Berlin. Vols, i, 2 and 3. Vol. XXV.— ETHICS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. By Dr Theodor von Haering, Professor of New Testament Dogmatics and Ethics at Tubingen. Vol. XXIV.— HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. By Hans von Schubekt, Professor of Church History at Kiel. Vol. XXIII.— THE INTRODUCTION TO THE CANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By Carl Cornill, Professor of Old Testament Theology at the University of Breslau. Vol. XXL— ST PAUL : The Man and His Work. By Prof. H. Weinel, of the University of Jena, Vols. XIX. and XX.— THE MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE FIRST THREE CEN- TURIES. By Adolf Harnack, Berlin. Second, revised and much enlarged edition. Vols, not sold separately. Vol. XVIII— CHRISTIAN LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. By Ernst von Dobschutz, D.D., Professor of New Testament Theology in the University of Strassburg. Vol. XVI.— THE RELIGIONS OF AUTHORITY AND THE RELIGION OF THE SPIRIT. By the late Auguste Sabatikr. Vols. XV. and XVII.— THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRIS- TIANITY. By Paul Wernle, Professor Extraordinary of Modern Church History at the University of Basel. Vol. I. The Rise of the Religion. Vol. II. The Development of the Church. Vol. XIII.— AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. By Professor Eberhard Nestle, of Maulbronn. Vols. II., VII., VIII., IX., X., XL, XII.— A HISTORY OF DOGMA. By Adolf Haknack, Berlin. Translated from the Thim German Edition. Edited by the late Rev. Prof. A. B. Bruce, D.D. 7 vols. Vol. IV.— THE COMMUNION OF THE CHRISTIAN WITH GOD : A Discussion in Agreement with the View of Luther. By W. Herrmann, Dr. Theol., Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the University of Marburg. Vols. III. and VI.— A HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS. By R. KiTTEL, Ordinary Professor of Theology in the University of Breslau. Vols. I. and v.— THE APOSTOLIC AGE. By Prof. Carl von Weizsacker. Translatedby James Millar, B.D. a vols. Descriptive Prospectus on Application. THE TRUTH OF RELIGION BY RUDOLF EUCKEN AWARDED NOBEL PRIZE I908 SENIOR PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF JENA TRANSLATED BY W. TUDOR JONES, Ph.D. (Jena) NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS LONDON: WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 1911 "^Hiz^ 7-^^*^ A>^ ^ozu first translated into English from the Second and Revised Edition^ with a special Preface for this Edition by the Author l.L TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE It is with mixed feelings that I allow this translation to pass out of my hands. It would not have been undertaken had it not been for the affection which I possess for my old teacher and friend, and for the influence which he exerted over my life when I had the privilege of spending nearly three years with him in the ancient University of Jena. And such an ex- perience as mine is only a specimen of what is true of thousands of other students who have passed through his classes in Jena since 1874. These students are found all over the world, and are all imbued with some- thing of the spirit of their great teacher in connection with the problems and contents of religion. The book presents peculiar difficulties which will be immediately acknowledged by all students of the author's writings. Much is lost at the best in a translation, and especially is this so when the work is that of a prophet of religion who cannot be tied down either in thought or mode of expression to the level of the writer on exact subjects. I have been painfully conscious of the inadequacy of language to express many of the ideas presented in the book — ideas which seem inseparable from the religious experience of the living personality. The terminology in many portions of the book moves midway between Philosophy and vi THE TRUTH OF RELIGION Theology, and I have endeavoured constantly to take this important fact into consideration. But it is a fact of great difficulty in the midst of the present-day flux of philosophical terminology. Whatever the faults may be, I hope no one will detect a lack of fair- ness in dealing with various theological conceptions. I have to thank my wife for valuable help in con- nection with the whole of the translation. In the course of a few years, two large editions of the book have appeared in Germany and the work has been the subject of a large number of books, dissertations, and essays, by many eminent German philosophers and religious teachers. I hope it will meet with a similar reception in the English-speaking countries of the world, and help all who have at heart the furtherance of the things of the spirit to differentiate between the transient and the Eternal in Christianity, and to labour for the growth of the Spiritual Life in the deepest consciousness of men. W. TUDOR JONES. Highbury, London, Ist November IQll. AUTHOR'S PREFACE FOR THE ENGLISH EDITION The author of this book has found so much good- will in England in connection with his efforts that it is a great pleasure for him to see his main work on religion appearing in English. The work does not pretend to present a system of religious philosophy ; but, in the midst of the present-day controversy over religion, the most important task seems to be to present with the utmost possible clearness the solid nucleus of religion, and, along with this, to show its main rights. In the conviction of the author, religion is able to attain a secure position and an effective influence only when it is founded upon the whole of life and not upon a particular so-called faculty of the soul, be it intellect, feeling, or will. It behoves us, therefore, to possess a plan of human life as a whole, and to inquire whether life as a whole turns out to indicate the operation of a Higher Power, and, hence, to lead to religion. The primary condition of this is the consideration that human life is not a mere piece of nature, but that a new stage of reality reveals itself in it. Such a revelation is actually present in the Spiritual Life ; and we are not able to grasp sufficiently this fact or to understand its effects with- out recognising that the Spiritual Life is a Whole, viii THE TRUTH OF RELIGION and that it is present with elevating energy as a Whole in man. In pursuing this path it becomes evident that a universal life — a cosmic depth — is imbedded in the Spiritual Life. It is only as a revelation of such a nature of life that spiritual creativeness, art and science, morality and right, can develop themselves and transform man. If, therefore, all genuine Spirit- ual Life is the effect of a Higher Power, religion is imbedded in it. The great spiritual leaders of the race were clearly conscious of such a fact. But a religion of such spiritual activity is still of a very indefinite nature, and receives a distinctive character, first of all, from the fact that, throughout a grave upheaval, in a conquest over suflfering and wrong, a further stage of life — itself a kingdom of Divine Love— is unlocked. Herewith religion becomes for the first time an autonomous province of life ; here- with it brings forth a new and unique life. But Characteristic and Universal Religion — in the sense the terms are used in this work — must remain in living relationship and mutually further one another, for thus alone can the whole of religion shape itself into greatness, and thus fortify and raise not only individuals but the whole of humanity. This fundamental conception tests and measures the historical religions especially according to the manner in which they shape the life of humanity, and accord- ing to what they are able to achieve for the moral elevation of human nature. Here the conception decides resolutely for Christianity as the summit of all religions ; but simultaneously it demands, in view of the situation of the present day, that Christianity AUTHOR'S PREFACE FOR ENGLISH EDITION ix be more forcibly referred back to its essential vital content and be given a simpler and more intelligible form, and be freed from whatever is, no more alive in it but is a mere heritage of past times. The Eternal and Divine in Christianity is the depth of life which is unlocked in it. It has become necessary to differentiate more clearly the Eternal and Divine from the transient and the human which have so intimately mixed up with it in divers forms. It is only a conception of religion which binds freedom and depth with one another, and which heightens freedom through depth and depth through freedom, that will be able to overcome the storms of the present. RUDOLF EUCKEN. Jena, 1st November 1911- CONTENTS PART I.— THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION CHAP. PAGH I. a. The problem of religion .... 1 II. h. The characteristic features of Christianity . . 10 III. c. The movement of modern times' against Chris- tianity ....... 24 1. The changes in the world of thought . . 24 (a) Natural science and religion . . 24 (/8) History and religion . . . 28 (y) The spiritual life and religion . . 35 2. The variation of the direction of life . . 39 IV. d. The reconsolidation of religion ... 48 V. e. The explanation of the developing tendency 63 PART II.— THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION Introduction . 72 VI. a. The complexity of human life .... 86 1. The dualism in human life ... 86 2. The contradiction in human life . . 94 (a) The weakness of the spiritual motive- powers ...... 95 (^) The spiritual impotence of man . . 99 (■y) The insufficiency of an alleged remedy 108 VII. b. The progressive autonomy of the spiritual life . 119 1. The several stages 122 (a) The emancipation of life from the small self and the merely human order 122 (yS) The inward antithesis overcome . 131 (y) The winning of a universal self . . 1 42 PAQE xii THE TRUTH OF RELIGION CHAP. . 2. Epitome and survey . . . . • '■^" (a) The meaning of the spiritual life . 156 (j8) The view of the universe . . . l6S (y) The situation of man . . . . l69 (8) Conclusions for the method and the task of life 177 VIII. c. The fact of universal religion . . . . 187 1. The turn to religion . . . . . 187 (a) The problem of religion in general . 187 (^) Nearer view of the problem . . 188 (•y) The reality above the world . . 195 (aa) The peril to the spiritual life from its surrounding world . 196 (bb) The assertion of the spiritual life over against the world . 198 (cc) The revelation of an absolute spiritual life in our world . 203 2. The content of religion . . . , 208 (a) The idea of God .... 208 (/?) Godhead and the world . . . 214 (y) Godhead and man . . . . 221 (8) The psychic connections of religion . 226 (e) The characteristic features of the religion of the spiritual life . . 231 3. The proof and confirmation of religion . 243 (a) Religion and science .... 243 (/3) General considerations . . . 256 (y) Special pathways .... 260 (aa) The aspiration after infinity . 26l (bb) The aspiration after freedom and equality . . . 263 (cc) The aspiration after eternity . 270 (dd) The aspiration after fellow- ship and after a soul . . 273 (ee) The aspiration after greatness 278 Conclusion . . . . . 282 PART III.— THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION Introduction ........ 284 IX. a. The explanation of the opposition . . . 290 1 . The opposition of nature .... 290 CONTENTS xiii OHAP. I'AOK 2. The opposition of culture .... 290 3. The opposition within the particular pro- vince of the spiritual life . . 306 (a) The disruption of the spiritual life . 307 (/3) The disintegration within the spiritual life 313 (■y) The impotence of morality . . 320 4. The darkness of the human situation . . 325 X. b. The opposition considered .... 349 1 . The inadequacy of proposed remedies . 349 2. The impossibility of a negation . . . 351 3. The necessity of further manifestations . 362 PART IV.— CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION Introduction ........ 364 XI. a. The historical religions ..... 366 1. The fact of religions 366 2. The opposition to religions . . 374 3. Impossibility of a simple denial of religion 386 XII. b. Signs of a new depth of life .... 391 1. The idea of love of enemy . . . 392 2. The deepening of love .... 395 3. Self-maintenance in the midst of hindrance and suffering .... . 400 4. The progressive development of inwardness 403 5. The further development of morality . . 405 XIII. c. The unfolding of a religion of a distinctive kind 410 1. Introductory . . . . . . 410 2. The new life-process ..... 419 (a) The main thesis .... 419 (j8) The idea of God and the relationship to God 429 (y) The verification of religion through the progressive develop- ment of life ... 437 (aa) Elucidation and integration of life .... 437 (bb) The further development of the movements of life 444 xiv THE TRUTH 0¥ RELIGION OHAP. PASH (cc) Peculiar effects of character- istic religion . . . 448 (dd) Retrospect .... 453 3. Religion in its relation to society and history 457 (a) The problem of the Church . . 458 (aa) The necessity of a religious organisation . . . 458 (bb) The dangers of a religious organisation . . . 459 (cc) The reconstruction of a re- ligious organisation . . 467 (13) The relationship to history . . 475 XIV. d. The general aspect of religion and life . 490 (1) The persistence of evil .... 490 (2) The overcoming of evil .... 493 (3) The religious interpretation of life and the world 498 (4) Faith and doubt : the denial of religion . 518 PART v.— CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT Introductory remarks concerning historical and absolute religion ...... 534 XV. a. The eternal in Christianity .... 539 1. The nucleus beyond all loss . . . 539 2. The maintenance of this nucleus against the changes of time . . . 547 (a) The further development over against nature ..... 547 (/?) The further development over against history and culture . . . 556 (y) The further development over against the changes of the spiritual life in man ...... 563 XVI. b. The transient in Christianity and the necessity of a renewal of Christianity . . . 576 1. The removal from past forms . . . 576 2. The necessity of a new mode of Clu-istianity 591 XVII. c. The situation and demands of the present . . 605 Index ... 61 7 THE TRUTH OF RELIGION Part I. — The Universal Crisis in Religion CHAPTER I a. The Problem or Religion He who wishes to ascertain the intrinsic truth of religion need neither trace its blurred beginnings in time nor pursue its slow ascent, but may take his stand upon the summit of its development. For it is here first of all that the problem of truth obtains a clearness and, at the same time, an urgency. We need not trouble ourselves about the magic-shapes which accompany and govern the initial stages of religion ; and we need not occupy ourselves with rehgion as a mere aspect of early civilisation or as a mythology of nature. Our problem begins only where religion engenders a world of its own, and holds forth such a world over against the remainder of existence, thus transforming the remaining world through and through. Thus, religion holds before man, in the midst of his province, an invisible order of things, an eternal existence, a supernatural life. 2 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION and claims his soul for all this. Such a stated revelation appears not merely in one but in several points in history, and, further, the contents of the " historical " and the positive religions vary. But the same problem presents itself in all the manifold phenomena of religion, and a sharp Nay as well as a joyous Yea are common to all religions. Nowhere is religion able to gain man for its new world unless it frees him from the old world, and unless it enables him to dislike and even to hate what hitherto had swayed and enchanted him. There is no possibility of a genuine and eflfective turn of his life without a breach with the nearest-at-hand world — without the clear discovery of the misery and vanity of such a world. This world must displease man not only at certain points but in its entirety. All within it contains not only much pain and sorrow, but all within it is inadequate for man's highest happiness. Man is not only menaced and oppressed from without ; he is troubled from within by anguish and alarm. It is only an entire revolution of the nearest-at-hand life that can engender a genuine and overwhelming aspiration after religion, and it is only through such an aspiration that religion can come to birth in the soul of man. Indeed, the harder and sharper the Nay is, the more energetic and joyous becomes the Yea which religion holds out to man. Religion as a communica- tion of God — of the highest power and perfection — not only alleviates in some kind of way the pain of man, and not only heightens somehow his happiness, but it promises an entire freedom from evil and a translation into entire blessedness. The new world THE PROBLEM OF RELIGION 3 announced by religion signifies the highest conceiv- able world — the summit of all perfection. The evanescent and diminutive nature of> man shall gain a portion in the eternity and infinity of this new world, and, indeed, man shall ascend to the Divine, and religion will finally bind the Divine and the human in one. Religion sets our life in a stormy conflict and movement through the revelation of such immense prospects, through the transportation of a super- human aim within the needs and exigencies of human existence. Our existence raises itself to incomparable greatness and intrinsic value, and into our being the essence of the cosmos enters and longs for our decision. Our circle of life dissects itself into a For or Against ; the customary valuation of the excellencies of life is not only altered but inverted, so that now that alone holds valid which leads us to the Divine, whilst all that holds us fast to the ordinary world, in spite of all its captivating brilliancy, sinks to the level of an evil. " If any man cometh unto me and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." But, besides being such a denial of the world, religion was at the same time the strongest power within the world. Nothing has so much united men inwardly, but also nothing has so much divided them as religion ; nothing has so much deepened the nature of individuals, nothing has so obligatorily driven forward the characteristic tendencies of nations as convictions of Divine things. Whatever appears in life as heroism roots itself ultimately in religion ; 4 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION nothing can inspire man in the depth of his soul, nothing can win his entire self-surrender unless it has linked itself to his religion, or has become a kind of religion in itself. Indeed, all the belief of humanity and of the individual seems inseparable from a belief in the indwelling of a Divine in human nature — of the living presence of an eternal and spiritual energy in the deeds of man. He who has experienced the religious problem in the depth of his soul is never again able to free himself entirely from such an experience ; he may cast it off and banish it to a distance, but when he does this he cannot but choose to lay his strongest affection in the realm of negation ; he cannot but choose to handle the question of religion as the main question of his life, so that unbelief itself becomes only another kind of versatile belief in his inmost conviction. Thus the strongest power within the world constitutes in reality the conviction of an over-world. But, at the same time, religion has been an object which has been constantly spoken against in a harsh and callous manner. This happens not only from the outside, but also from the deep earnestness of wrestUng souls. Ever anew the question raises itself whether an opening to the Divine — whether a raising of man in some kind of way to a Divine life is possible, or whether all assertion concerning this turns out finally to be no more than a delusion. Must not all that affects man assume a mere human form ? And must not all which recommended them- selves to his aims enter into mere human notions? And is not all drawn into the narrowness and the gloom of the earthly circle — is not all confined within THE PROBLEM OF RELIGION 5 the barriers of our nature? Often enough what served petty-human mterests was considered Divine ; the forces of the world tore such a JDivine meaning and reduced it to a means for their own ends. Religion promises man a new life and new heart. But has it not often knitted itself faster to the mechanism of the world and heightened in a most repulsive manner hate and jealousy, vanity and hypocrisy ? And, further, the external world does not correspond to the conceptions of religion. How could the external world hinder so callously the upward tendency of the life of man, how could it concede to unreason and injustice so much scope, if it stood under the secure guardianship of an all- powerful Reason and of an Infinite Love ? Thus, doubt burns like a devouring fire and leaps up into the external province of religion, and also finds its way into the most holy place and engenders a tormenting uncertainty. Deep by the side of their yearning, ardent souls have discovered with pain the contradiction of the appearance of things, and have fotmd no consolation in the customary modes of appeasement. Indeed, with the leading religious spirits, much that had originated from a joyous creativeness is hurled back into the abyss of doubt. The stubbornness of doubt changes with one stroke the total-outlook of things : the joyous high flight is retarded ; the upward energy is paralysed ; what hitherto appeared evident, now appears impossible ; the over-world which is to the faithful the secure and self-evident standard of life, recedes into an inacces- sible distance and, indeed, threatens to resolve itself into an empty illusion. Religion then appears as a 6 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION grand error of the human spirit — as an image of man's own existence projected into the All, and as a dream of a more beautiful life to which a reality does not correspond, and on which he hangs his life. He who sees through the dream as a mere dream ought to undertake an inexorable struggle against such a falsification of life ; he ought not to tolerate patiently religion but struggle with it with the whole of his energy as a deadly error. Here all possibility of a third course falls to the ground. If religion is not the highest and most fruitful truth, it is the worst and deadliest of errors ; if it is not the work of God, it is a diabolical testimony of falsehood and darkness. How can we decide concerning this critical point on which the course of the whole of our life depends ? How can we flee from the intolerable barriers which lie between affirmation and negation ? The historical religions have answered these ques- tions in their own way ; they have not answered them through philosophical doctrines but through the real facts of the work accomplished ; they have not reflected and disputed merely how the Divine glory can enter into the world of man, but have undertaken to corroborate the possibility of the impossible through the fruits of its reality. In the personalities of the founders as well as in the religious communities the wonder seemed to reach an intuitive presence, the idea seemed to incarnate itself in flesh and blood. Religions felt themselves in the posses- sion of an obvious reality — a reality which liberated them from all insecurity and armed them against all doubt. But, unfortunately, the fact of all this was not so simple as the believers supposed, for even that THE PROBLEM OF RELIGION 7 which was to overcome doubt raised a new and greater doubt. It is fact of an historical kind whip h is expected to consolidate belief. Such a fact must stand out from the remainder of life and develop a distinctive char- acteristic feature ; indeed, the more individual does such a fact become, the more energetically will it work. But, as an expression of Divine truth, the same fact must hold valid for all times ; it must govern and permeate the whole compass of life. Is not an intolerable contradiction imbedded in such a belief? Does not the binding of life to one special form of life confine life in too narrow a groove ? Will it not cut away all further development, and must it not become a coercive burden which incites human nature to cast it off? The most casual view of the history of religions places this entanglement clearly before us. Every historical religion borrows peculiar convictions of the world and peculiar valuations of life from its envir- onment. The environment states the question, and religion undertakes the answer. Thus, every Indian religion has as its presupposition a strong feeling of the transitoriness and unreality of existence. Can the imposed solution satisfy any one who rejects such a presupposition ? And does the matter stand other- wise with Christianity ? Can it speak to all men, races, and times if it maintains any definirte character, and does it not dissolve itself into vague generalities ? The personalities of the founders constitute the centre of the historical religions. Nothing gives the presence of an over-world within the human circle more convincing energy than the unswerving 8 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION constancy with which such personaUties are rooted in the Divine ; than the manner in which they are com- pletely filled by the thought of this one relation ; and than the simplicity and nearness which the great mystery has acquired for them. Hearts have never been won and minds have never been swayed without the presence of a regal imagination which understands how to win visible forms from an unseen world, and to penetrate through all the multiplicity of things into a kingdom of a fuller life. Nothing so elevated above the ordinary every-day existence is to be found as this, and nothing has governed in so compelling a manner the hearts of men as such a secure growth and such a presence of a new world. But all this is individual and distinct precisely where it is great; so that the religious life which issues from such a source bears a thoroughly indi- vidual character. Jesus, the Buddha, Mahomet, have affected humanity in fundamentally different ways. If one fundamental form is offered to aU peoples and times, does it not exclude much which humanity can not and dare not relinquish ? Also, the attempt to mould one religion into a world-power on the ground of history is dependent upon the particularity of the transitory historical situa- tion. Such a formation of religion requires a highly- explicitated realm of thought, and the means to obtain this can be no other than the environing culture and civilisation ; yet though these latter seem to be no more than hand-maids to religion, they work powerfully upon religion itself That culture and civilisation were the products of particular peoples and epochs ; sooner or later the whole of humanity will outgrow them, THE PROBLEM OF RELIGION 9 and if religion is indissolubly bound up with them, the breach with a past culture and civilisation yields at the same time a disunion with,the tradition of religion. Thus doubt upon doubt rises. The Eternal seems to fall under the ban of time as soon as it touches the ground of time. But, again, if it stands entirely on an immutability, it becomes a hindrance to all move- ment and a denial of all history. But history is ever present, and its current incessantly carries forth some- thing new, and an indestructible need of the life of humanity rejects any imposed stagnation. In connec- tion with this difficulty it may seem as if in the alleged Eternal it is not so much the Divine and Eternal which reveal themselves, but only a particular kind of human and temporal notions is founded and sanctioned. Why should we at this period of day bow before such particularity, and why should we renounce the inde- pendence of our own hfe ? The historical element which should have supported reUgion becomes thus a new burden ; doubts seem now strengthened all along concerning an over-world and its province. Then the uncertainty concerning the whole matter bars an entrance into religion ; indeed, the more we puzzle our brains and worry ourselves, the further religion seems to recede from us. " God is the easiest and hardest object to know ; the first and easiest to know on the path of light ; the most difficult and last to know on the path of darkness " (Leibniz). PART I.— THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER II h. The Characteristic Features OP Christianity The general problem of religion increases with the turn to Christianity. The investigator as well as the believer willingly acknowledge a surpassing greatness to Christianity among the religions of the world. In the first place, Christianity belongs to the higher of the two groups into which the historical religions may be divided. These are either the Religions of Law or the Religions of Redemption. To the first, the kernel of religion is the announcement and advocacy of a moral order which governs the world from on high. A fixed decree issuing out of a holy will is announced to man for his acts, words, and thoughts ; a glorious reward awaits the fulfilment of this law, and a painful punishment awaits its transgression, if not in this world yet in the world to come. Life thus in the whole of its extent is linked to a super-sensuous world, is drawn to the daily task and to the decision for or against God. Such a call to man would be impossible without the conviction that he is able to select the alternative out of his own energy, and that his will suffices for the adoption 10 CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY 11 of the good. On the other hand, the rehgions of redemption declare such a conviction as false and superficial. The capacity of man «which seems so self-evident to such a conviction becomes to the religions of redemption the most difficult of problems — becomes the most weighty question and concern. Through this growth of the problem, man appears to the religions of redemption as entirely unable in his natural state to reach God, and as a being who falls continually into evil and semblance ; and consequently such religions long for an entire transformation and renewal — for a sinking of the old and a raising of the new, and for a great miracle of redemption. How such a miracle is to happen may appear in the begin- ning entirely puzzling, because man views himself here in the midst of the most difficult entanglements. But the possibility of a deepening of life corresponds to the entanglements ; life is conceived more and more as a Whole, and is stirred, convulsed, transformed incom- parably more than hitherto. The very opening of such a question relegates the religions of law, despite all the merits of their greater simplicity, transparency, and rationality, to a lower level — to a level which has been reached and passed by the most important inward movement of the world. Two types — the Indian and the Christian — are to be diffisrentiated in the religions of redemption. As both types understand evil diffigrently, they seek there- fore the " cure of souls " in different ways. To the Indian religions, the existence of the world is prim- arily an evil ; the world, with the whole of its natural constitution in space and time, appears as a kingdom of empty semblance. All in it is transient and unreal ; 12 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION nothing in it has duration ; happiness and love are merely momentary; and men are as two pieces of wood on the face of an infinite ocean which pass by one another never to meet again. Fruitless agitation and painful deception have fallen upon him who mistakes such a transient semblance for a reality and who hangs his heart upon it. Therefore it behoves man to free himself from such an unholy arena. This emancipation will take place when the semblance is seen through as semblance, and when the soul has gained an insight right into the foundation of things. Then the world loses its power over man ; the whole kingdom of deception with its evanescent values goes to the bottom, all the excited affections caused by the world are extinguished, and life becomes a still and holy calm ; it reaches the summit of a dreamless sleep, and enters, through its immersion into an eternal essence, beyond the shadows ; it passes through its dissolution, into a state of entire unconsciousness according to definite Buddhism. In all this, no new life with new values opens out in front of us ; the emancipation is supposed to consist in a right insight, and each individual has to decide for himself; the leader can only point out the road ; the energy to travel over such a road is a matter for the individual himself A wisdom of world-denial, a calm composure of the nature, an entire serenity in the midst of the changing scenes of life, constitute the summit of life. " When I know that my own body is not mine, and that, further, the whole earth is mine, and, again, that both are mine and thine, then no pain can happen." What a different kind of spirit breathes in Chris- tianity ! Christianity, too, finds the world full of CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY 13 misery and suffering. Its beginnings and its summit are not to be glided over so easily as is done by the ordinary Christianity of our day. But even all the experience of suffering will not allow the world to be simply rejected, but far more, the fundamental con- struction of the w^orld appears as a perfect work of Divine wisdom and goodness. The root of evil is not in the nature of the world but in moral wrong — in a desertion from God ; and it is this moral wrong which first of all brings pain and death into the world. Such a trespass enters so deeply and paralyses so completely the energy of man's nature that the world out of its own potency can never again harbour the Good. Therefore, God Himself must come to man's rescue ; He does this through setting forth a redemption over against the fall of man; He does it through the inauguration of a kingdom of love and grace which bestows a new nature on man, and puts its law within his soul. Through such a conversion man is securely raised beyond all suffering and trespass to Divine holiness and perfection ; indeed, the deeper the discovery of the previous misery has been, the greater the joyousness which emanates from such aredemption. Thus, there grows a pure impetus of life from the convulsion and the misery themselves ; the union with God gives man a secure foothold ; the domain of his life does not sink into the abyss of nothingness as in the Indian conception, but he gains a great task — a task to build a kingdom of God upon the earth, and to gain every individual soul for the kingdom. There originates thus here out of effects and counter- effects a world-encompassing drama full of difficult entanglements and mysterious puzzles, but still of 14 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION an unfathomable depth and of an immeasurable hope. Whilst thus the Christian life binds together a world-denial and a world-renewal, whilst it ascends through deepest pain to highest perfection, and whilst, at the same time, the consciousness of trespass and suffering endures in the soul alongside of the con- sciousness of redemption, it develops a breadth and depth of discernment unknown to other religions, and it gains a perennial inner movement. Nothing lies further from Christianity than an attempt at weakening and excusing suffering. For what purpose then does it need a deliverance if suffering does not oppress man with intolerable gravity ? But all suffering cannot stifle man and drive him to despair, because Eternal Love raises him to a new world — a Love which all the power of the enemy cannot harm. But this new world has to be wrested ever anew from the kingdom of darkness, and even an echo of pain is heard within the realm of blessedness. Thus life remains throughout guarded from inactive repose and luxurious enjoyment, and after the conquest itself the struggle does not cease to exist. Man obtains here within the kingdom of belief and hope a secure treasure which appeared at the outset as a distant goal. Thus his existence becomes simul- taneously a possession and task, rest and effort, joy and pain, certainty and doubt, and along with all this there yields itself that flow of inner Ufe by means of which Christianity far surpasses all other religions. Further, the Christian life is especially rich in that it includes in itself two stages— the belief of Jesus CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY 15 himself and the belief of the Christian community in Jesus Christ. In the former we find the pro- clamation of the kingdom of God upon the earth — the kingdom of love and peace, the inauguration of a new world in the pure inwardness of the spirit of man, a joyous trust in the nature of man as grounded in God, an invitation to aU to a share in the great enterprise and feast. Fresh youthful feeling, readiness to serve, world-pervading love, become here the carriers of a characteristic Christian morality. By the side of the belief in Christ as fixed by the Church a darker picture of human life and a lesser estimation of human capacity prevailed. The idea of evil has now increased to mean a delight in destruction and a diabolical rebellion ; so that the counter-effect to evil must now grow. The kernel of this counter- effect is brought about through atoning and redeeming sufferings — through the appearance of the God-man for the redemption of a humanity that could not redeem itself. Suffering is thus taken up into the Godhead ; man is wholly dependent upon a miracle of undeserved grace ; the Divine Life descends deeper into the soil of humanity, and religion is raised far above all ordinary life and existence. This new stage brings forth difficult entanglements ; the danger of a darkening of life and of falling into a blind devotion and into a mythological mode of thinking takes place. But in all the entanglements and dangers mysterious depths appear throughout, and a new life develops not only through a relationship with God, but also through its collision with an envious world is conducted into deep inferences and is carried into a more triumphant verification. Chris- 16 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN REUGION tianity through the union of these two stages carried once more the opposites of hfe into wider connections and elaborated more energetically than any other religion its experiences ; for in the contradictions themselves a greater richness of life and a more powerful exertion of man make their appearance. The fact that the opposites, however, did not lead to an entire discord but that the effort far more led back to some kind of union of these discords in a higher unity is due by Christianity to the supreme personality of Jesus. It is true that tradition has weaved around the personality of the Founder many lineaments which belong to the veneration and inter- pretation of the earliest Christian community, but through all the disguised mist there is perceptible to every unbiassed mind a unique mode of life and character of incomparable unity of an individual and intrinsic kind. Religion has here transformed itself into a human purity with wonderful energy and in- wardness ; an overtowering height has joined itself to a simple innocence ; manly energy of action has united with gentle feelings, and a youthful joy of disposition with a deep disco very, of suffering. The characteristic world of spirit has here acquired for Christianity a personal embodiment and, at the same time, an overwhelming clearness ; for life and death a proof founded upon facts has been gathered for the asserted truth to which Christianity could ever return from all the entanglements of the course of the world and from all the strife of parties in order to call back to memory its own true task, in order to create fresh energy of life, and to gain clean beginnings for life. The personality of the Founder has thus become in- CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY 17 comparably more to Christianity than the founders of all the other religions have become to their adherents. Christianity in this has a possession ^hich cannot get lost — a possession that binds souls to the Founder, but a possession that protests against the caricature of the Church. And finally the excellencies of Christianity itself must not be forgotten — excellencies which its history and its development into a world- power testify. Originating on Jewish soil, Christian- ity found its education especially with the Greeks and soon afterwards with the Romans. Without such a contact it might have easily remained a mere Jewish sect, but through these two connections it quickly forged its way through a national narrowness and opened out its eiFects upon wider areas. The con- nection of Christianity with Greece and Rome was advantageous in two ways. On the one hand, the new aspirant met a universal and thoroughly-matured culture, and its effects for the ethical and spiritual renewal of humanity found their most precious supple- ment in the desire for knowledge and the sense of beauty of the Greeks, and in the energy of will and organising power of the Romans. At the same time, notwithstanding all the wealthy possessions of culture, Christianity found in the humanity of the time an opposite frame of mind. For the glory of antique life had now exhausted itself, and dark shadows announced the coming of the night. In the begin- ning of the third century especially a deep feeling of fatigue lay over the whole of life and effort, and even in less-resigned natures this turned into a strong longing for supernatural aid and redemption. As Christianity went out to meet this longing, its denial 18 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION of the nearest-at-hand world and its erection of a new world could gain the entire surrender of souls, Christianity thus shaped itself into a world-encom- passing organisation — into a Church — which collated the behef in a present Kingdom of God with a visible object. There originated an encompassing and governing system of life and culture as religion, which confidently took over the spiritual guidance of humanity. In reality, the Christian Church became the mainstay of waning antiquity and the educator of new aspiring peoples. In the midst of all the transformations of the times and in the midst of trials from without and worse ravages from within, the Church proved itself the most powerful ally of the life universal which we have witnessed in all the centuries of the Christian era. Thus, Christianity appears in the whole of its effects and existence as the religion of religions. But, at the same time, it contains far more problems, meets with far more entanglements, and possesses a more intricate content than any of the other religions. AU the fundamental points of Christianity clearly show all this. Christianity develops from the connection of personality to personality a new world, and explains this as the kernel of all reality. But does not such a world, notwithstanding all its depth and soul, become too narrow for the extent and wealth of existence, and is it alone able to encompass all sides of the ethical hfe ? Indeed, does not a danger lie here close at hand, that the inaugurated kingdom of love, gentleness, and peaceableness, through their severance from the remaining world, should become CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY 19 merely subjective facts and weak inactive tendencies ; that the hard opposition of the world-powers is less gripped than ran away from ; uiat the exacting humility towards God becomes a slavery towards man, and that a willing endurance should acquiesce to all the unreason of politico-social relations ? Christianity uplifts man particularly high through the union of his nature with God — higher than any other religion. But does not the deification of man produce a humanisation of the Divine, and has not anthropomorphism taken root in Christianity far more than in the other great religions ? No religion has more definitely flown parallel with history than Christianity, but no religion has occupied itself so much with the problem how historical events, not- withstanding their particularity, can possess and discover eternal truths. No other religion spans so many different sides and stages, and consequently none has to fight so hard for its own unity ; none has been exposed so much to the danger of a severance from one another of these sides and stages, and of their falling out of the domain of truth. First of all, this appeared in that the breach with the ordinary world was not made decisive enough, and did not establish itself firmly enough ; and later, in that the transformation of man's nature did not penetrate deeply enough into the great deep, and thus religion degenerates into a mere revolving around the natural life and its tendencies ; soon after, a stubborn denial of the possibility of bettering the world turns towards the mere cultivation of one's own environment and threatens the soul with freezing hoUowness. Also, the two sides of a more general and a more positive 20 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION Christianity came easily into envious combat, and the unity of the whole remained an ideal beyond which the actual situation lagged far behind. But it is the religious conception of the personality of Jesus which has caused most trouble and strife. It did not suffice the Christianity of the Church to believe with Jesus, but it desired also a belief in Jesus Christ as mediator and redeemer. In its doctrines and principles the Church fought with its whole energy for the belief that God was present in the redeemer not only in isolated aspects and energies, but in the fulness of His nature, and that in the person of Jesus the Divine and the human were bound together in an indissoluble unity. Herein is imbedded something which Christianity can never abandon. Christianity must in some kind of way be certain of an inauguration of the Divine Nature within human life if it is to possess absolute truth and to exert an abiding influence. But how is this union to be made conceivable ? And has not the doctrine of the Church concerning the Deity of Christ as the second person in the Trinity been a mistake, because it has mixed up a fundamental truth of religion with philosophical speculations which hardly any Christian can understand, and because at the same time it has tacked on to Christianity the mode of ideas of a par- ticular generation — ideas which threatened to become mythological to later generations or, indeed, which have already become so. Also, in the history of Christianity great dangers and entanglements met the stated gains. The antique mode of life, whose ideas Christianity willed to in- corporate, became more alien and hostile to the CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY 2] Christians when they saw through its real nature. Christianity had previously viewed antique culture and civilisation through the mediufli of a religious disposition, but now it saw that such a mode of life had no meaning for historical epochs in any character- istic sense. Antique culture and civilisation were borne along by a joyous belief in a reason immanent in the world, and it was for the working out of such a reason that all the energy of man was called forth. Does not Hellenism with its equating of spirit and thought tend to entangle Christianity in an intellect- ualism which its inmost nature combats ? And do not the Greek love of form and its longing after artistic delineation and plastic forms tend to entangle that pure disposition whose sovereignty Christianity proclaims ? Also, the Roman mode of thought, with its existence upon a solid organisation and with its forensic treatment of all relationships, harmonises but little with the Divine Kingdom of love and peace. The soul of Christianity through all this was driven back and enfeebled ; the same danger has taken place through ecclesiastical forms, and the Church has largely succumbed to this danger. It would have succumbed more had it not been that ever anew particular personalities had opened out once more the original fountains of life. Christianity on account of so much defacement remains yet but a high ideal. Further, the lassitude of the civilised world at the time of its initial contact with Christianity was a great disadvantage. Christianity had, as its main purpose, to work against such a fatigue with its "glad tidings," and it has in reality planted a new 22 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION life-motive of a higher kind in the heart of humanity. But through the enormous influx of merely external elements, Christianity itself fell under the strong influence of that stagnant tendency of the age, and relapsed into a disposition and form far too passive. Saturated through and through by the feeling of corruption and weakness of human nature, man yearned for redemption and peace beyond all else; he desired to unburden himself as much as possible of his own responsibility and to be protected by some fixed authority ; he established himself against tormenting doubt through belief in certain data, and brought forth the miraculous, the magical, and the unintelligible as proofs. To such a mode of thought, the spiritual seemed to lack a completeness of reality without a sensuous embodiment, and thus both the spiritual and the sensuous flowed inseparably to- gether. The Divine seemed thus to be more highly honoured the less man and his capacity were valued. A secure rest, beyond all the life of the world, was found here in God, but no path returned from this rest to the reality around man in the world and to an energetic possession and joyous uplifting of the world. All that is of a spiritual and religious nature in such a position was experienced by the mighty spirit of Augustine. But, at the same time, he stamped for future generations a type of thought of his own age, and brought about a severance of the Divine and the human ; he bound the spiritual with the sensuous, the invisible with the visible Church, and the effects of all this have continued ever since. It is out of the work of Augustine especially that the religious system of the life of the Church grew, CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY 23 and it was through his energetic concentration that a sheltered ark was offered in the deluge of that epoch of humanity, but which, with* all its spiritual narrowness and constraint, its rigid determinism became intolerable to ages of more courage and independence. The first shaping of Christianity consequently could not remain incontestable. The first great counter- movement originated upon the ground of religion itself. This was the Reformation. Portions of the Roman and Greek influences were eliminated, and the inmost kernel and unique character of Christianity were once more energetically grasped ; through the turn from the Church to personality a more original life, greater energy of character, and a greater dis- covery of difficult opposites were gained. But in spite of all the greatness of the Reformation, the whole matter stands in an unfinished state through the fluctuating tendencies between old and new modes of thought, and through the failure to come into terms with modern culture. There is thus nothing to prevent the appearance of a movement in our modern times which will not only call into question the ecclesiastical form of Christianity but Christianity itself, and, indeed, call into question all religion, and so involve us in a struggle for life or death. PART I.— THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER III c. The Movement of Modern Times AGAINST Christianity Modern thought has entered into conflict with Christianity not only in certain directions but in the whole of its tendencies and efforts ; and it is not the beliefs and whims of individuals but the very nature of the work itself which has led to a stern collision. Although individual responsibility is not entirely absent in such a collision, yet this responsibility is not of the kind that can be accredited and attributed to individuals. It is thus necessary to distinguish the movement against Christianity from the work of individuals and parties, and to analyse it according to its own inner structure. It is then necessary in the first place to consider the changes in the world of ideas, and afterwards turn to the changes in the domain of life. 1. The Changes in the World of Thought (a) Natural Science and Religion. — The collision between modern thought and religion is most visible in the realm of nature. Traditional religion has interlaced itself with a naive -view of nature which 24 MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 25 considered the earth as the static centre of an en- circling universe. Such a religion understands the creation of the world as the work of rf reason superior to the world — a reason which holds and links nature together, and makes it a means for its own ends. And, further, such a religion gives man a matchless position in which all the conditions are connected with his weal and woe, and in which the destiny of the All is linked with his deeds — with his fall and misery, his elevation and bliss. Modern science has attacked and destroyed such a view of nature at three main points. Since the time of Copernicus it has extended enormously its field of operation ; it has discovered world beyond world, and has reduced the earth to a mere speck in the universe ; it has removed that distinction between heaven and earth — a distinction which signified so much to reUgious conceptions and feelings. Can then that which is only a satellite amongst an innumerable number of fixed stars decide concern- ing the destiny of the All ? And whab becomes of an " ascension to heaven " when there is no heaven in the old-fashioned sense — no above or below in this boundless space ? Next comes the inward change of nature depicted by Galileo and Descartes. All psychic energies, all aims and ends, are removed from nature, for they resolve themselves into a co-existence of the most minute elements which work upon one another only through gravity and impact, and whose whole mechanism is entirely evident. Thus every phenomenon is reduced to the same level and nature, and it follows simple and inviolable laws ; ''nothing individual or unique 26 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION can break this circle, and no psychic energy can turn any phenomenon out of its course. Such a mode of thought which invests nature with entire independence and inner completion collides severely with the religious view of nature, especially in the problem of miracle ; for miracle is as intoler- able in the realm of this mode of thought as it is indispensable in the realm of religion. Miracle is " the dearest child of belief" ; to refer each and every phenomenon back to natural causality seems to destroy religion to its very foundation. No religion has so strenuously defended miracle — even sensuous miracle — as the Christianity of the Church ; " and if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain." Modern natural science, on the contrary, has un- mercifully driven miracle out of its domain ; miracle signifies to it what it signified to Spinoza — not something above nature but something contrary to nature ; every particular break in the order of nature appears to modern science as a destruction of its fundamental structure, and as a denial of its validity. Miracle is but one point of the acute collision of opposites, for in reality the line of battle extends much farther. The transformation of all into a soulless mechanism renders nature through and through equally indifferent to all spiritual values as well as to all religious and moral aims. Nature follows its course with brazen laws and has no regard whatever for what is termed good or evil by man. " Devoid of all feeling Does Nature proceed, The sun shines the same Whatever the deed ; MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 27 The moon and the stars Shine equally too, On misdeed and darkness, • The good and the true." Thus, the human circle becomes isolated in the All of things, whilst formerly it felt itself the ruling centre. Finally, the doctrine of evolution in the nineteenth century appears and sets the coping-stone on the whole of the previous work. Hitherto, the scientific conception of nature found an insuperable barrier in • the organic kingdom, and consequently the religious in- terpretation could always return to this one impreg- nable citadel. Lamarck appeared, and later Darwin. However much remains disputable in the theories of both, the general meaning of the evolutionary theory has passed from the realm of discussion to the realm of fact. Scientists are agreed that the forms of life did not stand side by side as completed things in the beginning, but are causally linked with one another, and the higher have proceeded out of the lower through natural changes. And it is also agreed that man is related to nature, and that characteristics of nature extend, too, into his life. There developed itself thus a biological interpretation of human and mental greatness which contradicts directly the ethico-religious interpretation. The ethico-religious interpretation measured the values of all activities and experiences according to their relationship with God and with the Kingdom of God which was above the world ; the biological explanation estimates qualities according to their use and their preservation in the struggle for existence. In the former mode of 28 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION thought, eternal values are aspired after in spite of all the changes of time; in the latter mode, the valuation of things must perpetually alter according to the changes in the external situations, for what is of use to-day may become injurious to-morrow, and inversely. In the religious mode of thought, a pure inwardness should construct itself, and the gaining of the whole world could not compensate for the loss of the soul ; in the scientific mode all tendencies and efforts are directed towards the external, and the " soul " has become an empty word. In all this, the irreconcilable opposition to religion is evident, and both modes cannot possibly exist together. But natural science is here in our midst, and has, step by step, further developed with a constrained kind of necessity. It has brought forth not only an immense fulness of results, but has even opened out a new course of thought — a more precise insight, a clearer line of demarcation, and a stronger affinity with causal connections and real facts ; it has, through this work, turned against the thought-course of religion, and has declared religion as scientifically untenable. Is religion able to withstand such a mighty current ? (/8) History and Religion. — History, to the op- ponents of religion, associates itself with nature. Traditional religion in its combat with the meaning of history has experienced a blow which has affected its inmost nature. According to the religious view, human history and even our earth have had but a short span of existence, and all that appeared on these domains received its aim and its driving energy from the Godhead who reigned above the world. The MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 29 Godhead had preordained the plan of the whole ; destiny had linked itself to each individual; prophets and heroes were sent " when the time was fulfilled." The main task of history was the educa- tion of human nature — of each individual — for an over-historical eternal life whose kernel constituted the struggle between good and evil, and which con- nects itself as a great drama from creation morn to the day of judgment. Everything outside this remained a mere environment, and had a significance only through its relation to the soul of the whole. It is from such a conviction that all results and experi- ences were interpreted, and one grew so accustomed to such an interpretation that one believed oneself able to verify everywhere and at a glance such a guidance of affairs, and to discover everywhere " the finger of God." How much all this has been altered 1 And the change has happened less through any sharp catas- trophe than through a gradual crumbling away and a rebuilding. The extension of time, just as the extension of space, has grown into infinity ; science reckons the age of the earth by millions of years ; and short as human history appears in comparison with such a vast period of time, it, too, has continually extended its duration ; the epochs of civilisation shrivel into insignificance when compared with the immeasurable extent of " prehistoric " times. And, further, as the presence of organic and also of mental life seems dependent upon certain indispensable con- ditions of existence, modern thought conceives the existence of man as a mere episode of the world- process — an episode, compared with infinite duration. 30 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION is no more than that of a meteor in an infinite sky which illumines and suddenly vanishes. But the inward transformations have been still deeper. History as well as nature has developed an independence. As the supernatural was subjugated to nature, so the over-historical now falls under the ban of history. Certain motive-powers were acknow- ledged within the human domain ; certain aims were exhibited ; these phenomena linked themselves directly with one another, and thus united themselves into a great web. Each individual example is now under- stood through these connections ; the highest instance is now no more valued as an isolated miracle, but as the climax of a movement, and such an instance grows out of the conditions and environment. When history is understood thus as something that has grown out of a prior history " immanent " in it, all con- ceptions of supernatural powers become an intolerable disturbance, and it is this which renders history such an irreconcilable opponent of traditional religion. The same aspect appears in the knowledge that any movement proceeds and progresses from point to point — a fact which conceives history as a continuous process of evolution. Thus history as a whole gains a task and a meaning by itself; the perspective of a better and even an endless ascent of a capacious future invests present existence with an expansion and task within its own province, and raises it above all the evils of the present. The religious hope of a culminated bliss in the next world fades away before such a belief in the future of this world. Where there is so much to do and to alter within the sphere of time— and, indeed here alone such a work MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 31 is able to transform reality into a kingdom of reason — such a work cannot be viewed as something futile and transitory, and consequently «aspiration and hope do not depend entirely upon eternity. Simul- taneously the feeling of the impatience of man dis- appears. He seems now, under the new conditions, posited before all else upon his own energies ; he reaches his majority ; he does not so much receive his destiny from a superior power as that he shapes it through manly deeds. And thus it is not towards a supernatural kingdom of God but towards the welfare of man and humanity that the focus of attention is directed. The conflict into which the historical and the religious convictions enter becomes specially bitter in connection with the problem of truth. Religion understands truth as simply eternal and unchange- able ; although the Divine revelation discloses itself within time, it is in no manner a product of time, and it does not follow the current of time ; and it views all change as a degradation. The historical development, on the contrary, with the incessant shifting of its situation and its restless progress, transforms truth into a child of the times (Veritas temporis filia) ; the tendencies as well as the convic- tions have to correspond to the exigencies of the situation of things. On account of this, all spiritual values become fluid, all truth becomes relative, all unfolding into absolute validity of the intrinsic content of thought and belief is energetically fought against. If, however, religion can never renounce an absolute and eternal truth, all decision in favour of history will be a decision against religion. 32 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION Further, the detailed formation of historical in- vestigation becomes highly dangerous to a religion such as Christianity, which rests first and foremost upon historical events. The naive mode of thought which accepted indiscriminately the transmitted picture of earlier ages, and simultaneously combined the manifold lore into a homogeneous whole, cannot stand before an awakened conduct of life and a keen critical consciousness. We cannot disguise the fact that what hitherto has been accepted as unalloyed truth and as a genuine expression of reality contains ever so much subjectivity of conception and adjust- ment, that we see the things far less than the veil which human opinion and imagination have weaved around th em. How slowly and gu ardedly do we climb even to-day towards the facts as towards an unattain- able ideal which, to earlier times, seemed so safe and certain. Growing historical criticism wUl not allow itself to be removed from dealing with religious tradition, for hardly anywhere else has it shown so conspicuously its achievements, purged so funda- mentally the transmitted pictorial ideas, and trans- formed the transmitted picture. What appeared in earlier times as a totality or whole now discloses deep differences and pointed contradictions not only in subsidiary aspects, but in fundamental and essential characteristics. We find this, for instance, in the New Testament — in the widely divergent pictures of Jesus and in the fundamentally different repre- sentations of Christianity; so that much which became main facts to believers in later times was not so to the original witnesses, or if it were it was only in a hardly perceptible form ; and no unbiassed mind MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 33 can fail to detect a great chasm between the dogmas of the Church and their historical foundation in the Bible. All this gives rise to problems concerning the authenticity of the sources with all their agitated and minute discussions. Whether the results of criticism are positive or negative is of far less im- portance than that the trustworthiness of the records depends upon scientific proof, and that the Divine is not poured directly upon us, but is to be found by man through the toilsome work of thought. The criticism and conclusions reached by this mode of thought have irreparably destroyed the halo which once surrounded the tradition ; the dazzling light of science has dispelled unmercifully that dreamlike semi-darkness of the religious imagination in which heaven and earth seemed to blend into one another. Thus the gains of history become a loss to religion. As a religion founded upon history experiences a loss in so far as the more precise insight and the more essential conception of the past become clear through the necessary results of a critical mode of inquiry which fixes the boundaries more distinctly between one age and another, and along with this utilises the results of the past, an easy inundation of the effects of such criticism is forbidden by such a religion. Sacred history was pictorially present to earlier generations, and they saw the particular time and surroundings in the light of this history. Whilst historical criticism has rendered this impossible, it has at the same time destroyed the predominant position of sacred history. But the doubt and discord reach still deeper. The inner content of the tradition becomes a problem to modern thought, but such a mode of thought finds it 3 34 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION impossible to establish basal convictions upon historical events. What influences the spiritual self-preservation of man must be experienced in the form of immediacy, and must be verified by man himself, and all this can- not be imposed from without. Whilst the Aufklarung for the first time brought this truth to expression over against all bare tradition, it diiFerentiated too sharply reason and history, the individual life and tradition, and overestimated the power of any present moment of consciousness. But even we who view history in a more friendly manner are not able to give up the self-reliance which life has gained through such a turn ; and yet history for us to-day can never take the first but the second place, because only so much in it can be valid for our life as allows itself to enter into self-consciousness. In this respect the words of Lessing hold valid for us : " Accidental — i.e. actually empirical — truths of history can never become proofs of the necessary truths of reason." And if life thus disengages itself from the bond of history, it becomes an intolerable coercion to bind the salvation of man to an easy acknowledgment of historical events. " To state that a historical belief is a duty and that it belongs to salvation is superstition" (Kant). "Let no one assert that it does no harm to cling to such historical beliefs. It is injurious in that subsidiary facts are given equal validity with essential ones, or, indeed, are presented as the essential facts, and con- sequently the main facts are suppressed and the conscience is tormented " (Fichte). The meaning of history has thus brought forth all along the line a mode of thought other than is appre- hended by religion. And no religion has received MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 35 greater shocks in this respect than Christianity, on account of the fact that it is more closely bound up with historical points of view as well as with historical events than any other religion. (7) The Spiritual Life and Religion. — Religion is so injuriously affected by nature and history that the most important point has not yet been touched by us. This point lies in the inner nature of life itself — a point which is the source of all practical proof and mode of thinking. Between that, on the one hand, which religions in general teach, and that, on the other hand, which modern culture in the whole of its de- velopment maintains, a deep cleft has been created, so that what hitherto had held valid as the kernel of all reality now threatens to vanish into a hollow semblance. The life of the human soul, from the standpoint of an old mode of thought, was most intimately woven with the environment of the world ; mutual energies swayed within and without in the particular and in the general, and all things seemed to find their true rest in the mind and soul of man. No kind of doubt could be raised as to the legitimacy of depicting the all-ruling Power in terms of human analogy, or to understand the intercourse with such a Power as a relationship of soul to soul in the manner of relation- ship of man with man. All the values of religion thus shaped themselves by means of the immediate life of the soul of man ; from such a point of im- mediacy alone could such conceptions as love, grace, and trust obtain a meaning. No religion, however, places the inwardness of the soul higher than Chris- tianity with its message of an Infinite Love and of the immediate presence of the Kingdom of God. 36 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION Now, the work of modern times, as we have already seen, has altered in an important manner the position and the valuation of the hfe of the soul. The soul has been banished out of nature, and, along with this, out of the world ; thus it had to shape itself into a particular kingdom of its own — into a totality of life and thought within its own circle. The barriers of such an isolated life become more and more perceptible ; as a mere solipsism, as a relationship of all phenomena to each other in a point outside itself, and as a subjective neutrality the soul becomes too narrow for a spiritual work which more and more decisively develops a cosmic character. Thus, the larger and wider outlook disengages itself from the immediate consciousness, turns against the soul, and sets it in a position of a mere epiphenomenon. Thus, the particular forms of life, such as art and science, politics and technics, separate themselves and form provinces of their own, and such happens finally with the whole results of culture. Everywhere independent provinces originate and engender their own tasks, laws, and motive-powers ; they carry their own aims and ends in themselves, reject all relationship with the self- existence of the soul, and look upon all standards which value the deeper welfare of the individual as disfigurements. United indissolubly with modern culture are its impersonal character, its continuous positing on itself and continuous movement outside itself, and its alleged superiority over all human plans and " ends." Indeed, the true greatness of man now appears in that he lays on one side all mere self- existence, and transforms himself into a willing tool of the processes of civilisation and culture. No one has MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 37 presented such a penetrating and fundamental view of the whole processes of modern civilisation and culture as Hegel, and his ideas have* operated with remarkable effect through the nineteenth century right up to the present day. But such a work and creativeness, brought about through actual necessities, are not able to draw the life into themselves without an entire transformation of its ideals. The subjective disposition and, along with it, all the ethical relationships of man retire when face to face with the proclamation of an external spiritual energy and with the co-operation in that process of civilisation. Consequently the old inwardness of the soul with aU its greatness and goodness is ordered out of the centre of life to the periphery; indeed, the soul is now driven not only out of nature but out of its own inward life as well. We cannot conceive of a more deadly assault on religion than all this. For if the soul sinks so low to the level of a subsidiary thing, it cannot furnish the standard for man's view of reality, and, consequently, the whole ideal world of religion appears as a mere anthropomorphism and as an unbearable falsification of reality. Positivism, following such a train of thought, has considered religion as a mere stage of development upon which man, through a childish illusion, sees magnified human powers in the universe, and believes himself capable of conversing with such powers. Positivism has not the least place for religion in the old sense. If it continues to hold some kind of conception of God, this cannot signify anything more than a basal world-substance or a pervading world-energy. Here no personal relation- 38 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION ship to such a substance is gained, and conceptions such as love and grace, behef and trust, lose their meaning. It is not only this or that point in religion which now becomes a mythology, but the whole of religion itself; it becomes now a stage of hfe which has been passed by mental development. And along with the downfall of religion, the downfall of morality takes place, for how can qualities such as character and conviction signify a value if all independent inner life is suppressed ? Such an ejection of religion and morality by an impersonal process of culture must affect Christianity in a most severe manner, as it has maintained the independence of the inner life more confidently and has developed itself more powerfully than any other religion. Indeed, according to this positivistic mode of thinking, the higher Christianity sets its aim, the deeper must its fall now be. Thus, it is not only on account of the new concep- tion of nature and of historico-social work but also on account of the fundamental woof of life itself that religion — indeed, all possibility of a religion — is driven out. All the counter-effects mutually protect and heighten one another. This work, in particular points, is far from creating a negation, and it is often asserted with an honourable conviction that the special changes in our views of nature and history leave un- touched the entire stability of religion. But, indeed, when it happens in other points — and in all other points — that all the particular corner-stones crumble into pieces, what becomes of the construction of the whole building? The greatness and pre-eminence of this mode of thought is that men proceeded at the start not to destroy in any way, but were far more MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 39 desirous to bind and to fit into one another the old and the new ; but the truths discovered cast off all the adornment and, indifferent to human views and plans, went their way towards their own goal. And this road leads towards the destruction of religion. 2. The Kariatio7i of the Direction of Life It needs but few words in order to show that a change in the drift of hfe corresponds to the trans- formation of the world of ideas. Hand in hand with natural science proceeds the development of modern technics, and with the rise of this, man has ceased to be powerless against nature, and has become far more its lord and ruler. He can now with good courage take up the struggle against all limits and hindrances ; he can extend his life beyond all bounds through the appropriation of natural energies ; he can accelerate the richness of life, and shape it into greater enjoy- ment. Through the progressive inauguration of new perspectives and tasks he gains a remarkable con- sciousness of human capacity and human superiority. This disposition of joyous energy and courageous faith develops over against the historico-social life. Constraint and unreason cease to be conceived as necessities laid upon him by destiny whose effects he may alleviate but whose root he cannot destroy. Modern man, in the use of all the means of culture and the severe clash of energies, feels himself strong enough to shape his existence into a kingdom of reason, and to make the real rational and the rational real. However many the oppositions which stand against him, they produce a feeling of life which is 40 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION far more a stimulus than a deterrent to activity. In any case, man does not expect this result to proceed from any supernatural agencies, but achieves it through his own inmost exertions. In addition to this, that new ideal of life appears with its superiority to all human inactivity and its inauguration of an immeasurably richer Spiritual Life of an objective kind filled with independent contents and moved by inner necessities. Infinitely more clearness, breadth, and reality seem to enter into our life through all this, as well as a truth which does not proceed from a supernatural communication but from our own activity. Indeed, our environing world furnishes an abun- dance of work and expansion ; it is able to occupy man with itself so as to hold him fast in the inward- ness of his being, so that not the least desire arises for another mode of life. The more such a tendency in the direction of the world takes possession of the whole soul of man, the more religion loses its foundation, the clearer becomes the opposition to the ages in which Christianity gained its most important achievements, and the greater appears the whole history of modern times as a progressive transference of life from a world of belief and fancy into the world of immediate existence. Christianity in its beginnings could never have undertaken its work for humanity without setting up a world of belief and hope over against the exist- ing world, and to announce such a new world as the true home of man. When Christianity, however, reached its conquest it laid the world " beyond " in front of a tired world devoid of any special hope ; MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 41 and now the hoped-for life did not seem able to proceed from the present world, but proceeded only out of a new order of things. The ^aracter of the present world is depicted so clearly by Augustine through the ardour of his conviction and the energy of his writings. The new world is to him no distant realm but the most intimate world, which furnishes first and foremost in the toils and tangles of existence a spiritual self-reliance, and which alone justifies the will to live. But the new world drives the sensuous world to the periphery of existence, and draws to itself the work and affection of man. All the ramifications of culture and civilisation, according to Augustine, had but one aim — to raise man to a higher world, to indicate to the manifold the necessity of reaching a world-swaying unity, and to direct all activity to the point where its toil and anxiety suddenly change into an intuitive vision of Eternal Truth and into the worship of Infinite Love. An inmost kernel of the life of the soul is here raised above all the entanglement of the work of the world, and anchors securely in the Divine Life. From such a level above the world, the soul is not driven back again to the world ; man feels himself most secure in the midst of the continuance of opposites and in the midst of all the knocks of all toil and anxiety. " Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not at rest until it rests in Thee." This religion of a thorough transcendental kind experiences in the Church-system of the Middle Ages a certain humani- sation and mellowing, but the world of belief remained still the main world, but it had now become the nearest inmost world of the soul, and was designated 42 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION at the height of Scholasticism as Fatherland (patria). All this meant that religion formed the kernel of life, and that the Church became the carrier of all the ideal interests of humanity. But a new path of most important significance was soon opened by new nations with their fresh courage of life. The prior life with its belief and hope, with its weaving of a feeling alien to the world, lost gradually itsr power of attraction ; it was discovered as being too passive, too soft and dreamy ; the desire arose stronger and stronger after dealings and connections with the world around us — after an exercise of human energy in the struggle with the hardness of the things of the world, and after a more awakened and more genuine life. Man and the world were more sharply severed ; subject and object were more clearly differ- entiated. A new morning seemed to dawn and an immeasurable day's work lay before humanity. Thus meaning and thought entered more and more into the world instead of severing themselves from it ; the natural impulse of life is changed throughout, and this change was not favourable to religion. But this great change culminated very gradually, and appeared in three main stages. The new life appears first of all in the Renaissance ; the minds of men here moved freer, and the narrowness of the ideas with which man had depicted human life and the world fell away. Man now not only discovers distant lands, but before all else he discovers himself, gains a vivid consciousness of his own energy, and takes a joyous possession of the unlimited opulence of the world. What draws and holds man is, on the one hand, mainly the fulness of life which everywhere MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 43 wells up, and, on the other hand, the beauty which shines through all the forms of life. From such con- victions and experiences there gro\ws an ideal of a harmonious development of the whole man ; and in the modern civilised state, the effort to adorn the " here and now " obtains a fast root, for the natural sphere of life drives ever forward new tasks, and gains ever new energies. But notwithstanding all its independence, the new mode of life does not as yet enter into a struggle with the old mode : at the height of the Renaissance both modes seem to seek one another more than to flee from one another. The natural world is conceived as beautiful and in- exhaustible because it constitutes the impress and reflection of the Divine Life ; religion, however, receives its most valuable development through in- dependent art which invests the lofty contour of belief with an intuitive nearness and enchanted loveliness. Thus, religion and artistic culture walk together hand in hand, and the contradictions im- bedded in such a relationship were not yet discovered. Soon, however, the movement passes beyond such a union, and stands at last upon a closer unity of life. This step took place at the height of creativeness in the time of Spinoza. Its aim was to bind together God and the world into a unique indissoluble reality. Since the Divine permeates the whole world and gives it a depth, the world becomes more than its immediate appearance reveals, and transforms itself into a kingdom of reason without any lacunse. The Godhead, thus drawn into the world, must, however, lay aside all that is narrow and merely human, and must be conceived as beyond all the limits of human 44 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION conceptions, and must be raised to an all-encom- passing eternity and infinity. Thus, religion can no more be a particular province which governs existence from a height "beyond," but it seems to fulfil its task far better the more it lays on one side any parti- cular and isolated formations, and permeates all its work with invisible effects. The aspects which united man with the great All constituted here the kernel of existence and raised him to a cosmic life ; these aspects are science and art in the sense of an ideal culture. These create, through their world-encom- passing thought and free-play of imagination, a new kind of spiritual reality over against the ordinary daily life ; and, further, they ennoble all human relations, and bestow the infinite and eternal upon man in the midst of his daily life. Indeed, the more the reality transforms itself thus into a kingdom of reason, the more raises itself a cosmos out of the chaos of an initial cosmogony, and the more the need for any special religion disappears. Religion becomes now a kind of finger-post to those to whom the mental creativeness of science and art is denied. " He who possesses science and art possesses also religion. He who does not possess them, he, too, has religion." But, notwithstanding its great achievements, this pantheistic ideal of culture has not had a permanent hold on humanity. On the one hand, its spiritualisa- tion of reality signifies a stepping beyond experience, so that experience could justify itself less and less with the fading away of an over- world. On the other hand, there grows a stronger feeling of the mystery and suffering of the world, which destroys the calm of MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 45 the pantheistic view — a view which, in its contempla- tion of the whole of things, left almost entirely on one side the unreason of particular phenemena. But if our world is not a realm of reason, it demands us to seek an explanation beyond the domains of pantheism. And thus the movement proceeds towards a powerful contraction of life upon immediate existence, upon a development of a natural culture, which forbids all progress, interpretation, and elevation beyond the realm of ordinary life. The kernel of such a life is built by the empirical investigation of nature, together with technics and the practical politics of human society. There originates then a newer and more secular type of life with such energy and self-con- sciousness as have never been hitherto witnessed. Such a type of life has verified itself through un- dreamed-of achievements ; it has opened out a large field of new tasks which have drawn man ever more exclusively into their vortex, and which have busied him almost breathlessly. Thus, life seems in the position to value all the definite energy of man and to fulfil all his entitled hopes. But the more the spiritual activity binds itself to such a reality, the more shadowy and untenable becomes each and every religion. True, such a secular culture can well pro- claim that the circle of human life constitutes but a small segment of the unbounded reality, and that, indeed, with all its extension, it belongs to a mere superficiality, yet behind all this there lies and remains inaccessible a dark depth. But as such a culture fails to obtain any inward connection with such a depth, all its gains are of no avail to religion. Thus, the movement of modern times has moved 46 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION farther and farther from religion, and has tied nian ever more securely to the visible virorld. The union of religion and natural culture was followed by a culture which turned itself into a kind of religion, and this was followed finally by a culture devoid of any kind of religion. So that the tendency towards the world grew ever stronger, and more and more such a tendency divested itself of all super-sensuous connections, but, at the same time, it has given man far more to do in the realms of knowledge and action ; and in certain departments it has become so rich in content that it seems to be able to satisfy the whole of life and effort. Religion, without a doubt, roots itself too firmly in the convictions of individuals and in the organisations of society to allow such consequences of material culture to come into full and immediate eflfect, although nowhere is the centre of gravity of duration more visible than in these realms. For the individual in particular, the inwardness of his soul and the in- finite aspiration of his mind constitute a sanctuary to which he flees out of all the struggles, and from which he can hold forth his inner experience as a shield against all attacks. But this refuge of the individual signifies no stronghold for all men. Not- withstanding the spiritual content of his life, man remains bound to the ordinary situation of humanity ; it is not given to him to set forth victoriously the ideals which fill the depth of his soul against culture and civilisation, so that religion becomes more and more a mere private concern — a mere ebb and flow of a subjective kind — which degenerates into the level of sectarianism and the miraculous. And, finally, all MODERN TIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 47 cautious restrictions are not able to prevent an entire expiration. Can we then wonder that the opponents of rehgion consider that the matter has been investigated and decided ? To such minds rehgion is upheld by idle- ness and dulness or even at the best by selfish interest. Such a total extinction of religion was anticipated with certainty and in the immediate future by the main trend of thought in the eighteenth century. Winckelmann in 1768 could write from Rome that in fifty years there would not be in Rome either a pope or a priest. Such an extinction of religion which was thought would take place as a gradual dying ember, is, in our day, aimed at through a violent attempt at scattering doubts and denials amongst the masses. PART I.— THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER IV d. The Reconsolidation of Religion The priesthood has outlasted its supposed appointed span of time, and seems far from vanishing ; and re- ligion, too, does not exhibit the situation M'^hich its opponents expected. Though its deficiencies are seized by ever wider circles, and though the ordinary disposi- tion of man does not correspond to the atmosphere of spiritual activity, yet on its heights, religion proves itself again the possessor of so much energy of life — an energy which seems on a deeper view of it to show that the condemnation of religion is more of an echo of the past than of a promise of the future. The Churches show such a renewal of religion in the most tangible manner. How much has their power grown, how much more definitely have they stamped the various contrasts and values of things, and how ardently do their struggles rouse the soul ! True, such energy has not been limited to causes of an inward character. The democratic atmosphere of the nineteenth century increased the power of the Church since it heightened the power of the masses who were least affected by culture and its doubts. Further, the severe concen- tration of life and the growing potency of great 48 THE RECONSOLIDATION OF RELIGION 49 organisations have worked in a similar direction. But although such and other changes explain much, they do not explain everything — they 9o not explain the inner activity, the spiritual creativeness, and the aspiring power of the Churches. And this growth of religion limits itself in no way to the Churches : it appears, too, outside them and, indeed, in direct opposition to them ; it forms a trait in the life of the present which grows stronger and stronger. Philo- sophy — the old enemy of religion — applies itself most ardently to create a free place for religion ; literary art treats with great earnestness the Yea and the Nay of religious questions ; the fine arts seek to approach religious forms through new explanatory forms of modern discovery ; and finally the religious problem, beyond all these particular provinces, proceeds again mightily in the soul itself. Many phenomena point to a close affinity of our day with that antiquity which for the first time raised religion into a world-power, for in the midst of all the negation and condemnation a new wave of religion seems to rise and to carry humanity along on its breast. How is this notable change to be understood ? If the movement against religion has continued, and, indeed, has swelled out further and further, the cause of this lies in the fact that the counter-effect to this has grown, and that religion has exhibited a stronger potency and a deeper root in human life than its opponents had attributed to it. First of all, it has, upon a new ground, brought forth new achievements ; it has, in the midst of modern life, developed a lofty benevolence over against the inflated moral and social 50 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION ravages ; it has commanded a longed-for halt to many individuals over against the growing destruction of life. On account of such achievements, the extin- guishing of religion can never be regarded as a pure gain. But however highly may be regarded what religion has brought forth in the form of love and service, the main cause of its vitality is not contained in such achievements ; this main cause is far more of an indirect kind: it consists in the most difficult inner entanglements of the very spiritual force itself — entanglements which threatened the progress of religion ; it consists in the upheaval of the belief in the all-sufficiency of modern self-satisfied and self- conscious culture and civilisation. All wavering of this belief works in the direction of the lessening of the opposition to religion ; indeed, the more the doubt in culture and civilisation advances, the more is the total position of man changed ; new dispositions are awakened and new avenues of life open out; religion has once more the ear of humanity who had temporarily turned away from it, and once more it is able to prove what is imbedded in it that is of price- less value. Modern culture has had to learn that all life within the human domain is at the same time self-energising, and that self-development is simultaneously self-crea- tiveness. The advancement of life's own movement placed it against barriers undreamed of, and drove it into consequences unwilled by the individual. Life crosses beyond the point which hitherto had been its haven of refuge, and at each farther remove man appears unable to govern the current of life and to make it a tributary of reason. What thus might be THE RECONSOLIDATION OF RELIGION 51 a Whole of life, but which through such exclusiveness is bound to prove a deadly enemy of religion, must be a mere piece of a further life unless reason and culture are to fall to the ground. The scientific, historical, philosophical and social modes of thought have developed into systems, and have made demands upon the whole of life. But the more their achievements, the more does their completion cease and the more does the denial overtop all ; the more is the ground destroyed upon which they have grown and the more insuffi- cient and even unbearable does the whole situation become. It is especially in its relation to man and in connection with the problem how to found and how to construct all activity and work from the depth of the soul that modern culture has miscarried in spite of all its value. We must now look closer at this fact. In these systems there has originated a mighty movement to consider nature as the sole reality, and man as a mere product of nature. So far as such an attempt gains any success, man becomes a piece of a meaningless mechanism, which moves, it is true, according to definite laws ; he becomes altogether a creature of his environment ; he is able to maintain in no manner a self-reliance over against the process of nature, and the life of his soul must reconcile itself entirely to the standards of nature, and is able to bring forth nothing essentially new. Often has man desired and desires to-day to retain some old values of the more human kind in the process of the de- struction of the old world of thought ; and with such a radical denial a kind of practical idealism seems 52 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION quite easily tenable : love and humaneness may appear strengthened although they have been founded upon nature alone without the aid of any metaphysic. Whilst this is an unbearable halfness and even thoughtlessness, it further destroys conceptions such as character, deed, inveardness, to their final root, and it has absolutely no place for moral valuation and noble idealism. This appears specially clear in the biological mode of thought, which transforms our whole life into a struggle for natural existence, and subordinates and sacrifices the good to the useful. At the same time, all questions concerning the meaning of life vanish more and more, and the bare actuality of physical existence exclusively holds the field. It may be that the senselessness and souUess- ness of human existence is hardly noticed on account of the haste and press of modern life, and the loss is hardly discovered because science itself has not been drawn into the same vicious circle. And the reason is clear : a consistent naturalism is not able to permit science of any kind. Science is constructed through the activity of the human mind alone ; but how could the mind construct it if its intellectual achievements spent themselves in a mere raising up and accumu- lating of isolated impressions, and if such achieve- ments never succeed in reaching a commanding view of the isolated impressions, and still less succeed in welding such impressions into a Whole ? In reality, even modern natural science, with its conquest over the naive world-view, has become possible only through an energetic analysis and clearing away of the first impressions of things, through an advance towards simple phenomena and the discovery of their laws, THE RECONSOLIDATION OF RELIGION 53 through the establishing of new connections by the aid of prior ideas. All this takes place through the observation of the different behavioifr of things on the one hand, and their natural relationship and systematic union on the other hand. Thus, through the work of the mind, the path leads to a scientific conception of nature. This scientific conception could not verify itself from the things themselves, but the verification had to be traced within the mind ; and, in the subjugation of the external world, science before all else remains an inner result. Now, if all inner result breaks away from its inward source — from independent inwardness — and if life is laid entirely upon its connection with external things, the result is that science, and along with it natural science, must collapse, or, on the other hand, natural- ism with its equalisation of sensuous nature and reality must be given up. Whenever effective mental work found recognition in natural science, especially where it led to an illumination of things, so that the total mirroring of nature was not some- thing given entirely from the outside but something brought forth from the mind, it develops itself into a critical mode of thought. Such a mode of thought succeeds more and more to win recognition upon the summits of modern life, and exercises a decisive resistance to the turning of the reality into a mere natural thing. And, at the same time, the path is left open for the formation of new configurations of life ; and great problems, which forbid any ready- made solution, awaken. Further, the historical treatment of things has contributed towards the superiority and sovereignty 54 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION of thought and life. By bringing an existence other- wise numb into motion, the historical treatment has given life more freedom, movement, and richness; the present has been freed from the tyranny of the past and raised to an entire self-reliance. The cul- minated transformation has entered so deeply into life that a simple retreat to the old situation is now absolutely forbidden. But wherever the new mode of thought holds exclusively the field, there issues out of it a destructive energy. If all stability in face of the flux of semblance gives way, all that is solid and durable melts away ; truth becomes not merely the child of the age, as of the passing moment, and through stepping outside its own nature becomes an unreality ; even the present itself, which before all else should have been strengthened, fades away, whilst the course of events resolve themselves into purely fleeting moments. But a life that resigns all solid aims and permanent norms, and becomes the mere play of wind and wave, must more and more fall into shallowness and relinquish all content. But man does not seem willing to be merged in the fleeting lapse of the moment : he holds himself inwardly fast ; he compares and questions different aims for his life ; he has no choice but to diffisrentiate, select, and reject things. Therefore his life cannot entirely flow on the current of appearances. " Within the hope of man alone The highest goal draws nigh, He chooses, raises up his soul To that which is on high ; He can duration to the moment give. He can in Time the Eternal live." THE RECONSOLIDATION OF RELIGION 55 The fact that man experiences all changes — that each change is known by consciousness — proves that he does not belong entirely to the domain of flux. In so far as he in his deeper nature is more than a flux of isolated occurrences, the incessant changes and alternations cannot possibly satisfy him. The nobility and lightheartedness which seemed to him at first to be a pure gain proceed from an unbearable empti- ness and mar the deepest life. For how could any kind of joyous expansion of life be possible if moment devours moment without ceasing, if what is honoured at one moment is thrown on one side the next moment ? The nineteenth century has dis- covered how unbearable such a view of things is, for ideal succeeded ideal with amazing rapidity, disposition succeeded disposition with the reversal of fortune, and the duration of alleged truths became shorter and shorter. But in the midst of all this the aspiration after a consolidation of life and after a durable truth became ever stronger, and the opposition became more decisive against the immer- sion of the whole of human existence in the stream of historical life. Such a turn leaves no doubt in regard to the fact that history itself is more than a mere result of the succession of events. History is far more an elevation above the changes of occur- rences — a commanding view of things, connections of things, a judgment of the manifold material, a raising of pre-eminent aims. So that it is discovered that history, viewed from the point of view of mind and spirit, is a portion of a further total-life, and, conse- quently, there is no such thing possible as "mere" history, for history, in so far as it is recognised in 56 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION its deeper meaning, includes a confession of such a further total-life. The exclusiveness of history with its alleged relativity destroys the meaning of history itself. And if we are not to give up the meaning of history, it is necessary to rise above it, and to take up once more, in some kind of way, eternal truths. Such a course does not lead directly to religion, but, at the same time, it shows the toil for eternal truth in a very different light from the ordinary mode of looking at things. An entire change has taken place in another main point. The "immanent" method of consideringhistory, with its expulsion of superhuman aids, has brought forth a powerful heightening of human existence and human potency. Man himself has accordingly to pre- pare his domain of life, and to find his highest aim in the adornment of this domain ; now he has to stimulate all that is included within human energy into the greatest achievements ; and now for the first time he seems to stand fast within his own world. It cannot be measured how much such a conviction has brought forth. The awakening of individual lives was followed by the awakening of the masses. Whilst all formations of relationships were drawn and measured directly from the actual situation of man, more joy and freedom, more care for others and more humaneness entered into life ; and, further, the pro- vince of thought gained in clearness because it was developed psychologically from the immediate ex- perience of consciousness. But here again the affirma- tion soon passes into a negation, and a shrinkage soon appears in the emancipation. To abolish all invisible ties and connections may appear as a pure gain so long THE RECONSOLIDATION OF RELIGION 57 as man continued to idealise unconsciously, and so long as the consciousness contained something of its earlier greatness and values. But such idealisation was more and more extinguished before the impressions of experience. Humanity does not find the ideal of brotherhood so easily realised as it had expected, but finds more and more divisions of individuals, parties, and nations ; the impulses, emotions, and passions of human nature develop deeper and wider ; the tyranny of the petty common life becomes more and more brutal ; and more and more we are threatened with the death of the Spiritual Life. Have not men, viewed from within, become smaller and smaller, because they value nothing other than themselves ? And, at the same time, when it is discovered that the whole man even in his spiritual efforts is tied to human impulses with all their pettiness and assertions, and that all possibility of a counter-effect — of a voca- tion in the highest and final court of appeal — vanishes, and when judgment over the true and the false, over good and evil, is surrendered to the opinions and inclinations of individuals and masses, it becomes evident why wrath and even hatred burn against the pretence of mere modern culture ; and in order to preserve a genuine spiritual culture nothing seems more necessary than an unrelenting struggle against such petty and presumptuous culture which reduces life to a lamentable level, and which destroys all genuine values. In order to possess such values man has to work his way up to something — something which he has to acknowledge beyond and above him- self, and yet though beyond and above him is yet not alien to him. This leads once more to the problem 58 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION which religion has taken up from of yore, and he who places on one side the solution which religion offers will think otherwise when he comes to realise the true nature of the problem. And, further, the expulsion of all the inwardness of the Spiritual Life — the transformation of our entire nature into an impersonal process of culture and civilisation — turns a pure gain into a serious loss. The immediate neutrality of man became too small for the content of the work of culture, and through such labours our existence has grown immeasurably in width and truth. And it is from a kind of necessity that the attention of the subject upon him- self was abandoned, and life was laid entirely in the relationship to external things. But this complexity of work which had now become the main fact — indeed, of the Spiritual Life itself — needs an inner connection and an animated unity, for otherwise it cannot possibly construct a Whole and work as a Whole. But the more the inward and personal element is pushed aside without some kind of com- pensation in its place, the more all characteristic and inspiring energy slips away, the more each totality loses its inner unity and animation, and becomes a mere piece of mechanism which may be of value in subduing the external world and in calling forth certain exertions. But all this fails to unite man with a Whole and to raise him as a Whole, and also it inevitably decays and fails to engender a new world of intrinsic value. Thus, the impersonal work of culture and civilisation threatens to become mechanical from its very centre outwards. No growth of inner potency corresponds to the increase THE RECONSOLIDATION OF RELIGION 59 of work, and expansion by far outweighs concentra- tion ; man becomes more and more the slave of his work and a bundle of isolated accomplishments. But the work itself, through its severance from the centre of hfe, loses all its soul. Can we deny that the last decade has placed such dangers under our very eyes ? At the same time, a kind of compulsion raises the questions whether ultimately the soul of life has to be abandoned, whether the emergence of conceptions of inwardness above the old forms and beyond mere subjectivity is possible, whether a coherent and superior unity may through a great struggle be obtained within the Spiritual Life itself. If the latter happened, it would effect an entire transformation of life, and that would lead back, certainly not to the old situation of religion, but still to the problems of religion. We are thus experiencing to-day a remarkable entanglement. The older forms of life, which had hitherto governed history and its meaning, became too narrow, petty, and subjective for human nature. Through emancipation from an easy-going subject- ivity and through the positing of life upon external things and, indeed, upon the whole of the great universe, life, it was believed, would gain more breadth and truth ; and in a noteworthy manner man undertook a struggle against the pettiness of his own nature and for the driving out of all that was petty- human. A great deal has been gained through such a change and new tendency of life. In fact we have discovered far more than we had hoped for. But, at the same time, we have lost something, a loss which at the outset brings forth no anxiety, but which. 60 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION however, through painful experience, proves itself to have been "the one thing needful." Through its own development the work has destroyed its own carriers ; it has undermined the very ground upon which it stood ; it has failed, notwithstanding its infinite expansion, through its loss of a fundamental and unifying Life-process ; and in the entire immer- sion of man into activity his deepest being has been lost. Indeed, the more exclusively life transforms itself into mere external work, the more it ceases to be an inner personal. existence, and the more alien we become to ourselves. And yet the fact that we are able to be conscious of such an alienation — an aliena- tion that we cannot accept indifferently but is ex- perienced as an irreparable loss— is a proof that more is firmly implanted in us than the modern direction of life is able to develop and satisfy. We acknow- ledge simultaneously that we have gained much but that the loss is a painful one. We have gained the world but we have lost the soul, and, along with this, the world threatens to bring us into nought, and to take away our only secure foothold in the midst of the stormy roaring torrent of material work. This danger was not realised so long as modern ideas failed in precision of expression, and so long as life without any hesitation supplied itself from the old sources of thought and experience. Indeed, the more an immanent and impersonal culture and civilisation were posited upon their own energy, the more that universal dialectic which the experience of humanity has often witnessed reveals itself. Systems of thought and, indeed, ideal worlds either destroy one another or rail in their gained domains ; evolution THE RECONSOLIDATION OF RELIGION 61 itself shows limits ; but the discovery of the limits leads to new tendencies — to tendencies in the main thesis. In the meantime, however, "there arises a painful situation, as modern man with growing consciousness has discovered. Men have drifted from the old moorings, and the new ones which promised the highest happiness do not satisfy. They are conscious of a poverty in an overflowing kingdom, conscious of an absence of a real substance in the midst of incessant activity, and have discovered in the midst of incessant joy and pleasure the absence of genuine happiness. Is it to be wondered that desire and anxiety should turn again home towards the whole of life, and that the question concerning the inner clarification of life should place on one side aU other questions and reduce them to subsidiary facts ; and that the possibility of an inner elevation of human nature — of a self-maintenance in the midst of a threatening destruction of life — should become the most weighty of all concerns ? And through such a revolution in the tendency and character of life, the ancient puzzles of human existence, hushed up in earlier times, raise themselves once more with lively and crude energy — problems concerning the deep darkness which veils our Whence and Whither, our dependence upon strange powers, the painful anti- thesis within our own soul, the stubborn barriers to our spiritual potencies, the flaws in love and righteous- ness in nature and in human nature ; in a word, the apparent total loss of what we dare not renounce — our best and most real treasures. But we are now experiencing what mankind has so often experienced, i.e. that at the very point where the negation had 62 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION reached its climax and the danger had reached the very brink of a precipice, the conviction dawns with axiomatic certainty that there lives and stirs within us something which all obstacles and enmity can never destroy, and which signifies against all opposi- tion a kernel of our nature that can never get lost. And if the call to us is heard in no domain more powerfully than in the domain of religion to return home to the unassailable foundation of our being, and to make that which we dare not renounce our conscious possession, then the message of religion acquires a totally different meaning. Then religion appears no more as a creation of childish fancy or a flight into some far and alien world, but as an indis- pensable helper of man in the difficult and seemingly impossible struggle for a spiritual self — for a soul and meaning of life. Consequently there rises once more, after a long brow-beaten period, an aspiration after fundamental depths and inner connections, after eternal truth and infinite love ; and in the midst of all the welter of our day a new wave of life universal appears which carries man into entirely other bearings, and which is a flowing tide that heralds the inauguration of a better day. PART I.— THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER V {e) The Explanation of the Developing Tendency He who understands the religious problem in the sense already referred to is, in his treatment of the problem, pressed into a definite course of decision between Nay and Yea. That decadent mode of thought which, from grounds of utility, recommends a return to the old form of religion will appeal least of all to him. Modern culture, we hear so often to-day, has become entirely bankrupt ; human society needs for its subsistence and development moral consolidation and energetic cohesion, and nothing other than a religion of authority is able to furnish this ; then there is nothing remaining but to return to such a religion, to bend willingly before its authority — perchance to Rome — and to accept the traditional confession as the best doctrine concerning things which are under lock and key to the human intellect. The way in which the awakening of religion is to take place, in our view of the matter, contradicts such a mode of thought in the most definite manner. To religion belongs an aspiration which urges man to a great depth and resoluteness of life, to a self-reliance 63 64 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION over against the imbroglio of the world and to an elevation above the petty-human bustle of life. Man is able to experience and live a Higher and Nobler within his own nature, and to overcome an alien and even an envious world. And here again a utilitarian mode of thought draws him into his petty-human bustle and turns religion into a mere tool for his material welfare, and consequently what enters into man's nature is perceived as a half-truth, whilst human nature at its deepest thirsts for genuine truth. How high does even the honourable atheist stand above such a mode of thinking ! It could not happen otherwise than that the know- ledge of the limits of the New should occasion the return of many minds to the Old and to hold fast to it. But the present crisis of religion has in reality altered our standpoint to the Old. But still the Old comes nearer to us when we recognise in it necessary problems whose meanings have not as yet been shown in the New. But this does not warrant a justification for a simple return to the Old. The newer culture has cut too deep a chasm between the past and ourselves to make a return possible. And we have to be on the guard against underestimating the value of the New for the whole of life, because as yet it does not mean all to us, and because it does not immediately suffice for the inmost source of life. For the penetrating and transforming effects of the New are found in full currency, and in no manner has the New brought forth no more than a number of particular results which sagacity and dexterity dovetailed into the empty spaces of traditional ideas, but it has changed the fundamental process of life EXPLANATION OF DEVELOPING TENDENCY 65 itself. The gain in clearness and breadth through natural science, in earnestness through history, in other essentials through philosophy and criticism, will never be rescinded ; and on account of such changes we are obliged to view the New in a different light, and are no longer able to adopt the simpleminded- ness of our forefathers. Re-fitting and patching are always anachronisms, and nowhere more so than in this province. Further, it is not to be forgotten that the present- day expansion and struggles affect not only the con- tent of religion, but also its position in the whole of life. It is on the ground of Christianity that religion constructs, for the first time, a Whole or, termed otherwise, the one worthful kernel of the Spiritual Life, and all the other provinces of life had no other problem than to lead into this kernel. In the Middle Ages the various provinces gained more ground, but they still remained under the guardian- ship of religion. Protestantism, however, brings to a consummation a cleavage between culture and religion. Neither of these possibilities satisfies us to- day : a mere religious life has become too narrow for us, and a mere parallelism of religion and culture can at the best be no more than a transitory phase, and cannot mean a final conclusion. Thus, there originates here a difficult problem, which no return to an old extinct mode of thought can solve. Though the newer culture appears as an enemy, or at least as an uncomfortable critic, of religion, its effects in no way turn out to be a danger and a detri- ment, but far more are able to further the clarification, emancipation, and extension of life, as such effects place 6 66 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION new problems in front of themselves, and forge a new energy for the solution of such problems. The earlier configuration of rehgion— formed in a weary and evanescent age — entered into danger, for in its anxiety for the suffering of mankind the fostering of its own active conduct was weakened, and its own actions were forgotten in the midst of its perpetual submissive mood. It is a justifiable aspiration of modern times that religion should develop more and more in the direction of the ennobling of work, of the awakening of a new courage of life, of an inner elevation of all the provinces of activity ; it is an aspira- tion that religion should not only teach man to think little of himself, but also reveal to him the great- ness of his nature. The old mode of viewing things, through its sole dwelling on the salvation of the indi' vidual, has pushed largely the question of the vindi- cation of the Spiritual Life into the background ; it looked too much upon the life of man as something ready-made and not as something that is ever a " becoming " ; and all this has happened because this old mode of thought could not return from its abode of seclusion and calm to the present actual world in order to impregnate it with a new spirit. In the midst of such great changes, religion can only come to grief if the new ascending movement is fastened entirely to the old form, and if the old form is represented as being immutable in all its essentials. The representatives of religion carry such a procedure easily into a mistrust of the least scientific exactness and even of veracity, whilst, at the same time, they gloss over obvious difficulties. By removing contra- dictions out of sight, uncertain probabilities are made EXPLANATION OF DEVELOPING TENDENCY 67 to appear as certain realities ; this most shallow mode of thinking receives through this a kind of relief in that it is championing the casting out*of incontestable truths. Religion will never gain the indispensable simplicity for far-reaching effects, never the inward immediacy and the victorious energy of conviction if it binds the present rigidly to the past, if it does not speak to us in the feelings, conceptions, and even words of our own day. If so much that belongs to the older configuration of religion has become anthropomorphic and even mythological and magical, are we to ignore such a state of things, and dare we ignore it when the real true interest of religion itself is at stake ? Many who have relinquished a rigid clinging to the Old seek to escape from the difficulty by conceiving of religion, separated as it is to them from culture, as a pure inwardness of the individual feeling, and con- sequently they strive to transform religion entirely into a personal conviction and sentiment. In this manner they believe themselves able to verify and develop energetically the distinctive characteristic features of religion. Through such a notion, all the contradictions of the work of the world do not touch religion because it rules securely and calmly within its own domain. Without a doubt, much freshness of life, enthusiasm, and joyous labour have issued from such a mode of religion, and it pulsates with great power in the character of our age. We shall have to occupy ourselves with this movement in the whole of this book, so that for the moment we can place its discussion on one side. At present we only indicate briefly wherein the religious crisis, notwithstanding its 68 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION recognition of the turn towards the purely human mode of formation, compels us to conceive it as an anomaly. The pure subjectivity to which the tendency turns from the embroilment of culture as to an indestructible and even unassailable citadel is not so secure and certain as it is supposed to be. Our consideration of the matter has already shown us that modern culture values subjective inwardness not as a main but as a secondary phenomenon — as an accompanying phenomenon — and, further, that it con- siders all life developed on such lines not as the entire truth, but only as a circle of subjective stimulation and imagination. Such an inwardness can corroborate its rights, free itself from a vacillating sentimentalism, and prove itself the kernel of reality, only through its energetic union with the work of the modern world, only through the gain of an immanent and impersonal culture. In order to obtain this, such inwardness strikes more and more into the deep, and gains more extensive connections. This it is able to do only through the turn to a Metaphysic — a Metaphysic not of the Schools but of life. Through this the inward- ness will experience a clarifying and a winnowing ; all mere sentimental pathos must be stripped off, and a firmer substance must be won. The immediacy of the first impressions of things is not the genuine immediacy of spiritual creativeness and original depth, for all the latter has to be worked out. And, simultaneously with this, culture becomes for us something quite other than such a subjectiv- ism. And now, with all our energy, we fight against the splitting of life into subjective religion on the one hand, and into soulless culture on the other hand. EXPLANATION OF DEVELOPING TENDENCY 69 Culture as a work in the world is by no means a mere external side of life ; it belongs to our nature, and has even in modern times affected deepfy the configura- tion of total-life, whilst it has given life more clearness and has penetrated beyond mere subjectivity. So that a renewal of life is of benefit to culture in the whole of its ramifications, and thus the problem reaches beyond mere religion into the whole of our being. The advocates of subjectivism as well as those of the old mode of thought, in spite of all their differences, agree in their undervaluation of the present-day crisis in religion. This crisis deals not only with the position of religion in life, but also with the fundamental process of life itself. Hardly at any period in human history has the upheaval gone so deep ; and such a struggle which calls mankind to a revaluation of its positions and possessions has rarely been witnessed as is wit- nessed to-day. An old form of life has proved itself, on account of the work of the centuries, as being too petty, narrow and subjective, and yet such a form seems to contain an imperishable nucleus which we dare not renounce without encountering the severest of losses. The new mode of thought which arose over against the old one has, through its breadth, earnest- ness, and energy so completely mastered us as to render a retreat to the old mode simply impossible. But the new mode brings ever clearer to the surface flaws perceived in the solid nucleus and in the secure foundation ; thus it is full of inner problems, and we cannot possibly enter into agreement unceremoniously with it. Now one mode hems in the other, and yet is not able to dislodge this other, still less are we to expect both to flow amicably together on the current 70 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS IN RELIGION of compromise. Consequently, we witness the one tearing the other through the coUision ; we observe the disaster reaching ever deeper into the most original qualities ; and the possession which is common to all breaking up in pieces. At an earlier time we had wrestled with the truths of morality, of religion, of a world-view, in order to draw nearer to such realities, but now the truths themselves have become matters of dispute, and consequently we find ourselves contradicting ourselves and carried to the most pointed opposites. When We reflect, however, on the whole of life, we are able to discover a painful uncertainty : our spiritual existence floats in mid-air without any means of support, and our fundamental relationship to reality has fallen into entire uncertainty. There- fore, a struggle for the whole of life and for a new man has become necessary. This struggle has to be led not only by religion, but also by the other provinces of life — by art, philosophy, etc. True, each province has, as in the case of religion, its special problem and its special way of attacking its problem, but it is a condition of success in connection vidth each province that the Whole should be recognised as in- wardly present in the particular, and that this Whole withstands every kind of dissolution, contraction, and torpor. The problem of religion is only a segment — probably the most important segment — of a more general problem — of the problem concerning the struggle for a spiritual existence, for the duration, content, and meaning of life ; and the problem of religion dare not sever itself from all this. It must produce discomfort to the adherents of religion and, indeed, it may produce deep depression EXPLANATION OF DEVELOPING TENDENCY 71 of spirit to see that which forms, for the personal conviction, the most steadfast security and the highest good of hfe treated by science as an open problem. But this is once more our destiny that in connection with the fundamental questions of life what appears as our most secure possession, and what in reality carries along incessantly our spiritual exist- ence, should have to be won ever anew for bur own conviction, and should have to be strengthened through spontaneous decision. Though the indi- vidual may withdraw from this task, human nature is not able to do so. Religion in particular may protest against all such distressing fears : religion is either merely a sanctioned product of human wishes and of pictorial ideas brought about by tradition and the historical ordinance — and, if so, no art, power or cunning can prevent the destruction of such a bungling work by the advancement of the mental and the spiritual movement of the world ; or religion is founded upon a superhuman fact — and, if so, the hardest assault cannot shatter it, but far more, it must finally prove of service in all the troubles and toils of man, it must reach the point of its true strength and develop purer and purer its eternal truth. Part II. — The Fundamental Basis of Universal Religion INTRODUCTION We have already seen that the problem of religion arises out of a vast crisis in the total existence of life. The old form of life, which hitherto had marked all aspiration, became too narrow and subjective for a general expansion of our existence and of activity in the various provinces of knowledge. On the one hand, the new life which issued out of the transforma- tion of activity had no fixed centre and consequently threatened to vanish into emptiness. That we are able to discover the contradiction and reflect on both sides of the antithesis may undoubtedly be held as a sign that our inmost nature in some kind of way is able to rise above the cleavage ; but evidently the upheaval is much too deep for us to conceive and vivify without a great transformation and even a revolution of our nature. We therefore find our- selves in the midst of a great conflict for the whole of life, and are necessarily pressed to the problem whether religion can and must come to our aid in order to reconsolidate our spiritual existence, and whether it is possible to become the possessors of a reality superior to the world, enclosed within the 72 INTRODUCTION 73 living present to consciousness, and which, if found, renders possible such a striving after a content and meaning of life. If, therefore, the problem of religion arises out of the Whole of life, it w^ill mean that such a religion alone as flows again into the Whole is able to bring satisfaction. Thus, when we turn to the particular province, we must constantly bear in mind the reality of the Whole. But such a conviction involves particular methodic requirements, and, in particular, it carries us at the outset over the antithesis, which runs through the ages, of a derivation of religion from the intellect and the world on the one hand, and from the particular experiences of man in feeling or will on the other hand. What here first of all appears as a bare diversity of method is in reality a struggle for the content of religion itself; for the differ- ences in the proofs correspond to differences in the religions, and the proofs only carry out, in each case, what was at bottom already decided by the choice of this or that kind of proof. Thus, in these considerations it is not merely the path to religion but religion itself that stands in question. In earlier times, indeed already since the time of the Greeks, the evolution of religion proceeded by placing the emphasis on the side of thought. At the height of this development the endeavour signified no mere reflection on the world — an attempt to conclude to a supra-mundane intelligence from the seeming purpose and fitness of things — but rather the hope of man triumphantly to penetrate to the kernel of reality, from this point of vantage 74 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION above the pettily human circle, and thus opening out to him a wider, purer, richer Hfe. Reality, apprehended thus in its very kernel, appeared as sustained by a Hving unity, indeed, as the unfolding of such an over-world unity. In this work of apprehension thought gained a religious character and transformed itself at last wholly into religion. At the end of this path lies mysticism, with its complete immersion of all the varied characteristics of things into the All-One, and its devotion of the whole soul to that one end. We shall find that this course of thought contains a truth which religion cannot renounce without becoming narrow and rigid. But this does not signify that such a course of thought is able of itself to found religion, and, along with religion, to open out a new kind of life. In reality this course never attains to religion through the energy of thought alone, but always, though unobserved, through an inflow and an appropriation of feeling, into and by the thought which warms its cold form. In a word, a thinking left simply to its own resources would never be able to get beyond empty forms and highly abstract conceptions. Indeed, even when thus com- pleted by feeling the religion that arises here is still in a high degree shapeless and lacks the power for proceeding, from the one great intuition with which it starts, to the formation of a complex of life. In addition, there springs up a painful doubt which no merely intellectual form of religion is ever able to overcome. Is thought able to reach the kernel of things through its own energy, and can its highest exertions break through the bounds of the INTRODUCTION 75 merely human circle and raise us to the divine ? Are our conceptions in reality more than mere human conceptions ? Is it not a niere world of phantoms which arises in them ? Must not thought itself be recognised as a member of a wider con- nection of life, if it is to be valid as an expression of truth, and is to assure man of the reality of a new world? Precisely the convulsions of modern life, which we have already pursued, make this doubt acute, and consequently forbid us to base religion on mere speculation. Less stiU, according to the experience of the centuries, can the reflective procedure suffice which derives an over-world intelligence from the special construction of the external world. In the pheno- menal world there appeared, to such a procedure of thought, far more order, design, and beauty than was possible for the nature of things to accom- plish of itself; consequently, every behaviour of physical things was considered as a testimony of the power, wisdom, and goodness of an over-world spirit. This train of thought won many minds in late antiquity ; it won them in early Christianity ; it won them in the period of the Aufkldrung ; and, because of its perspicuity and comprehensive- ness, it will not lose its influence lightly. But whatever truth may be imbedded behind its anthro- pomorphic form, it has not a convincing power against the doubts of the present age. For one thing, our scientific age has discovered the drawback in this mode of thinking, that it puts science and religion into irreconcilable antagonism. For whilst science passionately endeavours to bring all particular 76 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION events into relationship with each other, and to understand them from out of this relationship, that mode of thought must consider religion to be the more securely grounded, the more immediate is the impression of design presented by the look of the world, and the more tangibly single startling pheno- mena contrast with the remaining happenings. If thus each gain in the scientific and inherent inter- pretation of things becomes a loss to religion, then religion must withdraw more and more into an unexplored region with the naive presumption that such a region is also unexplorable, and without any certainty that the supposed mystery will not, some day, reveal its secret to the illuminating light of the activity of thought. We discover, too, to-day, much more clearly than of yore, the anthropomorphism of the method which carries carelessly human modes of thought into the All, and explains the condition of this All as though a human being had produced it. Again, for our present-day outlook on to the universe, there is, alongside of the purposive that may be discovered in it, so much that seems purposeless, so much struggle and suffering, so much rigid indiffer- ence to human welfare and spiritual good, so much limitation and precariousness even in the purposive, that for us the starting-point of that teleological doctrine is riddled with insecurities. And, finally, if we overcome all such scruples and recognise the superior energy perceptible in the physical universe, could we derive from such a consideration a new life, and could the discord of our inward nature be overcome ? The older mode of thought could be- lieve such results to be possible since it was under the INTRODUCTION 77 influence of a securely operative religion — a religion which heightened the intelligence which by that mode had, with considerable artifice, been iifferred as pre- sent in the world to a living personality, and which gave to this intelligence an efficacious presence in the human soul. That mode asserted far more than it had proved. But that influence has by now been shaken to its very foundation, and the whole of religion has become problematic ; and therewith falls all that had lifted that mode of thought above its intrinsic capacity. However much, then, in the world may remain an enigma for us, and however willing we may be to acknowledge dark depths in existence, such a method can never furnish a secure position for a foundation and living development of religion. " The amazement of the sage in viewing the depth of creation and his search in the abyss for the Creator do not furnish an education of human- ity in the corresponding belief. In the abyss of creation the investigator can readily lose himself, and in this whirlpool he can drift about and miss his way far from the source of the fathomless sea" (Pestalozzi). It was as a reaction against such an overstrain of the intellect, against the transformation of religion into speculation, and against the resolution of man into the Infinite, that there followed a turning to the experiences special to man himself In these, religion seemed to be able to win a stable form, a living energy, and a full certainty. But here again the attempt, though above reproach in its basis, has, in its execution, led to problematical positions ; and this chiefly because human life has been swerved 78 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION from the All and been treated as a separate province. For then not only are we confronted by the difficult, and even insoluble, problem, how anything that lies within such an entirely separate province can possibly reach beyond it — and such a reaching beyond is a necessary part of religion ; but there also arises the danger that such a basis for religion will keep man too much tied to himself and will simply excite his simply natural self. Thus, there would here be a lack of the necessary opposition to the merely human. A closer consideration of the two currents into which this non-intellectual endeavour divides, will show this more clearly. It is either in the softer mode of feeling or in the stronger mode of will that this way seeks access to the Divine. Man is able to withdraw himself into his own feeling, to rid himself of all connection with his environment, and, in a condition of pure apartness and of soaring detachment, to know himself to be both far above his merely physical environment, and a part of an unseen whole. The mere fact that he is thus able to free himself from all the entanglements of things, and to place himself upon his own separate inwardness, seems to prove a greater depth of reality than is to be found ex- ternally, and seems, too, to reveal a kingdom of the soul in spite of the hardness and senselessness of the immediate world. And in such a self-contained feeling, a touch-stone seemed to be won for securely deciding concerning the truth or falsehood of every religious experience. Here alone human life seemed to win full immediacy, here alone to become auto- nomous. Let, then, all that claims to be religion be INTRODUCTION 79 brought to this point in order to prove its authen- ticity and, in a characteristic manner, to decide between the kernel and the shell. Infleed, the claims of feeling proceed even further : they prove them- selves not only an unfailing touch-stone, but become the creative source of religion itself. In these claims are contained demands of life, and further develop- ments take place, and in these are included a new and divine world which had dawned on the consciousness. Through this winning independence of the inward there arises a longing to break through natural ex- istence, and a desire to prove that this characteristic and novel truth which now dawns is a real longing after infinity and eternity and freedom ; and the desire seems to culminate in peace and holiness through the feeling in a form of immediacy of a reahty of such greatness and goodness. Thus a king- dom of ideals arises and declares its content as a definite truth over against all mere subjective ex- perience. In the province of religion the conscious- ness fastens itself to a Whole and grips the whole man. The culmination of a real existence for one- self is reached in such a manner, and the full bliss is obtained by a free floating in the ether of infinity. This, doubtless, contains a good deal of truth, but this truth is mingled with much that is problematic, and needs a fundamental clarification of conceptions in order to separate the certain from the problematic. In the first place, mere feeling is in no manner an independent inward life — a still deep, certain through itself of its truth. FeeUng testifies only to the rousing of the subject — to the degree of the subjective 80 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION appropriation of the processes of life. The truth- content of these processes remains questionable and doubtful, and, also, the rousing has varied degrees because feeling can be shallow and feeble in spite of considerable amount of excitement, and can dissipate and consume itself in hasty agitation without its being able to affect the remainder of life. If feeling is, therefore, in its simple and natural state less full of value and content than when it displays its connection with real existing life, it cannot construct for itself a decisive touch-stone ; and consequently a criticism of the feelings is as necessary as a criticism of concep- tions. One can adopt fully the words of Hegel : " l^he true nerve is the truthful thought ; and only when the thought is true can the feeling be of a truthful kind." In the province of religion the movement towards feeling takes place usually within the circle of crystal- lised tradition and the common order of things ; although the subjective experience crystallises itself in this established order, it wins through it a support and a content, and in all his advance the subject would in no way shake off an objective world. Thus it hap- pened with Pascal and also Schleiermacher, especially after the aesthetic enthusiasm of early youth had adopted a strong religious element into itself. In both cases the close relationship of the soul of the individual to religion brought forth a pure gain in warmth and inwardness. Quite otherwise is it, however, when the feeling, rejecting all wider con- nections, attempts to generate religion purely out of its own nature. Then it contracts itself through such a one-sided striving upon its own particular ability, INTRODUCTION 81 and consequently its product proves lean and poor. This bare feeling is so fickle and i^oft, so devoid of stability and content, that finally it discharges itself into an entirely vague disposition. And when such a disposition attempts to weave a content out of itself in order to lead man beyond the mere human pro- vince to a relationship with the Divine, it degenerates of necessity to the level of eccentricity and fancy. The proclamation of the predominance or even of the autocracy of feeling was thus usually on his- torical grounds a part of the inner process of the dissolution of religion. The receptive form estranges itself inwardly from the traditional form and yet fears to break away completely, so that one sought to hold fast to a portion of the subjective meaning whilst the substance was given up. One has the tendency to greet such a state of things because it seems to be a gain in width and freedom, but the fact is overlooked that when the real truth falls away sooner or later its reflex in the minds of men must disappear. Such a religion of mere feeling had the tendency to become more and more shadowy, until finally it vanishes completely from the mind. The turn to bare feeling is accordingly a path on which religions not so much originate as disappear. The basing of religion upon will seems to place it on securer grounds and under stronger motives. But here also a dilemma will soon become visible, because the will, strictly confined within its- own limits, falls inevitably into emptiness ; while with the de- velopment of some kind of content, it enters into wider connections and becomes dependent on these connections. The will, doubtless, as a characteristic 6 82 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION decision and as a carrier from the domain of faculty to that of activity, constitutes a phenomenon of the greatest significance. It affirms not only freedom from all mere mechanism of nature, but also promises to become the starting-point of a new kind of world. But as soon as we begin to develop such a world, and as soon as we lay hold of a law of activity present in the will which points to morality, we step beyond the mere individual will and venture to make asser- tions concerning the highest ends and final grounds. When this happens there happens, too, that we are compelled to recognise a kingdom of self-activity beyond all mere psychological functions. Herewith new demands arise concerning the reconstruction of life from its very foundation, and the will must now prove its particular truth out of the larger truth of this new reconstruction. Common to feeling and will are two diflferent reasons which make it impossible for both to give religion a secure basis. Both appear as original and immediate events ; such originality and immediacy seem to confer on both the right of sovereign value and the ability of independent creative power. But this immediacy is first of all a mere phenomenon of consciousness, and as such, through the further work of thought, is liable to the possibility of error ; much can be of significance in the phenomenon which seems to the immediate impression to point to the contrary. So it is in no way certain that because the feeling interprets itself as a pure existence-for- self that such an existence-for-self actually exists. Is there not much concealed and indirect dependence here, and could not the assertion rest upon error? INTRODUCTION 83 It is similar with the will and its presumptive free- dom. Is not the will probably a non-knowledge and an oversight of the truth of its previous ties ? Does not man aim at something more than merely to feel himself free, although he is unable to penetrate to the causes of his activity ? If feeling and will, however, in their present fundamental significance admit of so much doubt, how can they ever create a new world in the sense of religion, and through this fortify human life ? There corresponds to this insufficiency of the basis an insufficiency of presented content. Religion finds it difficult to disentangle us from the contradictions of life unless it culminates in an inversion of existence, and unless it exercises through such inversion a sharp sifting of the near-at-hand materials which present themselves. There is no possibility of a workable Yea without the presence of a powerful Nay ; for thus alone can the transformation strike into the deep. In feeling or will, in the manner already described, such a radical Nay is wanting, and consequently human life in its particular circle may aim at and further a given religion without being able to become the possessor of the inward elevation and the essential renewal — two characteristics of the chief end of religion. When the whole matter is surveyed, there appears no possibility for any single aspect of life to arrive at religion. Each one of these aspects is not only too feeble for such work, but is also unable to present religion with a sufficient content. The experiments made in such direction are in sharp conflict with one another : on the one side, the attention is directed 84 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION to the outward character of religion and to the building up of a scientific province of thought, whilst on the other side the standpoint is that of immanence and of the immediate energy of movement which arises out of this. The one is as necessary as the other, but on this path the two aspects refuse to coalesce : the general character of religion, mirrored in the intellect alone, endangers the inward immediacy and spiritual warmth, whilst through the individual results of feeling and will alone the immediacy endangers the spiritual width and validity which extend beyond the individual. So that a new path must be sought which will unite the discordant elements. It is certainly clear that through such discord between the two opposites, an immediate united push and a joyous co-operation are impossible. The experience of history testifies to the particular naivete of basing religion on thought, feeling, or will. It remains here to seek a new path which is not, from the very outset, under the power of the opposites. We need not, however, allow man and the world, subject and object, activity and presentation, to fall outside one another. We do not proceed on this new path from any ready-made imaginative existence, but from the Life-process itself ; and from this Life- process we seek to develop conceptions of existence and strive to carry the particular sides of our con- sciousness far enough to meet within an essentially unique Whole. That such a Whole exists — it has all probability on its side — appears in the fact that the contradictions of our existence could not be ex- perienced collectively unless there existed a living unity which spans the separate aspects of existence. INTRODUCTION 85 But where is such a unity to be found ? And when found, is it able to be of effect without causing a reversal of our naive view of things ? These are other questions. And it may be held as certain that no proof of religion is possible in the manner a fact of the connection of external things is proved. The path to religion leads through the contradictions of life, and allows itself to be discovered long before a clear conception of the overcoming of these contra- dictions is ripe. It is the great characteristic of religious problems that a great contradiction shall become visible, and also that it shall be overcome by the entrance of something within the human circle that will lift man beyond that circle. This demands energetic analysis and essential gradations. The first representation (of the contradictions) must be re- cognised and must become more effective in us than has hitherto been the case. Thus when we are battling with the question of religion, we are at the same time battling for a more complete picture of reality and of our own real existence. And it may be, indeed, that we shall find much that is provisional and full of contradictions. But who has given us the certainty that the universe in us and we in it are complete ? Is it not far more probable that the main value of life lies in the fact that we are allowed to combat with alien elements ? PART II.— THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER VI a. The Complexity of Human Life 1. The Dualism in Human Life The movement of the Life-process in the direction of the rehgious problem has before all else to ask if it fashions a characteristic and continuous Whole, or if it produces essential differences, and especially if it exhibits a thorough-going dualism. Such a dualism might probably offer a thread which might guide us further. Now, an unbiassed view, undisturbed by particular one-sided tendencies, holds that our life in reality contains two different aspects : that it in- cludes the two qualities and stages of Nature and Spi?it within itself. This hypothesis will be eluci- dated as we proceed. Such an antithesis is quite other than the ones between body and mind, object and subject, extension of space and conscious activity, as these were brought to the foreground in the period of the Aufkldrung. Our antithesis lies wholly within consciousness itself. The particular psychic life shows a twofold characteristic : on the one hand, it merely carries forth its sensuous surrounding nature and adapts itself within the bounds of nature, while 86 THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 8l on the other hand, and contemporaneously, new energies, ends, and forms are produced whose connec- tions lead to a new kind of reality dver against all mere nature. This difference is so fundamental for the whole of our investigation as to render a clear illumination and a sufficient basis for it impossible without an investigation into its very nature. Modern Science itself has proved visible nature, out of which we have sprung, to be a fugitive web of purely particular elements or forces lying in im- mensity. Speculation may, accepting some supposed ground of the multiplicity and the inward connec- tions, resolve the universal reciprocal actions as well as the course of the whole universe into simple fundamental forms. Natural Science can push back such connections and provide all explanation from the simple elements themselves. For all phenomena grow out of relationships, from step to step, on the ground of experience ; one phenomenon against the other receives interchanges in the reciprocity of the effects. Nowhere does the guidance of the move- ment seem to proceed from a Whole, and nowhere does life itself seem to rest upon an elevated and collective end of self- maintenance. What finds itself in amalgamation is nothing other than a construction of things side by side in space. The external con- tiguity, in the main, does no more than bring the elements together ; an inward participation collect- ively is throughout impossible and, indeed, unthink- able. Speculation may anew complete this picture by stating that the elements cannot possibly pass wholly into the mutual relations, and that they must possess some individual existence. But such individual 88 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION existence lies inaccessible beyond the phenomena and remains unexplored for all times. Along with this, each question concerning final " grounds " un- folds another question, and there is here, therefore, no discovery of the Why and Wherefore; the scientific investigation of the processes of nature shows them as. no more than mere occurrences. As such an existence from without, with its myriad forms, surrounds us, it extends itself also deeply into the province of the soul. Also, human activities are above all driven by the needs of individual self- preservation and self-elevation, and it is the execution of this alone which gives value to man and things ; here activities are not meant for alien aims — they are not meant for any existing Whole beyond the realm of the life of humanity. Our life, primarily, creates its content out of the external relations and connec- tions; it is nothing other than an intercourse with the environment. What is called " inward " is only echo and ashes of what originated through the friction of the connections. Our ideas or conceptions, for instance, are mere sensuous presentations ; that alone can be termed good which our position utilises in the sensuous existence ; all happiness, in the last resort, is rooted in sensuous stimulation ; what is termed non-sensuous or spiritual is in truth only a sensuous of a finer make. Also, the connection of the psychological movements corresponds entirely with the order of nature. Isolated elements unite and link themselves simultaneously or in turns, stir and displace themselves ; and it is the association of their mechanism which largely governs our life and makes out of it a complicated machine which far more moves THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 89 independently of us than helps to shape our own particular product. No superior unity spans and stirs the manifold, so that there is no room here for either ends or activities. As, however, our position remains bound in this network, we infer that we cannot be carried beyond that position. What in themselves these things may be, we can know nothing, and there is no need for us to know ; in such a beyond we could neither interest ourselves nor attain our ends. We see, too, that the psychic life in its initial stages remains within the domain of nature, and through and through exhibits the character of a mere existing thing : it comes and goes, it mounts and sinks, it is tied to sensual appetite and mechanism — a life without ends or aims, without meaning or reason, entirely sinking to the level of bare and barren existence. If we survey this psychic life in its extension over the expanse of nature right up to man himself, we find it nowhere resting in itself, but it appears with all its performances as mere means to the mere natural conservation of its own existence. What purpose does the richest equipment in the animal world serve but to put on war-footing the individual and the species in the struggle for ex- istence ? And hardly more does the mere psychic life perform for man, for it remains in his life, too, a mere piece of the natural Life-process. But though this kind of life has governed humanity almost exclusively in its initial stages, and though it has carried the natural and commonplace to the throne, yet such a kind of life does not remain isolated, for along with it there develops a new and higher kind with other configuration and direction. Step by 90 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION step transformations appear and form an essentially higher standard. Thus human activity is not wholly held fast by self-assertion, but also reaches out in the direction of the welfare of others. Consequently, inward connections of the community arise and win the individual up to the point even of sacrifice of self for the aims of the community; in other departments of life the spiritual activity draws the man unto him- self and places his striving under an actual compulsion ; in art, science, law, technics, etc., great connections grow up and urge man into their service. Such work could never be linked together into a Whole had it not been that a transformation had pro- ceeded out of a Whole in the inward web of the soul. An inward representation of these connections must be possible ; the thought of a Whole must span the manifold, and the entire mass must be transmuted into a system. Indeed, this shows in reality the erection of a connected world of thought — a general organisation of culture. Of more importance still is the fact that the Life- process disengages itself from its mere connections with things : the process deepens the life of the soul in itself, and strives to pass beyond the mere appearance of things to their nature. This Life-pro- cess is carried further and cast into a new mould by receiving into itself from the external world ; through this new forms and energies appear, and the inward- ness attains the capacity for production, as, for instance, we find on the heights of science that the conceptions are not a mere thesis of sensuous presentations but characteristic creations of thought. More and more the inward world links itself together into a unity ; it THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 91 seeks and finds original tracks, and exercises a counter- activity to all the mere environment. An activity arising out of characteristic energy and decision now places itself over against all mere hap and hazard. To such an independence of the individual soul corresponds the greater self-activity of humanity. The latter prepares a particular kingdom — a kingdom of civiUsation — over against the realm of nature, and a corporate Spiritual Life, founded in itself, bridges all the branch provinces and calls men to a new existence far beyond the reach of nature. At the same time, a new relationship is won towards all natural things. It suffices us no longer to know whatthe mere connections of things are ; we must forge our way in the direction of the connections of things and transpose ourselves in the midst of their character- istic existence, and participate in their characteristic life. This is accomplished not only through mental dis- cernment and its longing after truth, but also through the whole of the life of the spirit. What differentiates definite love from sensuous excitement but the re- ception of the " other " into one's own soul ? How could a fact with its compulsion move us, were it not that it was born in our characteristic striving ? This signifies a breaking through the narrowness of natural existence as well as the most fundamental transforma- tion of all greatness and goodness. It is only when the Life-process draws this seeming " beyond " into itself that there arises a problem of truth, and that a good (one of the most riddlesome of all terms) grows over against the useful and the pleasurable. What satis- fied us previously as happiness — the maintenance and enhancement of the individual — becomes through the 92 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION inward expansion of life small and lean, and, indeed, a hindrance to definite welfare. This new direction of life develops into an objectivity and exhibits an activity of the soul of a very different nature from the activity known on earlier levels. This new object never gains an inde- pendence and an inward present moment from sen- suous impressions, but only through its deliverance from these ; this deliverance is, however, a work of the activity of thought, for thought transplants us into the very centre of things, and it is through the conception of the things as great thoughts that the things (Can produce in us a living movement. Thus every further expansion of life means, at the same time, a remove into the province of a world of thought, of the non-sensuous, and of ideals. Indeed, there follows an inversion of life in which the work of thought operates in the interpretation of the earlier stages of things and of the foundation of all ; and through this process the sensuous aspect of things withdraws to a secondary place and sinks to the periphery of life. This basing of life upon thought is, at the same time, a gain in transparency and freedom. True, the object which we ourselves appropriate exercises a strong constraint against our previous condition — an inward necessity of our nature dispels all arbitrary choice. But this constraint of the outward fact does not work through physical pressure, but all along through the intervention of a characteristic activity — an activity which pulls out arbitrary choice and thus establishes freedom. All investigation comes under the necessities of the case, but the strongest external sway of things cannot force THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 93 open a turn to investigation : aesthetic creativeness could not discover and obey the necessities of its handling-object had not the imagination previously linked that object to itself. The thought of obliga- tion is an absurdity without an acceptation of the fact of a moral organising power in the will. Thus a new life unfolds itself in manifold traits ; a bi-lateral life and a parting of the ways towards wider and more, decisive directions now become needful in order to obtain a complete view of things. In the one, our acts are more and more flung back upon ourselves and thus strike a depth in the soil of independent inwardness ; in the other, it becomes possible to plant ourselves on new objects and be filled and moved by them. The collective flow of things found on the natural level is now entirely dis- carded ; subject and object, man and the world, activity and its object of treatment, have all separated themselves and work upon one another as independent energies. But the cleft which frees our life from numb subjection cannot signify as yet the final con- clusion ; indeed, the sharper and clearer that cleft becomes, the more do we discover it as an intolerable situation, and are driven with all our available energy to seek to re-establish again some kind of unity which had succumbed during the initial stages of the inward movement. The road to a Yea lies through a Nay ; we must separate in order again to unite, and must depart from our ordinary state in order again to return to it. There enters thus a negative element into the work of life ; all definite departure on the new road follows through toil and struggle, doubt and pain, but in all this aggravation of existence 94 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION the man is raised to a higher level, and is ennobled through the inward compulsion which drives him forward. Intertwining movements and revolutions break the ban of the fixed actuality which lay upon natural existence. Much still remains dark and mysterious, and, indeed, becomes more and more so, but already the clear discovery of the darkness heralds the beginning of a coming enlightenment. We are not allowed now to accept the phenomena as they merely fall upon us ; we cannot now leave on one side a standard and a judgment, a sanction and a disapproval ; over all the particular questions there arises the question concerning the aim of all action and the meaning of all life. The whole manifold must fasten itself together and obtain a characteristic view of things. There is, thus, no doubt that our conscious life is not a mere furtherance of the movement of the natural order, but that within it a new art of life is to be recognised ; our life constitutes not merely a simple superficies, but it includes two qualities fundamentally different in kind. That such a view of life is less simple, and that scientific investigation demands a greater labour out of it, must not prevent us from recognising such a fact. Or, shall we bend, enfeeble, and trim such a life in order that we may join together merely those conceptions alone which will produce our mere individual comfort ? 2. The Contradiction in Human Life The point of contact of two different stages of a life signifies in itself no contradiction ; such con- THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 95 tradiction would arise only if a conflict between the two stages originates, and if the relationship of both became something other than what corresponded to their separate inner significance. And it is this which actually happens. The Spiritual Life presents itself as pre-eminent and as being called to wield the sceptre ; it has often to content itself with a humbler position; it will thus, true to its own nature, rest in itself and construct its own particular province, but through such a treatment of it the man remains still tied to the natural order, and the pre-eminent life seems to accompany that order as a mere addendum. Such a contraction confines the effect not only from the ex- ternal side, but also brings the internal formation to a standstill: the Spiritual Life, through that dependence upon an alien power, seems not able to accomplish the purpose of its own nature, and consequently must be wrecked in its search for a More, which lies on a coast beyond the natural province. Thus it becomes in itself a contradiction, and what promised to illumine our existence proves itself now a difficult riddle. (a) The Weakness of the Spiritual Motive-Powers. — A loosening of the activity from the natural instinct of self-preservation and its liberation for aims of a conjoint and actual kind are essential to the Spiritual Life. This shows itself especially in the province of morality. In however devious ways morality may be conceived and founded, that it is a contraction of the instincts and signifies a direction upon common aims cannot be doubted. How do things stand in reality with the evolution of such a conviction ? Over the whole field of civilisation there extends an appearance of morality, self-forgetfulness, and willingness for 96 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION sacrifice ; the corporate organisations hold before themselves great aims, and mutual co-operation, love, and esteem find their way by the sheer force of their own inherent assurance into organic society. But he who accepts this appearance for the whole truth is soon disillusioned, and finds pretty quickly that the gold pieces prove themselves to be copper coins, and that that which constitutes the real experience of life is in its foundation nothing other and nothing less than an insight into, and a loosening from, the mere appearance of things. So that from of old the renown of an insight into human nature belongs to the pessimists and not to the optimists. The organisa- tion of co-operative life, however, treats entirely the particular interests of individuals as the driving- power of all effort ; such an organisation wins such a power not through the presentation of elevated aims beyond the circle of immediate life, but through the benefits which it is called to further, and through the drawbacks which it is called to obviate. Indeed, the closer these individual movements link themselves to the system of society, the securer becomes their actual strength ; how poorly would the movement proceed in its love for the good if it left on one side its abhorrence of evil ! Religions, in spite of all their differences, are united in the fact that they change in some degree the moral achievements of man. The optimistic character of even the religions of law does not confine itself to the natural good of human nature, but expects an obedience to the voice of Divine command which promises, on the one hand, great rewards, and threatens, on the other hand, heavy punishments. Philosophy, too, handles incessantly THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 97 the wide gap between the moral potency and the actual conduct of man ; indeed, the deeper the great thinkers have penetrated into the depth of human existence, as, for example, Plato and Kant, the more they have discovered that contradiction ; but the thinkers who, as Aristotle and Leibniz, presented the facts in a more friendly manner, yet became, in the further development of their thoughts, living witnesses against their earlier outlook, and in favour of another view of things. For as soon as they turned towards the expanse of life and trod on the impressions of experience, the favourable picture was inverted into its opposite. Thinkers are far more united con- cerning their judgment of man than could be expected from the strife of their different conceptions ; for example, they present the same truth in different forms. Art also tends to the same convictions as philosophy and religion when it does not falsify the reality in shallow embellishments, but endeavours to illumine it and learns to see it in a truthful way. How many entanglements has such Art brought to the surface, and under what strong contrasts has it exhibited human existence ! In great moments, however, individuals and nations have exhibited a character free from self and capable of heroic sacrifice. This is true of particular moments when human nature was under strong stimuli, and is a phenomenon witnessed but seldom. But does not the circumstance prove, when it is considered more closely, that such achievements — prized as something miraculous and conceived as something superhuman — condemned root and branch the ordinary natural ways of man ? 98 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION The problem does not limit itself, however, to the moral province in any definite sense ; it is not only when man is required to sacrifice his own self, but also when he shall bring forth some earnest participation in the affairs which lie beyond his self, that the ability is denied him for such an accomplishment. It may be an activity concerning the state and society, or art and science ; everywhere the ordinary mode of life shows a lamentable callousness and apathy, everywhere the effort proceeds not so much upon the thing itself as upon the advantages which promise to accrue to the individual. In order to win any energy for the actual thing itself, it becomes obligatory to take solitary circuitous paths and perilous enter- prises, and then the situation seems to need a severe intimidation, and soon, too, a daring assertion of one's own self ; but, soon, on the contrary, the particular interest has somehow found its vantage-point, and transforms the immovable apathy into the closest attention and the most strenuous interest. If it is now felt that the situation at the height of this creativeness is a better one, this in its turn is clearly discovered as an exception, and serves more for the corroboration than for the refutation of the assertion. There remains, therefore, no doubt as to the weak- ness of the spiritual and moral motive-powers. But noteworthy enough man stands up in strong ooposi- tion to the acknowledgment of this fact. Throughout the whole of life and of corporate organisations there proceeds a striving to represent things in a better light, to show them to be nobler and greater than they actually are ; an open conviction and calm acknowledgment of the real facts of the case have THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 99 fled, and men practise hypocrisy not only towards one another but more towards themselves ; and even in front of his own consciousness the man speaks and imagines himself on the heights. This inces- sant drama has raised, from of old, the bitter jests of the satirists, the fiery indignation of the friends of truth, and the deep pain of all moral natures. There is imbedded here a problem : Why do we shun recognising that mysterious Something whose actuality is undeniable ? Why do we not acquiesce in the ordinary state of things which surrounds us on all sides ? There must be some kind of concealed counter-effect extant ; whence that concealment — that darkness — came and whither it goes nobody knows. And thus our existence continues largely under the power of opposites, and we are unable to see how the spiritual can prevail, although the necessity of our nature even against our will holds us to it. (/8) The Spiritual Impotence of Man. — Hitherto the subject has on the whole handled the strength of the spiritual motive-powers in man ; the will as yet has not corresponded to the demands of the new standard. But the question arises, whether the will in particular is responsible for the fault, or whether, rather, the entanglement does not extend to the very foundation of our nature. Is man abio', primarily, to pursue something beyond his present situation ? Can Spiritual Life, in the distinct way it expresses itself within the confines and sub- jectivity of his own nature, come to actual realisation ? Will not all things — not only mere appearances but even truth — be drawn down to the level of the 100 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION ordinary nature and thus destroyed? Such things could transform all into an over-natural kingdom of life constructed out of the largeness and truth of things. The aspiration after knowledge becomes truth — the particular truth of things beyond the bare impressions which surround the mind in sensations and which are deposited into percepts and ideas. The sensuous presentation of the idea disengages itself from the idea itself in order to present before the mind the existence of things in space. But how do we step beyond the province of the presentation ? Does not the idea the more it withdraws itself from its object and stands upon its own particular potency become more empty and shadowy ? And, too, in the most sublime ideas sensuous presentations adhere. With what ardour and toil has reUgion, from of old, striven to obtain pure conceptions of the Divine ; and always in this procedure how greatly has it discovered anew the limits of our powers ! Must it not then acknow- ledge even in its highest flight that all human know- ledge attains to no more than a metaphor ? But even so much signifies that the human notion holds man with inexorable power. What is true of the idea is true on the whole of knowledge. Knowledge ought to subsist upon the "in-itself" of reality, and yet it is held in trammels by the subjectivity of the soul. The subject remains always with himself, and can extend and extend this particular circle, but is never able to break through the situation and transpose himself into the object ; what we occupy ourselves with are never things but only our presentations and images of things. The THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 101 idea itself of any thing is not given from the external but originates in our own charact^istic thought. Thus there stands continually between us and reality the ghost of our own particular thought and reflection, which threatens to reduce the world to a shadow ; instead of seeing the things we see only a haze with which they are surrounded, and we only substitute one haze for another when we beheve we have uncovered them. Hence to all great thinkers the conception of truth has been the most difficult of all problems as well as a riddle full of mysteries. To such thinkers the work of knowledge presented itself not as a wandering on a paved, secure path, but as an inces- sant wrestling to find the main goal and the main direction of a new track. Philosophy, therefore, must take up anew the question of the possibility of truth, and must consider that the question is not altogether settled by previous work upon it. In spite of aU toil the goal seemed to recede into an ever-wider distance. The Greeks considered the problem simply as the unbroken connection of man and the world, and the truth was conceived as a harmony between subject and object {adceguatio rei et intellectus of the Middle Ages), and found such harmony quite attain- able through the accepted kinship of nature on both sides. The growing inwardness of human life slackens and parts asunder such a connection with the environ- ment ; it corresponds to the most important situation of Descartes when he tore off^ the subject from its entanglement with the physical universe and under- took to construct reality out of consciousness. But even he, at the same time, held fast to the existence 102 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION of an independent actual world of man in conscious- ness ; and therefore it became necessary for him to find a connection between subject and object in a new kind of way. That happened with his successors in the doctrine of parallelism between thought and existence. Each of the two unfolds independently of the other ; a pre-eminent power — of an immanent or of a transcendent nature — causes at least here and there a harmony of results. But to conceive of the truth of the problem in this manner is not to solve it so much as to push it backward ; it must soon reappear as an intolerable contradiction alternately over against the world and upon the world. Such a criticism culminated with decisive acuteness in Kant ; a truth seemed possible to him only in the degree it is conceived apart from all its relationships with things, and thus the problem is laid entirely in the particular thought-province of the subject. But when it is not recognised that a world of things persists by the side of this thought-process and that the subject is nothing without such a world, our world transforms itself into a kingdom of appearances and then it becomes questionable whether a truth in any definite sense remains, and whether we are not standing on a province between knowledge and non-knowledge. A way out of this dilemma as well as a conclusion of the most important movements were sought by the German speculative movement, in which the leaders allowed the things to remain on one side, and endeavoured to bring forth reality out of their own thought. That such an investigation signifies an overstrain of human ability, and that, at the same time, it robs the reality of all content THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 103 there is no doubt, as this is clear enough from the consequent disillusion which followed the speculation. What has this most important speculative movement arrived at ? It seems to teach nothing other than the inaccessibleness of truth for man, and the insight that the sum of all knowledge forms the confession — unknowable. But out of all the changes and trans- formations of time arises clearly the one dilemma : Either the striving after truth points to some kind of existence beyond the human circle, and then our inability to attain a direct intercourse with the things will prove itself ever anew and ever clearer ; or we create the whole reality out of our thoughts, and then such a titanic plunge soon breaks into pieces, and the overstrain of the human powers will take vengeance through the increasing emptiness of our existence. The existence of a science can tolerate such doubts well enough because it is situated in the ordinary life, and, through untiring toil, it ranges itself into con- clusions. Science can extend and codify incessantly results only in so far as it stands upon an average height and shuns the highest summit and the deepest abyss, and in so far it pushes further off or places on one side the problem of a final and definite truth. Such is a kind of indispensable compromise and no more, which has to take place in the co-operation of the work of science and in the continuance of life ; and to see the solution of the main problem within such a province can only mean a self-satisfied super- ficiality. As soon as we demand to pass beyond mere awareness to a truthful knowledge, we discover our deplorable poverty, and must confess that that which 104 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION is termed certain seems on clearer investigation to rest upon a totally insecure foundation. When we turn to the realm of action, the matter appears worse than in the realm of thought. The moral inadequacy of man has been, as we saw, an object of complaint from of old, but the complaint seems often to have forgotten the question, whether the " given " and benumbed nature of man is able in some kind of way to handle things otherwise. We cannot act without motives, and these adjust them- selves to the good striven for, but a good for us can only be that which furthers our particular will; therefore we can strive only for ourselves and never for some external existence. In particular, it is our subjective existence— our particular neutrality — which seeks the one thing and flees from the other ; to speak of effects upon this condition of things is, to our activity, as insoluble as our knowledge of sense- presentations. Pleasure and pain drive and control our life ; they may be refined far beyond their raw, sensuous forms ; and our subjectivity, too, binds us to great refinement, so that in the last resort we seem to act for nothing other than our own par- ticular condition. Also, this condition may inter- lace and link itself to the world and man around us, in the most varied manner ; we may imagine that we are striving not so much for our own welfare as for the welfare of another ; we may conclude, in order to strengthen such an opinion, that w^e do this for another because it promises pleasure and has already proved itself of value to ourselves, so that when dealing with the seeming external we are really always dealing with ourselves ; we thus find the self, in the furthest THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 105 remove from its starting-point, bound in its own subjective happiness, and linked again with it un- observed. All transformation and seaming excellence never seem to yield an exit from that embarrass- ment — never bring forth a transplanting of the life into the realm of over-individual and over-subjective actions. This impossibility, however, is the strict demand of morality, and with it morality stands or falls. This demand renders impossible the enclosure of man within the web of his own small self; the demand not only places his acts under definite aims but also calls him to mount to a region of definite self-denying love ; it holds its message before him not merely as an agreeable play of phantasy, but as an imperative problem upon whose solution the content and value of life are decided. Thus there appears something as indispensable which is not yet discovered : it does not reveal itself, and the problem is : How may we discover it ? All along the ages thinkers have laboured in order to try to solve the problem, but the liberation of man from himself would not yield to any proposed solution ; all ardent labours have alternately entangled and disentangled the skein, and the goal has always receded further away. On the summit of Greek life the good attracted man on account of its inherent beauty as an object of disinterested welfare, and not on account of its utility or its enjoyment ; on account of its powerful influence on the imagination man seemed to win the good and the beautiful. Happiness {evSaifji.ovla) welded compactly together sensation and act, subject and object. But this supposition pos- sessed presuppositions of a problematic character ; it 106 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION reckoned with nature conceived as great and noble ; it interweaved minutely the psychic nature of the observer with the objective world, and placed the increased inwardness of life as something inherent in the external world. But the question was not raised, whether this refinement of nature works in the direction of the liberation of man from nature itself and from egotistic narrowness, or whether, finally, all such attempts do not end in the mere inclinations of man. However hard and unfair the opinion may be that " the virtues of the ancients were splendid sins " {virtutes veterum splendida vitia), inconceivable it is not. Christianity has, as one of its great accomplish- ments, freed morality from mere nature, and with incomparably greater clearness than before placed the moral problem in front of the soul of man. But the solution was not, on account of this, rendered easier but more difficult. Holding all human ability as useless, there remained only the flight to a miracle of Divine grace : such alone could create a new disinterested life. But is not the centre of gravity through this shifted outside us ? And do we not sink to the level of lifeless instruments and mere indecisive receptacles of Divine decree ? Also, it remains in darkness how such a regenerated man could escape from the toils and tangles of his own nature, and how his life and actions could free them- selves from subjective conditions. Christian love is much praised, but it is often forgotten in the midst of this praise to ask if such love is possible, and if it really exists. Thus the knot is not so much untied as cut asunder ; and the violence of the solution has, as its consequence, the oscillation, on the one side. THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 107 between a supernatural view brought forth through a powerful achievement which will destroy all personal action and morality, and on the other side, an ac- commodation in the egotism of his own nature which falls into the danger of relapsing into the rear of the antiquated solution of the problem. Is it no relapse to a lower level when, within the Christian world, questions concerning rewards and punishments occupy such a prominent place ? Also, our age in its own way has taken up the struggle against the pettiness of the natural forms of life. Through the transformation of the whole man into thought — into an objective world-embracing thought — our age believes itself able to transform him into a cosmic nature and to wrest him from all his embarrassments. Here, too, such liberative process pushes against insurmountable barriers. A thought and life born of external things desires an entry into the deepest essence, and fancies it receives it in all the entanglements of the problem of truth ; on the other hand, the doubt is raised if thought by itself in the overcoming of the opposition can include the whole nature of man, or if the kingdom of thought, in all its breadth and fulness, does not leave unbroken the egotistic impulsive life. This seems to be the case on the ordinary level of our modern life of culture. All in all this characteristic movement of modern times unveils here a rough dilemma. If the aim of the good is clearly grasped, it sprouts through the whole soil of human energy ; and on the other hand, a mere adjustment of things to our own nature is nothing less than an inward subversion of that nature. Thus each alleged conclusion rapidly transforms itself 108 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION into a problem, and increases incessantly the distance between us and the goal of the good. Human society has not prevented such sorrow and toil from bringing forth a certain civic honourable- ness and righteousness. The question is, how much good of a definite nature is imbedded in the attempt to fold together the interests of the individual into a well-authorised system, and place such interests for reciprocal movements on the chess-board, in order to make possible an endurable co-operative life. As much as this is certain, that where conventional righteousness exhibits itself as the one true and culminating virtue, deeper natures in all times have handled it as a miserable delusion and have branded it as a pernicious pharisaism. Only such human performances satisfied such deeper natures as took possession of the aim of life right down to the inward abandonment of all that is base ; and, meanwhile, with a strong ardour for love and righteousness, thirsting spirits found the ordinary level of life as a hollow caricature. What is true, however, of the true and the good is also true of the whole of the Spiritual Life. Such a life holds before us a new kind of existence, but the energy to reach such an exist- ence it verifies not, and this seems in no way verifi- able. But if such a conviction of our inability to verify such an existence takes root, it transforms our previously possessed aims to bare illusions, and consequently all confederate work falls into pieces. Is the situation thus, or is there some kind of help, some kind of passable exit ? (7) The Instiffidency of an Alleged Remedy. — Modern life is convinced that it has a ready exit out THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 109 of the exposed entanglements upon the particular ground of experience without any kind of trans- formation of reality, and it hopes to become equipped to deal with the problem by holding and overcoming the particular energies which are mis- placed in the problem. The solution is to take place through a belief in the power of the progressive evolution of humanity aided by society and history — two factors which the modern man holds out against all doubt, and which enable him to take up life with a joyous courage. That such a course of thought, as it presents itself in the foreground, is peculiar and problematic, will appear clearer as we proceed. Such a course of thought understands the band of society and history as the convincing energy of the Spiritual Life. Bred in the chaos of individual opinions, it affirms society as a connecting world of thought, and, at the same time, develops common aims and goods over against the bare self-preservation of the individual. But, as it was with the simul- taneity of events, so is it, too, with succession — it engenders a combination and summing-up of energy ; a later time takes over the achievements of an earlier time ; the stones of the building fit into each other and rise into a pyramid of civilisation ; the succession of generations eliminates the transient and subsidiary, and couples and fastens the essentials, and thus augments the fimdamental inheritance of our domain. Thus humanity is able to build up a kingdom of reason far beyond the capability of the mere in- dividual and the mere moment ; although the ideal is certainly not reached at one stroke, yet, little by little, it is brought nearer home. 110 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION This unbounded ability of the ascent of the world of experience seems to render superfluous the need of splitting of reality into two different provinces. For what purpose, then, does man need religion when his wishes and hopes, little by little, come to realisa- tion entirely on such a ground ? Thus evolutionary thought becomes a rugged, and, indeed, a most dangerous enemy of religion. It would have been difficult for such a thought to have won the mind of modern man with such con- vincing power had it not been that there stood behind it a significant new tendency of the life of civilisa- tion itself. The nineteenth century has developed with characteristic energy an historical point of view ; over against the eighteenth century it might be designated as the century of history. Not only do we occupy ourselves as investigators far more with the past, but also we interlace it more closely with our own present work ; we seek to introduce the inheritance of the ages into our work, and in this manner to establish a richer, clearer, and more con- crete work. Thus it is in law and religion, in science and art. At the same time, in consequence of the easier and more rapid intercourse, more reciprocal relationships and co-operative work originate ; we feel ourselves more closely bound and connected together ; we experience in such results a powerful ascent of our abilities over against all earlier times. Such an energetic development and such a clear consciousness of historico-social modes of life make it conceivable how, from such a development, the results of the main problem may be expected. A deeper and more penetrating reflection is, how- THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 111 ever, necessary in order to read more correctly that opinion of our day, and in order to perceive that history and society in all their accoiftplishments on the periphery of life heighten rather than lessen the problem at the centre. With compelling force the following dilemma raises its head: History and Society are either, as evidences of the mere great- ness of experience, testimonies of a confused and con- flicting situation which has appeared clearly before our eyes ; and if so, history and society participate in the entanglements of the situation, and cannot raise themselves beyond the situation or inwardly free themselves from it. Or there results in history and society such actual effects of elevation and freedom ; and if this happens, they do not work out of their own energy, but there is imbedded in them a superior power which prepares them as means and ways. Then it is not history and society but some- thing that in the meantime remains completely un- known that consummates the transformation. What gain could issue out of the recognition that man, as he suffers and lives, merely links himself to his equals ? The energies gather themselves together without much toil in their action upon things : whilst activities perform their work and reciprocally supple- ment and fold themselves, differentiate and par- ticularise themselves, a powerful increase of behaviour and a thorough consolidation and refinement of the work are accomplished. This work, through such inflation, has transformed the contour of our existence and drawn our life more and more into its own vortex. But does such an advance of the work itself signify the gain of an inward harmony, and are men in 112 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION conviction and character — in the whole of their being — brought nearer to one another, so that the true and the good for which they strive become easier and gain a conquest of reason over all the dangers and resistance ? Experience on this point reveals the very opposite. A growing disunion of mind is rendered necessary in order to support the amalga- mation of work ; we observe more and more contrasts opening out amongst men, which swell to ever greater passion and hatred, thus causing individual to stand against individual, vocation against vocation, race against race, nation against nation, empire against empire. When, indeed, was humanity so full of dissensions as to-day, and this in the midst of all the coherence of united practical work ? Also, the admission and the belief themselves do not verify the statement that a real union of individuals is possible without a further addition of reason, or that through such a contact with one another a fixed truth easily and quickly springs forth. If we view, however, our parliaments and the great gatherings of the people, it seems clear how very little so-called public opinion is able to differentiate between the definite and the indefinite, and how defenceless it falls often before robust force, and, indeed, even before audacity and a daring to plunder. When we become aware of this, we shall think less confidently of the alleged summa- tion of truth. There is, indeed, no joyous activity for humanity without a trust in some kind of conquest of reason in its own sphere, but this conquest must be something other than the gain of the ordinary and the commonplace ; and when such a conquest comes to its own, a different kind of truth-energy must sway THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 113 humanity than that which lies in the opinions and interests of individuals and masses. Also, the evident strengthening of the convictions and tendencies of human society gives not the shghtest security for their actual truth. And, too, stubborn errors can strike here their fast roots, and with a kind of sacred authority grow from generation to generation. Later times revere then calmly the undisputed truth which the tradition of the centuries had sanctioned. But this sanction is of a purely human kind ; and if there stands not something more than human behind it, sooner or later the day must dawn when the usurpa- tion is seen through and the alleged truth is stripped of its deception. And then a powerful upheaval results, and each and every truth falls lightly into doubt. These considerations lead into the province and problem of history. Here, also, a significant achievement is unmistakable ; but the question is, if such achievement, through "w^hat it receives from the doctrine of evolution, is able to create a definite cleavage between reason and unreason and to possess the security of a growing mastery of reason. In certain respects there results evidently an increase of material as Well as a progressive adjustment of work ; this is to be witnessed in the exact and positive sciences and in technics. What the particular move- ment here achieves is a gain in the duration of its material, and in the linking together of epochs into an unbroken chain of activity and production. But will this bond of union be reached if the inner exist- ence and convictions of man are laid on one side, if the question of absolute truth remains in the back- 8 1 14 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION ground, if the activity revolves around the circumfer- ence and not around the centre of hfe ? Was the historical movement a progressive gain in spiritual substance? Has it incessantly clarified our funda- mental relationship to reality, and overcome the previously explained contradictions of our nature ? Have we become greater, nobler, happier men, and has the daily life transmuted itself into a kingdom of reason ? Our particular consideration of the struggle for the true and the good has already given us a decisive answer ; the seeming near-at-hand solutions proved themselves insufficient, and when we dive ever deeper into the entangled abyss, we discover an ever greater cleft between wish and capacity. More and more our life tears itself away from a naive standpoint and seeks new paths. But the energy of the denial corresponds not to that of the affirmation : energies and movements are found in abundance, but no definite aim which governs, fastens, and raises them. The strenuous effiarts with the past and the develop- ment of a historical consciousness must heighten the impression of this situation ; what these effiarts gain in knowledge threatens to overbalance in the loss to life. When a keen outlook on history presents before us the multi-coloured abundant material of human striving, and when it shows alternately slow and rapid changes and transformations of ideals and their ever fragile nature — material which the man had achieved with toil and which had filled his soul — then the question raises itself imperatively, whether all human toil for truth and reason is a labour in vain. With what right may we hold and defend truths as being THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 115 definite and settled simply because they were so in earlier times, but which are now seen through as errors ? The Indian words, " We were what y3u are, you shall become what we are," should recall us to the realisation of the penumbra of such relative truths. Let us consider impartially the situation of the present. Historical inquiry stands in magnificent blossom, it extends its kingdom ever onward, and ever more accurately it explores its ramifications. More accurate, indeed, than we realise is the validity of truth to the great investigator. But do we gain, with all our insight, a more secure support for that which is valid to us as truth ? And are we not inwardly poor in the midst of this overflowing kingdom ? Or, one indicates to us a particular positive truth — a funda- mental truth for life and existence — which is carried to us on the current of history. The insight that all is to be conceived as in a process of flux, and that all the later comes under the influence of the former, is not likely to make valid the belief in a particular truth in the sense referred to. This joyous belief in history has an hypothesis which it cannot verify and which soon suffers a shock. This belief accepts as true that the movement of humanity from of yore has transmuted itself into the elements of reason, and that through this the move- ment possesses an unassailable foundation, and con- sequently is able to erect its structure step by step. But reason is not a ready-made thing given to us, but presents itself to us as a task ; doubts and strife ever anew draw us back, and the reasonable character of the whole turns again and again into doubt. And on account of this, our belief in such an evolution falls 116 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION to the ground. Such a denial signifies in no manner a complete transmission of history into unreason. But if any kind of reason works in history, it must originate out of an over-empirical and over-historical source ; and such a source will hardly find its highest aim in a superstructure of the kingdom of history. History can never, out of its own capacity, create pure reason, but remains a turbid mixture of little reason and much unreason. The untenableness of the evolution theory also is corroborated through its own history. This history shows it as a testimony of various kinds of thought-procedure and afflicted with an inward con- tradiction. Modern thought believed itself to have grasped directly, through the ascending scale of life, an absolute truth, and to be able to carry this truth fully into the human province. Such a course of thought took up, first of all, a tendency against history, and placed the explanations of its discovery before a powerful tribunal of reason ; there resulted, however, in a calmer mood, the view that history should be conceived as a revelation of reason — indeed, it was conceived as a gradual evolution of the whole of reason. History appeared to such a mental procedure not so much as that which is able to engender reason out of itself, but as that which is encircled and carried along its course by a timeless reason, thus placing the main standard of life not within but above Time. Then followed the change to immediate existence through the realism of the nineteenth century ; and to that change the over-historical life became a mere illusion and bare impossibility; history was placed entirely upon the ground of natural immediate ex- THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN LIFE 117 perience. But through this happened what signifies the modern view of hfe : the old view is fundamentally rejected, but the claim is to be rightly*maintained that the new view is able to perform less than was thought possible. The historical movement should be under- stood more on its empirical side, but, at the same time, it appears as a witness of reason which held unswervingly to a belief in the strong reign of law, in an incessant ascent, and in a progressive conquest of the good. Such a mixture of different kinds of mental procedure tends necessarily to a blunting of the problem, and obscures the sharp Either — Or which doubtless lies here ; and the mixture becomes a serious danger to the energy and truth of life. This danger is rapidly growing on all sides, and the doctrine of evolution on its empirical side, with its confidence in the culture of society and in history, has now reached the masses. But on the height of spiritual activity such a doctrine has been broken and overcome. The untenableness and even the destructive energy of the limiting of life within the merely human area appear constantly before us. Where man sinks wholly into the relationship of the human environment, where his anxiety for his position in the mere simultaneity and succession of things allows him to forget all else, then he loses in inward independence, in depth of soul, and becomes inevitably a shallow and babbling nature in which finally all characteristic life and all truthful present consciousness disappear. We witness with painful clearness to-day a strong decline of inward culture ; more and more, leading minds fail in creative power ; ever less does man find definite satisfaction in all the bustle of our modern mechanism ; ever 118 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION more is the inward life lowered in its pitch to the commonplace ; and ever clearer it becomes apparent that all the gain on the periphery of life cannot counterbalance the loss which occurs at the centre. In the last resort, it is true that we live our existence from out the centre, and although this fact may be forgotten in our relationship to the environment, it can never be permanently lost. If, therefore, the proffered solution of the evolutionary theory fails, the main question faces us again with a harsh distinct- ness : Either the complete surrender of reason and, along with this, an inward subversion of life, or an ascent beyond the ordinary level and a new tendency which not only grapples strongly with the contra- dictions, but also lifts the inward life out of them and sets that life to work against all obstacles. It is a great gain in the midst of all the chaos of the present time to realise that all attempts to run away from this dilemma are more and more seen through as a delusive hybridisation of life. PART II.— THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER VII b. The Progressive Autonomy of the Spiritual Life Hitherto the movement in the direction of the Spiritual Life appeared as a particularly difficult contradiction. The Spiritual Life presented great problems, and we find in ourselves no energy for their solution ; it demanded a cosmic character and yet the narrowness of the self coerced it ; it promised a clarification of existence and yet it was the first to bring the darkness of existence prominently before us. A contradiction which comes suddenly upon the inmost kernel of life allows itself not to be placed calmly on one side — at least not for a strong nature with its corresponding strong thought. If the aims of life are simply unreachable, every attempt to reach them must be excluded, and they must vanish out of our existence as deceitful illusions. But we, at the same time, dare not allow so much to perish, for all this exhibited what gives eminence to man above all else, and what constitutes the good and the noble in his life — in fact, what constitutes all the inner onward movement of humanity and all 119 120 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION the meaning and content of life. Is such a complete collapse inevitable, and does no path offer itself to meet the catastrophe ? There is one and only one possibility. The final cause of the contradiction consisted in affirming that the Spiritual Life appeared as an activity of the mere individual self, and that it was bound up in the situation and custom of this self. Man forms out of his surrounding conditions a special province over against the great All; reality stands over against him as something alien, and his life appears as a pendulum swinging between his own particular pro- vince and this great All of things. Things being thus, if the Spiritual Life is called to bridge inwardly the gulf, to unfold the infinite on a definite point, the impossibility of such an achievement becomes evident, and all attempts will be wrecked on the rocks of the contradiction. This intolerable situation is to be escaped only if the Spiritual Life were not railed simply within the human province ; if it contributed in some kind of way to the winning of an independence and of a power to draw reality into itself; and if it were able from within to expand and become a universe of its own. Through this the Spiritual Life would be raised above the opposites ; man would win, through his participation in the new life, freedom fi*om the narrowness of his subjective existence ; and in that which at first seemed to oppress him — as an unfulfilled demand from without — he seeks and finds the inmost nature of his true self. For the in- sufficiency and even the contradiction of life within the mere-human circle reveal themselves ever clearer. Then an activity of a spiritual order is no longer PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 121 satisfied to accept languidly a rigid and indifferent kind of existence which accrues from the mere motive-powers, but is able to penetrate to the depth of one's own nature and to attain to the might and ardour of self-affirmation. Thus the opposition of subject and object, of one's own individual standpoint and one's external material, can be taken up into the Life-process itself and here overcome. If this hap- pens, there results a hope of such an illumination over the whole meaning of the Spiritual Life which was not possible so long as that Life signified only a particular speck of a universe of chaff and dust. In brief, an avenue opens in a new and opposite direction, provided that the possibility of such a Life is more than a mere possibility, and provided that it reveals a corresponding reality. All continuation of life's movement and all success depend on the existence of such a reality. The many problems and entanglements connected with the existence of such a reality constitute a further question : in the first place, it is necessary that our anxiety concerning that question should not blind us to the real fact itself. The attention must be set on this fact alone, and set against any incidental reflec- tion which prevents us from storming this new path, for this is not a pert merriment in knight-errantry but that which Goethe named as the best of counsellors — Necessity. That a new actuality, however, of an independent kind rises in us becomes more and more evident ; through this we seek to effect an emancipation of the life from the small self and from the petty-human level, in order that we may overcome the inward 122 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION opposition and gain a new self. Our object in this work will be to survey the whole of this new life, to estimate its significance, and to examine its trans- formation in its view of the world and of life. I. The Several Stages (a) The Emancipation of Life from the small self and the merely human order. — AH spiritual manifes- tation appears first of all so vague in the isolated individual, and we need only view such manifestation from its content in order to verify the fact that it forms new connections which produce transformations upon the individual. We observe the Spiritual Life always linking the elements into a Whole; the separate elements come together not only from with- out, but bind and complete themselves, too, from within ; within this embracing Whole each special act has to seek its location and to prove its significance. It is most distinctly so in science, and it is so wherever movement of thought extends — we find everywhere a change from mere bare aggregate to a system, everywhere general movement and dependence of the individual upon the Whole. Life, through such an extension, alters itself as well in its single states. Life thus appears, in so far as it is of a spiritual kind, not as a matter of the mere individual, or as something pivoted on its own special point ; but what the individual obtains through great effort carries in itself the assertion to all others of its validity and power to bring something of value to all, and attempts to demand from all a recognition of its claims. Truth is ever a matter for the whole of PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 123 humanity and never a private possession; in the assertion of truth the individual may feel himself as a representative, indeed, as a tool 'of the Whole, and through this inward presence of the Whole he is lifted out of the chances and changes of his individual position. Springing from his work an inward necessity issues its call, that what he with labour achieved can become the possession of all ; and that such a possession particularly gives activity its tenacity and success its joy. The Life-process, however, could barely grow above the severance of individual from individual did there not lie in it, on the whole, a superiority above the mere human and above the web of external presenta- tions and interests. Thought with its truth could not possess the certainty of its validity for all men if it did not hold valid over against all men ; it could win no inward present moment with man without the initiation if not the culmination of a transforma- tion in himself. The independence of truth from all human opinions and " may-bes " has constituted since the time of Plato the basal confession of science ; however riddlesome the matter may be the conviction will not allow itself to give up the belief that truths originate in a sphere which lies beyond the mechanical work of ideas in the brain ; man does not engender such truths, but discovers them ; and they are not measured by him, but he is measured by them. It is from such a source alone that the joyous belief in the power of truth, which inspires all striving, interprets itself; and it is out of such a belief that the energy is available to stand, if necessary, against the whole environment, 124. FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION and to feel one's self on the side of the right against all others, and also to take up courageously the struggle against deep-rooted errors in all their forms. Indeed, man becomes a problem to himself; he can examine and sift, and with longing and energy strive after a transformation of life. Thus, there results through the living power of the truth-content a rearrangement in man's whole view of things. On the one hand, truth shall be held valid not as one's own individual opinion but as a thing in itself; and on the other hand, truth is accessible within one's own individual life alone. Thus there exists and works in man something more than human, and consequently he does not become a mere bottled- up kind of vessel. Similarly as shows itself the movement from mere opinion to truth, shows itself the movement from utility to the good. The useful corresponds to the material of the natural or social self-preservation, and is able within a given province to maintain and to improve its particular situation ; evidently here the effort governs the broad ordinary level of human existence. But the effort is not able to accomplish this without opposition. Man can have no choice but to feel the useful, with its natural and social self-preservation, as indispensable ; and he has no choice either but to see that all proffered happiness is too narrow and petty, and to long for wider and nobler aims. It is something of this nature that comes to expression in the idea of the good ; in such an idea something is aspired after which raises man beyond his easy smugness ; what appears to him now of value is to be found through struggle and pain. PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 125 and stands in direct opposition to the aims of his mere natural welfare. If such an idea of the good operates as a gravitating force on maJi, if it wins his particular energy and conviction, therefore it must be something grounded in his very nature, something which proves this nature to be more than a mere increase of an intelUgence which issued out of the endowed animal world. What is gained here through emancipation from the ordinary effortless situation and from the small human mode of Ufe finds its richest expression in the fact of morality. It is true that we are aware to-day of manifold opinions concerning the content of morality, yet its slow " becoming " on the field of humanity appears to us clearer than to former times, but the primal phenomenon of morality asserts itself victoriously against the one time as against the other. Though the realisation of the good may be a difficult problem and may rend asunder peoples and epochs, yet the fact remains that in all places and at all times of the historical consciousness something appears as binding and as a law above mere arbitrary action, something which abandons the mere standard of utility. What one, however, accentuates and reveres as a good is not some one thing lying by the side of other things, but something considered as a sovereign swaying thing which demands universal recognition. If, further, the good in man has cUmbed slowly from faint beginnings to a persistent clearness, what has altered its nature ? True, the good is in that movement often drawn closer to the useful, and seems, indeed, to issue entirely out of the useful. But all this confusion of the two currents of the good and the useful in man lessens in no wise the distance 126 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION between their different natures; for however much the useful may receive by an appearance of good, to become the good itself is impossible for it. It is true that in regard to the good the movement seems to proceed from outward inward ; much of the good which seems to ascend directly from within has been imported from the social environment, education, custom, and other sources. But even here the in- ward assimilation and the acceptation into one's will remain as a special act — as an independent achieve- ment ; all the effects from without would glide in vain as over a hard rock, or could not pass beyond a clever parrot's prattle, had not such effects awakened an inherent consciousness in human nature. The initial custom can become a moral activism, but so long as it remains a mere custom and nothing more, it is not yet moral. What, however, may be desig- nated as moral suffers in value the moment it is considered as a testimony of bare custom. Morality thus remains an unconquerable primal phenomenon of the Spiritual Life. In the Spiritual Life, however, there lies an entire transformation of human nature as well as the most fundamental emancipation from the smallness of the mere natural order. When it turns away from the " ends " of natural self-preservation, and turns towards the ab- soluteness of its demands, morality appears first of all as an overlaying imperative and brings into birth such characteristic greatness as " the ought," duty, and law. It appears usually, in consequence, to the re- ligious conviction as a revelation of a world " beyond " and as a Divine injunction to man. But such a meaning includes one side only of the fact and needs PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 127 necessarily a completion ; if that " beyond " does not in some kind of way transplant itself into a "here and now," the purity of morality is cast into the greatest peril. What works upon us from the external only could not move the soul in any other way than through the holding out of consequences — through the promise of reward and the. threat of punishment. Through this, however, man would be thrown back upon the position from which morality should free itself, and the narrow circle within him would not be broken through. Man can unfold his own activities only in so far as they appertain to his own particular nature ; the law, in which these activities appear, must be an inward self-willed, self-given law. Such an assimilation of morality in our own existence is, however, impossible unless a growth in the inward parts beyond the small self takes place, and unless morality casts asunder the notion of a coercion. An " ought " which we ourselves help to found must carry in itself a will — perhaps a will Ij^ng far behind the passing moment ; and such an " ought " must, too, labour for the emancipation and the expression of life. As every energetic Nay hid in itself a Yea, so is morality in the denial of the old at the same time an affirmation of the new ; in its onward march on this positive path morality grows to a self-affirmation, and wins a portion in all of an inward and abiding affection of a strong and joyous kind. The testimony of experience corroborates this with a clear voice. It refutes from its very foundation that which perceives only an abandonment and denial, a diminution and depression of existence, in moral activity ; and denies as well that which bewails the 128 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION creative evil of human activity. The denial was not at all of a definite moral kind when it proceeded out of an unwilling and coercive frame of mind ; for love and joy failed it, and consequently it had in an inward manner no value. Humanity, indeed, in its energetic moral movement stands in no way dependent on the perception of limits and pressure, and it does not feel itself timid and humble, but experiences and perceives a raising of its own nature in all its struggles and sorrows. Thrown back, as it were, upon the primal source of its own energy, it could feel itself secure in the midst of monstrous doubt, rich in the midst of external poverty, a free lord of things though surrounded by powerful oppression ; and in its seem- ing setting and even collapse it is able to herald the dawn of a new spirit, a new life, and a new world. How, in the memory of humanity, stand the men whom we most have to thank for the development of the ideal world of morals, and in what did they find the kernel of their work — men such as Plato, the Stoics, Luther, Kant, and Fichte ? Were they small, nervous, depressed natures, or were they rather free and energetic natures — heroes of the spirit ? Brutal men of power they were certainly not, for their freedom carried in itself a shrinkage of the mere self, and it was clear to them beyond any doubt that there was no affirmation of a spiritual kind without a denial of their bare natural existence. Morality could become a power and reality in the common life only through such an energy of affirmation. And it has become that in spite of all the contradictions of daily life and in spite of all the scorn of opponents. However much morality PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 129 remains usually in the background, it needs only greater stimulus, compulsion, and emotion, to break forth with rapturous energy as an independent force, and consequently to unlock through its own energy a new nature to man, and to offer him a fixed support and a reliable succour. All such blossoming epochs invariably blew over humanity a renewal of the religious life ; and then the nothingness of all mere natural and social existence was perceived with painful perspicuity as the deep abyss in which all human life and effort became fully visible. But even in the denial of all customary help, and, indeed, in the submersion of the whole existing world, the conviction of the indestructibility of our inmost nature unfolds itself with overwhelming energy, and out of the collapse of all the customary hunt after happiness there dawns the hope and even the certainty of a newer, more definite, and purer bliss. Particular nations have shown themselves capable of a deepening and transforming power in kindred directions when their very independence was in danger, and when they had to fight for their exist- ence or non-existence. Also, the movement and the renewal reached into the smaller circle of private life ; here, indeed, where all external lustre and renown of historical acts fail, where all the fortified energy of society fails, the greatest heroism may yet develop, full of ardent love and joyous self-denial. Thus are the pessimists and sceptics wrong through- out when they assert that the matter is done with and ended in the downfall of the sham appearances in which daily life and the common impulses had wrapped themselves. For behind the standard which 130 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION rules that thought lies a further standard ; behind that mechanism of life lies a depth which holds its own against all the stir and strife of the small and common on the highways of human life. Without this activity of its present moment of consciousness, human existence must fall to pieces. All energetic activity for humanity relies upon this depth, and comprehends a belief in the possibility of an inward renewal. The same may be said of all great practical, political, social, and educational manifestations. These alone give man an inexhaustible possession which he seizes in aU his dire need. All culture which flings away this depth through deprecation of mor- ality robs itself of indispensable motive-powers, and becomes in the whole of its existence, in spite of its otherwise brilliant performances, shallow and hollow ; it threatens to fall into decay unless it possesses that which gives salt to life and which turns the will from mere natural impulse. Morality is thus in its seeming weakness a mighty power, and is in its seeming strangeness the most original energy of our life. When, however, that which otherwise stands outside us is taken into the will, when a new order of things — an infinity — drives the man from within so that nevermore does he seem to stand alone, but seems as if carried by a majestic flood of life, then clearly results a deliverance from the small self, and a cosmic life, a superhuman life, reveals itself actively in the form of immediacy. Morality is in all this not a particular province of a man's own but the testimony of a new life out of the Whole, out of Infinity. As clear as daylight the fact stands in front of us that the spiritual activity PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 131 knows no bounds, that it tolerates no external hindrance, and that it perceives all which it as yet has not made its own as a resistance' and a reproach. An all-inclusive life, in this manner, dawns in man, and at the same time morality shows that nowhere is he more himself than within his moral province. Must not this kind of thing then alter fundamentally all the prior views of man ? (/3) The Inward Antithesis overcome. — We have already observed the dawning of an infinite life in man as well as his striving liberating him from the small self and the mere ordinary level of humanity. But a doubt can arise, whether this change is energetic enough to reach the root of life ; whether the cleft previously referred to between subject and object, between the individual standpoint and its opposite, does not confine man within the mere surface-level of things, and does not hold him fast to a mere subjective mood and stimulation. Our next concern and question will be to see whether this cleavage can somehow be bridged, and whether the life can dis- engage itself from the destructive antithesis. The treatment of this question can easily fall into a false path when it misconstrues that such an anti- thesis is not endowed by nature, but has originated in the course of history. The sensuous beginnings of life allow the consciousness and its object to flow in perfect unison, the psychical impressions swim on the current of the environment, and the human sphere has not yet opposed individual and society to one another. But the movement of thought grows and works everywhere towards differentiation and perspicuity; in such work the subject begins to 132 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION realise itself, and at the same time acquires greater rigour and independence ; and, consequently, the life finds itself more and more posited between an anti- thesis, and through this is driven further out of its previous unity. But the liberation of the object from the immediacy of sensation is in no way its complete banishment out of life ; indeed, it remains present in a freer kind of way, for we saw a counter-movement originate in which the very same thing that is pressed back on the one side is again appropriated on the other side. How could thought itself without such an adherence and a reapproach of the object mark its own frontier over against the mere presentations ? How could the idea raise itself above the impressions of sensation, the judgment above mere association of ideas, and the causal nexus above the mechanism of presentations, if they were not able to transplant themselves in the very midst of the facts, to develop their duration, and to maintain their necessity in a region beyond the mere impressions of sensation? The Spiritual Life thus never falls entirely on the external side, so that another side presents itself and occupies our attention because it belongs to our existence and is encompassed by our life. Now, however, this life develops a further move- ment which brings both sides together into closer contact, which leads the two to some kind of union, and thus enables the one to grow by means of the other. It is the gravitation of the object from the region of work or mere external activity which translates the outward into an inward. Such inward- ness alone — such acceptation of the external into the particular life — makes it conceivable how work can PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 138 become one's own aim, how we can love it and bring to it sacrifice, and how we are able to drown all our sorrows and needs in the joy which lies beyond them. The task is laid upon us mainly through an external necessity, and often in the initial stages it is dis- covered as a painful burden. But when the task enables us to fasten it to an inward staple, when it is able to become a thing of value for us, and when out of the obligation freedom and joy burst forth, then the seeming stranger proves itself clearly enough to be a piece of our very life : we affirm and uplift ourselves whilst we serve the necessity of the facts. The most varied provinces of life point this out with equal clearness ; each province, however, shows it in its own special way. That there is no definite knowledge without a relationship with the nature and necessity of the object has been already often noticed and needs no further explanation ; but in Art it is shown even clearer how a Life -process of a spiritual kind encircles both inward and outward sides, and enables them to sail together ; and how, out of the contact, an inner development issues. On its highest summits, as in the life-work of a Goethe, Art is neither a mere reception and copy of an external world surrounding us nor is it a mere setting of a ready-made inner life, but both inward and outward are raised into a corporate region of life and here in one another and through one another are carried further. The inwardness gains a solid con- figuration and a distinctive individuality in this recasting mould ; the object, however, could not mean much to the Life-process had it not itself 134 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION received an inspiration from within, and had it not been able to communicate with this. All this is removed as far as possible from a vague parallel flow of both sides, for only where the initial chaos is overcome and a clear division has resulted can Art begin its work, for it finds itself first of all facing an opposite, and has to labour to penetrate beneath the surface-content of both sides. But this labour overcomes the opposite and holds it fast ; and while it does this, if on the lower level the one might suppress the other, yet on the heights a reciprocal relationship is reached ; the opposing forces of a subjective and an objective, of an idealistic and a realistic division, yield to a treat- ment which may be designated as the sovereign treatment in so far as here the Life-process is freed from all dependence on the " hither and thither " of things, and is raised to the level of a fuU self-reliance. The creations of Goethe are admired on account of their objective quality, but this objectivity signifies in no way a slavish adherence to an external existing material, but in this very material the spirit of man proves its superiority, for he posited the material within the ground of the inner life and filled it with life anew. Through such a course alone can the material reveal its own nature and provide for the whole of life. This is the wondrous and further development : the object, even in its assimilation by the subject, does not lose its own independence and characteristic features, but through this assimilation develops those features. Thus the consciousness itself grows by means of the object, and the whole of life wins, in being raised above the opposite of mere empty sentimentalism PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 135 and dead matter, an objective and even an essential character. We can now say : " Nothing is within alone, Nothing is without alone, For whafs inward is, too, outward. And what's outward is, too, inward." The double-sidedness and inward reciprocity of life appear in another colour through the relationship of man with man and through the superstructure of political and social connections. Out of the surface- content there could never issue an inward communion and interchange of life without the ability of man to transpose himself into the soul of another, to think and feel with that other, for through this there is granted him an independence and a power to move within suitable bounds. Without such an inward pressure of another upon the individual, there is no good-will, no sympathy, no definite compassion and no reciprocal judgment concerning right and obliga- tion. The idea of right shows with special clearness our ability to distinguish that " other " from ourselves, to transpose ourselves upon his standard, and to think and measure out of his standard ; thus the " beyond " is simultaneously a " here and now," and the separation is not done away with, but the life is raised above it. Only by such an exit from one's ordinary sphere can a conjoint order of human relationships become possible — an order which strives after a kingdom of righteousness. Encompassing aU these individual provinces, activity accomplishes an inner scale of values for the individual as well as for the whole of humanity. If all which we take up in our work draws incomparably nearer 136 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION to us and becomes a piece of our life, then the whole of such activity itself may form a self-reliant province and become what we designate as our " calling " ; a piece of reality is thus appropriated inwardly by us ; this grants a stability to life in itself and against itself as well as a superiority over whim and caprice. In fact, it is a consciousness of unassailable worth which is secure within its inward citadel in spite of the immensity of the alien and inconceivable without. In a similar manner, humanity itself prepares a pro- vince and a world of action progressively out of an alien world. What appertains to this world of action may include, indeed, many problems, but it signifies undoubtedly an actuality ; it constructs a starting- point for all further labour ; it holds men and things fast together, and binds single periods of time into a continuous chain ; it resists a dissolution into the small and egotistic, and resists, too, the constant change of that current which flows on the surface of time ; it stands against all arbitrary action concerning the contour of things ; and it feels bound to come to an understanding with what is able to produce effects in the depth and duration of things. In all such expansion the man discovers his real self through his own soul, and finds that he is incomparably more in himself than he could possibly be through the cultiva- tion of his mere natural self; he becomes far more his own true self than he had become when under the dominion of natural impulses. Indeed, the man is now more, and comprehends his life as more than is revealed by the first glance of things ; consequently, effective transformations of this glance become urgent. Activity alone gives man a secure feeling of PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 137 reality ; without activity life threatens to vanish as a shadow and a dream. Activity grants life such a consolidation through the progress of work as a superior and upholding force. Such a progress binds activity and work. The " becoming " of such a work is a highly characteristic transaction ; even in the hurried design of it there originates a kernel, an idea, a governing centre, just as has happened in the growth of the physical universe and in the formation of organic life. The kernel shoots up more and more around the centre, the rough outline grows and shapes itself, it stands before our thought as a self-reliant essence which strives to pass from the region of quasi-existence to that of a complete reality ; and through such movement it becomes a driving and judging force within the life. The initial insecurity is then overcome, the multiplicity of energies find their way back towards the centre, mutually form their boundaries and determine themselves in turns ; the different possibilities which, at first, treat one another peaceably are now urged to a decision, and life as a whole is driven into a definite arena. The work develops an experience by itself, and it is only when the two sides of work and conscious activity are related to one another in an encompassing and fruitful manner that a definite experience originates over against a bare empiricism. Also, the work does not require that the truth should be corroborated through external proofs ; the corrobora- tion is in the man's own triumphant effort, in his own deduction, and in the active ascent of his life. In all this there is present a withdrawal from self and a return to self, and, at the same time, there is an 138 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION inward crystallisation of a reality which is durable within one's own province. Such concentration and crystallisation of life raise the man above all the groping and lingering of mere mental reflection, and make him yield to a power which may be termed the necessity of the fact, and which without question brings forth a further development of life. But action cannot accomplish so much as all this so long as it lies sundered and isolated merely by the side of other actions. But the more it reaches a spiritual character, the more it outgrows that isola- tion until it becomes the expression of a universal characteristic, and a piece of an all-embracing aggre- gate action. Or, is not every work of art and of thought in its individuality a confession at the same time of the Whole, and is there not in it, in spite of external limits, a conception of the Infinite ? And is there not in the struggle for the right of this Infinite an essential truth and a universal Weltan- schauung contended for ? Thus in definite spiritual activity all individual actions are spanned by an aggregate living activity, and it is through reaching such, and in no other way that life can gain an inner unity and a solidity — gain the character of a definite reality. Such a reality can never fall on us from without; it is obtained through a great struggle in the welding-heat of subject and object which results through a turn towards activism. This welding- process, however, takes place not somewhere between the inner and the outer world, but purely in an inner world which has taken up into itself the antithesis. It is out of the Spiritual Life alone that there issues a reality for man. PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 139 Through such inwardness of the activity — especially of the encompassing life-activity — there is also present a formation of the spiritual nature <5f man. When labouring along with this, he labours on the heights of his own nature and obtains in the struggle a spiritual individuality. It is this, which appears from one point of view as the construction of a new world, appears at the same time as a construction of his own nature — a lawful work against his own lower self. The mere expansion of activity is not of a true nature unless the man struggles with his own self and thereby wins the energy and the fulcrum of self- maintenance. But, on the other hand, the inward- ness of his characteristic nature does not reach this through brooding and sorrowing, but only through a stepping out of his own subjectivity, through a virile wrestling with things, and through a clarification and a further development of all things on the path of their greatest resistance. Thus we seek ourselves, but we find ourselves only in the plasticity of things and in the construction of a new world. So that, after all, we are within ourselves although we seemed to have stepped outside ourselves ; and in the struggle we have won a true and larger province of life. All this shows clearly enough that a bridging of the cleft reaches down to the deepest ground of life ; and through a recognition of this we find ourselves undoubtedly engaged in the constructive creation of our own spiritual individuality. When we base our individual work upon such a foundation of aggregate work and of a spiritual individuality, it appears evident that the work of great souls retains a worth when all the surface- 140 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION appearances and the incessant leakage of time pass away. It is clear, too, that those souls handled the transitory nature of the appearance of things with great indifference. Goethe made such a confession of himself : "I have ever viewed all my work and accomplishments as no more than mere symbols ; and in my deepest experience it seemed to me pretty much the same whether I made pots or pans." How spiritual individuality develops into a life- work, and how it steps forth and grows alongside such life-work, has been shown by the leading minds with illuminating perspicuity. Such a work as that of Kant did not possess its most charactei'istic features and its greatness from the beginning as a mere natural product. Such a work acquired its originality only after a long and toilsome quest through which finally the striving burst out into blossom and fruit. In all movement he held before himself a fixed goal, and in all multiplicity a govern- ing unity. Such a method led the energies to their highest tension, dispersed all that was alien and irresolute, and gave to the individual for the first time his distinctive stamp. Thus the characteristics of the Whole can participate in the smallest elements and fashion each and all according to the pattern of this Whole. If this work of the spiritual " becoming " of man signifies so much, the decision concerning the success or the ill-success of the enterprise lies above all else in this : whether the ascent to such a level is accom- plished or not. The inner course of life as well as the nature of the final convictions are determined throughout by nothing more than by the manner PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 141 in which this ascent takes place — whether such ascent is easy or difficult, whether it takes place through the restful development of natural construc- tion or through pow^erful feeling and renewal. In- deed, if the decision failed here, life will appear soon as an offering of fate, later as a work of free activity, later still as filled with the harmony of existence, and finally as moved by its own contradictions. What is true of the work of the individual is not less true of the work of the race. To a participation in work many are called ; to the furtherance of definite culture few are chosen. It is only spiritual individuality bent on its work of life which gives culture an inward connection, a full self-reliance, and a living soul ; and such spiritual individuality alone is able to span all the various provinces and to work with a rousing and durable energy upon the whole of life. What differentiates people differentiates also epochs. Great are only those times which fasten their strivings to an undivided task in which man is able to take part with his whole nature ; where this does not happen, all fulness of work, all exertion and movement of the individual and of the masses, pro- duce neither stability of character nor joyousness of disposition ; and, too, the advance of petty-human interests is not kept sufficiently at bay, so that the life will fluctuate aimlessly between a soulless per- formance and an empty frame of mind. It is only with a life-encompassing work that the otherwise fleeting and unreal time obtains the consciousness of an immanent eternity and of unassailable worth. Finally, there proceeds through the whole striving 142 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION of humanity the desire to grasp the whole infinity of existence in one characteristic reaUty, and to trans- form existence into a totaUty of production, and, at the same time, to gain for the self a characteristic spiritual mode of life. All definite culture is also intrinsically a striving of humanity after an inner unity of its own life and nature ; for if the striving remains less than this, culture remains something, in spite of its feverish industry, which merely hangs on us exter- nally, and which finally becomes quite indifferent to the main spiritual problems of life. But if the relation of culture is found in close contact with the characteristic mode and self-maintenance of life, the life is raised securely above all natural and civic existence, for it has won a new world within itself. There arises, therefore, in activity and production a rich reality ; it arises, too, in problems and struggles. The Life-process reaches within itself an altitude above its prior hindrances, and bestows upon man, so far as he participates in it, an existence on the heights, out of which, as out of a solid kernel, there issues a counter-effect to the natural disinte- gration of things. This power has shown itself to belong to an upward level of life, but it signifies not as yet the final issue of life. (7) The Winning of a Universal Self.- — Work forms, as a consummation of activity, the summit of life as well as the goal of effort ; it remains the axis on which all further development has to turn. But with all its accomplishments it is not yet the final aim. That which renders work great signifies at the same time its limits, and the greatness itself seems unreachable without the aid of energies which the PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 143 work far more presupposes than produces. In par- ticular, the Spiritual Life demands more unity, more freedom, more soul than the work is«able of itself to produce. (1) In work the inward energy and the external object reach a point of contact and a reciprocal impregnation. But such a bond of union within the consciousness is at the same time a switching off of the external ; nowhere more than here holds valid the word that all close determination is also a nega- tion [omnis determinatio negatio). Also, work, as an embodiment of a general conviction and as a Weltanschauung, retains a specific and abstract char- acter ; the transference of life into work and eflfbrt is thence a differentiation which, if made final, becomes dangerous. The complete immersion of man in the sea of work resigns him inevitably to a narrowness and easily to an egoism ; also the spiritual individu- ality contains a lofty self-existence which quickly and pointedly rejects and excludes the claims of the mere external. That the work that binds at the same time disunites is clearly shown in the union of men as labour-groups ; here originates a jealousy of vocation, and a passion of class-struggle which in a spirit of the wildest hatred against its opponents believes itself justified in the advocacy of common interests. And is the situation otherwise when nations fight for the increase of their products and for world-dominion ? Such disunion and split reach beyond the individual mind into the whole mode of thought. The speciality of work prevents us from seeing both aspects of its characteristics ; it cannot develop certain energies without coercing others ; work thus prepares for in- 144 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION dividuals, nations, and times, in their own life-circle, a special province and a special kind of existence, and yet we can not and may not renounce the truth that we need co-operation in a sphere of life common to all, need exchange in our work, and need to think of and to live for one another. Indeed, humanity as a whole is not able to consider the need of winning a spiritual individuality for the highest aspiration necessary unless it resigns itself to the claims of a universal truth. (2) The strengthening and the calm of life are a further product of work. But without the counter- effect of liberating energies this very quality resigns itself into a numb fixture and an intolerable bondage ; the fluctuation which inheres in work threatens to overwhelm and to suppress man. Does not work hold such fluctuation? Work needs for its success not only external conditions and fav. urable surround- ings, but far more an inward ability which does not place our will under its heel, and which makes work devolve upon us as a good and a gift. These guests, however, decide concerning the result of our efforts and the happiness and worth of life in so far as they rise into work and activity. So much hardness, so much injury and even cruelty, are not discovered in connection with work so long as the happy results and the victorious achievements are kept before our eyes. But a pure result is seldom enough to be found, and amongst the favoured minds scarcely one was truly great who did not discover a wide cleft between wish and will, and who had not far more to say than was permitted him. Now, is this surplus presented to such minds to be treated as an indifferent PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 145 and worthless thing? And are all those wide and predominant provinces of life, which are lost by peoples and times, to be denied of their rich and far- reaching effects ? We resist such an assumption and greet joyously that parable of Jesus of the talents, that there rises, beyond all the distinctions of the men and beyond the whole field of their several activities, that which is located in the decision and character of each individual. But does not this itself desire a new, life ? And how is such a life grounded ? How does it rationally justify itself? (3) In the main, the entanglements originate out of the relationship of work with the soul. The work to us was no external performance ; it proved its presence and its greatness within the soul through the fact which culminated in freeing the man from all bare neutrality and subjectivity ; it was found to be something' 'testing in its own essence, something moved to further development by its characteristic energies. Work could accomplish such a feat only in so far as it drew into itself the very life of the soul, and in so far as this life set forth characteristically a reflected light from itself. But this emancipation of work has also a reverse side. The emancipation can become numb and exclusive ; the connection relaxes and parts asunder from the whole of the soul ; the work tears the self-sovereignty within itself, and through this the life does not only move in a track too narrow for itself, but also sacrifices its freedom to a mechanism of its own acts ; and finally its specific spiritual character is turned into an impervious mechanism. Whilst work itself tears away so much from man and turns round as master upon the 10 146 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION originator, life transforms itself into a soulless mechanism in spite of all the straining of energy ; the character retreats before the activity of work ; the work overpowers the man and finally makes him its slave. So it happened where the whole Spiritual Life was transformed through a logical process into a particular movement of thought-process ; so it happens in a more evident and painful manner still where technical work with its incessant headway captivates all thought and judgment ; and so it happens everywhere where man is held as a mere tool for the progress of culture, and where the waves of the most extensive movements carry and drive him along without the participation of any power of his own. Work, without a doubt, though it withdraws itself from the life of the soul, is again drawn back to the whole of the soul, is proved, valued, and enlivened ; it is only through a constant return-movement to its own origin and through a continuous overcoming by the force of a spirituality superior to itself that it can unify the spiritual character and serve as the inward growth of life. If the words are true that man is more than his work, then the whole of humanity is more than the production of work ; it must be no less than the creation of a culture and spiritual individuality. Thus through a kind of necessity there arises a desire after a further development of Ufe beyond the level of work — after a life which returns from its immersion in work to itself, which abides in itself, which holds fast the work and also allows a self superior to it to unfold. Does such a desire corre- PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 147 spond with any kind of reality within our experience ? We answer in the aflfirmative ; for above the levels of work, justice, culture, and mental individuality, the movement mounts upward to a level of creative- ness and of love, of a spiritual personality and a pure immanent existence. Religion and Art especially appropriate the conception of this creativeness as a confession ; the former, in order to exclude all union of the Divine effect with an alien material and dark fate ; the latter, in order to explain its own work as a donum of free imagination and as a proof of the originality of the artist. Both could not appro- priate the conception were it not rooted in the whole of life, and were there not mainly a deepening possible in the fact that work previously had ruled and bound life, and now is overcome by life itself. This happens, however, through a transformation into the free development and reflection of the Spiritual Life. Herewith life outgrows the heaviness and numbness which its prior development adhered to ; now all dark residuum vanishes — the alien becomes a gover- nor and the outward becomes an inward. On such elevation above the sphere of work and through a liberation from aU the coercion of the numb " given," life becomes a complete immanent existence, a definite self-life, and a transformation to the heights ; and it is in this that all lies which carries an uplifting energy and good cheer in itself. This creativeness strikes its roots into the soil of all the particular fields which contribute to the growth of the Spiritual Life as well as into those of science — a science which aimed previously to relate itself inflexibly in an opposite direction. Science must abandon its highest 148 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION aim — Knowing — if it renounces this creativeness. For without such a creativeness the ascent from mere awareness to a true discernment is impossible. Definite discernment is never found through that which is aUen to us, but always through that which is original in us ; definite discernment is always a discovery of our own life, a finding of ourselves in that which at first was alien. How could this be possible except on the explanation that an advance of life has taken place, and has reached the level where our limita- tion becomes a personal testimony, and an activity of the self is discovered ? How far and under what conditions man is able to accomplish this, is a question by itself, but he could never strive towards such a height were he entirely chained to a lower level. The higher levels of life attain a greater clearness in the region of character ; for to the forward-move- ment from work to creativeness there corresponds here the movement from justice to love. Though this conception of love has divergent levels, and though grievously the daily life weaves it in the most heterogeneous ways, yet in the midst of all the tangle definite love asserts itself as a turn of life which is both indisputable and a great mystery. Love in this sense brings not only the particular elements into secure relationship and directs life from point to point in its progress, but it also raises the relationship out of its isolation and kindles a new corporate life in which the singularity does not vanish but is raised and transformed beyond its initial position. That which does not create something new and better out of man is not definite love. With love the existence of another obtains a full inward present moment in the PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 149 soul, and becomes immanently a piece of the very life. All elevation, however, results tljrough a willing self-denial and sacrifice. " The first motive in love is that I shall be no individual person for myself, and that if I were such, I should feel myself defective and incomplete. The second motive is that I win myself in another person, that I value in her what she in turn finds in me. Love is consequently a most pain- ful contradiction which the understanding cannot untie, and in it there is nothing harder than that this exactness of consciousness is negated and which still has to be affirmed. Love is both the affirmation and the solution of the contradiction : as solution it is moral harmony" (Hegel). This occurs in the first place in the realm of relationship of individual with individual, but in such a construction a cosmic phenomenon reveals itself, for through the development of the inner connections over against the numb co-existence of bare nature, a new grade of life appears. In addition to this, love disengages itself from the shrinkage upon an indi- vidual, and welds together whole nations — the whole of humanity ; everywhere it becomes a product of the whole life, a product that not only brings existing elements to a level of reciprocity, but which also re- news the whole existence of man with creative energy and with a transforming flow of life. It is trust in such creative energy of love that makes it possible to penetrate clearly through the existing situation of humanity, and yet enables us to hold fast to cheerful work for humanity. There can be nothing held out for man in the painful entanglements of his own soul and his seeming abiding helplessness when face to 150 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION face with the problem of his own being but what religion offers as a hope upon an Infinite Love, which unreservedly awakens a new life in him and lifts him beyond the range of conflict. What, however, drives forward such rich develop- ments in special directions must embrace itself into a Whole of a new form of life; the longing after such appears in the ardour and tenacity wherewith the nineteenth century as well as the present revolve around the conception of personality. Since Leibniz each of the great thinkers has given us something original, but they aU sought for a new and all-comprehensive summit of life. The meaning of our view, however, needs a further development, because first of all we have not shown that man has ascended to the level of spiritual individuality. In the midst of all his most brilliant performances such a level does not surround him altogether; he can cast a glimpse at it from below ; he can posit it in the life of other individuals and through this view it in greater completeness. This he is compelled to do in order to become superior to the accidental and problematic in his own life, and in order to be able to eliminate the indefinite from his nature and to energise the definite. Through this the life desires a standard where it can survey the different levels and transform all the content into his own possession, and where it can focus Infinity and possess an immanent self Life, here remains occupied in itself although it appears as turning to the external ; here is the level of mere achievement overcome, and the characteristic elevation of life forms the governing aim of all toil. This corresponds to the Christian conviction of the PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 151 infinite value of man in his pure inwardness — a conviction "that for the riches of the whole world not one individual soul can be purchased " (Luther). How could such an estimate be justified did there not arise in the depth of the soul a new manner of life, and did there not here become visible that which forms the inmost kernel of entire reality ? Since the matter is usually conceived as a recommendation of a mere subjective and inactive sentimentality withdrawn from the great world into a private nook, it has no suf- ficient basis, and indeed, threatens to end in empty words and phrases. The above estimate of Luther is justified only if a new stage of reality manifests itself in the depth of the soul ; and this can never happen out of the energy of any one individual point in life, but can only happen through the impact of Infinite Life with Infinite Life, and through the formation at this spot of a point of intersection and concentration of such life. Goethe seems to refer to the matter from a similar point of view in those noteworthy words of his : " God meets always Himself ; God in man meets again God in man. Hence there is no cause to esteem ourselves lightly in comparison with the Greatest." The matter, then, does not resolve itself into a re- ference of life to one special point and a subjection of it to that point's particularity, but consists in the immense task of bringing life to its own depth and giving it a support within itself. Reality can become our own life only if our activity transforms itself into a self-activity, if it brings to expression a living self ; and this can happen only when the encompassing unity remains no mere point of relation, but when, through 152 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION the strenuous elaboration of a thorough-going and durable life within it, it wins a substance and a nature which affects all the remaining life. Within such a course life finds its own ; without it, it misses its own. Only out of such alternate separation and reunion, out of such a scale of values and reference to the Whole, arises the question concerning a content for the life ; it is only when the encompassing Whole overcomes the scattered manifold and appropriates it by a gradual and thorough reconstruction that there arises a reality resting within its own essence. Whether such a life may be called a personal life may be disputed. In any case, the ruling unity lies not by the side of but within the life, and through the unfolding of such a unity life deepens and expands ; such deepest life can be in single points only because it was previously and is now in the Whole. In all this the situation is what it is, not through severance but through something entirely the contrary. It has come about through the formation of the most inward connections with things — indeed, through a connec- tion with Infinity — although not without an energetic penetration and far-reaching transformation of them. The language used by great thinkers points in the same direction. Ordinary parlance, on the contrary, connects too much with this conception of a deepest unity and life the notions of seclusion and of opposi- tion, and degrades too often this conception to a designation of a mere natural force, for us to be able to advance in our investigation without continuous reservations against these several popular views. Hence it may be better for us to speak of auto- nomous life and of autonomies. Both expressions PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 153 become pretty indifferent when the facts of life stare us in the face with sufficient clearness. To us there lies before all else the fact that in the Spiritual Life itself a movement towards the growth of a nucleus and towards a transformation into a self-life is wide- awake and on its course ; and through such a turn of the Life-process a world of inwardness dawns, which signifies something quite other than the shadowy inwardness of the mere subject himself. Corresponding to such gradations of autonomous life, we find in the most important work the passing out of the spiritual movement beyond the realm of culture. Necessary as culture is, the main standard for the final convictions of life is not in it but above it. If culture were the highest aim of man, he him- self would be a mere tool of this achievement ; the culture, however, which is not clasped and vivified by a life superior to its own could not contain any meaning and must, without such a completion, sink more and more into a lifeless mechanism. Culture is a contest of the Spiritual Life with an opposite and seeming hostile world and not an accumulation of accomplish- ments ; it comes to its own truth only when it flows into the current of a Spiritual Life of the self Laborious enough it is on the ground of human history to wring such a superiority out of mere culture. It is wrung first and foremost in the centuries when antiquity clashed with Christianity — in a time when an old culture sank and a new one had not yet arisen. In such a situation life would have fallen into empti- ness had it not found a world of its own as well as a full security in the concern with itself, in the diving into itself. This becomes clearly evident upon the 154 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION Grascian side in Plotinus, and upon the Christian side in Augustine. Both are agreed in the need of carry- ing the work of culture beyond itself, and of placing it on a point where it revolves around the apprehension of eternal truth and the development of the configura- tion of an all-inclusive superior life within itself alone. In these connections the thought dawns that the nature of reason is not a mere piece of the universe, but encases within itself the whole of the universe — is a microcosmus. " We are each and all a spiritual universe " (Plotinus). Doubtless those times remained too much in a superior world of withdrawal and solitude ; they would not return to the work of the world and employ the life that had been won. So that a sudden reaction was bound to come. But the gain of a pure immanent existence of the Spiritual Life as a cosmic life, and its inward superiority to all mere culture remained intact. There struck, too, along with such a gain, an aim and a standard to which all that shall henceforth satisfy the spiritual nature of man shall have to correspond. This appears valid enough to-day and forbids the finality of the con- clusions of culture. This adjusted standard and this comprehensive coming-to-itself of life are the armour for us in the quest after aims more than possessions, problems more than achievements ; but this conclusion is at the same time the carrier and the indispensable pre- supposition of the earlier standards. We saw effort itself loosened from the natural self, and through such a liberation developing new energies and tracing out new aims. Whence should these energies come, how should the new aims justify themselves if a PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 155 characteristic existence did not arise in the Spiritual Life, if a new self did not come i^to birth which develops and asserts itself in the movements of life ? The upward march of life to a true and real level overcame the cleavage between subject and object. Is such a conquest conceivable unless the life returns from the province of work to itself, and unless it transforms its achievements into a raising of the self ? That we in spiritual work develop our own inmost nature and struggle for our true self is testified at a glance. Why do we, for example, allow the cur- rent of experience to mount into our presentations ? Why not allow these presentations to pass over us calmly? Why do we practise self-defence and seek to overpower these external impressions and transform them into our own conceptions ? Why suffices it us not to float on the perpetual flux of things ? And why are we driven by an inward necessity to follow the infinitude of the All into its uttermost concealment ? Such transformation and expansion must belong, indeed, to the culmination of our own particular nature, and its furtherance must carry a movement of this very nature within itself. Also, Art could never have become the mighty power of life it is, and its form could not have been transformed into an elevated power, had it not driven man to his work — not merely to his subjectivity but to the foundation of his being. That scientific and artistic labours won such a height in the struggle for the spiritual self only on certain points of the summits does not alter the facts. What is reached wholly in the long-run would not have been reached at all without the conquest of points on the summits, 156 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION and had it not been that the great personalities had taken the facts in that great sense, and had found the salvation of their life in scaling the heights of truth. Such an installation of the whole life alone has founded the conquest of such heights and has tilled the soil of daily work and the results of its ac- complishments for the reception of this seed. The work sinks rapidly into a lifeless mechanism when it severs its connection with such creativeness and barters its originality for bare diligence on the surface of things. All these movements, viewed from the ordinary surface-existence of man, may appear as mere possibilities. But they are possibilities not in the sense of vague imaginations but of urgent tasks and driving energies. They could not work so powerfully in us and make that existence which satisfied us previously now insufficient for us, were they not realities ; were they not realities out of the deep we should not have struggled with them for the winning of a spiritual self, and at the same time, for the meaning and content of our life. 2. Epitovie and Survey (a) The Meaning of the Spiritual Life. — We have already viewed the Spiritual Life developing its characteristics in three grades. It grew out of its isolation and dissipation, and simultaneously dis- entangled itself from mere-human mechanism; in the overcoming of the cleft between subject and object it forged for itself a self-reliant and sovereign character ; in the comprehension of infinity for its PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 157 own self, it gained in itself a fixed foundation, and at the same time a superiority to the world around it, and it became an autonomous life. All these aspects work towards one another, side by side they support and clarify one another, and bind themselves into a connected totality. This picture is, however, far re- moved from the ordinary conception of the Spiritual Life. According to the ordinary conception the Spiritual Life is conceived from its very beginning as strewn piecemeal on solitary and separable points, and it is only much later that any kind of connection is brought about ; it appears, too, as an attribute and activity of an existence lying entirely beyond itself, and consequently finds itself hemmed within a given, ready-made world, and busies itself in various ways with such a world. Our consideration of the matter has presented the subject in quite other light. Before all else it appeared clear that the Spiritual Life is only possible as an inward connection, and as a life out of the Whole ; it is a participation in this Whole which invests the isolated points with a spiritual character ; never can its own world, to which the Spiritual Life extends itself, originate through mere external combinations. However, this total-life did not originate from any dark existence, but it engendered by itself centre-points and con- centration-points ; for all the conceptions of the existence of its material arose within the life, and through it received a full illumination. The Life- process has not, therefore, to execute an achievement from the outside : it found its problem in itself, in the bringing forth of the culmination of its own nature. This signifies an overcoming and an assimi- 158 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION lation of all that lay outside, and that seemed at first alien and seemingly hostile. In such a movement this or that thing within the province of a given reality is not merely altered and bettered, but it is obligatory to bring to clearness a Whole of reality. This reality does not feel itself as one thing by the side of another, but — with its direction towards the self as the carrier of life — as the compact and com- prehensive reality, as that which deserves the name of reality in the truest sense, and which cannot tolerate anything outside itself. This Spiritual Life with its reality surrounds man not as a mere environment of his ; it attains in him as a Whole an immediate present moment, and becomes with its infinity his own life and nature. Only such an inward abiding of the spiritual world makes it conceivable that the spiritual tasks work directly on man, not through the ravaging agents of his particular interests, but through the fact that individuals, in spite of all their differences, are able to find an inner co-operation of activity, and to raise themselves out of bare subjectivity to an independent inner life and to a kingdom of inwardness. Through the presence of such an immanence of the Whole the rigid cleft which hitherto separated man from the world is overcome ; now in the individual points the energy of the Whole can work and can build for itself experiences of the Whole. Thus man gains in himself different gradations of life. The Spiritual Life is thus seen to be no mere contrivance of a purely human kind, but the taking up of a difficult struggle against such a human mode — an emancipation from such a mode as an intolerable narrowness. This new PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 159 world, however, should not rest satisfied with a merely human raiment wrapped around itself, but should contain its own truth, and through its trans- portation into the Spiritual Life reach its own characteristic nature. The Whole would have been a great falsification had not infinity with its transla- tion into spirituality obtained its original depth. It appears similarly in the direction of spiritual activism. A truth which shrinks and is valid only for the individual is no definite truth at all, but a hybrid of many colours. If all the investigation does not draw the main motives along with it, how can the narrow- ness of the circle of mere-human notions be broken through, and a new world of thought valid for all be opened out ? For the value and the grandeur of the Good, it is essential that all human interests should be repelled, and man enabled by himself to rise above himself. It is urgent to come to this characteristic depth through the Spiritual Life. In such a province the individual's own nature is not isolated, but is inter- weaved inseparably with the whole of the All, and turns to this source for its own life-content. Thus there is no depth in the individual portions if they do not exist in the Whole, if they are not able here to unfold themselves ; in each point a struggle for the Whole takes place, and this brings the Whole into activity. Finally, it is to be borne in mind that the Spiritual Life in man could never arise against the power of nature if it were no more than a purely human thing. Nature surrounds us as a boundless kingdom of energies and laws ; it surrounds us not merely from 160 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION without, but strikes deep into our own soul with a thousand-fold incessant effects. How could the Spiritual Life, which finds itself first in our aspiration, in any manner enforce its way against all this did we not stand upon inward connections, and had there not worked in us over against that which is given in the surrounding world the energy of a new kind of world? Transformations in the Whole could only arise out of a Whole. It is now evident that the movement to spirituality cannot be considered as a work of any separate individual faculties of the mere man, but that it is a movement of the All, which certainly in our position needs our co-operation, but which, at the same time, takes us into itself and makes of us something quite other than we were on the first view of things. The universe itself now finds its own depth through such a movement to spirituality ; from being a kingdom of relations it becomes the kingdom of a definite reality. The inward life, which is otherwise a mere appearance of things, now gains a self-reliance, and develops its own particular kingdom — an inner world. The nearer qualities of this inner world do not allow themselves to be known through general conceptions such as existence-for-self, self-activity, etc. : these give only the frame within which alone the mounting experience of life is able to set forth its qualities. For example, the Good and the Beautiful are characteristic developments and revelations of life, which possess an incomparable individuality and actuality which are later discovered in them. So in connection with the Spiritual Life, it constructs a new ground upon which boundless avenues open out PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 161 and a whole kingdom of new actualities becomes accessible. Through this we become discoverers and conquerors, but it is not into a strange but into our own world that we climb more and more. Leibniz was of opinion that no nature could arise in man without some kind of existence-for-self, and consequently he sought to base all reality upon living monads. Whether his theory, through such a turn to the bare individual nature, is in itself correct, may, be doubted ; but it cannot be doubted that there is no definite reality unless the united total-life forces its way through, and holds together, all the manifold. Without a foundation-stone all the uni- verse becomes a mere occurrence, and thus receives the character of a mere addendum, a subsidiary and shadowy thing, and one which must finally pass away in a senseless flight that cannot be stopped. Only a total-life can hold fast and bind, can construct a self- activity over against bare mechanical activity, can along with this reach an existence which does not belong to an inaccessible "beyond" constructed through analogy from the scientific picture of the natural world ; but such a total-life finds its own more and more in the furtherance of itself, and through this gains an ever-richer content. Only this depth of existence of the Life-process itself may be termed "substance"; such a substance lies not be- hind us but in front of us ; and it is towards it as an all-inclusive goal that the movement now reaches. This movement of such a substance produces in the particular province of man's nature a separation of activity into that which is empty and that which is substantial, as well as a separation between the de- ll 162 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION velopment of physical energy and of self-activity. Evidently there arises much activity vi^hich is not gripped by the vsrhole of the self— an activity which sets mere energies in movement; such an activity governs the initial acts and impulses of man. But there is also an activity which lies within the whole of life, and through which life is able to grow. It is only such an activity as the latter that gives life a support and a meaning in itself, and only out of such an activity are conceptions such as character, con- viction, etc., possible — conceptions which sprout in spite of the presence of subjectivity and passivity, and which, as proofs of the Whole, carry along with them an elevation of the level of life. In the strict injunction of such a self-preservation, all other kinds of activity must appear empty and untenable. Through such a self-preservation in the things a new conception of truth originates far above the ordinary intellectual notion, for now that alone becomes true to life which includes, expresses, and furthers the Whole as a present moment in con- sciousness, whilst the separate isolated activities which have loosened themselves from this and which believe themselves all-efficient, sink into untruth. The main movement of life — encompassing all the separate points and shaping itself characteristically in each, and especially overcoming the opposition be- tween theoretical and practical reason — becomes a striving which longs to pass from this region of the untruth, which at the start surrounds us, to the region of truth ; the longing after truth and real existence becomes now the main motive-energy of the Spiritual Life ; as in the province of nature, so it now becomes PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 163 here a longing after the self-preservation which rules all movement ; but the longing is aftg r a self-preser- vation quite other than that found in nature. In all these transformations our initial problem has stepped into a new and richer position. The movement which aimed at a level above the natural and which wrecked itself when conceived as a mere- human fact, has now succeeded in showing itself more than human, and yet has fastened man to itself. It works now with characteristic greatness and energy, but all depends upon man being a participator in that elevated life. In all this there are dangers enough, but such dangers can be faced, and must not frighten the man at the outset. Let us see somewhat closer how, through this transformation, the view of the world and the problems of life are altered ; and in the meantime we shall not view directly the religious problem, and yet shall not lose sight of it. (/8) The View of the Universe. — Our main thought of a " becoming " independence, of a coming to itself of all reality in the Spiritual Life, clashes most strongly with the prevailing view of the universe, and must demand against such a view a powerful trans- formation. With the prevailing view, the visible universe is held as the main world, and what rises up in the inner life is thought of as a subsidiary phenomenon, which is hardly able to bring forth any- thing that is original. According to our course of thought, however, there is imbedded in this- inner world a kernel of reality, and all else becomes a mere environment or preparation, and thus we obtain an inverted order of the consideration and valuation of things. Will such a view be able to hold its own 164. FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION over against the overwhelming impressions of the external world ? It can do so only through a standard of thought, and if the inner life has become conscious of its autonomy, and if from this source it undertakes its work. If this happens, the demand will certainly not be denied ; but the fact is to be seen and explained not from without within but from within without. Thus there culminates for the whole expansion of thought an inversion from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican standard. An independent life is to be found thus within, but it is highly improbable that it is not to be found anywhere else in all the wide universe but in man. But even if this could not be proved, yet the Spiritual Life remains a cosmic fact, for it encloses a depth of reality over against the surface-appear- ance of nature. Viewed in this manner, nature cannot possibly signify by itself a complete and finished kingdom. Its whole incessant mechanism of movements and relations reveal nowhere a self-life ; in the last resort these are viewed as empty and meaningless, but yet, however, the world-process itself reveals in the Spiritual Life an imperative longing after a meaning. There originates in nature in its wending towards the animal level numerous and clear evidences of psychic life, but this animal psychic life heightens rather than lessens the conflict of opinions regarding nature. This psychic life, which also belongs in the greatest part to human existence, remains throughout bound in the mechanism of nature, and develops over against it no kind of independent thought. So far as we are able to see, all psychic performance on this PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 165 stage of life means simply the self-preservation of the individual, and with it of the species, in the struggle for existence. So that here a physfcal equivalent is well able to take the place of a psychical perform- ance : what a higher intelligence or a closer banding together furnishes to one creature is furnished to others by strength of bodily organisation, swiftness of movement, etc. Nowhere here does the inner life reach an independence, and nowhere is it able to found a kingdom of its own ; nowhere is it able to pass beyond the environment in order to view and handle that environment as a Whole. But the inner life remains scattered and bound, a mere piece of an alien world, empty in the midst of all the passion of the animal impulse. If now — not in man himself, but yet within the range of humanity — a clarification and a liberation arise, if here the inner life becomes independent and a depth of ex- istence opens — that such a fact has happened from simple beginnings and by a very slow ascent does not alter the main fact in the least, — then nature cannot any more signify the whole of reality, but can only signify a special stage of it — a stage beyond which the world-process proceeds to an existence- for-self. This new fact is far too original and signifies far too much an inverted order of things to be under- stood as a mere furtherance of the mechanical move- ment of nature itself; rather must it be a cosmic life superior to nature which breaks forth thus — a cosmic life which works also in nature but which proceeds beyond it to a stage of self-completion. In such a connection the Spiritual Life cannot 166 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION at all be viewed as only a result; it must also be valid as a principle; it can be the aim and the culmination of the world-process only if it also forms its foundation and presupposition, and if that which at first appears as a result works in and through the whole movement. An energy of the Whole must be active from the outset if the mani- fold is to be united into a Whole, and through such a union is to rise to a higher plane. How could an All bring forth an independent inner life if it were soulless in itself? Nature and the unfolded spirit become herewith stages of the world-process which, beyond the juxtaposition of nature with its bare relations, progress to a total-life which overcomes the cleft between obscure substance and unsubstantial happening, by making the Life-process independent and developing all substance from it. At the same time, the All-life can no more be a stream flowing nobody knows whither and which nobody experi- ences. But, in a union of beginning and of end, a superiority is won above all mere movement, and an Eternal appears as a foundation of all the march of Time. This alone gives a standpoint whence truth, and, indeed, any striving after truth, first become possible ; at the same time we attain to the conception of a cosmic inner life, as a presupposition of all striving after an interior world. But he who contracts the kingdom of thought of humanity to presentations of the ex- ternal world renounces at the same time knowledge and truth. The recognition of such a cosmic inner life signifies in no way an introduction of interior energies and PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 167 movements into the province of the science of nature, for this science of nature must reject such a procedure as a disagreeable and dangerous disturbance of its work. But that recognition announces that this science, with all its means, does not create the whole deep of reality. The higher stages can now throw backwards light upon the lower stages ; they do that, for example, in the Theory of Knowledge, where the fundamental construction of nature is turned into a problem, and the contact between this and the mental organism is set forth ; for thus we obtain universal truths which are distinguished from the merely human forms of life and its presentations. Also, the higher stages accomplish this through artistic reflection ; here the inner life of things seems to be experienced. Fundamental facts of the life of nature, which otherwise had been considered as self- evident, become now a problem, and carry us to a deepening of the total- view of things, as, for example, in the thorough-going subjection of all to law, effects of change, constitution of forms, the ascent of the world-movement. We must never contract the exact and speculative consideration of things, but we must not misconstrue the conclusions which issue from such a consideration. In such a connection there exists between Nature and Spirit a characteristic relation — a relation of opposites as well as of union. First of all, let us consider the opposites. Where Nature and Spirit stand in opposi- tion to one another, as has already been shown in the present work, where a hemmed-in life and an independent life rise sharply one from the other, there the greatness of the spirit cannot possibly 168 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION mean the same as the simple ascent of nature ; tor thus the ascent of spirit can signify no more than what the classical epoch of literature in Germany stated concerning it, viz., that upon the higher stages the development and the formation had arrived at only a greater consciousness and freedom than were visible on the lower unconscious and hemmed-in levels. To such a view the phenomena seem different only here and there through the heightening of the functions of the intellect. In our view, on the contrary, the difference reaches back beyond the intellect into the Whole ; the kingdoms of relations and of the total- and self-life widen themselves further and further. Therefore the two sides which ordinary notion and also language allow to flow together, must before all else be clearly separated, and the boundaries between them fixed ; a constant struggle is needed against their admixture with aU its accompanying sleepiness. Herewith the passage from the one to the other will not appear as a peaceful and secure growth, as we are led to suppose through the doctrine of evolution, but the higher must first of all loosen itself in a new direction and find a fastening in itself; and then this higher can turn back to the lower and discover its kinship in it. For a fact can certainly not remain in a state of full and pointed opposition if the All is not to fall asunder. Also, nature must somehow serve the aims which come forth in the Spiritual Life ; the powerful stirring of energies which culminate in nature must somehow assist in the development of a self-life, and the ascent to this life brings forth a further develop- ment and intimacy. Therefore points of contact and PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 169 points of exit originate where the lower suddenly seems to pass into the higher. But with the recogni- tion of such a chain of life the independence of the higher must always be guarded, for the lower stage may bring forth something to the contrary of what the higher brings forth. The total- view shows us in the relationship of both provinces more opposition and more insecurity than the pantheistic view which runs through modern culture presents, but it shows as well more expansion and more progressive acts. And also along with the movement depth is gained. (y) The Situation of Man. — The attitude of man is essentially changed when the greatness and the success of life depend on a participation in a super- human Spiritual Life. In the first place, he appears placed most strongly against the customary notions of things. We are accustomed to view man as the meeting-point of divergence of worlds, and to attribute to him on account of his characteristic nature an incomparable worth : this cannot any longer be asserted of him. For the New and the Higher lie in the Spiritual Life as openings of an independent inner world, and not in man as mere man. For a long, long time he hardly left the bounds of nature, and when at last the Spiritual Life dawned within him, that life was not so much his own work as the communication of a superior standard. When the Spiritual Life developed further in the human province, that province was in no way won. Far more does the lower mode of life remain, shows the most stubborn resistance, and draws the Spiritual I^ife down to the lower level ; 170 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION thus the ordinary situation becomes one of a semi- spirituality in which the greatness and originality of the Spiritual Life is lost. Such a sharp diver- gence of man from the Spiritual Life places the problems in a new light and heightens everywhere the extension of the activity. Thus, for example, morality may never be held as a natural quality or product of man ; what even the ordinary life produces does not raise itself far above the animal instincts and impulses ; definite morality with its shifting of the centre of gravity of life is funda- mentally different from such instincts and impulses, but such morality becomes possible first of all from the Spiritual Life, and the ascent to this life remains a continuous problem, and, as well, succeeds but in the smallest measure. Thus the decisive turning-point appears first of all in the life of a man ; it does not appear with his entrance into this world as mere man. All this doubtless involves a strong humiliation of man as mere man. But there corresponds to the degradation an elevation, as to man there opens the possibility of a participation in a new grade of reality which lies beyond the entanglements of the human province. All that characterises the Spiritual Life — its universality, its sovereignty, its autonomy — can become the possession of the man who mounts ; now the spiritual contents can rise above the purely human forms of life ; now the anthropo- morphism which had turned the whole of reality into a mere reflex of human thoughts, feelings, and strivings, can be partially if not entirely cast off, and can be gripped by a superior standard ; now the PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 171 struggle of man against the mere-human becomes possible, and world-experiences enter into his narrow province, and through such effects his whole attitude is changed. Out of the Spiritual Life and not out of the mere-human are all the problems to be seized and all the provinces to be formed. Right and morality, art and science, are spiritual in the sense that they are not developments of the bare man, but developments of the Spiritual Life in man. Also, the religious problem must transform itself in an essential manner, in which it will deal not concerning the preservation of the petty-human but concerning the Spiritual Life in man. Further, life as a whole receives throughout a special character in the fact that its main connection, its fundamental relationship, becomes evermore the Spiritual Life. This characteristic becomes clear through comparison with the historical and tra- ditional types of life. The religious type of life which men have most welcomed gave to the life the main connection with God, and allowed all the tributaries of life to flow into the current of religion ; there came a time, however, when such a conception proved too narrow, and when the fundamental con- nection passed into a region of grave uncertainty. And as the life through this effect turned from the "beyond" to a "here and now," it split into two main portions — the cosmic and the social. In the cosmic portion, the strength of the intellect mainly opens the door of the universe, and through the winning of such an insight the whole of existence was raised ; here now issues the construction of relations to the human environment, definite con- 172 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION elusions are arrived at, and strong co-operations of humanity take place. All this ought to bring greater warmth of feeling as well as stronger reason into human relationships. This tendency has produced great and energetic results, but none of these results individually has satisfied the whole nature of man, and even collectively they have failed to do so. The cosmic guidance of life threatens, in spite of all its expansion, to become cold and empty ; and the social guidance, with all its nearness and warmth, threatens to become narrow and confined. These guides of life, however, have the common disadvantage in that the fundamental relationship does not lie within the individual life, but appears as something without. It is only in the drift of the Spiritual Life that the Life-process becomes itself, for here it deals with nothing other than the inmost nature of man. Thus it is here alone that the life proves itself, and it is here, too, that an encompassing foundation is won, upon which the relationships to God, the world, and human society have to be grounded and constructed, and a counter-effect to aU one-sided forms of life has to be brought forth. If that in which we recognise the inmost nature of man is to be found here, then the man's view passes from his immediate existence to a far-off goal. In man there are different degrees of reality, different meeting-points of worlds, and thus the man's own decision must not fail. But such a decision lies not in individual resolutions and acts, but it goes through the whole of life. And it is not to be understood that the individual portions of his nature would offer him for selection different worlds merely from the PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 173 outside, and that he could have merely an option which to accept or reject. Man is always carried by the total-life of the All ; this totkl-life must be effective in the particular portions if it is ever to win the new stages of life. But however mysterious this may appear, the Whole issues not into a Whole without the vivification and characteristic decision of the individual portions ; here the movement of the All culminates through our own appropriation alone ; the movement issues only through a joyous affirma- tion of that which belongs to us, and which, without recognition, cannot become ours. Through this we become co-workers, and, indeed, are called to become co-carriers of the All ; thus our life gains an ethical character from its very foundation — an ethical which shows the meaning of our adoption of the Spiritual Life as our true nature, as the ascent to our own heights and to infinity. This work is no longer that of a special province, but it penetrates the whole circumference of life, and places activity at all times before an Either — Or. At the same time, rigid determinism is broken, without our having to admit that decision depends on the chance of the moment. For it is the fundamental presupposition of deter- minism that it fits man well with a particular world- order, and allows him to be bound entirely by such an order. Thus all man's acts from their very beginning are fixed, and life divests itself of all expectation. But, on the other hand, the meeting- point of two unique worlds places the fact in a totally different light ; the life now is enabled to transform its main tendency into a free act, and through this to gain a genuine present-moment of consciousness. 174 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION According to our method of treatment the Spiritual Life transforms itself from being an alleged possession to being a difficult problem, and this places the main tendency of life not in any one particular act, but makes the Spiritual Life a fact of unutterable toil which grants humanity as weU as the individual a real history. The Spiritual Life was not on our view a mere form of life which could be assimilated in a hurried resolution ; but through an inverted order of the first impression of things, a new and definite kind of reality is wrung from it which draws the whole periphery of life into itself. The life has now to discover an all-encompassing unity from which each particular province is shaped in a characteristic manner. This, however, is an enormous problem, and forms the soul of all historical work. We do not find ourselves from the beginning in spiritual connections, and do not find our way securely, but the main direction can be found and before aU else it must be sought — sought through toilsome experi- ences and on perilous paths. But primarily some kind of life-connection, some kind of governing aim, must rise out of the initial chaos, for such connections and aims are the salient parts — the hypotheses — of life, full of risks and dangers, but yet indispensable, be- cause thus alone can life as a Whole become a current, thus alone can questions concerning the Whole become possible, thus alone can experiences of the Whole originate which in their turn become a standard in the total-existence of life. Now opposition grows, hinders the movement, and drives it out of its course. But new points of concentration may grow and under- take the erection of reality. In this connection the PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 175 growth does not take place — be it through a peaceful movement or through a spiral of opposites — through mere associations furthered by a kind of surface- necessity ; things do not fit into one another as in the growth of a pjTamid, but ever anew, doubt and violent emotion strike down to the foundation of life ; ever anew one has to struggle for the Whole. What issues, however, as connections^so far as it is of a spiritual kind — issues not in a ready-made manner from any part in our nature, but has to be brought forth through our own exertions. In this manner, history cannot become a struggle for the content of the Spiritual Life unless the main standard of life is laid beyond the bare results of the times in a timeless order. The furtherance of the sub specie ceternitatis holds not only and mainly for knowledge, but in the first place for the Whole of life. The Spiritual Life could not seek in history itself the unfolding of its own nature unless history possessed in its kernel an over-historical nature. Time is something of a phantom, and all life in it something of an appear- ance and a shadow if the foundation of an eternity fails in it, and if, out of its changes and transforma- tions, nothing rises up to save man for an eternal existence. And if all depends on the slender thread of the fleeting moment of the present which illumines and endures merely for a twinkling of an eye but to sink into the abyss of nothingness, then all life would mean a mere exit into death. Thus without eternity there is no spirituality, and without connection there is no content of life. But what is enthroned in itself above time becomes for the man who wins such a spirituality, first of all, an immense problem which 176 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION allows itself to be grasped on the field of time alone ; and, also, the Eternal which works within us and which hovers before us on the horizon of eternity can become our full possession only through the move- ment of time. To wish to check this movement and to arrest the course of time, this means not to serve eternity but to ascribe to time what belongs to eternity. We see accordingly how our conception of the Spiritual Life heightened powerfully the significance and the span of history, but always only under the hypothesis of an Eternal Order of things out of which history is experienced. A full abandonment to history, which is often witnessed on the ordinary level of life, becomes an inward subversion ; with all its significance, history can only be the arena of the struggle for the Spiritual Life; it is always only a second and never a first. But even as a second, history grows powerfully, so that it signifies not the mere extension of a given thread but an ascent of a new life, and through this life it handles not the web of a bare outline but the growth of a full reality. What, however, holds valid for humanity holds valid also for the individual : the individual's life contains a great problem and an original decision ; values such as personality and spiritual individuality do not fall on him as a shower, but have to be wrung man- fully in the inward ascent of life. Also, the individual will give all these movements a spiritual character, and will be able to verify them only if he wins a character above the flux of time ; and from this standard, through all the multi-coloured manifold of the external tasks, seeks before all else his own self — his own essence. PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 177 (S) Conclusions for the Method and the Task of Life. — Spiritual Life can unfold itself in man only when significant transformations take place in the inward web of his being, and new paths of reflection become necessary. We shall follow these changes here only in so far as they bear on the religious problems to which this work is dedicated. What precedes the Spiritual Life in man cannot be grasped by science until science constructs a new method and marks out such a method from all others. There is, however, a double aspect of the original manner in which spirituality develops within the human province. It develops itself, for example, under the conditions of empirical psychic life, and, indeed, with energies which have to wrestle with such a life. But spirituality is never a mere product of the empirical psychic life. This psychic life is bound up with the bodily organism, is scattered in the individual, is conceived as an incessant flux ; there- fore it never longs, through its own potency, to reach a connected world or a durable truth ; and without such there is neither Spiritual Life nor Spiritual content. To turn the Spiritual Life into a mere procedure of psychic existence is to destroy it in its very foundation. The Spiritual Life must possess from the beginning not only an independence and self- value, but it must also maintain these ; when it develops under the conditions of empirical psychic life, it must, with an unswerving nature, shine through all the strangeness and transientness of human psychic life. At the same time, spirituality, first of all, works as an indefinite and weak potency. It has to find its own nature which, on the one side, 12 178 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION builds a foundation, but which, on the other side, has to come to an understanding with the psychical existence and gain its own energies for higher ends. To leave such a psychic existence calmly on one side is to set back the energy of the Life-process and to rest satisfied with a pallid and rigid spirituality. Both sides are to be distinguished clearly, and at the same time brought into a living connection. To this double-sidedness of life there corresponds a twofold method. These methods are the Noological and the Psychological Methods. To explain noo- logically means to arrange the whole of the Spiritual Life as a special spiritual activity, to ascertain its position and problem, and through such an adapta- tion to illumine the whole and raise its potencies. To explain psychologically, on the contrary, means to investigate how man arrives at the comprehension and appropriation of a spiritual content and especially of a Spiritual Life, with what psychic aids is the spiritual content worked out, how the interest of man for all this is to be raised, and how his energy for the enterprise is to be won. Here one has to proceed from an initial point hardly discernible, and, step by step, discover the way of ascent ; thus the psychological method becomes at the same time a psychogenetic method. The main condition of the successful handhng of this question is that both methods are to be held sufficiently apart in order that the conclusions of both may not flow together and yet may form a fruitful completion. Such separation and union of both methods and their corresponding realities make it possible to under- stand how to overcome inwardly the old antithesis PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 179 between Idealism and Realism. The fundamental truth of Idealism is that the spiritual contents establish an independence and a self-value over against the individual, that they train him with superior energy, and that they are not material for his purely human welfare. In the noological method this truth obtains a full recognition. Realism, how- ever, has its rights in the forward sweep of the particular human side of life with all its diversions, its constraints, and its predominant natural character. Viewed from this standpoint, the main fact is, that life is raised out of the idle calm of the rigid indifference of its initial stages, and is brought into a current ; in order to bring this about, much is urgently needful by man, which cannot originate, prior to the appearance of the spiritual estimation of values, but these needful things become his when he is set in a strong current ; then, on the one hand, anxiety for external existence, division into parties, ambition, etc., and on the other hand, the mechanism of the psychic life with its association, reproduction, etc., are all seen in a new light. These motive- powers would certainly never produce a spiritual content out of man's own ability ; such a content is only reachable if the movement of life raises man out of and above the initial performances and the initial motives. No mechanism, either of soul or of society, is able to accomplish this ; it can be accom- plished alone by an inward spirituality in man. Through such a conception. Realism and Idealism are no further irreconcilable opponents, but two sides of one encompassing life ; one may grow alongside the other but not at the expense of the other. In- 180 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION deed, the more the content of the Spiritual Life grows, the more becomes necessary on the side of psychic existence; the more we submerge ourselves in this psychic experience, the greater appears the superiority of the Spiritual Life. The noological method is new in name only, and in the following connection : it actually extends every- Avhere where logical, ethical, and assthetic conceptions are differentiated from the empirico-psychological conceptions. In Kant, and since his time, such a differentiation has been made with great clearness. This differentiation is, however, indispensable, be- cause there is no possibility of an independence of the particular provinces without an independence of the Spiritual liife as a Whole. Such a conclusion comes to expression in the noological method. It is different throughout from the old method of an ontological metaphysic. This latter sought especially to make phenomena intelligible through world-con- ceptions which had been gained through strong subjective theories — theories, in the main, which were shadows of the living content and concreteness of reality. On the contrary, the noological method understands the particular out of an encompassing and basal Whole of life. The principle of explana- tion is not brought in from without, but is inwardly present, or at least allows itself to be brought to a present moment in consciousness : it is in the last resort, with all its arrangements through freedom, a fact and an experience. Herewith is not only a higher degree of security won, but the linking of each element with the Whole must lead to an inward renewal and deepening as well as to a clearer impress PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 181 of the characteristic features. Therefore, the founda- tion of religion must be of a noological and not of a speculative kind : the psychological method accord- ingly stands in a secondary place. It is, however, necessary to raise up the Spiritual Life not only from the empirical psychic life, but even within itself it needs a further separation. In the Spiritual Life we recognised a total-life — a world ; but our ordinary immediate life flows in homogeneous individual acts as a succession of events and activities, and this seems to exclude all definite spirituality. This contradiction is to be overcome through an inner gradation of life alone : in individual acts a Whole must be able to be present, but the life acquires an entirely different character as to whether it discovers such a Whole present or not. Were the life to shift back beyond the surface of the individual events, then what appears tangible to the individual must in some kind of way become conscious, work- able, and accessible. That possibility is really dis- covered and appears in clear results. It is only the presence of a Whole that enables the individual thoughts to become an expression of a Weltan- schauung, and enables the individual acts to become the expression of a moral character ; for it is only a continuous construction of an elevated thought that can mould the material and weld a systematic order of the whole particular provinces. This presence of the Whole in the particular can have very different grades. For example, great are those thinkers alone whose total method reaches into each particular, even into the smallest achievement ; great is that moral character alone which sets its stamp on each par- 182 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION ticular act : thus Substance and Existence differentiate themselves in life. Substance is to be conceived not as an inaccessible entity, but as the kernel of the Life-process itself; not as a species fixed for all times, but as something conceivable only through the process of its construction, and as something gifted with power through the process of its trans- formation. The development in which the Spiritual Life unfolds itself in man strikes itself into the substance as well, and it is in this that the main extension of life lies, because in the movement a struggle for the substance itself is taking place. The first achievements are mere attempts which have to stand the test of experience, and which, through such a test, can be driven forward to a further development and even transformation. Such tests and experiences need a development towards particular activities ; this is the substance itself now assigned to the existence-side of life. But in order to make some contribution to the solution of the problem, the existence-side must found a certain independence over against the substance, for if the substance meant nothing more than its immediate momentary ex- pression, the life would remain tied to a situation reached once for all. And thus life could never become a problem and never desire a movement; and without both there is not possible for man, in the midst of all his unreadiness, any further development. Thus, once more, we find a double-sided aspect of life, which carries an incessant problem in itself, and at the same time carries a germ of entanglements of opposing kinds. What is imbedded in life from the substance has continually to be transformed into a PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 183 free activity, and is to be explained through such an activity. The free activity, however, needs a return-movement to the substance in order not to fall into vague indecision. The individual as well as the community show an opposite tendency. Men and times can transform their lives simply into a movement — into a play of free-energies — without grasping the radical foundation, or without even striving after such a foundation. Then shallow men arise who, in all their agility and industry, possess no souls, but merely exist — bare creatures of the environ- ment, and barren times, though full of excitement and business which possess no spiritual base ; men and times that seek to fill the needs of life through endless variations and combinations of a free and disconnected activity. But the contrary is also possible : a substance ready- made does not enter into the region of explanation, and consequently never becomes the full possession of man. It is so with individuals and so with times. Not seldom do we find a spiritual foundation ready and at hand, but it is not worked out ; although in one's own possession, it remains as something alien and inaccessible. These are the dull and helpless men and times who cannot find their own depth, but foUow in the direction of the shallows of life and not in the direction of what the deep contains. Also, in spiritual provinces and especially in religion, the explanation of the substance fails often to correspond with, and, indeed, often contradicts, its validity ; what is willed and estimated at the base can often lie beneath a growing crust of thought. Throughout the whole history of Christianity this 184 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION cleft between substance and its explanation appears ; ever arises the need to prove the latter, and to seek the former. Where the analysis into substance and existence is recognised, the kernel of life is then never sought in the so-called faculties of thought, feeling, and will — neither in either nor in their sum. These different phases of the one consciousness belong to the substance just referred to, and never out of their own power can they produce a spiritual content ; far more do they develop in a connection with some kind of Life- substance. Such a deepening of reality alone is able to free us from the intellectualism which we discover to-day as so insufficient, but into which, notwithstand- ing all our troubles and toils, we tend to sink back ever anew. We remain without overcoming so long as the existing activities signify to us the whole of life. In the provinces of such existent activities the intelli- gence stands in the foreground ; that which struggles to reach up to the level of a spiritual content has to explain itself at the bar of intelligence and work from that judgment into the remaining provinces. When the fact is recognised that thought itself, in so far as it is of a productive and not merely of a reflective kind, possesses behind itself a basal and directive activity of the Whole and brings forth its creativeness from this basal region, a secure conquest over intellectualism is gained. Then it becomes clear that in the movement of life the handling is not dealing with an assimilation of a " given " reality, but with an ascent to a definite reality ; the struggle is not concerning interpretations but concerning contents. PROGRESSIVE AUTONOMY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 185 Thus the problem of hfe is raised above the antithesis of intellectuaUsm and voluntarism — for voluntarism is a mere reversal of iiitellectualism, and remains bound on the mere level of bare experience. The powers of intellect and will thus cannot form the kernel of man's nature, far less can they be carried into the universe and be raised to the substance of the All. It is not from the forms of phenomena but from the substance of life that any hope arises of illumining the deep night which wraps our life and our fundamental relation to reality. All pictorial conceptions of these forms of phenomena are mere human projections, intellectual plays of a flying imagination. When, however, the recognition of that depth heightens powerfully the task of life, it heightens at the same time the inward movement of life, and the attention extends over the whole expanse of life. For now the truth of the Whole becomes anew in each individual position a problem ; each point has to prove, to strengthen, and to adjust its truth. This yields also a characteristic organisation of the work of culture. Here the total-view of life is not now included in one particular province, as, for example, in religion or metaphysics, which is supposed to be able to include and to further all the other provinces ; the main problem lies on the other side of all the branches and runs through them all ; each particular province can take the whole question into itself, prove it in its own experience, and answer it in its own way. All great achievements of the particular provinces possess a grasp of the Whole and at the same time a furthering of the Whole. This signifies 186 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION an equality of rights of the difFerent branches; it forbids all hierarchic gradation and subordination of the middle-ages type. The differentiatioh of sub- stance and existence works in that it renders life more eventful, freer, richer. Accordingly, we see life all along taking a charac- teristic shape, and we find this characteristic extend from an external outline into the innermost web. What always yielded itself to the individual drew its strength and found its connection in a particular governing and thorough-going thought — the thought of an opening of a new grade of reality, of a kingdom of independent inwardness within the province of man. And this thought will lead us further into the province of religion. Our discussion hitherto has been necessary in order to obtain a fixed foundation ; now we are to handle the matter direct. PART II.— THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER VIII c. The Fact of Universal Religion (1) The Turn to Religion (a) The Problem of Religion in General. — In con- nection with the turn towards rehgion, it is necessary before all else to establish what is essential and indis- pensable to religion — to religion in each and every sense. Before all else the main point is this : religion holds up before us, over against the surrounding world, a new kind of existence, a new order of things, and divides reality into different provinces and worlds. That religion may be obtained without a belief in God is proved by ancient and definite Buddhism ; but without a dualism of worlds, without an outlook on a new existence, religion becomes a mere empty sound. The mere acknowledgment of a higher order, however, gives us in no way a religion. That higher order must not merely exist in itself: it must also be eiFective for us, it must place our existence on a new foundation, and must be conceived by us as a main fact; otherwise it remains, in spite of an external acknowledgment, inwardly strange and indifferent. The mere existence of deities was conceived readily 187 188 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION enough by the Epicureans. How barren for religion were all the diggings for the final "grounds" of things and all the so-called proofs for the existence of God 1 There is not, therefore, any definite religion without the living presence of a higher world within our own domain, without the clash of two worlds with all their entanglement and irrationality. But even in this irrational there appears especially clear the original character, the transforming and renewing energy of religion. Such a projection of a new world into our life is a question of an actual kind ; and thus appearing as a fundamental fact, the question is not to be placed on one side but to be proved. But with all its actuality, the question does not deal with something that is individual and obvious. Eckhart ridicules such an attempt as this : " Many people hope to see God as one sees an ox." The question deals with something that is a Whole and an invisible. Such an object cannot come to man from the outside and overwhelm him with sensuous impressions ; it is only an inward movement that can bring man to the point where truths, otherwise concealed, reveal themselves ; and data, otherwise loose, can bind themselves into a Whole of Reality. True, such movements desire as well the work of thought, but such a help remains in the service of the main actual question. (/3) Nearer View of the Problem. — The whole course of our investigation has shown the character- istics and greatness of man to consist in the working within him of a total reality ; along with this the Spiritual Life became the centre of all the investiga- tion. This must verify itself also in connection with THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 189 the turn to religion. It is not the entanglements of the mere-human but those of the Spiritual Life which urge us to religion ; it is not the deliverance of man to human happiness but the self-reliance of the Spiritual Life which stands now in question. All this an- nounces such mighty transformations against the customary mode of life — transformations which aim to present before man the fact that something more is indispensable than a smug arrangement of things. Such a method does not only place religion on securer foundations, but, in the formation of its content, meets with evil entanglements. So long as man as an isolated existence stands over against the All, he is never able to go forth out bf his own move- ments and needs to a certainty of a new world. What he possesses and develops on his subjective plane can never mean anything more than that which holds valid for his own circle of presentations ; if things were only so, the danger becomes evident that all things will soon be explained as a mere brain- spinning of the subject himself. If, before all else, the presence of a world within man is not recognised as well as the fact that he can be raised to a world-life, he can never win a secure conviction of a Whole of Reality, and never be certain of the opening of a new world. This first question of truth requires a noo-centric and not an anthropomorphic standard ; the thought- world of religion will remain under the ban of anthro- pomorphism so long as Spiritual Life and the human form of existence are not differentiated. The old thinker was correct in stating that men constructed the gods in their own image ; but when such con- 190 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION ceptions were refined, they were more and more transformed into objects of thought. But the re- fining of the conceptions easily makes the error even more dangerous, and entangles the objects of thought still deeper in the anthropomorphic process. This anthropomorphism, however, meets with a strong opposition the more the progress of knowledge explains to man his position in the All of things. Indeed, the more his dependence on nature and, at the same time, the speciality of his species are illumined, the more appears the failure to raise man to the All- Life and to fill up the ground of reality with products from the quarry of human analogy. More weighty still are the dangers into which such an anthropomorphic conception of religion brings its inner motive-powers. A religion of the merely human kind makes inevitably the quest of man's happiness the centre of all activity ; it rivets him to the in- activity to which he seems to subordinate and even to sacrifice himself. Of what avail are all obedience and all sacrifice if man only renounces in order to gain more of the very stuff which binds him ? In the customary order of religion the hope of a great reward threatens to adjust the character in a prevail- ing manner to the results of action, and to link that character with the particular external worth of things and thus to injure greatly the pure joy in the good and true, and to endanger the inner independence. It appears then as if the whole world-order is here in order to satisfy our " dear self" with all its pettiness and meanness, and to bring it to full indulgence ; it appears as if " God had forgotten all His creatures with the exception of us alone " (Eckhart). True, THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 191 the deeper atmosphere of all religions withstands all such shrinkage upon the small self, and leads against such a notion an ardent battle for the ptarification and refinement of the soul. But in this struggle the full energy does not enter so long as a fundamental libera- tion of life from the mere-human and the anxiety for its small happiness have not taken place. And in order to obtain this liberation, radical transformations are necessary, as we have already seen in the acknow- ledgment of the Spiritual Life and the changes it brought along with itself; there is no ejection of the small human assertions out of our inner world without a new view of ourself, and there is no unselfishness of character without a nature superior to that of the bare self. Man does not remain a mere man — a kind of well-equipped animal — a kind of special and vanishing point in infinity ; he is called to acknow- ledge the inner presence of a world, and to reach such a world in spite of his mere singularity. Only the effort for a deliverance can free him from the anxiety for his bare happiness, and only the laying of the centre of gravity in this makes it possible to place the mere inactivity in the background and to create actions and energy ; otherwise his particular nature brings forth no fruit and, indeed, his further existence is endangered. The content and aim of the world of religion are universally not ascertained by the natural man, but by the Spiritual Life in him. Difficult as all this may seem, and sure as it may appear that the natural ways of man accompany all his work and strive to enter into this, yet through the energetic separation of the mere-human and the more-than-human from one 192 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF TTNIVERSAL RELIGION another a struggle for the maintenance and purity of the spiritual substance is taken up, so that we do not fall defenceless to the lower plane. As in culture on the whole, so, too, in religion, the progress of the developing thought appears not anywhere as a mere disentanglement of an initial childish kind — as a destruction of an anthropomorphism — but as a re- building proceeded with through the discovery of a new life and nature in man. Were there no road from the denial to the affirmation, the work of thought would more and more destroy the living content of reality ; indeed, the more energetic that work of thought would proceed, the more certain it would reach a complete agnosticism with all its hoUowness. But when, however, a religion of the Spiritual Life leaves behind itself the mere-human, it must be by itself of a universal nature. For here it is not the aim of religion to further, through the introduction of a new world, this or that side of the Spiritual Life, but, before all else, it is the energetic longing to maintain the Spiritual Life as a Whole, and to carry it through in the midst of seemingly insuperable obstacles. A religion which performs this must not consider itself as a special province of the remaining life, but must encompass and per- meate the whole life. That the Universal mode of religion does not form its culmination, for, indeed, it never leads to an independent religion, but that it far more leads to a Characteristic religion — all this will be shown later ; but it will be shown, too, that this characteristic mode presupposes the uni- versal mode, proceeds out of its experiences, and has to unite itself with it. ,- p r THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 193 Spiritual Life was not in our view a quality of another existence ; it proved itself as a life exist- ing by itself, which had to develop all its existence within the life. The problem of the truth of religion receives, therefore, its existence from out of the fact that an absolute life, superior to the world, is recognised as effective in our sphere. Through such a recognition the conception of the Godhead receives the meaning of an Absolute Spiritual Life ; out of this all the remainder of life is to be moulded. This yields a decisive break with the old methods of proof — methods that sought before all else to prove an existence on the other side of the human circle, and to set oneself in relationship with such an existence. Through this the intellect gained in- evitably a leading position, for by what other means could we perceive an external existing reality ? On the contrary, the revelation and the appropriation of a turn towards the Life-process call upon the whole man, and desire a forward act of the whole soul ; all this certainly enters into ideas and has to be set in doctrine, but even these have to relate themselves and be adjusted to the Life-process, for they cannot proceed as rigid dogmas which would govern the very powers themselves. From this point of view there results for religion a characteristic relationship of the eternal and the temporal, of substance and its forms ; now only such are valid as fundamental truths as are necessary in the vindication of the representa- tive Life-process. The nature of that which presents itself in the existing situation as an incontestable truth, and which is measured as indispensable by a standard of the act, has to be proved ever anew over 13 194 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION against the changes of time, and ever anew does it become a problem. This is so because the historical course of the religious life of the Church has the tendency to extend further and further the importance of doctrines, and, along with this, to relax the connec- tion with the living foundation, or to construct a particular side of the nature at the expense of the whole. Therefore, the return to the ground-process and the elimination of all the superfluous as a burden and a hindrance become an ever necessary problem ; the great renewals of religion thus appear as a simpli- fication of life, as a return out of the darkness and distraction of time to an old and eternal truth. Finally, the position of our question contains also a raising of religion above the ramifications of the psychic life — above the so-called faculties of the soul ; the question concerns itself with a particular develop- ment of a Spiritual Reality which certainly unfolds itself in thought, feeling, and will, but which proceeds not from one or from a combination of them. All the strict fulfilment of religion in the provinces of the so-called faculties of the soul yield a formation of the periphery, behind which remains unexperienced and undeveloped a centre of life — the workshop of original moulding and creativeness. Let us consider the religion of the Church system of the Middle Ages, which even to-day presents itself with such an obtrusive air as the one true religion. A system of doctrines is transmitted to the individual, a complex of deeds is laid upon him ; also the entire resignation of the subjective feeling — a mysticism with its feeling organ — can be brought about through doctrines and precepts presented in such a manner as THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 195 not to appear as a burden and a constraint. Thus the whole man seems to have been woij, and religion seems to have become the possession of his soul. But is it so in reality ? Or remains there not un- conceived behind all the expansion that which is really the fundamental fact — • man as a superior Whole, as a participator in infinity, as a warrior for a spiritual self? This depth of his nature has now come to a full consciousness, and, along with this, it has become clear that such a fact alone grants him secure stability against unutterable dangers, tribula- tions, and doubts ; so that he wiU found his religion upon this rock, weary throughout of the strife whether intellect, or will, or feeling, plays the main part in the concern. Here as everywhere in such a fact we do not find anything new, for wherever religion was the moving energy of life, there stood behind it man with the whole of his soul. But this ancient truth was woefully darkened, and prevented from coming to full effect in the common life of humanity through human conceptions and especially through the Christian Church. So that it is still something new when it is recognised fully in principle, and when it is able to. defend itself more energetically against its own disfigurement. (7) The Reality above the World. — What brings about the problem of religion out of the Spiritual Life ? The Spiritual Life in itself does not produce religion in an immediate manner. It is certain that it signifies a higher degree of reality than nature ; this degree can develop itself fully and live out its potencies in our world, and can prepare all it needs for its aims; as things stand thus, we have in the 196 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION Spiritual Life a new stage within the world, but we have not as yet a new world — we have won no over- world as yet ; in all this we have reached an idealism — the employment of this worn-out expression is used here for the purpose of brevity — but we have not as yet acknowledged religion. The question concerning an over-world leads us first to ask whether the New which carries such a fundamental transformation with itself knocks itself in pieces upon the hard obstacles of our world, and thus is not able to win any secure position against such obstacles. If things are really so, either the whole has to be dropped as a treacherous illusion and all activity to reach and to maintain it has to be suspended, or we are to seek a deeper ground in what occurs within our circle and to pro- tect the gain throughout. But when such a matter of fact allows itself to be proved, and when it leads to the recognition of an over- world absolute life, even yet religion is not won. That comes about when the life comes in contact not only with its own results, but when we seize life and appropriate it as a Whole, when we pass from the effects and set ourselves upon the causes, and participate, in a form of immediacy, in the absoluteness of the Divine Life. But in order to reach such a decisive point we must first of all run through the earlier stages of life and seek to show that the Spiritual Life has no secure ground in the ordinary near-at-hand world, but meets the hardest contradictions in such a world, and yet in spite of these contradictions it maintains itself and exercises energy in order to take up first of all the decisive question. {aa) The Peril to the Spiritual Life from its Sur- THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 197 rounding World. — How little the Spiritual Life governs ordinary immediate existence Jias been seen from the beginning of our investigation ; it was this fact that made us raise it so fundamentally above that existence. But the inner energy presents yet in no way a triumphant advance over against the world. The clash has become sharper rather than milder, and the contradiction reaches deeper into the foundations. In the meantime the Spiritual Life brings forth from within a new kind of existence, and desires for it new forms ; it remains throughout committed to a funda- mental construction of the same reality and yet it longs to advance and possess more of this reality, and is thus aflfected with a contradiction right through its course ; its energy and its truth are endangered by the greatest difficulties. It signifies from within a total-life, and yet this total-life is strewn over the conformable individual nature ; it signifies a timeless truth and underlies wholly the power of time, and yet it is carried along powerless by the ever-restless current of "history ; it must hold itself as the main fact — as the kernel of reality and a full self-aim — and yet it is handled throughout as a subsidiary fact, as a means to other aims. At the same time, a char- acteristic nervousness restrains the man from confess- ing openly his inner apathy towards the Spiritual Life; rather he will and can allow this appearance of a " better " to have its place, so that there originates a general unveracity with all the powerlessness which is inherent in such unveracity, with all the hollow pomp which makes the man himself vexatious. This hard conflict between the nature and the existence- form of the Spiritual Life is the deepest ground of 198 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION that hypocrisy which runs through and poisons human life not only in the union of the life of culture, but also in the deepest recesses of the soul. Such a mere semblance of character — such un veracity — is bound to strike its roots into all the individual activities and situations : knowledge, love, happiness — all receive a multi-coloured hybrid form ; all these might be and could be more than this ; everything through such a disunion has not the courage either of a decisive Yea or of a decisive Nay. With such halfness how could a new world arise or be built up over against nature ? We have already convinced ourselves that the examination of the historico-social life offers not the least hope for such a new world or the possibility of altering essentially our position in respect to the Spiritual Life. Therefore, the whole movement towards the Spiritual Life is either a great and an inexplicable error, or there is more behind it than appears clear at a glance. {bb) The Assertion of the Spiritual Life over against the World. — That in reality more is imbedded behind the appearances is shown by the fact of the conflict itself; for this fact is of a twofold kind: it shows the hindrance, but it also shows that something is hindered which asserts itself in spite of all hindrance. If the surrounding world with its unspiritual nature were the Whole, how could the Spiritual Life arise universally ? How could it, if it is no more than a mere appearance, exercise so much more power now it has recognised the fact than it exercised previously? Whence even the striving after appearance, after hypocrisy, if all resolves itself into a phantom ? There must be thus something superior in the very truth THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 199 which works in our potency and in the whole of its province. That this is so is illumined yet clearer by the fact that the Spiritual Life, with all its hin- drances and restraints in the environing world, does not simply conform to this world, but asserts itself over against it and holds fast its own aims. It does this in the directions we shall now point out. 1. In the midst of all distractions, one thing issues out of the kingdom of distractions — an inconceivable movement towards unity. Individuals, peoples, and epochs believe in the possibility of mutual under- standing in the midst of all disintegrations ; all assertion of a spiritual kind is valid not only for the individual or for a special circle, but for all ; also the particular branches of the work of reason can well diverge for a while but not for any length of time, and finally all the manifold of effort must flow into an encompassing truth, for all particularity becomes rigid and lifeless when severed from such a unity. The striving towards unity in the midst of aU distractions is that which particularly rouses human life, which sets it in motion, which entangles it in unutterable strife, but which proves itself a mighty power in the midst of all. Whence else comes the struggle than from thence — that each shall become the Whole, the governing, the universally valid, and that each tends to lose its value if it tolerates another to lie untouched by its side? Such strenuous and even passionate striving is an irrefragable testimony of a power superior to the dispersion of the parts and also to the whole environing order of things. 2. However the content and the value of the Spiritual Life may be made by man to fit in with his 200 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION aims, yet they withstand a complete adjustment into the mere-human situation, and exercise from their side a counter-eiFect to that situation. No less an authority than Kant explained it as "highly ob- jectionable that the laws concerning what I ought to do can be drawn from or confined to what is merely done." How does such a superiority of the norm of all action justify itself above the position of man if there dwells not in his whole nature such a superior arrangement? This arrangement in man's nature appears in the total-movement of history, first of all, as a power of a directive and unravelling kind. Men and times draw the Spiritual Life into them- selves and lower it as a means for their aims ; they give it a moulding which corresponds to their fleeting wishes. Thus they may carve and bend it, and appear themselves as seeming lords of things. But such a method has always a measuring rod brought to bear on it ; sooner or later a counter-effect makes its presence felt and then the merely human fashion lives itself out, its emptiness and meanness come to light, and the final decomposition is not far away. Thus we find an incessant return to the Spiritual Life from the human perversion of it — a return to man's own nature ; and consequently an energetic return to the demands and dependence of man. This is an effect of a more negative kind, but the Spiritual Life declares its ability also positively within the human province through an incessant exertion to move outside the "given" situation, through a tracing out and a holding forth of ideals, through a longing after a more complete happiness and a more complete truth. Why is not man satisfied THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 201 with the relativity which clings so fast to his existence ? Why has he a longing for the Absolute in opposition to such relativity, and through this plunges himself into the most difficult sorrows and restlessness ? This has happened not only in special situations of individuals, but in the total ascent of culture ; indeed, the upward march of culture would have been impossible without a striving of man from a level above his "given" position and even above himself. Was not subjective satisfaction more easily reached by him in the semi-animal stages of his existence than in culture with all its toils and tangles, and does the progress of culture with all its tools make him happier in the mere human sense ? What else can compel him to step into this perilous track of culture but the necessity of his own nature which, at the same time, reveals to him the presence of a new order of things ? 3. Then Spiritual Life asserts itself not only within the human circle, but it exhibits in the midst of all obstacles a capacity to draw the lower to itself, it exhibits the energy to overcome the lower and the power to ennoble it through a higher. There proceeds through our life a movement from the outward to the inward, from the natural to the spiritual. Any spiritual stimulation which comes to us may seem in the first instance to proceed and to work on us from without, and may thus appear as a mere constraint which can only be uncoupled by counter-effects. But what first of all seems to work on man more than in him begins soon to strike its roots within him, allows itself to be gripped as one's own fact and to be transformed into free activity. 202 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION Without such a growth of one's own hfe, without such an inverted order of the direction of the move- ment, all education of humanity remains a dead training, and all moral instruction remains a mere appearance ; the spark of the inner life would never be awakened were such a life not imbedded in man's very nature, and did it not enable him to carry further his very life in the direction of his goal. So that it is not through the mere working of psychical mechanism, which could never awaken man and which could never originate an inner unity and an active disposition, that the progress from custom to morality, from external relationship to inner harmony, from a collection of self-interests to a union of character, explains itself and reveals itself as a phenomenon of the inwardness of human life and existence. Through this the effort is raised beyond its original motive, and the man is led out to a region beyond himself. What appeared to him pre- viously as mere means for his egotistic aims, begins now, through his own character, to draw him and set him in motion ; this is more and more taken into his own life and raises his life. The necessities of existence aim at carrying man to his work ; and how many inward movements and how many blessings proceed from such aims ! But all this is to be understood only under an hypothesis of an active presence of an elevated Spiritual Life within the human circle. What we have already considered in connection with these three points and directions is a develop- ment of the one and same ground-fact which testifies in a corporate manner that a Spiritual Life works THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION in us, and which does not explain itself out of the relations, but which points to a higher order of existence than the world-order which surrounds us. With all this is won only an hypothesis of religion, and not religion itself. Though the consciousness of the effect of a higher order of things in the midst of our circle of experience is able to give a true assurance, and to strengthen the faith in some kind of conquest of the good, still the power remains a dark secret, and an inner relationship to it is not yet given. It is only with this latter inward re- lationship that religion originates. Let us therefore see if the experience of life shows an entrance hither. (cc) The Revelation of an Absolute Spiritual Life in our World. — We need not open any laborious and lengthy investigation in order to prove that a Spiritual Life superior to the world not only touches us with its effects, but that it is also present in us as cause with all the fulness of its energy. It is revealed to us as a great fact that a Spiritual Life can rise up as our own life : and this actually happens. The significance of this fact can be judged fully after we have recognised that a total-life presents itself in the Spiritual Life, and that in this total-life a new degree of reality arises, and an inverted order of the world-process takes place ; such a turn could not proceed out of the potency of the individual elements of life, but has to proceed out of the energy of the Whole. Therefore, this Whole must be, in a form of immediacy, present in us, and, also, the great change shall ensue as a gain of our own life. Now, the life of the spirit does not develop itself in us merely in isolated achievements or from the external ; we have 20* FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION already seen how it returned to itself from each performance and constructed for itself a nucleus which became the carrier of all activity, for thus alone could the autonomous life develop itself. Whatever the personality and the spiritual individuality may receive on the mere-human and natural planes could not arise and bring forth any kind of movement unless there worked on such planes some kind of autonomous and original life. The great change of life from a web of relations to the founding of a total-life in itself, and the turn of reality to its own depth — all this is a fact which does not march forward in front of us, and it could not arise in us at all had it not gone forth out of us and had we not become along with it active co-carriers of reality. The dawning of a new world in the midst of our province, our entering into an inward revolution of human existence — this is the great miracle in which the presence of a new world manifests itself with great clearness. He who does not find the miracle here is not likely to find it anywhere else, and will seek in vain for it in the " far, far away," for the words of Paracelsus hold valid in this respect : " You are long-sighted, you see in the distance, but you do not see close at hand." That the fact of an autonomous life in our own circle holds valid as the decisive proof of the presence of a Divine existence is contradicted only by the external clothing of the idea. " Autonomous," one may say, and so says one with the Middle Ages mode of thought, is the denial of all dependence, of all tying to another will ; religion, however, desires unconditional dependence, obedience, submission ; THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 205 thus the two are complete opposites. But they re- main opposites only so long as God and man, in a childish anthropomorphic manner, are* set against one another as two isolated natures that are set in relation from the outside, and thus the one side seems to take what is given by the other side. We could think but little of man if we allowed everything to come in to him from the outside, if we denied him all inner movement towards the summits of religion. And, too, the new world would be cut off entirely from our world and, through the inaccessibleness, the " beyond " would vanish. But it is quite otherwise when the autonomy, now possessing more inward and less anthropomorphic modes of thought, appears not as something contra- dictory to the Whole but as an independent " becom- ing " out of the energy and presence of the Whole, and, at the same time, as an essentially new grade of life ; then this independent life must separate itself most pointedly from all self-willed selfishness and from all stubborn self-assertion. It is certainly a mystery how the highest self-activity signifies the immediate extinction of all mere egoism and signifies, too, a life out of Infinity. But he who places this mystery on one side must either cast away all religion or shape it in a purely external form of the understanding. Through the inward presentation of the total problem the thought of an over- world signifies much more than a flight to a bare " beyond." True, there results a separation — a division of reality- — for with- out this religion is not possible. But this does not imply that a " beyond " is to be thought of as a kind 206 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION of fixed and inviolable foundation of our existence entirely over against the present world — a " beyond " that has to be adjusted through special helps; but it does imply a "beyond" in the sense that the existing Spiritual Life relegates the present world to a secondary place. Such a Spiritual Life becomes the fixed norm for all life, and in its renewal it becomes not some kind of a More of an already existing life, but in it, first and foremost, a really existing and truthful life is won. Thus, religion was everywhere found where it possessed this thorough originality, and its own truth was the most certain of all things — a truth in which all else found its fixed duration. Thus an Augustine took flight out of the hardest shocks of human life to the immanent Divine presence in his own soul — to that which first of all disengaged itself from the threatening overthrow of life, to that which won him for himself So that the Middle Ages conceived this Divine Order as the Fatherland (patria), and ventured to say that we know God better than the creature {Deus notior creatura). After all this there can be no doubt as to the nature of religion. Religion rests on the presence of a Divine Life in man ; it unfolds itself through the seizure of this Life as one's own nature. Religion, too, subsists in the fact that man in the inmost foundation of his own being is raised into the Divine Life, and participates in the Divine Nature. Christianity was right when it found the kernel of religion in the union of the natures of the human and the Divine, and even the unfortunate dogmatic representation of the two natures in Christ could THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 207 not destroy the transforming and elevating energy of this truth. But the full vivifieation of the Divine in man and the gaining of a new plane of life can never happen without a recognition and an assimilation on the side of man. Religion can never originate unless the Divine enters into the conviction of man, unless the whole of his soul turns towards the new world. In this sphere there is no place for any mechanical instillation, and there is no growth possible without our own accommodating spirit. Hence religions constantly long so ardently for the consent and repentance of man ; the nobility of the soul and its membership with God must be acknowledged in order to be able to experience His Divine Energy. For " what would it avail a man if he were king and knew it not" (Eckhart). It will appear later in our treatment in a fuller manner that religions could not consider human capacity as the measurement of the activity of the Divine, but that to all religions, in their best conclusions, human achievement was considered as the highest proof of grace. It is not possible that so much should lie imbedded in such a recognition did it not signify more than a passive approval or a setting of act and work. If things did not mean more for our life, there is not much more won than a beautiful sonorous etiquette. In order to bring forth a genuine renewal, the recognition of the Divine must transpose itself into an energetic selection and rejection of the elements which present themselves in this world. The great- ness of this turn of man consists in that the Spiritual Life is led through its freedom from the entanglement 208 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION and anxiety of the world-situation to a pure distinct- ness of its own nature and to a full self-reliance. Thus, an energetic distinction between essential and non-essential becomes possible, and through such an analysis the life is powerfully roused and set in motion. Religion throughout is not mere contem- plation with its corresponding characteristics, but, after the nature of its nucleus, is the highest activity, the separation of the existing chaos, the concentration of the Spiritual Ijife by itself, and the setting forth of such a Spiritual Life against all the alien elements which threaten to overwhelm it. 2. The Content of Religion (a) The Idea of God. — The discussion of the idea of God belongs to the summit of our investigation. But the discussion of the subject is to be considered not as if the idea of God had already been discovered in advance at a certain stage in the evolution of religion, and had driven forward all further develop- ment out of itself; but on the contrary, our in- vestigation considers the idea of God as that which brings to expression above all else the characteristic properties of religion, and which makes the main direction of the striving of religion palpable. There- fore, one fought in reality for the content of religion when one fought for the conception of God, and it is in the recognition of this fact that every conception of religion has to prove itself. The pathway which leads to the conception of God leads us at the same time to the content which the conception can have for us. It signifies to us nothing other than an Absolute Spiritual Life in its grandeur THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 209 above all the limitations of man and the world of experience — a Spiritual Life that has attained to a complete subsistence in itself, and, at tRe same time, to an encompassing of all reality. Before we view what such a foundation and develop- ment of the idea of God, in and by the Spiritual Life, yields as to content, we must discuss how this way of taking the idea contrasts with other ways, and especially how it is qualified to overcome an antithesis, which, beyond mere conceptions, disunites and en- dangers the religious life itself. This antithesis is that of anthropomorphism and of ontological specula- tion. The former has endeavoured to keep the idea of God as near as possible to man ; the latter has endeavoured to lift the idea as high and far above man as possible. Anthropomorphism controls the ordinary conception of religion from remote anti- quity. Or can we deny that man is here wont to project into the universe a somewhat magnified and ennobled replica of himself, and to deal with the Deity as with a man-like being? The insuffi- ciency of this was not only brought up against, but it was also fully felt within, religion's own circle. Hence the effiDrt to drive out such a human notion, and this elimination seemed to be most thoroughly effected by ontological speculation which excluded each and all closer determination of the Godhead as illegitimate, and retained as valid for the nature of the Godhead only Being without any qualities and above all concepts. This worked with special attrac- tive energy on philosophic minds, who then evolved a mode of esoteric religion which seemed to lie 14 210 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION heaven-wide from all the smallness and selfishness of man. But with such a loosening of its bonds with man, religion threatened to forfeit not only all clear quaUties of the Godhead but also all animated energy ; it passed more and more into a passive con- templation, and, by this, into a direct counterpart of the anthropomorphic religion which accompKshes too little in the inward transformation of man, and which serves too directly his desire for mere happiness. With such a divergence the two ways cannot possibly be directly united and conjoined, as the esoteric and exoteric forms of religion, as has happened in the main in the historical religions and especially in Christianity. In reality the Christianity of the Church has not one but two conceptions of God — one anthropomorphic and the other ontologic- speculative ; they contain different forms of religion, so that any juxtaposition of the two forms cannot possibly be a solution of the problem, but can only represent a tolerable compromise which insistently proclaims the two requirements of every concept of God and of all religion. Anthropomorphism contends rightly that religion, in order to be a power of life and not a mere view of the universe, must remain close to man and must strengthen him in himself. How little ontology is able out of its own power to do this, and how little in its speculations it leads to religion — all this would be quite evident if it were not wont, unnoticed, to complete itself from a more positive kind of re- ligion, and to substitute mere empty conceptions THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 211 for true forms, as mysticism evidently shows. On the other hand, ontology possesses a right in the undertaking because it lifts religion out of the circle of presentations, and especially out of the circle of the interests of the mere individual ; for through this, ontology really forms something new out of man, and not merely strengthens him further in his small- ness and narrowness. Now, the two claims — the psychic nearness of religion and its liberation from the mere-human — become united with the promulgation of the Spiritual Life. For this deals not only with the preservation of the merely human but with its spiritual substance, and it prohibits all anchorage in any merely human province and all binding of the conception of God in merely human conceptions. But when, at the same time, the truth stands firm that the Spiritual Life has to win our true self — the depth of our own nature — then religion, with all its elevation beyond the merely human, preserves a nearness of soul ; and, too, the conception of God can gain a positive con- tent without falling into anthropomorphism. All this will happen through the fundamental conception that man himself signifies no bare isolated existence, but is moored upon Infinity, and only in the realisa- tion of this fact is he able to discover his own definite nature. Also, the highest human conception of de- signating the Absolute Nature will not suffice, for a human colouring always clings to the conception of spiritual greatness. But these conceptions, through the annulment of the sharp opposites, can well serve as pathways and symbols, and, in spite of all their insufficiency, can present us with true contents of life. 212 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION From such a reflection on these things the effort concerning the personaUty of God is to be judged — a fact which reaches back to antiquity. Much is here a strife over words. In the expression " personaUty " differences with the most striking resemblances he imbedded: one side thinks, in connection with the expression, of the individual human nature with its opposition to other natures and with its natural limits ; another thinks of the " becoming " inde- pendence and self-comprehension of the Spiritual Life in man. But the whole of the difference is not a strife over words. The direct denial of a personality of God aims at the denial of a superiority against the world-process, aims at bringing about a pantheistic melting of the Absolute Life in the world. An unconditional affirmation, on the other hand, works in the direction of humanising and pulling down. It becomes necessary, then, for a further de- velopment of the Spiritual Life to secure sufficiently its ground against the flow of all into merely human qualities and relations ; and it is not easy to overcome this danger on account of the rooted usage of terms. Therefore, it may be recommended as a scientific ex- pression of the fact, not to transplant the expression " personality " to the Absolute Life, or, at the most, not to employ it as more than a symbol. Indeed, one may ask, in order to avoid the dangers of the conception of personality, whether religion of a universal kind has not to turn from the expression " God " to that of " Godhead." Whether the passage from the Universal mode of religion to the Chxtrac- teristic mode constitutes such a turning, and at the same time gives a better right to the conception of THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 213 personality, can be shown only by further develop- ments and experiences. These investigations include also the decision con- cerning the position of mysticism. If the Spiritual Life is, first of all, a total-life, then no true departure to the religious province can take place without a liberation from narrow accuracy, without a counter- effect to the merely human, and without the setting of the life in a total-life. That mysticism sets this forth, is its great service ; indeed, all the moulding of religion fails unless it takes an element of mysticism — the living soul — into itself. But mysticism fails because it turns this necessary portion of religion into the sole content. To it religion is nothing other than an absorption into the infinite and eternal Being — an extinguishing of all particularity, and the gaining of a complete calm through the suspension of all the wear and tear of life. Thus even here the Nay and not the Yea remains in the ascendant ; and this will far more lower the natural difficulties of life than wring from them a new power superior to them ; and consequently the life fails to find an exit out of the sphere of irritation and of its ordinary pitch to a region of active work and to a fundamental transformation of reality. Mysticism, however, holds valid as a weighty and indispensable motive of religion, but it does not constitute the whole of religion. We cannot dispense with it,^but dare not terminate with it. If we now turn towards the demarcations and securities, it is clear that such can never result out of vague reflection but out of the experiences of the Spiritual tafe. All speculative gnosticism fades 214 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION where the Life-process constitutes the point of depar- ture and also the boundary of all reflection. The idea of God signifies to us nothing other than an Absolute Spiritual Life — a Life freed from the limits and entanglements of our experience, a Life in possession of a complete existence for itself, and constituting the substance of reality. It is thus alone that the idea of God can possess a content, that the characteristics of the Spiritual Life can long for a purer formation, and that these characteristics, uniting among one another what appeared previously as merely external qualities, can now set these very qualities in the nature itself. Through such a turn from effects to causes, from surface to foundation, the unity of the total-life raises itself to a more complete clearness ; the timelessness of all spiritual content leads to the idea of a Divine Order ; the truthful and the worthful now desire a full union, and the good becomes the governing power of all life. Thus the Spiritual Life, through such an elevation to the Absolute, reaches a full development of its own nature, and obtains, at the same time, an incompar- ably greater power and superiority over against the merely human powers. (/3) Godhead and the World. — In connection with the problem of the Godhead and the world, two directions have struggled for prominence, each of which is able to show a good reason for itself. On the one side, it appears necessary before all else to distinguish clearly the Godhead from the world, and to raise such far above the world ; for it is only thus we are able to preserve the purity of the conception, and only thus does an elevating effect seem to pro- THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION ^5 ceed from such a. conception. On the other side, the Godhead is drawn as far as possible deep into the world, and as far as possible the particular nature of the Divine is bound with the particular nature of things, for it is only thus we seem able to reach a living present consciousness and lasting influences from the world. " What kind of nature would God have, had He no other call Than from outside to move the world and merely circling all! Far more is He the inner life of all that seems and is, In Him is Nature born and bred, and He in Nature lives." Thus we obtain the opposition of transcendence and immanence, of dualism and monism, of super- naturalism and pantheism. The terms announce but little, and the mutual charges of heresy are weari- some. That the matter is not so simple as the partisans imagine on the one side or the other, appears clear from the fact that whole epochs have stood under the influence, now of one, now of the other : waning antiquity could not, on account of a feeling of weariness, separate wide enough the Divine and the world ; the rising modern times, with its fresh strain of life, could not sufficiently unite both. Indeed, soon the impression of limits and entangle- ments predominated ; later the impression of energy and beauty won the upper hand. Alternate aspects of inability and ability drew the character hither and thither. We have to see if the development of religion through the Spiritual Life is able to raise man above the vacillations of times and of dis- positions. The starting-point of the Spiritual Life evidently 216 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION prohibits such a crass dualism as governs the ordinary mind. For the Spiritual Life was no separate domain which forced open an entrance to alien things, but it proved itself to us as the characteristic depth of reality, and as the turn of life to its own nature. Therefore, if the conception of the Godhead develops out of the conception of the Spiritual Life, the God- head must be most intimately connected with the nature of things ; and this nature of things must be grounded and founded in the Godhead, and, finally, the Godhead must be all in all. The positive religions could not withhold such a conviction, and religion dare not deprive itself of the experience of the great apostle who felt that "in Him we live, and move, and have our being," and that "we are also His oiFspring." When dualism misconstrues this, it isolates the Godhead to the uttermost, and thus loses all power to give the Godhead a content ; inevitably a partially transfigured mirror-image of the reality nearest at hand is set up for a new world. The projection of this " here and now " to a " beyond " — this reduplication of the world — must, however, create a contradiction especially in the province of religion, for with such a method there results too little inward trans- formation; the natural impulses are not sufficiently broken ; the bitter Nay fails in religion, and without such a Nay the Yea gains no energy and depth. The same thing happens in connection with the customary hopes of immortality, which conceive of man as being immortal even in his body and all its natural limitations, and which are carried with all their worldly qualities into infinity. Indeed, is there THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 217 not a religious disposition conceivable which has as its motive some kind of conservation of the " dear self," and which finds the hindrances against such a conservation unbearable ? Thus, not only all philosophic thought, but also definite religion itself, withstand such a dualism ; but, again, a renunciation of it glides easily into pantheism. But an exclusive and complete pantheism, however, is securely obviated through a development of religion out of the Life-process. To such a pantheism our world in the whole of its existence becomes a phenomenon, a development, an emanation, or, as the usual wording has it, an absolute essence. All differentiation of things appears to such a line of thought as a weakness and an error of the human mode of thinking ; there is, to such a view, only one particular reality, only one particular life. The government of God according to this theory falls fully in unison with the characteristic effects of the things, and the unity spreads itself over the whole multiplicity. Such a course of thought has the tendency to win man to its side, especially when the consciousness of his energy stirs within him, and when his eyes are opened to the fulness of life and the beauty of the world. It is the self-consciousness of the work of culture — a consciousness of a truth beyond the individuals themselves — which, through a strengthening of itself, raises pantheism to a religion. Its atmosphere of greatness, its effort to reach beyond the antithesis of life, and its giving reality a depth, are the chief recommendations of pantheism. Such things are no small merits. But, in spite of 218 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION all its lustre, pantheism discovers no contradiction in the inmost nature of man, and such a failure makes it untenable, and transmutes its development into a subversion of the self. It remains an indisputable fact that all turn to religion originates out of an opposition to the surrounding world ; the thought of an over-world arises and gains a power only because the near-at-hand world does not penetrate into a problem whose solution dare not be abandoned. Herewith, it is characteristic of and essential to religion that it develops its power from within with- out in opposition to the surrounding world ; and where the opposition fades or fails, its energy immediately relaxes. The idea of God becomes unstable where no inner contradiction carries man beyond the world and furthers a life above the world. All movements within the world and all the deepen- ing of the things existing in it can, of course, further their own particular conceptions, but they cannot justify a breach with external things, and it is through such a breach that the idea of God results. Such an idea of God holds within itself a great turn of life and a transformation of reality ; it issues also a call of the whole of reason to the struggle against unreason and for the renewal of life. All this lies far away from pantheism. The contradiction referred to checks the develop- ment of pantheism and drives it out to great diver- gences. If the ideas draw God and the world in opposite directions, both could not possibly flow together side by side ; the one tends to overcome the other, and seeks to absorb the other into itself. Where the movement to the Godhead stands in the THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 219 foreground, the world takes its flight more and more to the realm of night as is shown in mysticism ; where the movement proceeds mainly in the direction of the world, the idea of God evidently fades away until finally it becomes an empty word which trans- forms itself from pantheism to atheism. The develop- ment of modern life down to the brand-new monism of the present day points out this fact. Pantheism often dresses things with an indefinite glamour of the Divine, and deceives us as to the sharpness of the opposites of things. Often pantheism is no more than an echo of a real and energetic religion which has been transformed into a sickly sentimentalism — into the process of the dissolution of real religion. But in human existence the hardest inner contra- diction hinders in no way a true realisation and development of power, so that this remains an historical fact in spite of the poverty of pantheism. But pantheism has rendered the service of working against the humanising of the religious conceptions, and has cast its glance on the particular connections of things and on the presence of reason within the world, and especially it has opposed the egoism not only of the individual but of mankind, and also has held that reality is to be possessed not through words and doctrines but through the opening of a new life out of the Whole and Infinity. But its mistake consists in that it recognises the highest aim as already attained, and declares all divergence from such an aim as a mere appearance. This ready-made kind of reality, has precarious results in varied directions. If there is to be recognised as valid only such a ready-made reality, and if it is not 220 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION shown that the reason of things can only be attained through labour and struggle, then life transforms itself into a mere contemplation, and the reconciliation with reality lies then merely in a bare contemplation of an artistic or scientific kind. This point is, how- ever, reached at the cost of freedom and ethical handling, for both of which there is no place in such a position. At the same time, there arises an inclination which was made partially clear even at the start, that evil is to be considered trivial and to be glossed over; hence the danger of a quietistic optimism arises. Here, the whole of the Spiritual Life receives too much of a merely natural character ; it may be conceived as a restful substance and as a continuous process, but it does not appear so much as the freedom and the destiny of man. Thus such a course falls in its flight to the level of the mere- human, and becomes under the ban of purely natural conceptions — a position extremely difficult for the Spiritual Life to express its definiteness and depth. In reality, all this gliding of the Divine into the world tends in the direction of concealing the op- posites and of weakening the energy of movement. True, religion must also seek for the Divine in the world, but it can find it only when it has developed and stamped its impress over against the world ; for such is the only possible way to distinguish between reason and unreason, to drive out the enemy and to uplift the kinsman. It is characteristic of religion that the Divine world has another world by its side which somehow strikes its roots into the Divine, and which also presents the aim of its worship as an impetus out of its own energy, but which impetus, THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 221 attains to this aim not by its own energy, but only through being lifted up to it by the Divine world. In the primal phenomenon of religion a two-fold aspect is imbedded : the Absolute Life must be effective above and within the world ; the movement must proceed beyond the world and return to the world. It is this fact especially which gives religion its driving force, its incessant life from ever fresh sources. The two things are not separated one from the other, but are present the one thing with the other. Religion thus needs a continuous overcom- ing of the opposition of dualism and pantheism, each of which pursues only one of these opposites, and thus soon reaches a disastrous point of rigid repose. (7) Godhead and Man. — In connection with the problem of the relationship between the Godhead and man, there exists especially the danger of making them to move, within the realm of religion, outside of each other and to labour against each other. For if Divine and human action are brought into such an opposition to each other that the gain of the one signifies the loss of the other, all the freedom of man and all human activity become prejudicial to the all- power of the Divine, as well as to an unconditioned surrender of man ; and both of these are absolutely necessary for all religion. If such a one-sided course is adopted, religion will restrict freedom as much as possible up to complete annihilation ; indeed, this line of thought made all explicitly religious characters determinists in their consciousness. If consideration for the practice of life enforced a mitigation in these matters, and imposed the admission of a co-operation FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION on the part of man also, such behaviour was evidence rather of a practical cleverness than of a religious depth and logical conclusions. If, however, the con- sequences are thought out without any consideration for human opinion and individual feelings, determinism produces an apathy of each and all of our activities, it brings about a blight on all moral endeavour and introduces the most deadly enmity between morality and religion. Then, all redemption is supposed to lie in a fixed miracle ; a materialism threatens the substance of the religious life, since good is simply infused into us without being transformed into our own act. All this leads easily to an overstrain and an untruth ; when this track of thought is followed, it depicts man as impotent, depraved, and bad, in order to allow the Divine grace to shine aU the clearer against such a dark background of human existence. We have thus obtained the unfortunate doctrine of original sin which drew Christianity into Manichasism ; and thus we find that opinion of Luther that man does not so much acquire righteous- ness as that righteousness is imputed to him by faith. Such an opinion, if thought out, resolves the great struggle of the world into an appearance and a play. Such consequences — unavoidable and unbearable at the same time — reveal clearly a mistake in the fundamental direction of this line of thought. In the last resort, it is a mistaken, anthropomorphic, and inadequate course of thought for religion also, to attempt to heighten the conceptions of the greatness of the Godhead and of the Divine action through the debasement of man and his capacities. THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION This is in the end nothing other than the measurement of the Divine by the standard of man at his worst. In reality there is only one solution 'to the problem : the opposition of the Divine and the human has, in the main, to be abandoned, and the development of the one and the strengthening of the other at the same" time has to take its place. The freedom and the self-activity of man are not a withdrawal of the Divine power and the lessening of Divine grace, but they are the verification of these — the highest verifica- tion of all. Morality and religion do not strive for some other province, but, rightly understood, morality itself is the main proof of the fundamental fact of religion — of the presence of an Absolute Life. The fact that man is raised to a level of a definite Spiritual Life over against his own weaknesses and the contra- dictions of a boundless world, is the greatest of all miracles, for it carries within itself the power of a world above the world. How all this is possible, how freedom arises out of grace, and self-activity arises out of dependence — this primal phenomenon overflows all explanation. It has, as the fundamental condition of all Spiritual Life, a universal axiomatic character. This shows itself as no isolated problem, but is a higher stage of a more general problem, viz., how out of the connections of the world an individual nature of a psychic kind — a feeling and willing nature — has arisen, and has led its own life in opposition to all the environment ? If we were fortunate enough to solve this problem, we could then be ready to handle every other. But what remains a great riddle to speculation has been transformed into a religion by life through its 224 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION achievements. Also, even with the great determinists vpho possessed great natures, this truth has been verified. They were not inactive natures dependent merely on hope and tarrying, but even in the proclamation of their highest conceptions and in the shaping of their own inmost nature they were carried as if by a superior power, and became tools for the fulfilment of their most characteristic aims. The highest achievement of freedom carries within itself the strongest consciousness of dependence. Paul more than anyone has brought a determinism into Christianity, but at the same time he worked more than all his contemporaries. One needs only follow Augustine in his life-work in order to acknowledge him as one of the most active of personalities ; and Luther's energy needs no proclamation on the house- top. Further, in wider circles of activity, freedom and dependence can run together as is proved by that Calvinism, to which the entire conviction was present that all has been determined solely and directly by God ; and yet such a conviction became the strongest motive for the assertion of independence, and for the sprouting forth of the most fervent work. Thus a problem insoluble by the mind was solved by religion. The solution, however, must not remain confined to those personalities and epochs to whom the original welling-up life was strong enough to drive back and to render harmless all the errors of the psychical impulses and of conscious contentment. The solution must be recognised clearly, and must govern the universal configuration of religion. In all this the activity does not revolve around a struggle of bare THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL REIJGION 225 opinions, but around the content of life. Wherever antagonism between the Godhead and mankind remains in power, the hfe enters into a dilemma — into a vacillation to and fro between irreconcilable opposites. Either the dependence alone fills the conviction, and then all our activity appears as useless, and, indeed, as a blasphemy; thus religion becomes almost entirely passive and receives a gloomy, doleful, and unmanly character ; it becomes a danger to the freedom and the energy of life ; it easily engenders, in its turn towards pietism, a dejected and cowed character — a character of painful unver- acity wherein the man imagines that he is great in his nothingness, and so superior to another who seems to be conscious of his own powers. All this happens the more the man builds and confesses his feeling of detestableness of all he has. When, however, in the reaction against such a disposition of mind a fresh and frank courage of life arises — when the man holds fast the opposites, the previous danger is escaped, and the man feels, unfolds, and enjoys his own energy ; such a feeling heightens to a defiant self-consciousness and to the placing on one side of the Divine. The consequence is that culture thus takes a turn against religion, and treats it as a mere expression of weakness and as a refuge for sick souls. But all this leads rapidly to a reaction. The more such a development of culture wipes out from the contents of life every- thing absolute and all the problems of the Absolute, the more it extinguishes the gleam of the over- world which surrounds our existence. Then life, in spite of all its activities, becomes inwardly shallower and emptier, until at last it turns again home — turns in 15 226 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION search of a content, in search of a spiritual self- preservation within the domain of religion. If such a change for the worse in the realm of culture is to be viewed in our day, the more necessary- it behoves us to raise religion by means of the nature of its substance above this situation, in order that it may construct its superiority above the mere mentality of the day, and in order that eternal truth may be rightly held up against all the fluctuations and errors of human existence. {8) The Psychic Connections of Religion. — It is a main point in our method of investigation to differ- entiate clearly between the foundation of the spiritual contents in the characteristic connections of the spiritual world, and their stimulations in psychic existence ; or, in other words, to hold separate a noological and a psychological treatment. Thus the previous investigation of the religious problem needs a completion through the presence of the psychic motives which prepare and incline man for religion. The discovery of a pointed contradiction in our life — the strong contradiction between need and reality — constitutes the starting-point of all the turn towards religion ; for how could we in any other way come to strive so eagerly to reach beyond the province of that experience which threatens to break the connection of the world and the unity of our own existence ? This contrast is in the first place a fact of feeling. Feeling constructs the psychic starting-point of religion, but it remains certainly fundamentally different from the spiritual root of religion. But the observation of a contrast — the painful discovery of a contradiction — has an indis- THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 227 pensable hypothesis in spiritual things. Such a con- tradiction could not have entered into the life had not some kind of movement been ^ready awakened in us — some kind of impetus after a higher kind of happiness been kindled ; for purely external misfor- tunes produce no shock in the deepest recesses of the soul and engender no feeling of the real nature of the hindrance. We see often, however, on the political and social sides, the most stubborn evils and grievances enduring for a great length of time without engen- dering a feeling of pain, and without calling forth a strong indignation. The callousness is even so great that the external events pass over the soul without any reaction on its part ; and the immediate impres- sions do not link themselves together to form a Whole. But there is imbedded in the discovery of the contradiction some kind of longing after happiness : a positive need of life is the first thing found in the foundation, which drives life upon the track of religion. If such a need of life met with no hindrance, no kind of entanglement would arise ; if the opposition could be conquered, though not at once yet in the course of time through external circumstances, life and striving would be held fast by such external circumstances more than they would be raised above them. A breach can only take place when the opposition appears as insurmountable— insurmount- able for present and future, for achievement and for hope. Through such a situation the striving is either to discontinue as being quite hopeless, or it must open out new avenues of a complete transforming view of the world and of life. A closer investigation of that wherein the hindrance and the problem are 228 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION discovered shows how deep this inward revolution goes, and in what directions it carries the man. We see in the course of history itself more and more elements moving from the outward into the inward and thus deepening the inward itself. Although in the beginning all this might, have been the external entanglement which our own energy could not remove and which called for supernatural aid, yet soon the inward condition steps into the foreground and insists on a spiritual redemption. Also, it makes an important difference whether the entanglement is discovered in what a man thinks or in what he does ; whether the contradiction roots itself in an existence laid upon the man by a destiny which does not correspond with and even contradicts his inmost nature, or whether the hindrances belong to the soul itself and whether man can sanction his own striving and being in the attempts to remove them. In aU this the pain becomes violent, and the awakened soul is hurried along if the impressions and feelings remain unscattered but unite into a Whole of experience and judgment and work with the energy of a Whole ; and through this revelation of the nature of our life the whole level of our ordinary existence becomes insufficient and even intolerable. This judgment in its turn will reach its greatest resoluteness, and the situation of the soul will reach its greatest tension when the main ground of our malady is seen to consist not in that we can never reach worthy aims, and must always remain in a state of imperfection, but in that the very aims them- selves are now in doubt, in that they promise no definite happiness, and in that incessant courage and THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 229 work appear worthless. If, then, such aims do not suffice, what shall we hope for, and where shall we turn ? The crisis now comes to a full outburst ; the previous situation is seen through as untenable, and it now becomes necessary to go backward or forward. Either every striving after happiness and after the noblest things has to be viewed as a tragic error, and has to surrender itself to a total dissolution, or a great turn results, a new point of departure is won for the life, and a new world is discovered. All attempts to weaken this Either-Or lead to sickly compromises, to the deadness of the feelings, and to the one-sidedness of. life itself. But through such a turn to his inmost nature, there originates in man a decisive struggle concerning Being and non-being. Often enough has the negation conquered with innumerable individuals, with whole times and epochs, and has gained the overhand in the particular province of religion as is shown so evidently in Buddhism. But it has not always conquered, for the affirmation, too, has become a world-power, and it is this affirmation which preserves rightly human life and effort. The point where such a decision falls on the individual — and it is this fact which occupies us here — lies largely on the other side of the province of "grounds" and aims, and there appears in its existence something axiomatic, original, and elevated. The decision occupies itself with the question as to whether an impetus of life is to awaken — an impetus that no upheaval can destroy, and which shows that, with all the surrender of the natural self and all the overthrow of prior happiness. 230 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION something remains in man — something he cannot destroy. It cannot be destroyed because man ac- knowledges it not as a special possession of his own but as the inward presence of a new world which makes itself felt and efficacious in the greatest catas- trophes of life, and indeed, is able to grow on account of these. Through such a turn the presence and mystery of the suffering itself become the beginning of an elevation beyond it. Thus we discover the co-operation of two factors in what leads man to religion, and in what exercises a power over his soul, viz., a deeper discovery of the hindrances of the world, and an iron energy over against the hindrances right up to the achievement of a new world. We saw how the discovery of the actual situation could not have been made without some kind of a stirring existence of the inward energy. And it is this stirring existence which drives the energy beyond its natural initial stage, stimulates it to a progressive depth, and furthers the physical tension of life into a metaphysical tension. The whole of this is a movement of life all along the line through difficult hindrances ; it is the assertion, and, at the same time, the transformation of a Yea in the midst of the strongest negation. Indeed, it is the holding fast of a Yea in the Nay ; it is an ascent of the nature whose freshness and truth can only be asserted when both sides are held forth and ever anew are experienced. Thus there is set forth a dialectic not of ideas but of life — a focusing of deep experience and manly energy and a puri- fication of one through the other, an ever-freer elevation above the antithesis of bare natural energy THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 231 and effeminate weakness, and finally the dawning of a heroism of the most inward kind^ All this sets a world against a world, and out of the catastrophe itself a new life is born. (e) The Characteristic Features of the Religion of the Spiritual Life. — Religion does not deal with the conservation of man as mere man, but with the con- servation of the Spiritual Life in man ; for in con- nection with religion there stands in question the winning of a definite Spiritual Life ; and religion must set forth in a characteristic manner the parti- cular features of such a life as well as its total- view. In connection with these particular features we must present at least some of them. 1. Where religion is directed upon the winning of a new and elevated life superior to all human impulses, its sublimity must contend with special energy for a province beyond all human interests and parties. Religion is never mixed in a Yea or a Nay with political or social problems. Religion has nothing whatever to do as to whether monarchy or republic, individualistic or socialistic presentation of economic relation, is the better condition of things ; and he who draws religion into these spheres, even if he is of the opinion that one of them is useful for humanity, will find an opponent who thinks quite as strongly in a contrary direction. No less injurious it is to handle religion in the interests of a political or social radicalism, or to defame it in the interests of the privileged classes. How deplorably would one think of the nature of man if religion meant no more than this, and how little would man think of himself if the abandonment of spirituality and, along with 232 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OP UNIVERSAL RELIGION this, the abandonment of the content and meaning of his own life come about so easily ! 2. We have already shown how the Spiritual Life with its construction of a discovered reality within itself goes behind the psychic form of life with all its ramifications, and how it has transformed the whole province, in so far as such a province had connections with such a life, into a mere appearance. Wherever the eclipse of this truth happens, there is called forth difficult entanglements and passionate discords which affect deeply the configuration of religion. Thus, the old-rooted intellectualism turns the great- ness of religion into a hybrid of many colours. Religion should be a fact of the whole man and of his own decision, but may, however, fail to possess more than a purely intellectual character. Through this, the main fact of religion is stunted in its growth, and conscience and conviction are oppressed. This appears most of all in the conception of belief The welfare of the soul can never link itself to belief unless that belief means more than an authoritatively trans- mitted doctrine, and unless the man in the inmost substance of his soul stretches forth towards the belief. The ecclesiastical form of religion has suc- ceeded but little in working out this connection of belief, and is unable to succeed on account of its ad- mixture of the substance and the existence-form of the Spiritual Life. The Divine Life in its possession by man transforms itself unfortunately into a doctrine — a doctrine of the redemption of the soul and of " last things," but still a doctrine ; the more such a doctrine surmounts reason and even contradicts reason, the greater seems the sacrifice of the power of affirma- THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 233 tion and of the heroism of the character. Now, heroism certainly belongs to religion — more heroism, indeed, than belongs to any other fact in the world — ■ but this heroism must set itself in the right position, for otherwise the valour becomes a caprice and the consolidation becomes a torpor. The heroism is not brought about through any kind of doctrine which constructs the obje3t of life, but through the presence of an Absolute Life in our own nature ; then, belief is no mere agreement with any doctrine, but there is imbedded in it an ascent of the whole existence of our nature, a longing for the heights, and a pro- gressive certainty of such heights out of the energy of the Divine Life. Thus, belief in its foundation rests upon one thing alone, but that one thing is the kernel of a new world. At the same time, belief is naturally a source of new convictions, but these con- victions will not be developed without arranging themselves with the general position of the Spiritual Life and without utilising the experiences of life. Such a character of belief alone makes it clear how its counterpart — doubt — can play such a great part in religion as in reality it does. So long as belief rests upon bare doctrine, it remains undiscoverable how doubt agitates so strongly the soul, and how it can shatter so deeply the life. We have seen, how- ever, how in ancient times that, when the religious problem stood in the background of the Spiritual Life, doubt and scepticism were recommended by clever men as the best remedies for the comfort of the soul. On that account Christianity has become something quite other, because, through the relation- ship to God, the gain of a new nature — the salvation 234 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION of the threatened soul — became the great quest. But if the matter deals with the question concerning spiritual existence or its non-existence, the strength of doubt leads quickly to despair. The shrinkage be- comes so painful and the coercion so intolerable when orthodoxy places doctrine between us and life, and decides as to the place of church dogmas in connec- tion with the welfare and salvation of man. A. fundamental driving out of intellectualism in this and in other religious conceptions, as, for example, in the ordinary conception of revelation, is necessary in the urgent need of religion. But such a conquest will only take place through the recognition of the truth-elements of intellectualism, especially in its desire after a world of thought ; it will not take place through placing ourselves in an entirely contrary position to the world of thought, or through attempt- ing to found religion upon bare feeling or will. For if the conquest has the conjecture, that it is only reachable simply through the setting-up of a contrary valid doctrine, it is easy to see, on the other hand, that bare feeling or will yields a spiritual substance quite as little as bare knowledge. Strong subjective feelings and strong subjective acts of wiU may con- tain but very little spiritual substance. The appear- ance of a success only is reached in such a manner, for, often unobserved, something becomes a spurious image of something deeper, more essential, and more substantial, and which makes its appearance as feel- ing or will, but which does not reach the higher stage of a feeling or willing entity. What brings the opposition of intellectualism and voluntarism to ruins are the problems within the Spiritual Life ; these THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 2S5 problems handle the different sides and tasks of life which on the surface are at variance with one another and play against one another, whilst in reality they depend on one another and belong to an encompass- ing Whole. If something did lie beneath and pro- ceed out of all the " isms," we could say that Noeti- cism ^ alone is able to found securely religion, and it is out of this noetic synthesis that the struggle against the discord begins. 3. We have seen that religion has to do with the whole of life, and that it pledges to uplift this whole ; therefore it does more than construct a special province over against the remaining portions of life ; it must strike its effects in all directions, and it works less directly upon the particular provinces than upon the transformation of the total-life. All the direct effects of religion, as, for example, upon science, art, the state, have grave dangers and lead easily to coercion and contraction, and are rightly rejected. But it is a fundamental mistake, when such direct actions are rejected, to reject the indirect actions as well. Since religion transforms the whole man, it will also change, through its ramifications into the whole nature, problems into energies, and aims into points of attack. But such changes do not occur through any arbitrary command from the outside, but through a tranquil — and, certainly, a mighty — effect from within without. Conceived of in its univer- 1 The Substantive " Noeticism '' is not found in English Philosophy. The terms " noetic synthesis " and " noetic conscious- ness " are found, but in a somewhat different sense. Cf. Stout's Analytic Psychology, vol. ii. ch. v. ; Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, vol. ii. pp. 443-445, where he deals with Cudworth's "intelligible ideas" (vo?//x,aTa). — Translator. 236 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION sality (although this universality does not form the final conclusions of religion) religion needs no special organisation, but is able through an invisible sway to penetrate through the whole work of life. Indeed, the deeper it works, the less it steps into publicity, and the more it signifies nothing other than the tranquil and yet powerful soul of the whole. Thus in the great souls whose convictions were filled with such a universal nature of religion, the incomprehen- siveness and the inscrutableness of the Highest Essence do not discourage and lower the pressure of such souls, but work in a gravitating and elevating direction. Thus, we find the deep-religious Plato stating that it is difficult to know God, and impos- sible to communicate in an entire manner with Him ; and also Goethe states that a man hardly confesses his belief in a Divine Nature without at the same time confessing the inscrutableness of the Divine Nature. But still in conformity with this, all the conceptions of religion must carry the character of universality ; they must extend themselves over the whole life and, through this, fasten together and strengthen what does not proceed to a full development in the isola- tion of the various elements of life. Human life, right down to the abyss of pain and sin, is full of testimonies of a superhuman Divine life which in manifold ways appears as an elevation above all smallness, as an illumination of the darkness, and as a dawning of love and mercy in the midst of all egotistic instincts and impulses. Religion must gather together, through the energy of its universal nature, such external and scattered effects, and understand and revere them as parts of a more general THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 237 life. Such universal religion does not exclude a turning to characteristic religion ; but if religion is to extend its power over the wliole of life, its values must possess an all-comprehensiveness and an omnipresence. This is shown, for example, in the idea of sacrifice. Sacrifice is a supremely important conception in religion, since only by its acceptance does religion attain to full seriousness. For without a funda- mental renunciation, and indeed, without a seeming coUapse, there is no secure ascent to a new summit — no attainment of a real life. But let not sacrifice be limited by religion to specific religious perform- ances, but let religion reveal it as present through- out life, and let it weld together and inwardly raise all this sacrifice. As the energy of love is measured in human circles by the greatness of the sacrifice it is capable of bringing forth, so there is no genuine movement towards truth without denial and renun- ciation — without an indwelling sacrifice. But in the survey of the whole it becomes clear that sacrifice does not restrict itself to the surrender of this or that good, but demands nothing less than the whole natural impulses of life. When religion works in such a manner that we are made to see and to experience the Whole in the parts, the great in the small, it works therewith for the puri- fication and sanctification of life right down to its most insignificant details. It is similar with the conception of faith. Faith which the customary mode of religion confines far too much within an isolated province, and which it conceives in far too intellectualistic a manner, 238 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION extends, in reality, its strengthening and elevating energy to the whole range of life. Faith, accord- ing to the customary teaching of religion, has for its object something invisible and seemingly im- possible. Where, however, was there a progressive striving in spiritual things which did not, at the first glance, appear impossible, and which did not trust in the inner ability of being lifted up and in the possibility of creating a new man? How, without this, would any kind of scientific or aesthetic creativeness of an elevated kind be con- ceivable? How any confiding love? How any joyous action for man's purification in spite of all the appearances and all the meanness of shallow experience ? And, again, all faith has the character- istic that we cannot become its possessors through the might and main of our own labours, but that it rather devolves upon us as a favour, and must be offered to us as a free gift. This is so, not only with faith in another, but also with faith in our- selves, in our tasks, and in our life-work. Nowhere do we enter into genuine work and creativeness without a conviction of an axiomatic character, which refuses to be analysed into reasons and which, indeed, precedes all such reasons. What, however, is desired at the single points, and is there affirmed, though often unconsciously and unwillingly, gains a clear light only in its integration into a Whole, and through the recognition of the inner presence of an infinite energy from which an indestructible trust and an unbounded ability of ascent can pro- ceed. Again, it is religion which has to raise to the power and clearness of a principle what indeed THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 239 now penetrates the whole of hfe, but which there, in the breadth of Hfe, remains manifoldly scattered and obscured. Thus, while religioh integrates and brings into activity as a whole whatever of noble and elevating force lies hidden in our lives, it effects a transfiguration of life without denying its dark side ; it shows the Divine in the things nearest at hand without idealising falsely the ordinary situation of life. 4. This integrating energy would prepare many a danger for religion did there not stand by its side an energy of discrimination ; and such a dis- criminating energy is developed by religion even of the general kind which occupies us here. For as certainly as religion aims at the whole of the Spiritual Life, does it desire such a life in its full purity, but it is able to do this only through an energetic discrimination in the human situation be- tween genuine spirituality and its mere semblance. Because religion dives into a substantial Spiritual Life and constructs its nature from the Life-process, it will exclude much as being adulterated, but wiU find more depth in what it approves as genuine ; and it will raise the genuine out of its isolation to a union, out of its chaos to a cosmos, and out of its merely parasitical quality to a characteristic act and full possession of the spirit. But a hard struggle has to take place in order to carry through a true Spiritual Life against that semi-spirituality which satisfies the ordinary situation of human life, and which treacherously makes man feel com- fortable. This is nothing less than a struggle for reality against appearance, a struggle for a true 240 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION spiritual culture over against a merely human cul- ture. True, the amount of life, now restricted to its genuine constituents, is thus greatly reduced ; but in what remains incomparably more is seen. There arises now a hard conflict with the customary mode of thought, especially because this mode of thought attributes spirituality, and with it greatness and dignity, to its forms of life, as though they were the latter's natural properties, whereas religion already clearly shows that only a certain kernel of spirituality, or a movement towards spirituality, is present from the first, and that these have to attain to more by a hard struggle. But, at the same time, a new order of things and the presence of a new world appear in the Spiritual Life. Man, indeed, is not, with the whole of his existence, straight-away a per- sonality ; there only lies implanted in him a power to become a personality — a power over against a nature of a very different kind, and which has to win its way through such a nature. But this becoming a personality is now recognised as an emancipation from all existential tiedness to an external point and an elevation to a self-life of a universal kind. Morality signifies now not a quality pertaining to man as a natural being, since what the ordinary life manifests in the way of social instincts and of occasional sym- pathy forms, at the most, no more than a step preliminary to morality and can be ranked without hesitation as a mere continuation of the animal level. Genuine morality arises not earlier than at the stage of the Spiritual Life, and it is a matter of dispute how much or how little of this we meet in human life by itself; but, much or little, morality appears in our THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 241 domain, and along with it there appears a kingdom of a superior kind. So that the man in the transforma- tion may lose some of the experiences of the natural level, but certainly man's nature has gained in depth and breadth through such a transformation, Man has been well termed an " historical nature," but most of what is termed his history differentiates itself too little from what is found in the changes and deposits of nature. History, in the distinctive human and mental sense it is taken, never originates through the bare succession of time, but throughout in the sense that something is held fast, experienced, and its nature brought into an inner connection. However, such a feat can happen only through the presence of a standard superior to time, which creates the effect of an order of things above time. But with such elevation history transforms itself from being a mere fact to being a difficult task. And the matter does not stand otherwise in connection with the problem of society. Society, too, in the dis- tinctive human and mental sense, is not any ready- made thing, but has to be evolved, and to it belongs an inner unity of life — a total-hfe. Little enough of this finds its way to our experience, but the little that does find its way refers back to an order of things superior to nature and its scattered elements. There is thus imbedded universally in human life something deeper, although it may appear first of all only in the faintest manner, and it is religfon which raises up, binds, and energises this deeper quality. Thus, religion performs universally a dissection of human life, sets the life, through the working out of its deep, in an enormous movement, and calls it 16 242 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION to an immense struggle. Religion, in all this, is very- far from explaining life as being on its natural plane something superior or even tolerable ; far more through its elevation religion casts a gloom over the provinces of life with all their hindrance and shallowness ; but in all this natural opposition to religion, religion cannot be destroyed, for the presence of an Absolute Life verifies a fixed nucleus and the certainty of a conquest. Thus religion stands beyond the opposites of opti- mism and pessimism, for it is able to acknowledge the total fulness of wrong without forfeiting the joy of belief or even without diminishing it. Indeed, religion has, especially in tattered and dejected times, won the hearts of men. The clear call of an Absolute Life must bring the wide differences of our exist- ence to consciousness and, along with this, work for the heightening of the suffering. The contradictions of our existence appear, when the situation is seen as it really is, far too pointed, and the unreason far too powerful to be veiled by an optimistic mood. But the strongest discovery of the contradictions and their agony cannot create a hopeless pessimism, but it is first and foremost the appearance of a new world — the presence of an Infinite Life — which makes our ordinary existence inadequate. This twofold aspect gives the total effect of religion a twofold character. On the one side, it means a loosening, a freeing, a redemption from the old world ; and on the other side, an elevation into a new one. A uniform development and an incessant reciprocal action of both sides do not take place if the life is coerced and is morose, or if it considers the main fact in a superficial manner. THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 243 Also, inasmuch as religion appears as a kingdom of continuous development — as that which constructs the fundamental facts on their Di^ne side, and as that which is present in the inmost depth of the human soul — it has to be won ever anew in human life, and ever anew it has to be sought, struggled for, and perfected. Thus the fact becomes a task ; the possession becomes a problem ; and with the varied differences of the points of departure, the one and same life can include certainty and doubt, calm and tempest, bliss and sorrow. Thus, through and through, religion proves itself a kingdom of opposites. When it steps out of such opposites, it destroys without a doubt the turbid evanescence of ordinary commonplace life, and separ- ates clearly the lights and shadows from one another. It sets our life between the sharpest contrasts, and engenders the most powerful feelings and the most mighty movements ; it shows the dark abyss in our nature, but also shows illumined peaks ; it opens out infinite tasks, and brings to an awakening ever a new life in its movement against the ordinary self. It does not render our existence lighter, but it makes it richer, more eventful, and greater ; it enables man to experience cosmic problems within his own soul in order to struggle for a new world, and, indeed, in order to gain such a genuine world as his own existence. 3. The Proof and Confirmation of Religion (a) Religion and Science. — We have hitherto followed the main lines of our investigation without viewing the side-paths, and without discovering the 244 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION relationship of our material to the remaining world of thought as that world is represented by science. It is impossible for us to withdraw entirely from this task and to pass silently by the facts which, at all times, have come to the surface in connection with religion, and which have discovered a concealed con- tradiction. And this they have done often in no spirit of light-hearted jest, but in deep seriousness ; for the facts of science have struggled against religion because science considered that religion was a fal- sification of reality and a disfigurement of life. Science and religion often appear as sworn enemies ; each develops a truth out of its own province, and each can present only its own truth ; each traces out an image of reality, and these images seem to ex- clude one another. The one seizes special experiences of humanity, and indicates from this point as its ruling centre all the spaciousness of the All. The other holds itself fast to a Whole, and interprets out of this all the content of human life. Religion is inclined to reduce science to a soulless sphere ; whilst science easily interprets religion as anthropo- morphism — as an illegitimate inner mirroring of the reality through human presentations and interests. The attained objectivity of science appears to religion as cold and unfeeling ; whilst the particular inward- ness of life appears to science as subjective exaggera- tion and fancy. Religion does not believe itself able to guard its independence without the creation of a knowing-organ in belief, and even with this it meets with the hardest contradiction, and falls often within its own province to the boundary between knowledge and belief where all kinds of entanglements prevail. THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 245 The adherents of religion are at variance themselves ; some draw the ideal word of religion quite close to knowledge, whilst others separate most pointedly knowledge and belief. Thus the struggle surges hither and thither through the centuries and the millenniums, but each situation is not well understood without the historical connections. The defence of religion to-day stands under the power of the rebound from the intellectualism which had checked the ideal world of religion for a long time. From the beginning, the doctrine of the Christian Church was interweaved strongly with intellectualism ; in the Middle Ages the intellect served less as a foundation than as a check, and, in the period of the Aufkldrung, science disen- gaged itself from all external authority and believed itself able to develop the Spiritual Life as well as religion out of itself, and speculation heightened and ennobled such an undertaking. Now, at least in the opinion of our day, speculation has collapsed, and the insufficiency of intellectualism has appeared with piercing clearness ; we not only mistrust the ability of the applied intellect, but it seems to us to rob us as well of a religion of true immediacy and inspiration. Therefore we posit ourselves entirely on the other side, and in the founding of religion put the intellect in a secondary place, and even partially disconnect it. Thus we obtain the turn to feeling — to the explana- tion of religion as merely an aiFair of " personal " life, and to the attempt to derive the religious content from judgments of values, etc. Such a course appears natural enough, and has some amount of truth in its favour ; but it is afflicted with a strong one-sidedness, and aims to accommodate itself to such a retrogression. 246 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION Religion in reality dare not isolate itself from the universal world of ideas. It dare not do this for its own sake. Its vocation throughout is essentially and indispensably to bring forth the final and all- encompassing truth ; and it cannot possibly be one thing by the side of other things, for it must be the soul of the Whole. But how could religion verify itself as such without occupying itself in a funda- mental manner with the total- world of ideas ? Unless it does this, not only does its truth remain set in painful doubt, but through such an isolation the danger menaces its content ; and thus the con- tent is unable to free itself sufficiently from the petty- human mode and from selfishness ; for in the midst of all the waves and bubblings of feeling, and in the midst of all the agitation of the individual, the con- tent wins too little of a spiritual substance, and, con- sequently, exercises too little transforming energy on the whole human situation. Such a substance is attainable only in the wrestling from a Whole to a Whole. Religion, however, undertakes this feat, and, consequently, comes to some kind of agreement with science concerning the Yea and the Nay of things. Whether such an agreement is possible depends before all on a more correct wording of the meaning of science and religion. Such a meaning alone can decide whether what appeared at the first glance an irreconcilable conflict can be brought to a happy settlement. Let us see first of all what the religion of the Spiritual Life for which we contend signifies concerning the whole of reality, in order that we may try to discover the method of proof. Here, an THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION Ml independent Spiritual Life superior to the world is asserted as the ground and kernel of all reality. The Spiritual Life can be autonomous only as a total- life — as an inner connection ; but the superiority to the world reaches the level of self-reliance not after the event of becoming superior to the world, but, according to the whole of our investigation, this self-reliance carries such a superiority in itself, and proves it through its own development over against a very different kind of world. This Absolute Spiritual Life signifies not an isolated province, but wills to be the foundation and the apex of all reality. But this cannot be asserted without relegating nature, and, most of all, the near ordinary existence, to a subsidiary world — to a lower level. There is no religion without an analysis of the reality and with- out stepping beyond bare nature, for an immanent religion can announce and command only a painful weakness and a halfness of thought. But through such a turn as we have already seen the whole reality gains an inner connection and a depth. Even the movement of our world appears, at least in its decisive phases, not as a simple development of the higher out of the lower, but as a further driving-power out of the Whole of the All. Through such a turn to the world, religion unavoidably meets science, and the meeting of the two becomes quite early a collision. Religion not only holds certain assertions over against those of science, but works for their promulgation, furthers the treatment of the world-problem, and thus gets itself saturated with the efforts and objections of science. Religion is an irreconcilable enemy of the naturalism which sets up nature as the whole of 248 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION reality, and which treats the spiritual world as a bare epiphenomenon ; it is, too, an enemy of the history which is unable to overcome the mere flux of time, and consequently unable to climb above the relativity of the scientific view to an eternal and absolute truth ; and it is finally an enemy of the psychology which resolves the life of the soul into elements of the lowest common denominator, and which thus is not able to bring forth an independent Spiritual Life. In its connection with all these, religion develops a thorough-going affirmation, and, indeed, an aggressive character ; it prescribes, with a strong decision, a definite track for thought and life ; and he who seeks with special zeal to weaken the fact that religion itself is able to sustain a joyous and friendly disposition towards the most varied expressions of thought, shows a dimness of his own mind and a weakness of his own character. No energetic Yea without a decisive Nay must hold valid, especially for religion with its assertion of the final kernel and meaning of reality. Religion is intolerant, and must be intoler- ant, not against men — for every man is an infinity, and thus far supersedes all forms and confessions — but against a shallow course of thought and the hoUow- ness of its egotistical nature. Upon what, then, does religion — meeting with so many high demands — " ground " its own rights, and by what means does it verify its own truth ? It deals with a unique fundamental truth, viz. with the reality of an Absolute Spiritual Life within our own circle. Evidently such a Life does not allow itself to be born out of individual data, whether of nature or of history ; it does not allow itself to be evolved out THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 249 of the natural world. It is only within the Life- process itself, as its own foundation and further development, that it may be brought forth. Con- sequently, it deals not so much with the seeking for new things as with the discovering of the new in the things we already know ; it deals not so much with ready-made results, but with the plunging into the existing movement of a current ; it aims not at dis- covering a world already existing merely by the side of our present world, but at securing for itself the depth of the reality which will compel our present world to sink to a secondary level. The decisive thing in connection with all this is the advance of life itself. The act must precede the proof ; the reality of the representative act transmits the main proof of religion. Individual propositions or performances are not alone here in question, but the possession of the Spiritual Life as a Whole, as in- dependent, as superior to the world, and as our adopted situation in such a life. What is it now that drives the man hither ? Nothing other than an acknowledgment of the Spiritual Life as his own nature, and the placing of the centre of gravity of his life and existence in this. As soon as this happens, and as soon as we possess an inward relationship to the world and to ourselves, the man can do no other than bind together the Spiritual Life as a Whole and as a self-reliant life ; and thus he is bound to reach an inwardness which will make clear the contrasts of life as well as his own superiority over against the environing world. The decisive main proof is and remains in the fact that an autonomous Spiritual Life arises in man and humanity, and that we are 250 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION able to discover our deepest being and construct our new world through a process of selection and rejec- tion as participators in such a Life. This proof, however, needs no minute adjustment, for it enters into every soul in the form of immediacy whenever such a soul struggles to step out of the bondage of the world, struggles to create its own laws of ascent, and to enter into its true personal life. Through this the life gains an absolute certainty. Next to this in importance stands the fact that the corroboration results through the demonstration that the Spiritual Life is barren in its ramifications unless it roots itself as a Whole in an Absolute Life ; for there is neither art nor science, neither right nor morality, possible without the fundamental truth which comes to expression in religion. The Spiritual Life is not a Whole in its ordinary existence, but is a Whole only as an elevated arrangement of the things which present themselves within and without. But when it is not a Whole, it inevitably breaks in pieces in the isolated positions of life. Such a state of affairs concerning the Spiritual Life is a testimony to the truth of religion. We are able to give up religion, but we must give up at the same time our Spiritual Life, the spiritual character of our existence, and our spiritual individuality. But is anybody able to abandon religion so completely as all this ? Such a condition of things makes it impossible to win anyone through the mere intellect to religion, for the problem lies deeper, and the mode of in- tellectual activity — right down to the heart of the problem — depends on the total Life-process. He who places himself in the position of a mere spectator THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 251 of the great world and accepts his life as an assigned kind of fate, he who undertakes no struggle concerning a " becoming " independence and concerning an in- ward relationship to things, cannot take into himself the Whole with all its problems, cannot possess a participation in a cosmic life, and is not able to carry forward the energetic movement of religion. But he who has discovered an inner relationship with the world and with his own self, he who is held fast by the inner movement of life and is led to an inner union with reality, obtains a new insight of reality and becomes fully certain of the truth of this reality — far more certain than of the axioms of the sciences. For with such axioms the matter deals with detached portions of life and of the work of thought ; but in religion the dealing is concerning the vindication of life as a Whole. Nowhere more than here does the movement itself prove the reality of the hypothesis from which it issues. Through such a consolidation in the deepest "ground" of life, religion can confidently look forward to an understanding with science. This is certainly not so simple as it seems, for we witness often to-day a pointed dualistic mode of thought. This mode of thought believes itself able to solve the problem after a fashion, but rather far more shuns it, and it presents us with a notion that science concerns itself solely with the world of experience, and, along with this, that it has to contract itself into a mere relative knowledge. From this point of view religion is supposed to deal with final " grounds " and " ends" alone ; thus both spheres of science and religion fall entirely outside one another, and only an entangle- 252 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION ment can issue in any attempt to bring both nearer to one another. Either science transforms its empirical constructions into metaphysical constructions, as has actually happened ^vith our speculative scientific investigations, or, on the other hand, religion touches the province of science. All this contains much that is true, but it does not exhaust the facts. Science is not a summation of rules, but it develops a characteristic course of thought, and this course of thought can very well come into conflict with religion, or rather, with religion of a special historical kind. Religion, however, cannot explain the standard which it accepts and to which it brings its proofs without coming to a settlement with the whole of science. This problem receives a driving-power especially through history. The traditional kind of religion and also of Christianity has grown in intimate connection with a view of the world which has been destroyed by modern investigation. Indeed, as was shown in the introductory part of this book, it is not only destroyed in individual places but in its whole mode of thought. The older mode of thought appears to modern investigation as a thorough anthropomor- phism — as a transmission of human greatness into the environing world. Modern science, through its discovery of inflexible laws and through the causal restriction of all phenomena, has rendered the old view impossible ; it has driven the soul out of such a view of the world and threatens to do the same in the province of religion. Thus positivism especially, with its three stages of religious, metaphysical, and positive thought, formulates such a plan, and attempts THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 253 to place religion on one side as a childish stage of human development which has no right whatever in our day. Can we deny that such a view reaches, too, far beyond the special circle of positivism, and that a great deal of the mental atmosphere of our day views religion as a stage on the road to be passed over by the general movement of humanity and its new view of the world ? Now, the protest has to be made that religion, in its inmost nature, is not a view of the world but the evolution of a new life — an ascent to a new stage of reality. But such a new life carries convictions in itself of the whole of reality, and these convictions, together with the whole of the standard, must somehow be scientifically vindicated against such a positivistic course of thought. Such a vindication is really to be found, and it is a vindi- cation which makes clear that it itself marches in front against the pettiness in human nature ; it is a vindication that the development of the physical and mental sciences, viewed from within, signifies the conclusions of mental constructions ; and, finally, it vindicates that if something is lost on the one side, something of incomparably greater value is won on the other side. Philosophy shows us that reality does not exist merely at hand for us ; it exists only in so far as it becomes our own experience. Philosophy also shows that a scientific and mental configuration is not reached unless a new outline of reahty is traced out in the Whole ; and shows that a new foundation is won only when there has resulted a new conclusion of the manifold in accordance with the laws of the mind. Thus nature becomes a mental occurrence 254 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION and a subject of scientific work only in so far as it touches us with individual impressions not merely from the outside, and only when these impressions are fastened together into a total- view ; and such can happen only from within through our mental organ- isation. History in the human and mental sense, as has so often been shown, originates in no way through a mere succession of events and an accumulation of effects, but only when a superior standard experiences, comprehends, and values the phenomena through a separation of the essential from the non-essential. Our own life of the soul could not be surveyed and brought to a unity did we not in the kernel of our nature stand above the bare co-existence of acts, and had not this co-existence a background for itself. In all this an inwardness of a mental and spiritual kind develops itself, which is all along the line different from the merely subjective nature. The subjective nature remains under the power of the opposites of subject and object, but the mental and spiritual nature seeks to overcome this opposition through a supreme formation of reality. The former adapts itself to the mere-human ; the latter adapts itself to the Spiritual Life, and through it alone can man possess an elevated self-life. Evidently such a turn from the naive situation of life is no mere natural growth but an inverted order of things, and this naive situation of life appears now a kind of Ptolemaic conduct of life ; for, instead of viewing life from without within, it is now viewed from within without. In all this there is a vindication of a standard of an independent Spiritual Life, as is represented and THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 255 made a main fact by religion ; and again, religious history appears in a new light. True, the early anthropomorphic forms get more and more dissolved, but in their place a spiritual form is gained and the movement to the spiritualising of religion is not imposed from without, but arises mainly from religion's own inward longing after truth. Thus, religion proceeds from external observances to inner religious- ness, from the self-conservation of the natural man to a salvation of spiritual values and a redemption of the soul, from a duty towards isolated aspects of the Spiritual Life to the raising of such a Life as a Whole. The positivistic mode of thought sees in this the loss and not the gain ; it fails to see the rise of a spiritual inwardness over against a subjective one, because such a mode of thought directs its attention to external results and not to inward experiences, and because, over its dealings with the results of the Spiritual Life, it forgets the Spiritual Life itself The logical conclusion of such a mode of thought is to resolve man into a mere machine — a complicated reckoning-machine — and such machines can be constructed. Only the mystery would remain, how such a machine could produce the great revolution from a naive to a scientific, and from a natural to a spiritual, condition of life. So far, however, as science works out the central phenomenon of the Spiritual Life, and illumines the world from such a standpoint, it becomes speculation. Thus, religion cannot lack such speculation for its own scientific development. But speculation needs religion still more substantially. For the aim of specu- 256 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION lation is futile from its very foundation, and becomes a vain assumption, unless there exists a hope of finding, in contrast with merely human presentations, a universally-valid thought. But how could such a thought be possible without the immanence of an Absolute Life in our circle ? So that from of old religion and speculation have been in close contact ; in all speculation a religious element is easily to be discovered ; and religion lost in breadth and depth whenever it placed all speculation on one side. True, with the divergence in their starting-points, quarrels were not wanting, but they were quarrels between friends who, in all their differences, strove for a final mutual understanding, and who could not do without each other. Speculation and religion presuppose an inner movement of life ; this movement cannot be forced upon anyone, but it can be shown that, without it, no Spiritual Life in the Whole and no genuine spirituality are possible. The words of Plotinus are valid in connection with all this : " The hoctrine reaches as far as the road and its course ; but the intuition is the possession of him alone who chooses to see." (/8) General Considerations. — If religion first and foremost deals with the inward ascent of life to a Whole — with our apprehension of the Spiritual Life as our real self— then the inward inertness of man consti- tutes the strongest resistance and the most stubborn hindrance experienced by religion. Such inertness is satisfied with scattered fragments of life ; it remains in a mere external relationship to reality, and undertakes no struggle for its appropriation. Accordingly, in a time of predominant expansion as is the present, it THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 257 is easy to understand how religion may often appear as a tissue of illusions ; with the absence of a move- ment to a Whole, the opposite o^nion would be surprising. But this inner inertness of life would never have stepped forth with such self-com- placency and made a virtue out of the calamity unless there went hand in hand with it a great con- fusion of thought, which believed in the possibility of solving the essential spiritual problems without a movement to the Whole, and hence without religion. It is remarkable how often men here turn against religion that which, without the independence and superiority of the Spiritual Life, as championed by rehgion, becomes simply untenable. Thus, morality is often supposed to serve as a substitute for religion, although a morality without a new world would be more inconceivable than religion itself; thus, one flutters to and fro towards an " enthusiasm for humanity" without giving the term "humanity" any kind of spiritual content ; thus, one appeals to the immediacy of personality and of personal life as if personality could have a meaning and value without the awakening of a new world at this particular spot. Personality is either an empty and mislead- ing term or a confession of a world of independent spirituality. The Either- Or truly present here — independent spirituality or no spirituality— may veil itself from us for a long time, because we live in a spiritual atmo- sphere which has developed under the mighty influence of religion. For by means of this atmosphere the contention hostile to religion gets unperceivedly sup- plemented, and thus those formations existing in our 17 258 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION midst are credited as such with what only the original energy of the Whole is able to accompUsh. There arises thus the appearance as though it were possible to retain in the subject and the consequence what has been given up in the substance and the foundation, and as though the mere man were able to accomplish what man can achieve only within spiritual connec- tions. Such a mode of life may even appear, in the beginning, as a gain in freedom, freshness, and immediacy. But this can proceed only for a time, for life itself will engender a reaction. For the more those survivals from the older formations of life are driven out, the more all inward connections slip away, until the man finally stands on nothing broader than his own subjectivity ; thus the move- ment breaks up more and more, and the life becomes emptier inwardly and as a whole, and more and more individuals set themselves at variance with each other, and the scene becomes a Babylonian confusion of tongues. Evidences of all this are sufficiently at hand, but in the meantime the struggle against religion and substantial spirituality may appear still as a pleasant occupation and, indeed, as a struggle for freedom. After this comes the reaction, and brings new dispositions and strivings into the life of humanity — perhaps it happens through painful up- heavals — and then our problem enters into a new phase of universal history. For the history of the world is mostly wont to prove things in such an indirect manner as this. In the meantime, however, the direct proof which religion transmits through its effective stirring and elevation of life is not to be misjudged. Religion THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 259 does not so much add something particular to life as that it effects an integration, a clear discrimination, and a liberation of what already lie§ in the total- life, but which, without such concentration, is unable to find its own self. It is through this concentra- tion that the Spiritual Life first gains a durable kernel, and emancipates itself from the admixture of the existential state in order to construct a char- acteristic world, and to become a new starting-point of life. This integration into a Whole, and this eleva- tion to action of the whole man, may appear less important and urgent so long as human existence is conceived to be free from acute conflicts and in process of secure advance. However, as soon as difficult entanglements set in, the ascent of the Spiritual Life has to overcome enormous obstacles, and is, through these, threatened with paralysis, a return to the Whole and an actuation of the energy of the Whole become indispensable. Such obstacles appear clearly enough, so that there can be no apology and no doubt for the necessity of religion. Religion finds a main proof of its truth in the fact that it forms the indispensable culmination of the total Spiritual Life ; and although man can be spiritually active here and there, he can never take up the Spiritual Life as a Whole, and transform it into his own act, without religion. We have shown sufficiently the general outlines of this fact, and it remains for us now to show how all the main separate movements which endow our life with a spiritual character^ttain to no completion and 260 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION indeed, lose their anchor and foundation if the turn to reUgion does not lead them to a Whole, to Principles, and to the Absolute ; so that finally the truth and the right of our Spiritual JLife hang on such a turning-point. Since, on the one hand, the specifically religious conceptions permeate the whole of life, and, on the other hand, the movements which issue from that whole ever-increasingly demand an elevation to a principle, and hence a turn to religion, a firm interweaving of religion with the whole of the spiritual effort is accomplished. Thus, the whole of this effort speaks and works for religion ; the more energetically the Spiritual Life develops itself, the more it becomes conscious of the opposition of its substantiality to a world of appearance ; and the mightier the impetus to religion becomes, the more certain becomes the truth of religion itself. (7) Special Pathways. — If we now pursue the pro- blem through the ramifications of life, and seek to demonstrate that the main movements of life point toward a religion of a universal kind, and that without religion all movements must collapse, re- ligion is taken by us throughout not merely as the end of a movement existing prior to itself, but also as this movement's fundamental presupposi- tion ; since that spiritual effort could not originate without the presence of the Absolute Life which manifests itself in religion. But since religion clearly reveals that presupposition and the inter- connection of life, and bids us incorporate them more energetically in our activities, it will work for the illumination, consolidation, and elevation of all the THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 261 remaining life. This fact will appear clearer in connection with the following special points. {aa) The Aspiration after Infinity. — The man of experience finds himself enclosed firmly on all sides ; he is, as a mere portion of a causal order, conditioned and bounded in his aims and energies ; the duration of his life has but a brief span to run, and he must acknowledge himself usually as a finite existence. And yet as a tremendous resistance to all this, his Spiritual Life is filled with a longing for Infinity. The idea of Infinity signifies not merely that an immeasurable expanse ever lies by the side of the circle which we traverse. For such an " outside " need trouble us but little, because it does not explain the stirring and forward -driving energy which lives within the thoughts of Infinity. Such thoughts evidently bear witness on the whole that Infinity does not emerge beyond the bounds of life, but that it belongs to man from the beginning ; it is the clash within us between the finite and the Infinite which brings forth such effects, and it is only out of this point that the idea and the feeling of the sublime explain themselves, for they do not originate from without, but are an original testimony of the soul. The movement towards the Infinite proceeds not only into the quantitative, but far more into the qualitative. It is not the surface of reality which suffices us, but far more do we appropriate its whole depth. All the effort after final ends and all- inclusive aims, all investigation concerning the Why of Whys, all the longing for perfection and the highest blessedness over against the mere satisfaction FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION of the given situation — what is all this but an evidence of the depth of reality. Everywhere in connection with the idea of the Infinite we find ourselves in danger of losing ourselves in the pathless expanse and the danger of an over-strain of human ability, but we also find a mighty ascent of our nature, a tracing of tracks and a progress upon them, and a challenge to battle against all the narrow and petty-human modes of life which have now become an intolerable barrier. Such a longing — partly revealed and partly concealed — was somehow present in the works which resulted in the great transformations of life and in the inner progressive development of man, so that the impossible itself appeared possible if what ought to be reached is now in reality reached ; for out of self-sufficiency and timidity nothing great has ever been born. What then is the basis of such a movement ? If it is a w^ork of a merely human kind, it can mean no more than a mere bolstering up of the self in one's own fancy, a futile presumption of the self, a deceit- ful illusion. At the same time, all the inner fruits of culture and all that appears always as the spiritual uplifting of man prove themselves as a tawdry polish on old goods and chattels. Or, on the other hand, the movement has a deeper foundation in the inner presence of an Absolute Life. If things are so, then it is religion which embraces and expresses the whole of life. Through such exertions religion at the same time attaches and rouses itself to a striving after Infinity, and, in order to accomplish this, it calls the whole soul to its aid, and wins a strong conviction and character. Thus, in connection with this special THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 263 point, it is religion which brings life to its full depth ; and what is imbedded in the aspiration after Infinity becomes the evidence of religion. This is corroborated, too, by the experience of history. The antique method of viewing the Spiritual Life — a method which allowed largely the meaning of religion in our sense to remain in the background — gave full sovereignty to the ideas of extremes and limits ; the All is here limited, and the life of man moves between fixed aims and given energies ; there is now no need to cross the frontier into the Infinite, but far more there is present a timidity to cross beyond the natural defined boundary. When did the idea of Infinity gain acknowledgment and power, and when did it step into the very centre of life itself? It accomplished this through the turn to religion, a turn which culminated especially in the philosophic sense through Plotinus. Since his time the idea has often enough been obscured, but it has never been extinguished. And what appears to us new and great in modern life is indissolubly bound with the reception of Infinity into our own character and nature. For whence otherwise the fixed superiority over the world — the fast rooting of the personality — after which we at least strive for ? Shall we retreat once more into the old limits in order to avoid entering the pathway of religion ? {bb) The Aspiration after Freedom and Equality. — The experience of life shows man bound on all sides and in constant relationships of dependence, shows him bound to other men, bound to the environ- ment, bound to his own nature. This subordination 264 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION often veils the consciousness and continues to exist. But, at the same time, there runs through humanity a glowing aspiration after freedom. This is to be found, first of all, in the relation of man to man as the demand of independence of each individual over against the human environment, or of the independ- ence of a class over against another class. Through such a freedom man seemed to gain an otherwise unknown dignity and an incomparably greater energy ; his life seemed to experience an essential elevation, and for the first time to possess an original worth. Thus, the struggle for freedom was able to kindle the strongest affections and to make light of the most difficult sacrifices. How does all this explain itself, and how can something essentially higher issue forth from life if there is not more present than a mere rearrangement of energies within an enclosed system ? It explains itself only through the fact that a new order of things has created a new breach of life, and that life through such a turn has gained an originality of an inward kind as well as a new content. But how can life gain all this if it possesses no depth, and if there is not an existence of a reality for itself? If the Spiritual Life fails in this, what is there besides contained in the representation of religion ? History shows, without a doubt, the longing for freedom usually coupled with eschatological convictions ; ancient Christianity with its advocacy of the freedom of the religious conviction {libertas religionis) took up a great universal struggle for freedom ; out of the age of the Reformation has the freedom of our modern times gone forth ; indeed, it seemed as if no effort THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 265 for freedom could stir the whole soul unless it became a kind of religion to man and raised him above mere ordinary experience. This contention is valid, too, concerning the radical movements of the present day ; they could not have taken such a strong turn against religion had it not been that they had moulded them- selves into some kind of religion. Whenever the struggle for freedom is not carried by new ideals of the whole life, it tends quickly to relax and to enter under the dominion of egoism, be it egoism of individuals or of classes. But the aspiration after freedom extends deeper than the relationship to other men ; it reaches the funda- mental relationship to the world and to reality. Man seeks in spiritual activity another standpoint to things, and, indeed, to himself, than is verified by the nearest- at-hand experience. In such a surface-experience all is given and tied, all is opaque and alien ; and, further, the nature of all this appears to man as something external so long as it does not allow itself to be set in his own act and there transfigured. And, therefore, however zealous in work man may be, so long as he remains a mere link of a natural chain, so long will his decision fail to handle the material which he takes up, and his will fail to decide concerning the nature of such material ; but all the particular is determined through the connection of the Whole, and what on the surface may appear as no more than a link of a chain, on a deeper view is perceived to reach forth into immensity. Why does man himself struggle against the accept- ance of such a state of things which surround him with irresistible intrusiveness, and which incessantly 266 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION explains determinism with its old and new grounds as the only possibility? Why, indeed, but because through the tying of man to such a situation unutter- ably more is lost than wiUingly allows itself to be destroyed. There is lost all inner relation to reality through resignation to the dark night of fate ; there is lost all inner obligation and, indeed, all ethical character of action through the shifting of action to an imposed necessity, and, consequently, when we reflect on it, what determinism leaves over is nothing more than an empty word ; there is lost all present living consciousness, and the present is viewed only as a mere result issuing out of given premises and which contain nothing in the least original ; there is lost all hope of sunnier and nobler days ; and all the possibility of inward renewal for peoples and times, as well as for the whole of humanity, fails, and thus life in its march becomes more and more numb and senile ; and finally, there is lost the striving to construct our existence, through our own original activity, out of the deep and out of a permanent foundation, and all is simply turned into a piling of a mechanism upon a surface- foundation. Accordingly, life, through its complete resignation to an external necessity, loses all inner movement, all soul, all value ; it is now a mere appearance and not an original life to us. It is no wonder that man strives against all this, that he strains every nerve to resist such a destiny. But it is impossible for him to resist it without a transformation of the whole view of reality and of his own nature. For all attempts to escape to some refuge within the given world of necessity must fail, and such attempts issue from turbid thoughts as de- THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 267 terminism itself has shown with convincing power. It is the elevation into a new world alone that can help us ; and such a world is not a mere system, but is ever a new and inner governing Whole proceeding out of activity, and which can become our own characteristic life of all activity. The Spiritual Life becomes such a world in so far as it gains a full independence and engenders out of itself a characteristic reality. The cosmic " becoming " of the Spiritual Life, however, surmounts all the capacity of the mere-human, and appears to man as the dawning of an Absolute Life. This has been a leading thought of the whole of our investigation. How freedom and necessity in man clash and yet stand apart is a question which does not concern us at this point. Here the main point is that without the presence of a new world, all possibility of freedom — all the transformation of existence into one's own life — breaks in pieces, and, at the same time, all genuine living present vanishes. The origin of the longing itself remains a mystery. And yet such a long- ing moves in mighty waves over humanity and has brought forth such greatness and nobleness. Thus, once more, all this is religion, and in it a general movement of life fastens itself together, and with it something remains which in the final resort nobody can destroy. If, however, that deepest origin of the effort of freedom is taken up into our own conviction and direction of life, then all activity in this direction can be purified and ennobled, then the individual move- ments unite themselves more compactly together so that in each individual position the whole man is now able to step into activity. A long period of time loved to conceive of religion and freedom as set up pointedly 268 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION against one another and as irreconcilable opponents. A deeper meaning, however, shows here, as often elsewhere, the truth to be quite contrary to the opinion of particular epochs. Without religion — religion in the universal sense — freedom is a hollow term ; no definite freedom can originate without religion, and certainly no religion can originate with- out freedom. The movement towards freedom annexes itself to the movement towards equality, and often they walk hand in hand. Experience shows universally an in- equality of man ; even nature endows individuals unequally ; culture brings forth difference after differ- ence the more it develops itself ; and this is true, too, of the newer culture with its heightened differentiation of individuals and its technical shaping of activity. The course of history itself drops many differences as having become spurious, but it brings forth newer and greater differences, and, on the whole, the inequality is in a state of constant growth. But over against the whole of this current of what actually happens, there arises and asserts itself in a notable manner a longing after equality. Is there imbedded in all this merely the ordinary disposition on a small scale, does nothing commanding endure, and is all drawn down to the ordinary surface-level ? This cannot be admitted, for an inequality without the presence of counter-effects to it would endanger most seriously the inner convictions of man, and, indeed, destroy them ; it would become an intolerable hardship for that which commands the vicissitudes of life to a lower plane ; and it would lead astray to a wayward vanity the very things which ought to have THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 269 stood on the summit of life. But how are we to meet such dangers, and how powerless are all abstract conceptions over against them 1 Thtf equality of all " who carry a human face " will not allow itself to be established through a mere decree. It can only come to a reality and power over against the painful differences of the standpoint of experience if, on the one hand, all the differences of men finally vanish and strictly turn into an infinite greatness ; and, on the other hand, if a common problem ignites itself and overflows all else which otherwise compromises effort and achievement. Nothing other than religion can verify this. For the conscious hold upon an Absolute Life prevents the man from reaching final conclusions in the differences of the standpoint of experience ; and the opening out of a new task concerning the whole inner man together with the demands of this turn of man press down all remaining activity, press the whole province of achievement to a lower level. This fact appears in that emancipating parable of Jesus, of the Talents, and from this source flows through the whole broad current of humanity ; it has often run underground, but ever anew runs out into the light. Also, out of the consciousness of the equality of all before God has, upon the ground of human history, dawned a longing for equality over against the different situations of men, a longing for an acknowledgment of the rights of man. In the army of Cromwell there originated first of all a longing after universal and equal political rights ; and it was out of a religious foundation that the proclama- tion of the rights of man went forth in America. Thus religion has called forth great movements — 270 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION movements which often, through the fault of their representatives, have turned against their own origin, but not without having to pay the penalty by falling into shallowness and sinking into a subjective passion of their inner unveracity. Wherever religion has stood with the fresh energy of youth, it has always brought men nearer together, it has always been the protector of the weak, and always a help to the aspiring soul ; it is only where it has become withered and senile that religion is used for the maintenance of private interests and privileges. (cc) The Aspiration after Eternity. — At a first glance, man appears throughout as a creation of time ; he lives and works in time ; the actual affairs of time seem to determine his whole life and being. But in spite of all this, it is false to assert that man belongs entirely to time ; the situation, if it were so, would become intolerable to him and would mean an inner devastation. And, on account of this, he undertakes an energetic struggle against the seeming situation, and this struggle forms not a mere episode of his life, but penetrates all culture and spiritual work, for without a trust upon eternal truth, and, indeed, with- out some kind of eternal life, there is no energy in the effort, no greatness in the character, and no depth in the love. " Love — sincere love and not a merely passing desire — never clings to the perishable, and awakens and kindles itself in the Eternal alone. Never is man able to love himself except when he conceives of himself as an eternal being, and outside this he is unable either to respect or to sanction him- self. Still less is he able to love something outside himself unless he raises that something into the THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 271 eternity of his belief and of his soul, and links it to these" (Fichte). Thus, there proceeds through the life of humanity an energetic struggle against the dissemination of things on the mere flux of time. We have seen repeatedly that all that is termed " history " in a special human sense carries in itself such a struggle, and that man, in such a struggle, holds or might hold with his utmost exertion something inward which otherwise would be lost on the river of time. The historical configuration of life and conduct signifies the building in the midst of time of an order of things superior to time ; this is purely the aspiration after eternal truth and an all-comprehensive present, which confers on history an inner movement as well as an inner connection. And does not the individual strive in a similar manner in connection with his own self ? Is there a true life without a stepping beyond the mere flight of the moment, without a crystallisation in one's own self as happens in the formation of character and of spiritual individuality ? Such a superiority to time, and such a power over against time, can never be brought forth by the Spiritual Life through merely human means ; what is found in us must stand in connection with an inde- pendent world of spirit. Without such a world and its conscious presence all attempts to rescue ourselves from the river of time are hopeless, and the man becomes a mere creature of the day. The inauguration of an Absolute Life in our domain is, as we have seen, the kernel of religion ; and such a Life in this respect forms the conclusion of a great movement, whose reality may be judged as a corroboration of its own 272 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION truth. Religion not only forms a foundation, but also heightens the aspiration after eternity, and finds this goal more and more through its turn to man's own nature, and in this, too, discovers an altitude above mere time. All the great thinkers were united in proclaiming that all spiritual work of the deeper kind participates in an eternal world; but when a formation of man's nature appears beyond the province of all mere activities, and when an independent start- ing-point of a true Spiritual Life is recognised in man, then this characteristic spiritual existence must be raised above the transient. The current opinion and, generally, also religion give an insufficient and even incongruous expression to this necessary truth, because they consider as the main fact the duration in time of the natural individuality with all its egoism and limitations. This mode of conceiving things must call forth a progressive contradiction in the particular interest of a religion which has been laid in the forms of the finite and of human nature. But it is one thing to doubt an anthropomorphic immortaUty ; it is quite another thing to deny the spiritual nature of man as a participator in eternity. For such a customary notion means not so much the projecting out of earthly views of the future, as of surrendering all Spiritual Life to bare Time, and along with this to press it down, fritter it away, and inwardly destroy it. Also, the life of man in Time thus becomes a mere appearance and shadow unless there dwells within him a striving towards eternity; and consequently, through a complete binding to Time, all human experience and aU human reality which endeavoured to illumine the mere moment sink back into the abyss of nothingness. THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 273 Whilst, however, rehgion clearly encloses an eternal order and allows not merely the acts of men but also their existence to participate in sucli an order, the thought of eternity gains a great power for life and character. Now, all active progress in Time finds its counterpart in a life resting in itself ; the movement of life is not an entrance into Time but a stepping out of Time. And thus we are able to understand the proclamation of a thinker of the Middle Ages, that man shall become younger every day. {dd) The Aspiration after Fellowship and after a Soul. — The world of experience shows a co-existence of elements in nature and in human society, which move amongst each other in the most varied ways, which link themselves ever faster, interlace themselves ever more definitely, and construct an ever-completer web. But all relation and intricacy remain linked to the external performances and effects ; what precedes what is in the elements themselves, or if anything on the whole precedes them — this is not the question. Viewed from this point, then, human connections as well as the whole of the world become more and more a well-regulated mechanism into which the individual life must enter in order to accomplish its own work, and in order to uncouple any special movement of the world-machine. An inner fellowship, an over-in- dividual experience of men and things from within, must now appear as an absurd and illicit thought. And yet such a thought gains a power over man and engenders an endless movement. All friendship and love might now participate in the inner life of another ; and that these possess a soul behind all external activity is undoubted ; our own experience of things 18 274 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION unlocks the door of art and leads to the realm of science. Everywhere we find demands and movements beyond the external contiguity, everywhere one's own life with its entrance into the life of another seems to experience an immeasurable elevation, and to gain first and foremost a content and a value. Does not the whole of culture place itself under the view that over against the world of effects and counter-effects a province of existence-for-self arises and opens out into an ever-greater kingdom ? Thus, the fact of a movement towards inwardness cannot be doubted, but a mighty problem arises along with it, and, too, intertwining transformations of the view of the world become necessary. The whole movement is an error and a falsehood if it possesses no depth of the things, and it exhausts its own life in this system of relations. But what is to be under- stood by " depth," and how is it reachable ? Reach- able it is in no way through the mere agitation of subjectivity, as the main current of the present day would make us believe. When this main current of the present states that depth of soul is reachable through an emancipation from the environment as well as through the transformation of life into a free and somewhat artistic character, all unbiassed opinion easily recognises this as an error. Man, in the mere disposition of his nature as well as in his mere achievements, is still sufficiently empty and shallow ; he has only changed one superficiality for another, but in no way has he gained in depth. Have then, to-day, all the broad developments of external harmony, all luxury and self-importance, strengthened the substance of life, and have they in any kind THE FACT OP UNIVERSAL RELIGION 275 of way made man fuller of content and deeper of experience ? In reality subjectivity is not yet by any means inwardness, and dispo*sition is not by any means a soul. There is no inwardness of life possible for us without an inward life of reality ; there is in the individual positions of life no inner life without the presence of an inner world. Man could never strive after an inwardness had he not been able to disengage himself in some kind of way from niceties of forms, and to gain a portion in Eternal Life. And the facts are such that a genuine inwardness only develops where great tasks and a great strain originate, where a struggle for a new being burns within, and along with it a spiritual self ascends, an essential formation of the nature results, and in the throe a personality and spiritual individuality is born. He who carries not such problems in his own soul and who seeks not, in all the expansion of work, before all else to find his own self, can never gain a depth and soul for himself. But is all this possible unless our life stands within a total-life, and unless we are carried by such ? It is religion, however, which pleads for the presence of this total-life, and which brings us to an appropriation of it. When religion conceives of the facts as a Whole, the move- ment towards inwardness will considerably heighten, and the insufficiency of the ordinary situation enters for the first time into consciousness. Now it is clearly discovered how alien man usually appears in the midst of all external relationships, how coercive the narrowness of natural existence holds him fast, and how shallow and soulless the life shapes itself through all this. Clear, too, it will ever more be how 276 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OP UNIVERSAL RELIGION the movement of culture itself heightens the danger in that it differentiates men from each other more than ever, increases more and more the distance between them, and casts away more and more the individuality. Through all this there arises an inner ahenation of man, and a lonehness of soul in the midst of all the fellowship of work. How otherwise can the walls of separation be broken down, and how can the inner experience of one individual draw nearer to that of another save through the opening out of a life on the other side of all natural individual- ity, through a participation in a world which includes even our own natural world, and, indeed, can include all worlds ? It is only when a fellowship of life and a mutual understanding have been gained that the various individualities can further one another in a positive manner, and, out of the contact, a mutual restoration can take place. Thus, in the relationship of man with man, all lies in the gaining of a corporate life which encompasses and binds all. The problem, however, reaches beyond this to the relationship of man with his own soul. In this natural state his deeper being is no less strange to man than is the deeper being of another ; his own soul is to him closed and inaccessible, and, before all discovery of spiritual qualities outside himself becomes possible, he must first of all discover and assimilate his own deeper being. And he can do this only through the vivification of a spiritual world which he makes objective for himself, which gains for him his own special nature, and which raises him beyond his natural state. The customary opinion can only darken such a limitation of the characteristic life THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION £77 through the environing and changeable world, because such an opinion has no eye for problems of such a nature, and looks upon the most difficult as self- evident, and conceives of the fruit brought forth through the universal toil of the ages as being nothing more than a result of the mere moment. Wherever the problem is discovered, history is seen to furnish an incontestable proof for the definite connection of religion and inwardness. Let us confine ourselves to the beginnings of Christianity. What changes have these sources brought forth in this respect compared with rich and beautiful antiquity ! How much nearer they have brought man to man through the opening of a corporate world out of belief and hope as well as a corporate activity of life ; how they have created the basis for a spiritual art and a spiritual intercourse with nature ; and how they have unlocked man's nature and brought him nearer to his own soul ! Could Jesus have seen so much in the little child, could he have explained nature as a symbol of the Divine without the presence of a kingdom of in- wardness within himself? And such holds valid for the whole course of the ages : wherever religion — religion understood in the widest sense, and as a religion of the spirit — has stepped into the background, there the inner life has become stunted, if not at once, yet after a while. Also, it holds valid for the present day that wherever religion has been awakened out of the social custom into our own life, it has in the simplest relationships of life aimed at developing more depth than is often to be found imbedded in the highest achievements of culture. Thus, all gain of a true inwardness becomes a testimony for religion, 278 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION and thus we see the struggle for religion forming a portion of the struggle for the soul of life. To-day, when the external world forces itself so mightily upon us, and draws us to itself so overwhelmingly, there is needful, indeed, more than a subjective fortification in ourselves — there is needful the development of an energetic inner life. Shall we give up lightly the indispensable associate in the struggle — religion — as happens too often to-day ? (ee) The Aspiration after Greatness. — The view of human things shows the individual so small by the side of the whole of humanity, and the view of the world shows humanity so small by the side of a boundless universe. What has been held valid from time immemorial in connection with this matter has been brought fully to consciousness only in modern times. Viewing things from the ancient childish level, humanity considered itself as the centre of all ; and even with the toning down of such a claim there appeared still a greatness of a human kind, which man saw within the All, and with which he believed himself to have definite intercourse. We have already observed how nature gained a complete independence over against man, how it has drawn him more and more to itself, and how step by step it has honoured him. Through all this his condition and actions seem to lose all significance for the All, so finally man had to seek his happiness and greatness within his own circle. But if he depends on the light which shines from such a corner and not on the light which shines from the inward connections, if he is posited wholly upon his nearest-at-hand existence and develops all out of this, there originates a picture that THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 279 has no place for inward greatness and original worth. Far too intrusive stands before our eyes the struggle for existence, the stormy hurry of this life, the unkempt wild growth of greed and passion, the organised and coercive power of general eiFects, for us to remain with and delineate. In a word, we witness an immeasurable expenditure of life and a vast amount of work, and yet through it all no correspond- ing gain and no meaning of human life either for the individual or for the Whole. Such contradiction and senselessness, and, indeed, the nothingness of the whole, cannot be avoided by man so long as he remains simply within the clamour of this mechanism, and so long as he attempts to develop his life merely from point to point, and allows his whole efforts to be concentrated upon isolated aspects. But as soon as thought and reflection are freed from such a tie and are set upon a Whole, then there can be no doubt as to the intolerable hoUowness and nothingness of such an existence, for such an emancipation and reflection of the Whole cannot possibly be hindered. Thus, man will reflect on ways and means of escape from this abasement ; and to-day an effort in this direction is visible enough. But as the effort reveals itself in the realm of a superficial situation, it is consequently of a kind too little inclined to set the highest goal in front of itself. One hopes to push aside the small and commonplace and to obtain once more greatness and joy for the nature of man — a state in which man raises himself into a free sentiment above the whole mechanism ; and thus the differences of individual and individual are brought forth, and the differences of the individual over against other 280 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION individuals and over against the whole of the environ- ment are strengthened. In such a course of thought the uncontracted sovereignty of the individual is often proclaimed, and greatness is sought in the discarding of all external restraints. In this manner the man seems to enjoy what is ordinarily termed personality, but what in reality is only a kind of natural individu- ality. Such a course of thought has its own right — or, rather, its own semblance of right — only through a strong and hardly conceivable optimism in the midst of all the experiences and entanglements of modern life. It has to presuppose man endowed with highly- gifted spiritual potencies and set upon high aims, otherwise it becomes a confirmation of an egotistic greed of life and of all the raw impulses of life; indeed, it will work more towards the sinking than towards the elevation of life. The fundamental mistake consists in this : to affirm in the parts what is denied in the Whole ; to wish to retain within the human province of the relationship of man to man a greatness which had been lost in the deeper life and nature of man as a Whole. Such a greatness has been lost wherever man has become a mere piece of an impervious world, and wherever he has forfeited all inner relations to the whole of reality. Man can retain such a greatness only when there dawns within him a new stage of reality, only when he participates in the Whole of this new world, when he does not contract himself upon isolated activities, when there breaks forth from the new life a new being and new self Then the world and its enterprises can become man's own experience, and then he is able to carry the Whole along with him and to participate in THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 281 the struggle of worlds, then he has to represent the Whole in the individual parts, and thus becomes through what he does a necessary portion of the cosmic movement ; and it is all this which constitutes in reality his aspiration after greatness of life. Indeed, the more certain the life possesses such greatness, the less man aims to speak of it. Understood thus, the aspiration after greatness is not conceived mainly as one difference against another, not as a superior pomp against the environment, but brings along with it the deepening of the soul itself and the infinite evolution of one's own soul. All this is not possible, as we have already seen, without the opening of an independent Spiritual Life in the particular domain of man ; and with the truth of this stands or falls all greatness of life. It is religion which connects together life as a Whole, and which as a Whole opens out to man ; and thus religion is simply indispensable to the foundation and evolution of the greatness of life. Religion raises out of the otherwise destructive and scattered elements a simple outline ; it gives life the comprehensiveness of a powerful drama, opens out a great antithesis in the main direction of life, and at the same time calls man to a characteristic decision of his own ; it makes the problem of the All become the personal experience of man and gives him, through the inward presence of the Absolute Life, a superiority to the world. The life is here securely raised above the anxieties of natural and social existence through the inner task of moving from a Whole to a Whole. This certainly happens only through the formation of a religion of the Spiritual Life and under the summons for a 282 FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION complete self-sovereignty. A religion of obedient subjection and blind devotion must certainly coerce man — coerce him deeper than any human power of command, and such a state of things brings about a stagnation of life in its inmost source. But why should we as free men bind our conceptions of religion to the presentations of another, and why should human disfigurements darken the picture of religion for us — a picture that arises out of the necessity of the Spiritual Life, and which has verified itself sufficiently in universal effects ? Conclusion. — In all individual points a definite connection of religion with the total-development of the Spiritual Life was observed. This fact need only be conceived more clearly in its main lines in order to become a testimony of religion. Step by step, move- ments appeared which burst through the world of ex- perience and which, indeed, could not proceed without coming into sharp contrast with ordinary experience. But we cannot draw fully such a conclusion as this without acknowledging that an inversion has taken place in our conception of reality, and that a new world has been gained ; and this actually happens in religion. Religion appears as something that is not a mere epiphenomenon of life, but as a necessity that grows out of man's deeper nature, and which at the start may not appear more than a clarification of a matter of fact without whose rule no aspiration after spiritu- ality could arise. The wonder originates not only in any one special situation of life, but penetrates far more into all Spiritual Life. To him who does not perceive the wonder in this, to him who does not see a secret verified and acknowledged in what moves us THE FACT OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 283 daily and hourly, religion appears simply as a super- fluous and noxious weed of life. But J;o him to whom the secret has unveiled itself, that all movements of a spiritual kind work towards us, religion is no more an alien thing, and he sees in it the conclusion of what the Spiritual Life all along carried within itself. Further, to him will the conclusion and the emergence out of the deep be worthful because what otherwise would remain veiled has come to great clearness, and what otherwise would remain scattered has led to unity. However, through such an elevation to the level of a principle an inverted order of life has resulted, which works for the elevation of all the earlier existence. In this, religion before all else guarantees the possibility of a spiritual existence, and becomes the most certain thing within our whole domain of life ; and also, it becomes the hypothesis of all scientific knowledge. And as religion, through such a source of the Spiritual Life, results in a constant elevation above the interests and even above the whole existence of the mere-human kind, and under- takes such an incessant struggle against the small human modes of life, it is completely protected from the reproach of the anthropomorphism which a shallow mode of thought has saddled upon the nature of religion simply because such a mode of thought has grown for a great length of time. In a far more fundamental manner than all negative criticism will the delineation of the religion of the Spiritual Life drive out anthropomorphism. Indeed, understood in the right way, religion is the only possible way to encounter the anthropomorphism which otherwise clings inexorably to us. Part III. — The Opposition to Religion INTRODUCTION Our investigation has already reached a certain result. It has been shown that we are more than the mere being of nature ; it has been shown that an original kingdom of spirit unfolds in culture ; we have seen how religion is able to stand on the side of the individual, and how it has been subjectively appropriated by him. The truth of the other pro- vinces of life does not depend upon how far the individual takes possession of them ; science remains science although the individual may discover but little intellectual movement in himself; art remains art although many relate themselves to it in a crude kind of way. But in spite of the superiority of religion to the condition and even the caprice of the individual, we cannot possibly consider the previous conclusions we have reached as final. On the con- trary, it must have already surprised us that what we as yet have discovered as religion has nowhere out of its own energy brought forth an historical religion, and has never become the conviction of a great community. Religion must always be able to become something more than produce such results as we have investigated, for unless it becomes this, 284 INTRODUCTION 285 it is evidently unable to arrive at an entire reality. The object of our particular investigation is to search for this More. We have gained fronf the conception of the Spiritual l.ife a certainty of the fundamental fact of religion, but here the object in view was directed upon the positive achievements, upon the triumphant advance of religion. The opposition which religion had to overcome was left largely in the background. But this opposition cannot always remain there ; it must come to more than a partial articulation ; it will have to be considered and esti- mated as a Whole. And in this investigation difficult oppositions and hindrances may appear which will perhaps carry our whole consideration of the subject into a new track and therewith lead to a more original formation of religion than has hitherto met us. Let us, therefore, see how matters stand. That something sub-spiritual and non-divine exists does not become a stumbling-block and a shock to religion, for all this is unavoidable on account of the imperfect stage of the reality we find in the existing world. Religion cannot explain evil — all attempts at explanation within the province of religion are lamentable sophisms — but religion can overcome evil, overcome it through the elevation and triumphant achievement by it of a representative Divine world. But religion must adhere unconditionally to such a progress. Indeed, the less religion presupposes a reason in the nearest-at-hand world, the more vigorous must it further a " becoming " of reason — a progressive spiritualisation of existence through the energy of the efficacious Divine within itself Such a meaning can be extracted in varied ways according 286 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION to the different stages of the reality with which we are deaUng, but always the higher stages must raise up the lower to themselves ; the Spiritual Life must raise nature, the substance of the spirit must raise the human form of existence ; all that represents within the Spiritual Life the unity and the Whole must raise the ramifications and particularity of life. The picture, however, that we subsequently expect and must expect is not corroborated by experience. In our domain especially, the new life meets not only individual hindrances, but it thrusts itself in the whole of its effects upon an opposition which seems insur- mountable. It attains no independent existence, but remains directed by the energies of the lower level of things ; the Divine here is not able to raise to itself the non-divine, but is drawn down to it, and is degraded to a mere means for the aims of the non-divine. Such defencelessness over against a world man has entered into to rule, and such a perversion of his activities shake of necessity the belief in the truth of things. How are such weaknesses compatible with the con- ception of the Divine, and how can a hemmed-in and powerless life be of a Divine kind ? But, also, when the reality of the Divine remains unapproachable as a power superior to the world, its communication to us becomes a matter of ever greater doubt. Of what use is a definite Spiritual Life to us if it is only a knowledge out of the distance, if it is unable to permeate through the hindrances of our existence, but is far more drawn into the very same discord from which it ought to free us ? Thus, the turn of life undertaken through religion seems to be drawn right into the entanglement INTRODUCTION 287 instead of being drawn out of it. There results in connection with religion undeniably a removal from the prior situation, a new starting-pt)int is gained, some kind of movement is brought into a current. But when this movement is unable to rise after it has opened out vistas and raised desires without being able to fulfil them, it has made the situation rather worse than better. The idea of an independent Spiritual Life has brought forth a new standard which makes much inadequate and intolerable which previously had raised no kind of obstacle ; especially the shallow relationships and the ordinary everyday life which otherwise might have remained neutral now step upon the opposite side and strengthen the opposition ; the hindrance turns from the external to the internal : out of the weakness of the Spiritual Life there issues an inner entanglement, and within our own domain there issues a discord. Such a confused situation turns reflection and conviction into the most painful dilemma. Too much exists in the mind to pronounce a simple Nay because an actual turn of life has already resulted, and the conflict itself with its bitter pang is engendering the existence of a movement. Too much exists to pronounce a Yea. Thus, neither the one nor the other is able to win us. And yet the necessity of life drives constrainedly to a decision. Will this knot allow itself in any kind of way to be disentangled ? Will it at least notify the direction in which we have to search and to work ? Only further actual conclusions and not imaginative suppositions can definitely decide concerning this ; and the attention must be directed especially upon this. 288 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION First of all, however, the province of the hindrances has to be traversed, and its impressions have to be brought to an open judgment ; all disguise and extenuation against the truth would be a wrong as well as a danger to all further progress. Evidently our investigation has entered upon a new stadium. In the first place, the sun of a Divine Life rose out of the thick cloud of the initial stages, and enabled us to witness a kingdom of reason in the midst of all hindrances ; reflection can follow joyously the exten- sion of this kingdom, and see all the fulness of life and effort drawn to itself Now, however, thick clouds arise anew and veil that light so much that it becomes dark and dull — more inclined to allow us to discover the cessation of truth than to lead us nearer to it. Further, our life may be compared to a drama whose handling has come to movement in a toilsome kind of way. But a reason had unfolded, and the world seemed to have opened to its victorious advance. Now, however, the counter-play begins and grips so mightily that all the gain is endangered, and, indeed, it threatens to transform everything into a loss. Whether the matter remains ultimately in such an entanglement, whether reason is not able to carry forth further energies, and through this to remain master of the field — all this must remain open as a possibility, and may present itself as a hope. In the meantime, however, the advocatus diaboli has the solution, and it may express it bluntly. For all enfeeblement and excuse come from evil. In con- nection with the particulars of explanation one alone has to be remembered, viz. that in connection with INTRODUCTION 289 the whole question the matter deals not concern- ing human happiness but concerning the reaUty of a definite Spiritual Life, concerning the* presence of a higher world within our domain. AU this gives the fact a more earnest outlook and the question an in- comparably greater vigour than the mere problem of happiness is able to bring forth. 19 PART III.— THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER IX a. The Explanation of the Opposition 1. The Opposition of Nature The Spiritual Life is unable to desire an independ- ence without placing characteristic demands upon nature. The entire binding of the life of the soul to the natural process shown by experience raised no obstacle prior to the turn towards spirituality. For hitherto the life was a mere means and tool to the self-preservation of the individual ; it would not and could not be a kingdom of its own ; it developed no original content, and opened out no new world. The spiritual stage, however, has brought forth all this. Therefore the turn to spirituality produces necessarily the longing that there should correspond to this independence in the nature of man an independence of existence over against nature ; the new aims and the immediate participation in the whole of an infinite and eternal world, existing by itself, demand appropriate forms of life. Indeed, a superiority and sovereignty over nature become here an urgent demand. For if the turn to spirituality signifies truly a penetration of reality to its own 290 THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 291 essence, the independent progressive Spiritual Life must out of itself illumine the whole* domain and draw all to itself; it must handle this domain as means to its own ends, and as stepping-stones to its own height ; and it will at least desire in all con- nections to take the lead. Such a demand proceeds not only externally but far more internally. As nature itself with its succession and mechanism enters into the very soul of man, the awakened Spiritual Life must verify its independence and superiority over against this ; it must rule our actions more and more, and must link all effort to its own career. How could it otherwise execute a revolution of the total reality ? Do the facts of experience show such a " becoming " superiority of the Spiritual Life ? They show quite the reverse. The spiritual development of man as well as the natural life of the soul remain tied to the body, and, at the same time, they remain attached to the order of nature ; they become and grow with the body. The Spiritual Life, too, thrives and wanes within us. That the body is more to man than a mere tool is proved evidently by so-called mental pathology — which is really brain pathology — which contracts most powerfully the psychic activity and drives man to perverted paths. Death, again, with its extinguishing of the whole existence, appears as a great evil proceeding from the province of nature. For the Spiritual Life sets aims within the individual being which far surpass the short span of existence ; activities are initiated and relationships of man to man are framed which contain a longing after a permanent duration ; the man works with incessant 292 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION toil for his own cultivation, and achieves by his labours a personal existence and a spiritual individu- ality in order to witness all his results destroyed so cruelly. Over against this, there awakens a glowing longing to burst such limits asunder, and to participate in some kind of way in eternity ; thus religion became in the main especially the promise of individual immortality. But not only does experience fail to give the least clue to this, it also refuses to affirm that what appears on one side as indispensable appears on the other side as superfluous. How often does all spiritual emotion fade in the soul ; the spiritu- ality becomes numb and dull, and it gradually dies almost entirely in the life-time of man. What has immortality to do with such a spent-out life? If, however, death forms the natural conclusion, can things stand otherwise in connection with that which persists as a spiritual fire for the whole of life, and, indeed, that which in its course burns with love ever more energetic and ever clearer? Question after question, and riddle after riddle ! This, however, is certain, that in our view of the matter the natural process, unconcerned with spiritual values, follows simply its own course ; the most glorious spiritual greatness offers no protection against an early death or against collapse brought about by ill-health ; but, on the other side, we often witness spiritual no- bodies unhappy and dragging idly along an arrested existence. The experiences of peoples and of humanity corres- pond to the experiences of individuals. The aims and values of the Spiritual Life do not seem to exist for the blind mechanism of the natural process ; these THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 293 natural powers know of no diiFerence between good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness, inward greatness and smallness. Earthquakes and floods as in a play destroy the blossoming Spiritual Life ; pestilence and hunger hold forth their harvest without any grief concerning human welfare and spiritual values. Nowhere does nature rise to a higher order as the symbolism of the Middle Ages imagined to have been the case with plants and animals ; it merely constructs an enclosed kingdom concerned with itself alone. A mysterious sphinx stands in front of us, incessantly bringing to birth and bringing to death, patiently preparing and rashly destroying, benevolent and pitiless at the same time, its objects quickly befriending one another and quite as rapidly pursuing one another in a relentless struggle ; all this verifies the saying that nature is less of a mother than of a wicked mother to her children. We find then in nature an incessant impetus towards life, but in all the agitation and movement we find no existence-for- itself, no life-for-self, and thus no genuine fruits, no meaning, no reason of the whole, but all seems a passionate play without reason and for nothing. But, however, it is not without any reason at all, for all the works of nature result in simple, unswerving funda- mental forms and in a fast chain of occurrences ; they result in law and causality. All this is certainly reason, but as yet only a formal reason which is throughout indifferent to the content of the occur- rences. Also, the most painful destruction of life, the origin of awful malformations, the inheritance of painful diseases, follow throughout in accordance with these laws and with the causal order. Of what help. 294 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION however, to reason is that which places so much power in the hands of unreason? Such indifference of nature to all spiritual aims becomes intolerable in religion, and religion sought, as out of a constrained necessity, a help in the miraculous which appeared as an evident proof of the sovereignty of spiritual and divine energies above nature. But, in spite of all toil, a secure founda- tion for such an assertion cannot be found. The scientific conception of nature as well as historical criticism have undermined the belief in miracle, until that belief has become, right down to its main prop, a burden for true belief How can we now hold up a consolidated inner life over against the insecurity of the external situation ! And, further, the mechanism of nature seizes the soul and places all action in an iron band. This mechanism cannot hold us entirely, for how could a Spiritual Life rise up on the whole within us ? And also, after such a turn towards the Spiritual Life the immediate consciousness places the mechanism underneath itself; the spiritual activity must thus have won some kind of place for itself ; it is soon pushed out of it, but quickly and strongly it returns to its abode. The Spiritual Life has to be formed out of the Whole, and has to convince us of infinity as well as of eternity. But in the nature of man it disperses itself into the sheer, incessant, changing and counter-stirring flux of consciousness. True, the Spiritual Life struggles against such a hindrance but does not forge its way through it ; it remains banished in the background and sees itself shut out of the obvious reality as an alien. Also, the emancipation of spirituality from nature THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 295 cannot be brought about through the motive-powers of life. However much the sensuous impulses may be relegated to a lower level, they reassert themselves with such strength that spiritual activity does not seem able to dispense with their help. How dull would such an activity remain, how uninteresting would all work become, how insipid would all love be, if they were not linked to a natural impulse, and if they did not draw the potency of such an impulse to themselves ! Further, the characteristic configura- tion of the Spiritual Life in different civilisations seems determined before all else by the standard and custom of the natural energy of life. But does not the fact concerning the differences of the historical religions resolve itself to this : whether a people holds tenaciously to an aflBrmation of life and sets forth this affirmation in spite of all hindrances as the Semites have done, or whether a people tends to deny and to destroy such an affirmation as the Indians have done ? The natural life stands on a lower level than the impulse of self-preservation ; and, on the other hand, in the domain of the spirit this impulse is censured and repudiated as selfishness. But shall we become free of it, and can we, in the main, be deprived of it ? While we have to wrest incessantly our existence out of an alien and indifferent world, can we and dare we put in place of such a world the anxiety for self- preservation ? This anxiety grows and refines itself over whole nations and over the whole of human society. How much depends on material welfare and how much it signifies even for the Spiritual Life, is shown with special clearness by the economic 296 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION movements of the present. But when material things become so much to us, and hold us in so obligatory a manner, what becomes of the elevation to the new world which the Spiritual Life and also religion with all its might long for ? The total impression on this level can be no other than this : that the Spiritual Life, too, with its awakening to a clear consciousness remains a mere accompanying phenomenon of the natural process. In all its lofty flight the effort cannot disengage it- self from a dependence from without ; it remains tied to the energies of nature ; it is drawn down to the service of nature. This barrier becomes an intolerable contradiction when the presence of the Divine is experienced within the Spiritual Life. If the Divine is really in the transaction, the Spiritual Life must be able to bring its efforts to fruition. If it is not able to do this, how could we revere such a Life as Divine ? 2. The Opposition of Culture Certain as the weakness of the spirit over against nature remains a mystery, it would have been in- tolerable if the man were not able within his own province to construct a kingdom of reason and to fortify himself against all attacks and doubts. In reality a unique human province originates over against nature: this province is culture, through which man prepares a new kind of world. This new world is culture as it develops itself, through the conclusions of individuals, into an historical life and, through history, into a stratum of activity. We have previously shown that this human culture is not THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 297 able to bring forth spirituality out of itself, but far more presupposes it. But in spite of such a limita- tion, it must be in the position to construct its basal development out of deep connections, and to co- operate in the construction of a kingdom of reason. This is to be expected and desired of culture. Culture is called to break the contradiction and untruth of the ordinary commonplace life, and to seek for a new order of things. Now, as such a new order is known and acknowledged, culture must victoriously out of its own energy make headway against the old situa- tion ; it must free and weld the inner-abiding reason of our existence, and triumphantly drive out all unreason. In the midst of all the unreadiness of our situation the dawning of a Divine Power ought to seal fast the superiority of reason and transform the movement of history into a progressive conquest of the spirit. It is thus we ought to find things, but in reality we find them otherwise ; instead of human culture placing itself in the service of definite spirituality, it raises itself as an independent master, treats its own existence and development as the highest of all ends, and consequently cannot very well but reduce the Spiritual Life to a mere means, and set it fast on a level where its services seem advantageous to culture. A strong inversion is evident in this procedure. It belongs to the very nature of the Spiritual Life to be independent and self-valued, and this claim it can in no way renounce. Culture, however, need only be viewed a little closer in its qualifications, in order that its inability to discover the Spiritual Life may become evident. In culture there result conclusions 298 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION of the human mind, a reciprocal contraction of certain individual elements becomes clear, a visible union takes place, which at the same time undertakes spiritual tasks. In this union the individuals step forth with their given opinions, i.e. with their pre- vailing natural impulses and with but little spiritual qualities, with much delight in themselves and with but little love for others. Thus, there results in the union of individuals some kind of binding of spiritual elements, a certain summation of potencies. But such a binding results only in external achievements and without a just differentiation of the definite and the indefinite. Consequently there easily arises a manifold and complicated web of relations, but not, however, an inner Whole ; the current of life thus flows not from the internal to the external but from the external to the internal ; and whatever awakens in the form of spirituality remains tightly tied to the purely human formation. All this may be relatively valuable, and throughout indispensable for man, but inner barriers are perceptible enough ; and if, in spite of the acknowledgment of these barriers, social culture makes of itself an all-governing end, and directs itself against the independence of an awakened spirituality, difficult entanglements and, indeed, perversions are unavoid- able. That social culture in reality is not more than it is, is no detriment or reproach to it ; while, how- ever, it can be more than is possible for it to be through the actual natural state of affairs. It cannot become more so long as it presents its mixture of reason and unreason as pure reason, so long as it attributes the rights of absolute spirituality to its THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 299 conditioned human spirituality. When it acts from such a disposition it seeks to mould all spiritual great- ness out of itself, it seeks to comrfland all effort out of its own achievement, and to satisfy all demands out of its own means ; and finally to tie the movement to the point where it can reach its own ends. Hence, an opposition necessarily originates, and, indeed, a struggle between a mere-human and a genuine spiritu- ality arises — a struggle which must work with all tenacity because the struggle on the mere-human side is also led in the name of the spirit. Such a dissension lies evidently before our eyes if the all-powerful State or the Church with its monopoly of all means of grace drags with its utmost all Spiritual Life to itself. But the struggle spreads itself, however, beyond all this to the whole domain of human connections. Every- where the mere inclination tends not to raise, free, and transform human existence out of its level, but to leave it tied to itself and satisfied with itself, and thus, in spite of all the seeming expansion, to narrow it inwardly. Utilitarianism and relativism — two diminutives of the Spiritual Life — become unavoid- able if spiritual greatness and connections as well as religion itself are considered first and foremost as social organisations. Then, that alone is termed " good " which is useful to society ; that is termed " true " which finds its acknowledgment in society ; and both are an inner subversion of the definite meaning of the two concepts without the discovery of such a subversion. The subversion is so varied and disfigures life so much that it will prove of little avail in the main tendencies of life. Human alHances always develop the Spiritual Life 300 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION in a particular kind of way, but on this path the Spiritual Life is not able to stamp itself epergetically without a strong one-sidedness. But this particular kind of way tends towards the greatest stubbornness in its attempt to become a Whole, and it coerces with passionate intolerance all remaining activity. Such contradiction engenders necessarily in course of time a reaction ; other ideals arise, progress, and discover their rights, but only to fall quickly into the same narrowness. Thus we witness an incessant change of ideals, a zigzag movement, without the superior unity of the whole, without the necessary demand of definite spirituality to step forth from the background to take the lead. We observe such a change of ideals clearly enough ; the experience of history shows it openly with impressive clearness, and, in spite of this, social culture treats ever anew the occasional drift of activity as the only right, the only possible, and the conclusive truth. In the abstract, we have the clearest consciousness of the relativity of all human and historical achievements ; in the concrete, any suitable time adapts us to be- come carriers of absolute truth. And must not this happen, and is not the error avoidable in order to gain character and energy for the problems of time ? Social culture can do no other than present the achievements in front of us and partially conform to such achievements. That would be no detriment if such a limitation were acknowledged, and if the inwardness and rights of the life of the soul were preserved. But such does not happen, because the achievements together with all their residuum as well as the character itself are enclosed within the circle of THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 301 social culture. Thus, all life and action are driven from the character to the performances, ajid this works to- wards a stunted growth of all independent inward- ness. The direction of all striving upon achievements — ^the acknowledgment of external results alone in the life of others — becomes a great danger to the independ- ence of character ; man now finds his centre of gravity not in himself, but in the social environment, and thus the life loses the energy and veracity of original creativeness. He who in the first place works not for himself but for others, not for the facts but for the social environment, must, in spite of all his activity, exclude himself from the depth of things. The greatest defect here, however, is the inevitable rapid growth of pretence. Where all the value lies in the effect an action has on another and on the mere acknowledgment of another, then the semblance of truth does the same and often better service than truth itself. And this semblance will entangle the whole of life, and poison the real soul of man. This semblance- character of social culture becomes an intolerable peril when the inmost soul of the Spiritual Life is in question, as e.g. in religion and morality, so that all penetrating creativeness within these provinces was a burning protest against the pretence not only of the special social situation but also of the social mode of handling such problems. But all protests have transformed the social situation but little. As the inwardness in this manner is stunted in its growth, therefore the individuality is pressed back and suppressed. Since society values and nurtures in man especially what enters into its ordinary ar- 302 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION rangement, characteristic features, discernment, and eminence are thought lightly of, curtailed, and ejected. Indeed, the more exclusively the social leadership of life takes the field, the individual situation suffers more hindrance ; the more monotonous and mechani- cal existence becomes, the more must activity itself grow inwardly coarser. Also, society will give an ordinary shallow character to its organisations — a character which often harmonises but little with the inexhaustibleness of the individual cases which origin- ate, and which collides sharply with the individual nature of the particular cases. Thus, for example, we find in law an incessant conflict between the general norms and some feature of the individual fact. But shall we throw such norms away on account of this ? Or, are we called to abandon life to a complete subversion and an insecure arbitrary choice ? To base life on the level of ordinary everyday experience is extremely precarious, because the level of human relationships has no altitude, because such ordinary existence must depend on exhausted move- ment and waning energy, and these will consequently organise the life. When the ordinary existence presents itself as a totality and standard of all spirituality, it enters into a great conflict with the development of true spirituality. The elevated out- look, greatness, and originality appear to the ordinary existence as useless, excessive, and indolent. Thus all independent spirituality becomes a disturbance of social equilibrium, becomes a reproof against social conclusions. This opposition of ordinary existence engenders severe conflicts with tragic issues not only THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION in particular cases, but permeates the whole of historical life, and persists even in the external acknowledgment of greatness, since existence drags such greatness down to its own level. And in the central questions, the acknowledgment was wont to follow only when the greatness was removed far back enough not to disturb the circles thus acknowledging it, indeed far enough to be able, as * classical,' to become a weapon against the Spiritual Life struggling upwards in their own time. Again, in the field of culture there appears the same defect of which already nature makes us painfuUy aware, the cleavage between formal and intrinsic reason. Society places all life and action under conjoint forms, and insists, before all else, upon the observation of these forms ; and social culture has a decidedly formal character. As against the natural level the entanglement gets even increased here, since the formal reason steps forth and is acknowledged by society as the carrier of intrinsic truth ; the decisions of this formal reason claim absolute validity. Now, the most correct observation of all forms of existence offers no guarantee of an intrinsic truth, since fallible and easily moved men have to apply those forms. Socrates and Jesus were sentenced in accordance with all the forms of law, and the Inquisition and the trials for witchcraft were most correct. All social modes of life stand in danger of injuring intrinsic truth whilst holding fast to the formal truth. Hence all true friends of morality praise so little the virtue and righteousness of civic life ; and deep religious natures are so often found in 304 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION sharp opposition to the basing of rehgion on forms, dogmas, and rites, towards which the social formation of rehgion moves. The more clearly the effort in the Spiritual Life after a genuine being — an aspiration towards the essential development of life — is acknowledged, the greater must that disfigurement and damage appear. But does a knowledge of this fact make formal reason superfluous, and is not the life without it abandoned to an entire dissolution ? Thus, there appear a multitude of abuses, and common to them all an inner unveracity, a desire to appear more than one can be, the raising of a highly problematic half-reason to absolute reason, an idolatry of the social circle ! Such a situation of life must anew cause a counter-movement, and this must rise in opposition not only to individual sides and regula- tions but to the whole of this social mode of life. If great spiritual renewals work in such a counter- movement, they can set an elevation of hfe going. If such counter-movements, on the other hand, be, as is usually the case, mere reactions, all their passionate protestations can be of but little use essentially. What shapes itself here against a binding of things within the domain of freedom remains so many formless waves of feeling ; the individual can indeed appeal to the immediacy of his life and can revel in ever new moods, but the substance of life profits thus but little. If, in kindred directions, the present seeks to cast off all the burden of history, and seeks to defray the cost of life by its own means alone, no complete freedom is attained. For the aspira- tion of the movement is, viewed empirically, a testi- THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 305 mony of history even when it places itself pointedly over against the immediate past. Such an opposi- tion may well show the defects of social culture, but it is not able to overcome such defects from their foundation. Such opposition with its exaggera- tion of the individual and his contingencies passes easily into one-sidedness and error, so that the scales of right must turn again to the level of social culture. Thus the pendulum of the movement swings inces- santly from one side to the other ; ever anew one side succeeds through exaggeration against the other side, and in the passions of the struggle the best energies devour themselves without having gained anything essential for the main fact. But it is always the con- clusion of absolute truth that makes the struggle passionate and overthrows all error. Thus, social culture is far removed from being the realisation of a kingdom of reason or even from becoming so by degrees. The greater will be the subversion — not only in expressed words but in acts — when social culture stands for such a kingdom of reason. There lies in such a worship of humanity a delusion which must issue, in the particular as well as in the general, into clamorous hindrance and misrepresentation. But even such a mode of life received its characteristic feature from the Spiritual Life, and can never wholly deny its origin. But how does this Spiritual Life explain itself now that the lower mode of life draws it into its own web and offers the most tenacious opposition to all progressive effort ? And even when the Spiritual Life is con- ceived as a world-power and returns to the Divine, even this conception is drawn into the sphere of 20 306 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION doubt. Is not the Spiritual Life able to complete the work begun? But why then was the work begun? Out of what do these hindrances explain themselves — hindrances which, however, do not originate out of the mere individual, but which carry a necessity in themselves ? Here again we find riddle after riddle ! All the obscurity, however, concerning these questions is stimulated on the path of denial. 3. The Opposition within the particular Province of the Spiritual Life Difficult as the previous entanglements were, they do not reach to the deepest root of the Spiritual Life. However much such a life may be confined within the human circle, it signifies even here, through inner movements and necessities, a real kind of existence and a real efficacy. For how otherwise does the struggle against bare nature as well as against bare society explain itself, and how could the injunctions of both be discovered as insufficient ? Also, such an elevated Spiritual Life encompasses and permeates our existence not merely as an invisible total atmo- sphere, but it unites itself as a great Whole in art, science, morality, etc., and develops a propelling force within its own province, and works beyond the individual province in the whole realm of life. Thus there originates here without a doubt an original sphere of life. Has this sphere overcome the en- tanglements, and has it resulted in an emancipation from the hindrance and error which otherwise saddle human existence ? Such were in fact the opinions and hopes of ancient and modern times. All disorder was pressed into the THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 307 relationship with the environment ; the particular circle of the Spiritual Life was imagined through this to avoid any deformity ; spirituality and reason seemed to have an equally valid greatness. Accord- ing to this, man need only set himself in spiritual activity in order to place his life in pure reason. It is in this direction that the convictions of all the enthusiasm of culture and all the confessions of enlightenment considered that the development of mental energies carry directly within themselves the security of a right habit and usage of things, and that when errors arise they will unloose themselves easily and smoothly. In connection with the whole course of our investi- gation quite a contrary picture presented itself. The entanglements vanish in no manner within the province of the Spiritual Life, but reach within it their highest power ; the most difficult hindrances and disturbances are not of an unspiritual but of a spiritual kind. That an Absolute Spiritual Life was visible in the domain of man brings, instead of a smooth, solution, far more a sharpening of the op- posites, a heightening of the conflict. Indeed, when the disturbance threatens to grip the fundamental ex- istence itself, when the Spiritual Life is confined within itself, doubt penetrates now into the final depths. How does it stand now in connection with the Divine that suffers such an inner disorder to prevail ? Or shall we flee to the course of thought which comes to expression in the noteworthy words : Nevio contra Deum nisi Deus ipse ? (a) J'he Disruption of the Spiritual Life. — The Spiritual Life begins in us at individual points and 308 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION first of all constructs further Wholes ; it shows the nearest-at-hand view of things as scattered into a great number of isolated elements. The presence of the Spiritual Life promises an entire revolution of all this. For in it the unity longs for sovereignty ; little as the fragmentary elements may be abolished with one stroke, yet the Spiritual Life will undertake an energetic struggle against them, and out of a Divine power within the soul it will penetrate into them victoriously ; more and more the Spiritual Life must connect all into a Whole and permeate each special province with the spirit of the Whole. We must expect and aspire after all this. But again, the expectation is deceived, again a still greater entangle- ment grows out of the alleged solution. True, in all this the idea of a total-life arises, works, and extends itself into the iridividual provinces. But the elements do not bend before this idea, but seek with all their existing rights to draw it down to themselves, and with the help of such an idea of a total-life to raise themselves to the level of all sovereignty. Now it is science, now art, now moral- ity, now historical religion, now practical activity, which make themselves in turn a centre of life, and seek to link all effort to their own special arena. Consequently there originates varied types of life with their antagonistic movements and their dis- agreement and division of fragmentary portions of spirituality amongst themselves. And, indeed, such a procedure seems to issue out of an inner necessity. Thus the Spiritual Life within us seems to belong to no special and clear province beyond the social circle, and does not seem able to gain the necessary energy THE EXPLANATION OE THE OPPOSITION 309 for high aims without concentrating itself on one aspect of Mfe alone, and expecting alj safety through reaching that aspect. Therefore, there is with us no prominent achievement without a strong one-sided- ness and also unfairness ; all greatness thus works tyrannically and coercively; all effort, in the glow and passion of its activities, after a just balancing and a reciprocal reservation, appears as an intolerable dulness. But as all this conflict experiences through the idea of an Absolute Life the most important enhancement, the entanglements are still found beyond the existing situation. The next result is a sharp division of the various movements, a hard conflict on the whole, the trans- formation of our Spiritual Life into a relentless struggle. And all hope of an atoning conclusion fails. As each party represents a right which must never be lost, none of the elements of the movement must be destroyed, and thus the conquest of each element carries in its over-exertion a turn to a lower level, and further, the prospect opens itself upon an ebb and flow, upon a fluctuation hither and thither. When, however, the one displaces the other ever anew, ever anew the ideals and the convictions change suddenly into full opposites. Does not the whole thing then become a mere play and caprice ? True, the thought of an all-encompassing and all-governing truth is there, but it does not seem able to mould itself without being under the power of the merely indi- vidual formations, without serving the ambition of these isolated formations for an absolute monarchy, and without working for the sharpening of the^dis- ruption whose overcoming was set forth as a goal. 310 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION This presumption, however, to be a Whole in the particular is believed to be atoned for by the individual movements; they will make some amends through the shaping of the meaning of the true and the false, the spiritual and the human, freedom and necessity, which in their natural state are entangled in one another, and which nowhere long to reach pure reason. Therefore, it is only out of the Whole that the necessary division of things results ; it is only in the connections of life framed in an inner unity that there results a transposition into full freedom and original activism — into an illumination and spiritualisation of the total existence ; it is only out of this that each province receives definite boundaries within which it has, in its own way, to represent the Whole and work for its further development. If, on the other hand, the individual formations in their exclusiveness allow the good and the indispensable to flow along- side of the perverse and the problematic, life degener- ates into the most painful dilemma. What life dare not miss as a truth cannot possibly be extracted out of the region of the affixed error ; but, however, if life ignores the error, the truth quickly fades and vanishes. Therefore life must at the same time affirm and deny, accept and reject ; everywhere truth disperses into error because the particular rules the Whole, and forces its own nature on the Whole. The total-life needs Art for its emancipation and thorough cultivation, for Art makes Truth significant and joyous at the same time ; Art baptizes Truth in the element of Beauty, but as soon as truth rules the Whole through the develop- ment of an aesthetic view of life, it submits to a THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 311 pleasurable, playful, and hyper-sensitive direction of life. Science brings forth an energetic clarification and consolidation, an ascent of man to a world- consciousness and to a life which proceeds from the expansion and truth of things ; but science is not able to become the sole mistress without engendering through its merely intellectual culture an excessive self-consciousness of the work of thought, and turning the tasks of life into problems of knowledge, and finally injuring the development of an independent inwardness as well as of the fresh apprehension of the immediate movement. A manly strength and a consolidation of character which the whole being needs originate out of morality, but a specific moral conduct of life is wont to become hard, stubborn, and self-conscious. Over against this, religion de- velops more gentleness and fervour, but to fill the life exclusively with these leads easily into the danger of turning aside from the work of the world and of revolving simply in one's own inactivity, and, finally, of transferring to the Divine the claims which humanity makes upon us — the very qualities by which we are able to know the Divine at all. A counter-effect is brought about by the practico-social life with its development of the contact with the environment and with its participation in the energies of the ordinary everyday experience ; and this works in the direction of greater security and skiU, of fresh courage to face life, and of a joyous self-existence. But as soon as such a mode of life conquers the whole man, it drives him into a shallow activity and into a soulless alienation. Thus each isolated method leads into error as soon as it becomes a Whole to 312 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION itself, and yet each individual method will not give up its claim to become a Whole, and puts every nerve forth to become such a Whole. Through such a dispersal the conduct of life engenders a characteristic obscurity which arrogantly tends to despise all the provinces except its own, whilst it rejects such a treatment from any other side as an unbearable monstrosity. The aesthetic mode of thought feels itself superior in the fineness of its sensations and the distinction of its taste ; the scientific mode feels its superiority in the expansive- ness of its view and the clearness of its insight ; the moral mode feels its superiority in the strength of its virtues ; the religious mode feels its superiority in the inwardness of its soul-life and its being well-pleasing unto God ; the practico-social mode feels its superi- ority in the secure rule of immediate existence. Each misses the ideals of the rest, and no wonder that each easily defeats the others. Thus, through a variegated colouring we obtain usually a pharisaic self-consciousness, and, along with it, a disfiguration of the Spiritual Life into a factious life which is as unavoidable as it is intolerable. But how shall the substance of the Spiritual Life conquer if each element strives against the others, and all contend against all, and in the strife destroy their best energy ? On account of this, such strife, in the course of history, will increase rather than decrease. For in spite of all the vacillations of individuals, divergences increase on the whole, and the characteristic development of each particular province takes place as well. Modern times especially constitutes a significant period through its THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 313 dissolution of the Middle Ages mode of culture, but the danger became ever greater through the develop- ment of one-sided formations, through a disintegration of the Spiritual Life and the transformation of our existence into an irreconcilable struggle. Also, it becomes ever clearer that the entanglement lies far above all will and capacity of mere individuals ; the individual appears here all along as a child of his age ; the waves of his age play with him and carry him far out until he becomes without a will of his own, and merely floats on the current of the external circumstances. The idea of a Spiritual Life is not able to prevail against such a discord, but is considered a specially evil defect, and it is driven into stubborn doubt at the moment a Divine power is recognised in the idea of such a spiritual total-life. Then the Divine seems too weak to become the ruler of the human forma- tion of the Spiritual Life ; indeed, what is present as a stimulation of the Spiritual Life seems to fall under the power of a lower order, and to heighten the fancy and confusion of that order. How can a Divine work thus against His own aims ? (;8) The Disintegration within the Spiritual Life. — The opposition to the unity of the Spiritual Life reaches even deeper : disintegrations unite themselves together in the very foundation, and produce a dispersal of elements and conflicting formations. Three such disintegrations have already been noticed in our investigation. First of all, our investigation considered the cleft between subject and object — between the individual consciousness and its external world. From the beginning this cleft checks progress 314 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION towards truth, but it seemed to draw a conclusion concerning the opening of a definite spiritual and essential life within the particular domain of man. For along with the cleft there appears within the domain of activity the dawning of a reality ; there originates a world which is contiguous with the self from within and not from without, but such a world becomes our true self through the binding of its elements into a unity. That this new world, first of all, found itself in opposition to the old world, and only gradually subjects it, cannot astonish and terrify us. This is certainly to be expected in connection with a movement which arises towards a new direction, and which slowly yet securely advances over against the cleft. But when this expectation of overcoming the cleft is unfulfilled, even the presence of a higher order of things far more heightens than lessens the problem. Not only is the idea of unity unable to draw the being to itself, and mould it out of itself, but it works in the direction of giving an edge to the situation, as each of the two sides — subject and object — is driven, through its indifference to the unity, to an attempt to tear the total-life into pieces and to bring the opposite side entirely under itself. In the one direction, the particular works of man emancipate themselves, they step forward as independent powers, they transform the life of the soul into mere means for their own necessities, they coerce ever stronger all inwardness and mechanise more and more all existence. But the progressive absorption of the subject contributes finally towards the overthrow of man's powers. For the more the activities loosen themselves from a soul-foundation, the less can they THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 315 signify a connection by themselves, and the more must their own energy and greatness smk until their inability to inspire the whole of life appears quite clearly. Then comes the rotation to the other side : there results now an inversion of the prior course of work. The subject now raises itself in a gigantic manner and disconnects itself to the utmost from the object in order to construct all reality by itself. Its own individual situation becomes its world ; the enjoyment of its sensations and the refinement of its dispositions become its life. But if the subject follows exclusively on this path, the reality more and more internally and externally flies away. For the subject is not able to preserve its own unity on account of its growing resignation to a mere senti- ment ; it degenerates into purely isolated and inces- santly changing positions, and its existence falls more and more into the transient and the shadowy. On the other hand, a great longing will again awaken for the object as an indispensable support for our life, and thus once more the power reaches the other side. This dialectic, in which each side through its isolation and overstrain destroys itself and returns to the other side, shows clearly the necessity of both sides to instruct one another. But with the acknowledg- ment of a homogeneousness we do not gain a living unity ; all merely individual effort for a Whole does not free us from the power of a lifeless disunion, as our own times with their vacillation to and fro between a soulless technics and a fanciful senti- ment show with painful clearness. The presence of an Absolute Life which shall be above the opposites has as yet only heightened the longing 316 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION for unity without conferring the energy to satisfy the longing. Another evil cleft from which the Absolute Life should be freed is that between energy and character. Experience from of old has shown how the energy has often mangled the character and the character the energy, and how life has entered into a blind natural impulse on the one hand and into a powerless spiritu- ality on the other hand. Such a situation ought to alter itself through the presence of an essential and cultivated spirituality. For within the province of such a spirituality there is no definite energy which does not carry within itself an independent appropria- tion of that spiritual world, and, along with this, acquires a moral character ; at the same time, the character raises itself from a merely passive condition to an energetic act — an act in which the whole soul connects itself together. Thus, through the ennoble- ment of energy and the strengthening of character an inner unity is reached, and a new type of life is gained in which the strong is good and the good is strong. It is a matter of regret that such a type of life signifies for us more of a distant ideal than of a present reality. For not only does the antithesis contain undiminished energy in the direction mentioned over the whole breadth bf existence, but the attempt at emancipation seems to it to lie back still deeper in the spiritual. Also, from an earlier simple-mindedness the idea has more and more heightened, so that one of the sides raises itself above the other as alone of value, and handles its opposite side as superfluous and even evil. Thus, on one side, we find the exclusiveness of spiritual energy — great diabolical formations which THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 317 are completely absorbed in the victorious progress of their own doings and creations, and treat all else with supreme indifference ; which are served by the events of life, and to which fate itself appears to pay homage, although their course lies on the other side of good and evil ; thus all moral judgment appears as a subsidiary consideration and even as an unbecoming intrusion. In all this there lies a wantonness which not only leads sooner or later to external ruin, but which also from the outset damages the spiritual character of the achievement. And, over against this cult of mere energy, we find a cult of mere disposition, the self-conceit and self- righteousness of a disposition separated from action, and resting exclusively in itself. Now, what happens within pure inwardness may, in its ultimate valuation, surpass in lustre the most brilliant performance in the moulding of the world. But when a frame of mind has no contact with the entanglements and temptations of the world, when the disposition is not turned into action, when there is no struggle with external things, when man revolves, from the outset, within an alleged superiority of his own mind, then life threatens to sink into inactivity, the weak- ness of the soul is reckoned as a merit, and in such a numbness and smallness of nature a pharisaic self-complacency arises. And the self-complacency of weakness is even more painful than that of strength. But how will the disposition become the soul of a great life, and how will the cleft between wishing and achieving be spanned ? Once again, we have not amongst men found those things together, which, in themselves, require each other. S18 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION In corporate life that conflict appears in the discord between culture and morality (especially as repre- sented in religion). Culture, with its development of energy, is wont to treat morality as a subsidiary thing, and to sacrifice it to its own ends ; morality develops, over against this, a consciousness of inner superiority without being able, however, to develop a corresponding power. Morality, nevertheless, shows itself energetic enough to reveal the limits of culture, and to check men from finding full satis- faction in it. Thus each tendency is able to break the exclusiveness of the other, but neither is able to reach an exclusive rule. What, however, does the whole of the Spiritual Life gain through such a mutual hindrance ? The third antithesis is that of spiritual sub- stance and psychic existence— an antithesis expressed by the noological and the psychological methods. This antithesis is, first of all, brought to the surface through the idea of the essential development of our nature, and only therewith does it become clear that, without the attainment by the Spiritual Life of an independence over against the purely psychic pro- cedure, there is no content of life and no connected spiritual world. But at the same time, there becomes apparent the fact that such an elevated Life realises itself only in the form of psychic existence, and that its development proceeds only through the move- ments and experiences of such a form. Thus, as necessary as a clear separation of both series becomes the constant reciprocity of both. Here, also, the experience of life shows, in the main, a pointed and severe enmity. On the one side, we find misjudg- THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 319 ing of the incomplete state and limitation of human Spiritual Life, a rash seizure of the substance and the fixing of one's self on it, and through this, however, a cutting off any further movement, thus causing a coercion of all initiative and a premature conclusion of the meaning of life. On the other side, we find the attempt to gather up fragments of a content and of a spiritual world out of the movements of the immediate psychic life ; and thus we obtain a good deal of freshness, movement, and variation, but on account of the inward contradiction of the facts we find a constant wish for more than can ever possibly be, we find a fraudulent acquisition of the unprovable and a great danger of shallowness. Thus the opposi- tion between substance and existence-form shapes itself into a disorder of the depth and freedom of the nature ; the depth threatens to become rigid, and the freedom superficial. This strife permeates the whole ramifications of life : no other opposition drives men into such contending camps, and none engenders so many parties. It is thus to-day in the particular province of Philosophy. For what other are the deepest ground and the strongest energy of the divisions of thinkers but that one section takes its stand on the necessity of the Spiritual Life, and that the other takes its stand on the circumstances and experiences of man ? The struggle between idealism and realism, the a priori and empiricism, metaphysics and psychology — they all originate in the last resort out of the same root. How can the presence of an Absolute Life be sustained when the movement towards truth itself is retarded by the strife of parties, and remains fettered by such a situation ? 320 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION (7) The Impotence of Morality. — After all the upheaval we have already observed, there remains the very last means of escape, i.e. morality in its existence-for-self as a kingdom of pure character, as the decision concerning the total-direction of effort. However few results such a decision may possess from an external point of view, however many hindrances and limits it meets within the soul itself, there originates with it an original province of life, a full existence-for-itself of the inwardness of life which all the power of the enemy cannot possess. Here the soul longs for a secure superiority to the world, and gains also the indestructible certainty of a new order of things. Thus, many epochs became the possessors of all this, and later antiquity especially made morality a fast bulwark against all the doubts and toils of life. All this heightens itself powerfully when the turn to religion posits the decision upon the whole of the universe, and when the decision allows itself to be carried by an Absolute Life. True, the problem becomes far greater, but also the certainty of man becomes far more joyous. Indeed, that turn origin- ates from difficult entanglements of a moral kind, and an immediate conquest is not to be expected, but an inward strengthening and a victorious ascent are certainly longed for by us. Do things stand thus in the reality of our experi- ence ? First of all, this is certain : religion shows far more the inadequacy than the sufficiency of our actions ; concerning the judgment of the moral situa- tion of man the Standard, for example, decides before all else the nature of what we construct, and shows THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 321 what we ought to construct. Now, religion with its relationship to the Divine reveals such an Absolute Standard ; the Divine valuation displaces all merely human convictions of things. While the latter state of things coerces the man within the man, its judgment with all its relativity loses its edge. The ordinary situation of human actions constructs its standard, but what remains behind such a situation condemns the situation ; what steps perceptibly be- yond the ordinary situation is praised as being some- how great, and is honoured as a service which is not unconditionally required from man. Over against all this, the Divine valuation of things raises itself and transforms the ordinary valuation, because its claims rest upon absolute perfection. Measured out of the infinite, all the differences of the finite vanish, and there remains only the common boundless expanse of space ; and it is through the recognition of some- thing of this kind that all moral greatness and all moral service of man develop. Thus it has happened everywhere where the religious idea dawned with full originality, as in the beginnings of Christianity and in the rise of Protestantism. It is only in the weakening of that idea that human valuations gain so much ground as they have gained in Catholicism. The problem intensifies itself, however, in the degree the spiritual and essential mode of religion longs for a recognition, and in the degree the con- viction is found that there stands in question not merely some kind of development in certain direc- tions, but the essential development of the whole of our nature. After this, the revealed inadequacy meets the whole of our existence ; then all which is THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION termed customary morality appears as a thing which belongs far too much to the mere shallowness and far too little to the substance of the soul. And when the inadequacy presents itself as the all-sufficient and the all-encompassing, an inexorable struggle of de- finite morality as against a mere semblance of it is inevitable. Thus, all development of morality under the influence of religion gave a continuous lower valua- tion to customary moral values. That which in worthy achievements fastens itself to bare natural energy must finally crystallise into a non-moral ; that which works within the particular circle of human society towards the curtailment of selfishness and towards mutual advancement is much too external and is afflicted with far too much pretence to enter into the balance as an absolute valuation. But placed in a "beyond" to the social formation of things, all human morality appears insipid, vacillating, and hollow. It is a virtue out of a defect caused by temptations or by the equilibrium of errors ; a legality which was never placed on trial ; a love which remained true out of mere custom and because it knew no other ; a belief and trust which never had doubts, and which had no need to prove anything; a sacrifice which at the same time brought forth much profit. Over against such weaknesses we find the evil power of the passions, and man torn through them from his better insight, and, indeed, against his better will, and all the remaining fully-recognised excellences blown out of his consciousness as a dream and a shadow. And over all the particular passions we find, however, the egoism with its loosening of THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION the individual from world-connections, and from its relationship to the infinity of the universe, brought to a state of poverty. This egoism, through its inversion of the world and so fundamentally different from natural self-preservation, seems to grow not weaker but stronger with the advance of culture ; the historical movement may vary its form but such a movement leaves the substance untouched. Such a banishment of effort into the small self becomes intolerable when the turn to his essential nature and its cultivation holds definitely before man a new self in the Spiritual Life ; now the hold upon the small and shallow produces a self-alienation of man and a destruction of his own nature. And yet it persists and draws ever the new movement back to itself Thus the inadequacy of all human morality lies clearly on the surface. But what harm can this in- adequacy produce if over against it a Divine energy dawns and a superhuman life kindles itself? Such a turn to a " better " would then stand more visibly and more convincingly before our eyes ! But in the mean- time such obviousness and energy of conviction fail to appear. Not only does religion seem to alter but little the total situation of life, but the entrance of the " higher " works in the first place principally in driving out the contradictions and in the awakening of otherwise slumbering oppositions ; thus the in- version reaches its most external height, whilst the "good," with the acknowledgment of its highest worth, is dismissed, injured, and destroyed. When many thinkers of a rationalistic turn of mind declare it as impossible that such an activity, which works against one's own conclusions and which disapproves THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION of a Divine, can be itself Divine, they misconstrue the abyss of human nature and contradict the experiences of humanity. For in the " great " and the " small " there is an evil beyond niere egoism — there is envy and malicious joy over the calamities of others, hate and jealousy ; and where one's own welfare is not touched at all, there is an antipathy towards the Great and the Divine, and a pleasure in the deface- ment and destruction of the Good. Through this the bad things mount to positive evil — to the dia- bolical. The burlesque figure of a devil has vanished from our figurative ideas, but it has not vanished out of human nature. Further, the mysterious fact of evil as a positive opposition to the " Good " has not ceased to occupy the minds of the deepest thinkers, and in spite of all attempted reconciliation the pro- blem has ever anew broken out ; it stands clearly before us at the present day not only through the teachings of Kant and Schopenhauer, but far more through the particular experience of modern life itself. Evil is thus in the highest degree to be understood as a testimony of freedom, and the conception of moral wrong will never allow itself to be expelled in spite of all attempts. But although moral wrong endows evil with its edge, it does not engender aU evil. But what makes the situation of man so especially painful is the fact that the total arrange- ment of life — which at least leads man if it does not force him — becomes a failure even with man's own activities. Out of the hand of nature man receives the obligation of an incessant self-preservation which often drives men against one another, and allows THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 325 them to welcome the injury of one another on ac- count of their own advantage. Civih|ed hfe heightens these entanglements through its multipUcation and refinement of wants and needs, through its manifold complications and the narrow concentration of men, through its strong blaze of ambition and impulse for gain — all these are deemed necessary for our self- preservation. Thus the release of energy and the restless extension of effort appear self-evident and unassailable ; the common atmosphere, the social organisations, etc., shape themselves in accordance with such a notion. And if we proceed only a step further we find the admission of merely instinctive attitudes into entire self-activity ; we find that which occurs in daily life elevated into a principle ; and thus the real thing which matters appears as a pain- ful inversion and degenerates into adverse criticism. But this criticism grows out of relationships which carry our whole life, and, along with it, our spiritual development ! How shall we disengage ourselves from such an entanglement? And what becomes of the presence of the Divine through such an upheaval of morality ? In so far as the actual situation has been acknow- ledged, it has to all appearance strengthened less the reason of our existence than brought the unreason to a clear consciousness. 4. The Darkness of the Human Situation Our attention hitherto was specially directed to- wards the entanglements in the actions of man, but we have also to estimate his condition and the forma- tion of his abilities. In connection with these latter 326 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION the matter does not deal merely with man's subjective happiness but with the Spiritual Life ; it deals with the question — whether such a Life through its founda- tion in an Absolute Being gains the energy to enforce its way to the external world and to subject the universe to its own ends? What brings about the formation of the value of values should certainly be able to reign and rule also in our circle. Before all else the desire of man appears in his effort to reach spirituality through the aid of a power superior to the world, to reach it especially in a hard struggle against an alien, dark, and powerful world. Indeed, the more the threads of the phenomena of the universe run tangled through one another, the more indispensable it is to link all human aims to a power superior to the world ; the harder the oppositions of the world-environment are, the more urgent is the hope placed upon an over-world help. Such a power is to raise our own potency out of its insufficiency ; it is to prepare a secure path for our activity through a deep darkness ; and it is to transform the hindrance and opposition into a conclusive advancement. It must raise man im- measurably in the inmost of his being and strengthen him in his courage to face life, so that he may be able to consider himself an object of the care of an over- world power and wisdom, and also of eternal love. Upon the lower levels much may mix together as self-love and even vanity, but on the higher level all this vanishes .before the unique end of the spiritual maintenance and elevation of man. In reality this idea is so indispensable to religion that an entire renunciation of it has been conceived THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 327 as the destruction of religion itself. In any ease, every conception of religion must feel anxious for the realisation of such an idea. If and how such a realisation can happen does not concern us at this point of the inquiry ; here the question is not how the gain of such a realisation reaches the idea of a Providence, but whether the idea seems sufficiently clear over against the condition of the world so as to win the seeker for itself. It is a bad mistake to mix together the matter-of-fact of experience and the claims of religious belief ; for he who carries carelessly into his nearest view of things what seemed to him from such a view to be self-evident, but what in reality becomes possible only after a great conquest, diminishes not only the expansion of life but also endangers the truth of life. We must ask, therefore, without any prejudice, whether the surrounding objects allow us to infer of a movement of the universe in the direction of spirit- uality, and whether a superior furtherance of a spiritual striving of man clearly appears. Doubtless there are numerous examples and modes of life which create the impression of a well-marked directivity ; number- less threads are discovered which bind themselves together and produce a favourable final result ; dangers are averted, and aids, beyond all expectation, are gained. But, too, the impression of the system- atic arrangement of things can occasionally produce a result of the blindest gamble of things ; and in order to estimate with any certainty whether any evidence of a higher guidance and love is to be found in the accommodating behaviour of things, more is under consideration than a purely solitary event ; we THE OPPOSITION TO REIJGION must be able to know the relationship of actual instances to possible ones ; we must estimate the ratio of the gains to the blanks ; and all this we are not able to do. The impression of many opposite kinds of ex- periences associates itself with such a darkness as we find in things around us. For we observe that there remains in man himself not only much goodwill and many busy activities without the needed aids from above, but which break in pieces before they reach their highest ends ; there remains not only much spiritual energy and warm love unrealised — and in other cases much of all this is painfully lacking — but we also discover enchainments of phenomena which seem to aim at the creation of great misery, and which drive man with unmerciful callousness over the brink of an abyss. The faintest hint would have sufficed to hold him back from such a catastrophe, but this does not appear, and consequently destruction takes its course. Petty accidents destroy life and happiness ; a moment annihilates the most toilsome work. Often, also, We discover a chaotic medley, a sudden overthrow of all potency, a seeming in- difference towards all human weal and woe, a blind groping in the dark; we discover deep- veiled possi- bilities constantly sweeping as dark clouds over man and occasionally descending as a crashing lightning. But, also, man's own destiny, as it were, plays with him, raising hopes soon to destroy them and pre- paring energies soon to annihilate them. And in all this we are to view an order of reason and a kingdom of love ! The method in which the customary development THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 329 of religion arranges itself in connection with these problems is lamentable, and is unworthy of the seriousness of the whole question. * The matter is handled as a law trial in a thoroughly attorney- like fashion. The cases which seem to present an affirmative answer are recognised gladly as "the finger of God," especially where He seems to strengthen one's own party ; but what shows life as suffering and unreason, as stubborn opposition and fruitless toil, is ignored or placed out of the way in a manner we should be ashamed of in connection with human things. Soon one flees to mere possibilities, and holds to the comfortable thought that things will soon outweigh in an opposite direction, and that what began in pain and sorrow will end in pleasure and bliss. Soon the thought grants the consolation that, in spite of all the misery, it might have been worse ; that a tormented suffering leads, after the exhaustion of all the energies, finally into death, and that a devastating calamity has not reached the depth it might have reached — all this is praised as a grace of God. These assumed claims easily satisfy, but does the world constitute a kingdom of reason because it is not the worst of all possible worlds ? If, however, the unreason is far too evident to accept the above conclusion, there remains to the official defenders of the Godhead one other exit: suffering is not only apologised for but welcomed as an indispensable means for inner purification and moral cultivation. Now, one must be very undiscerning not to be aware that an order of things whose highest end is reachable only through severe suffering can never be a kingdom of reason. How does it stand 330 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION with the real fact of the assertion ? Can we say with certainty that suffering reforms man — reforms him in a decisive manner ? Or does it not perhaps give another direction to his errors? As the experience of life hfts itself up to an unbiased reflection, suffering is a shield against evil and pride ; man is able through great tribulation to rouse himself out of the numbness of daily routine, and is able, too, to pitch his courage to a gentle key, as well as to render sincere services to his fellow-men. But, on the other side, suffering often works in the direction of deadening and dis- couraging the powers, especially when it does not come to us in the form of a volcanic catastrophe, but accompanies the whole course of Ufe as a continuous grief and as a cramped pressure. The mean and common found in the chain of relations, from which the man is not able to withdraw, although he longs to do so with the whole of his soul, confine all aspira- tion and lower the level of life ; and close to such a level lies a turn to a petty and narrow-minded disposition, to bitterness of heart and jealousy ; in- deed, through the most external conditions, suffering and sorrow can suffocate all spiritual effort. Thus testifies the immediate impression of experience for the Greeks, to whom happiness and success were held as aids of advancement for the moral education of man. And the fact that Christianity took up suffer- ing into the inmost soul of man, and made it a point of departure to an entirely new direction of life — a fact which will occupy our attention later — can only indicate a mistaken shallowness and a dangerous inversion, as though suffering, without further ado, through a kind of necessary effect, engendered a THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 331 spiritual advance and a moral purification. Then, indeed, the fact would be most simple, so simple that religion itself would become superfluous. Certainly to all religious conviction the thought is indispensable that somehow at least a reason shall issue out of unreason is to be hoped for. As it is presented in the book of Job : " And now men see not the light which is bright in the skies, but the wind passeth and cleanseth them " ; but it makes a great difference whether, first of all, doubt is fully tasted, and whether an inner turn of life, through the deepest conviction, is prepared, or whether, through those supposed reasonable counsels of the Godhead, all shall soon be turned into the pure and the clear, and, along with this, the head of all sting shall be plucked out. As this beautiful colouring tends to- wards the blunting of the problem, it enters into a constant conflict with the plain meaning of truth. For the meaning of truth can only acknowledge the impression that certainly much in our. potencies seems to point beyond ourselves, but which, however, allows itself to be understood on the whole as a strong enchainment and chaotic disarrangement of occur- rences, as an indifferent treading upon weal and woe, as no order of reason for the hopes and fears of man, and as no kingdom of love. And with what other eyes are we able to see things but with our own ? Much certainly remains mysterious, and especially mysterious is the fact that the life of man is not able to follow a directed course. It seems occasionally as if his life and actions were driven by an unexplain- able power into a course unwilled by the individual himself; in many instances a strong wave seems to a32 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION raise the potencies of man and to carry him far past his own capacities ; in other instances such a power, with equal energy, seems to work against him, and to allow his choicest undertakings to be cruelly wrecked. Thus, there has originated from of old the belief in destiny which, with brazen will, prescribes his course for man, doles out his luck, and to resist which is to will wantonly. Spiritual control is withheld all the more from such a belief because human self-love plays strongly in the idea : if the belief once flatters the vanity that destiny, through a supernatural power, raises the individual beyond others, pettiness and weakness find their most comfortable trust in their attempts to impute their own defects to an irresistible destiny. It constantly remains a noteworthy experience that especially renowned men of action, whose actions operated so efficaciously in a dark world and who brought forth incalculable results, often lived in the conviction that they were tools in the hand of an all-powerful destiny. This belief, invulnerable against all dangers and certain to lead to the appointed goal, was indispens- able to them in order to possess a joyous courage for creativeness and for the entire certainty of their enterprises. But all the power of such a subjective conviction furnishes no objective proof. Could it not be that the self-feeling alone was expressed in such a belief? Were, however, the reality of a higher power acknowledged here, the mystery of the whole world would increase rather than lessen. For why does that solicitude contract itself upon indi- vidual cases, and how does it agree with an infinite good when it handles man as a mere tool, and THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 33S throws him indifferently out of the way just as he is about to reach his longed-for goal ? Also, in the lives of great men, their energy seems to weaken after the culmination of their work. And does there not remain here an unexplainable incongruity between the seeming power of reason on its summits and its weakness on the whole ? Heroes appear, work, and create ; they overcome, as in a play, all opposition ; they link their results to their further pursuits ; thus their achievement enters into the whole and seems to control the destiny of humanity. But has much of reason, on the whole, issued out of all toil and work, and does history exhibit itself as a victorious ascent and a secure advance of definite spirituality ? And if this is not the case, what avails all help of the Divine in individual situations ? Once more, a half- reason seems to lie in front of us, and the riddlesome appears as an entire unreason. Thus, it happens with us in our search for a guiding thread as with those who search for a track in a deep thicket. We seem to have found such a track ; it seems to show a way through the labyrinth ; it becomes clearer and seems to lead securely to a goal. But soon the track grows narrower, fainter, and vanishes, to reappear ; again the imprints become fainter and fainter, until finally the whole disappears, and all toil has yielded only a delusive hope. Perhaps, however, the blame of the previous dis- content lies on the observer ; perhaps we have sought in an inverted direction. If a benevolent providence which links all for the best is not recognisable, yet there appears perhaps with clearer eyes a moral order, an equilibrium of all action and condition, a kingdom THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION of strong righteousness. The longing after a requited righteousness is in no way an outflow from a petty disposition which desires a reward for the good and a punishment for the evil, or of an envied calculation which grows anxious lest too little should come to us and too much should go to another. But the thought allows itself to be lifted up beyond the small human mode, and places before itself for its advancement the fact that the spiritual governs and rules the world as a moral order. A Plato and a Kant longed for this. Thinkers thus shaped into the Whole and the Spiritual only what inspires peoples and epochs, and the former were rather called to transform the entire concept of reality beyond all experience than to be- queath anything for the intensifying of the demand. In the first place, one hoped to find the entire adjust- ment ready in the life-course of each individual; as experience contradicted this, the vicissitudes of life were drawn into a concept, and consequently righteousness was hoped for in the future results of the race as a whole. But such vicissitudes of life engendered new problems without having solved the old ones ; and now the thought soars beyond the realm of fear and hope, and passes beyond the limits of this life to seek the atoning righteousness in a future existence. Most peoples satisfy themselves with such a solitary consummation of things, and find in the thought of a judgment day a satisfying conclusion. Others, however, who did not merely think forward but also backward, and who, with an unbounded imagination, flew beyond the world, went much further and made of the present life an THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 335 individual link of an immeasurable chain — as, for example, the Indian doctrine has done in its teaching of the transmigration of souls. The teaching of an unescapable destiny of the actions constitutes nowhere more the centre of religious conviction than with the Indians ; what is truly man's own seems here to him to be nothing more than his deeds ; through life and death, through rebirth and transformation, the consequences of his deeds return to man from the good and the evil ; nowhere is there an evasion or an aversion, nowhere a forgetfulness or a loss. The imagination has never worked more powerfully than in the keen tracings of such views of the universe ; and the sway of such a teaching has not failed to exercise a strong effect upon the soul of man. But such delineations have convincing power only for believers, to whom the doctrines make possible what is necessary for their souls. But he who does not feel himself in the position of a believer, but of a seeker, can have no choice but to look within his own experience for the essential facts. Such essential facts do not fail us. A certain moral order, as it is termed, appears already in the natural concatenation of things as well as in the external results of action and in the judgment of the mind on such action. In reality, certain kinds of action exhibit characteristic connections which pro- duce agreeable results, but there are other kinds which produce disagreeable ones; dissipation is less conducive to well-being than a well-regulated life ; and an action corresponding to the legal and social ordinances is more favourable to decent hving than a contrary kind of action. But how little, after all, 336 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION is gained from such trivial truths ! They are valid only for isolated fragments of life, and this kind of adjustment touches merely the visible action, whilst the character remains untouched. Indeed, the more the life intensifies itself, and the more the moral tasks extend over the whole circumference of life, the more inadequate will all such adjustments become by means of natural results. But perhaps there grows with such a development of life as the action engenders in the inwardness of the soul a power of self-judgment, of conscience. Whenever life took a turn from external effects to an inwardness of soul, it believed itself able to find here an uncorrupted judge of good and evil ; the approval of this judge seemed to produce joy and power against which all the suffering of life vanishes ; its condem- nation, on the contrary, produces a torment which reduces the value of the most brilliant external achievements. Without a doubt we obtain here a primal spiritual phenomenon which only a shallow external course of thought can lay on one side. But the question arises, as to how far this primal phenomenon reaches, and whether it helps to the production of a righteous order of things for the whole of our existence. But the most manifold reflections arise against such a view. First of all, the fact loses its supposed inviolable sublimity because the nearer kind of self- judgment is seen to be under the influence of a strong social environment : many actions were valued by different peoples and epochs in quite contrary ways ; a conscience which, however, as a kind of soft wax, shapes and alters itself with the customs, opinions. THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 337 and tendencies of men, cannot very well be a true standard for good and evil or an entire righteousness for human existence. Further, conscience is dependent in a high degree on the individual nature of the soul. The reflex which the action throws on the consciousness is of varied strength and accuracy : with one man the reflex may be highly dull, and may work as an impulsive decision ; in another, on the contrary, the reflex fastens the man with great energy and will not let him free. Thus, the first man does not trouble over the most grievous wrongs, whilst the second excites and grieves himself over mistakes hardly perceptible. Physical differences of a coarser or of a finer sensibility play strongly in connection with all this, but it is the height of the moral development, however, which decides concerning the energy of such a self-judgment. Thus most comes to him who needs it least. In the words of Pascal, " the righteous are accustomed to consider themselves sinners and the sinners righteous." Finally, who can deny that conscience forms the foundation for the influence of great perverters of moral values and of the aims of life. The words of Goethe, "the end invests things with a renown," holds valid also in the particular domain of character. For the evil which we choose arouses us but little when its injury is not perceptible, or when it is trimmed into a supposed good through the enchain- ment of circumstances ; and thus the most upright effort towards ourselves, and more still towards others, seems to remain trifling and worthless if all success is denied it. Where, however, success in good or evil 22 338 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION was of importance, the disposition seems to grow greater and more energetic on the one side or the other. A judge so dependent and corruptible can never bring forth righteousness for the whole of life. All in all, the matter here stands in a similar state to what it stood in connection with previous points we have considered. It may well be, that a phenomenon appears within the human province whose deepest root reaches back into the super-human. But in all the nearer development, the facts come under the influence of human means and imperfection ; we thus seem to sink back into the same uncertainty out of which we strove to escape. If, however, human existence through its own means is not able to satisfy the longing after righteous- ness, the moral order cannot be other than of an over- natural kind : an over- world Will must re-establish the equilibrium of action and condition which our life fails to do. The fact of such an adjustment must become clearly discernible towards our human view of things, and, indeed, it must become clearly evident even over against such an adjustment in order to be able to protect our conviction and to govern our life. Does it in reality do this ? Who could confidently answer in the affirmative? For the nearest-at-hand impression confirms in no way within our experience the doctrine of a righteous course of the achievements of life ; but it shows far more a great disproportion of things. Soon the action has the most serious consequences, and all these consequences return to the man himself; causality holds him unmercifully in its grip, and a long-buried past may rise out of its grave and terrify THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 339 him as a ghost. But, inversely, painful wrong courses remain for a long time without any consequences ; these courses degenerate the man not only externally but also internally ; they fall upon him as something alien, and disperse and destroy all just as a storm ravages. Thus particular kinds of foundations come to such a lawless medley when they oppose the right- eous allotments of destiny. The individual is not an island, but stands in manifold and often entangled relations ; he is conditioned by the nature of the environment, by his commissions and omissions in wide and narrow circles, by family, nation, times, etc. Such a solid complication rules here that the action has its consequences often less on the doer than on others ; one individual has often to atone for the wrongs of others, and one generation for the foolish- ness of another ; the offence of one drags others into unhappiness and misery ; " the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." Herewith the threads run into the individual scenes of life, entangled in one another without binding themselves into a connected web and with- out exhibiting a common character. He who seeks to draw a conclusion concerning the destinies of life can hardly avoid the conclusion of a blind confusion, and this confusion becomes a strong injustice when so many differences of an inward kind and character originate, as they in reality do originate. Such an impression might call forth passionate complaints and accusations from one direction ; from another direction they may acquire a form of a disquieting doubt ; but in both cases the indifference of the world transposes itself against the moral relationships 340 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION and being of man, and in direct antagonism to the strongest activity of most earnest minds. That evil often not only hinders and rejects, but also advances and rewards, and that the good seems continuously to abandon the hoped-for energy for the suppres- sion and overthrow of wrong — all this has become in the particular province of religion a matter of incessant searching of heart and of sorrow. "Behold, I cry out of wrong, but 1 am not heard : I cry for help, but there is no judgment " (Job). " The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart ; and godly men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away through wickedness " (Isaiah). The general custodians of belief and the official representatives of religion have, of course, here as well as elsewhere a comfortable answer at hand. Man, they say, dare not reckon with God, whose decrees far overreach all human knowledge ; also, according to the Divine Standard, no one is free from blame, and, therefore, suffering met even him not unjustly who was righteous among men. How clear all this mystery seems to self-righteous men, who yet make a confession of their impotence I What do they know of the decrees of God ? And how could they expect from man a suspension of his judgment and a denial of the imperative and urgent impressions which he forms ? Certainly, all the moral diiFerences of men vanish in the light of the conception of absolute perfection, but man is not able to consider his actions in relationship to the Divine as solely his own, but also through the con- nections of these actions with his fellow-men ; he is not able to adjust the vicissitudes and values of life ; THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 341 and when therefore he can find no righteousness any- where, rehgion with its basing of the good in the Divine must heighten the pain and the unrest. And is not the history of religion itself full of the most painful per- secution and oppression of the Noble and the Divine ? Religion is never able to think lightly of such problems. Also, injustice limits itself in no way to the rela- tionship of inner and outer, of blame and condi- tions, but it strikes its roots into the inward nature itself, it turns into blame what is in no way so in its whole extent, and what is often hardly a blame at all. The causation of things and the growing relation- ship of the individual with the environment through which much unmerited wrong has fallen on the in- dividual, as we have seen, enters into his particular actions ; what he designates as his own act is dis- covered inwardly to be only an inevitable final link of a long chain which reaches far back ; indeed, reaches into immensity. All this may not lie entirely outside the fault of the individual himself, but such an external fault is nothing compared with what appears in the individual consciousness as the indi- vidual's own fault. The seeming inevitableness of that which, however, works as our own act — the growth of faults through the impervious web of destiny — has from of old occupied the attention of the deeper minds. The problem permeates ancient tragedy, and has ever since accompanied artistic creativeness to its heights ; and that thinkers have not shut out the problem is shown by the words of Schelling: "The highest conceivable misfortune is to become blameable through destiny without being conscious of any blame of our own." 342 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION It is of great importance to bear in mind that things are not sharply marked off from one another in the web of hfe, and that good and evil do not stand here pure and clear over against one another, as has been pointed out in books on morality and in edifying discourses. But in the confused state of the human situation, one element flows almost imper- ceptibly into another ; our actions seem often entirely indifferent to morality, and no danger whatever is perceived as being present in the sphere of history. And yet the road can lead, if we follow it farther, to the brink of an abyss ; a catastrophe breaks forth suddenly ; the past illumines itself clearly and piercingly, and shows a blame in what previously seemed to require no consideration. The blame here often seems to lie more in the omissions than in the commissions of life. The unholy thing is avoided through the calling up of opportune energy and through the skilful installation of our activity. We have not called up the consciousness of the wrong, but it comes upon us. But did we know what stood in question, and could we measure the consequences of a hesitation to decide? Thus it was upon our ignorance and inability that the fact returns. But did not our action in some kind of way participate in such an ignorance, and does not the fact, along with this, again become our own blame ? Therefore, blame rests not so much upon the individual act as upon the whole of our being. But have we ourselves brought forth this being of ours ? Has it not de- volved upon us through the destiny of nature, of the situation of life, of education, of our times, of our environment, etc. ? Is not the fact of our aspiration THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION after the heights of spiritual development, in order that we may feel ourselves free, in order that we may strive after self-activity — is not all l;his more than the result of that dowry of a particular existence and destiny? But if we are a mere piece of the world and its causality even when we feel ourselves free, whence comes the feeling of obligation and the consciousness of wrong which burden us often so unbearably ? Is there not here imbedded the greatest injustice, that man should have to carry in his breast the pains and sorrows of freedom without being able to possess freedom ? If things are otherwise, freedom is, in spite of all hindrance, able to maintain itself, and the whole world is rather to be dashed in pieces than to abandon freedom ! But who confers on us the indispensable energy — the energy for the construction of a new kind of world ? In the mean- time, we remain in the custody of the old world, and experience here perpetually shows the most painful disagreement between the " ought " and the " is." We must act : the necessity of physical and social self-preservation compels us with unrelenting con- straint to this. But we act in the region of darkness with a chance of success even there ; without being able to fathom the connections and to measure the results, our actions alter the course of things and create a new situation. And yet in this we have fallen under the power of destiny. For the linkage of things may bring forth effects which we had not dreamed of, which contradict directly our own plans, and for which we are not responsible. Through such an in- version of plan and result we may injure where we ought to help, and destroy where we ought to build. 344 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION When the winds and waves of destiny drive us to entirely other bearings than were present in our minds, what in all of this is man's own work, what of his own being is in it ? Does he steer his own course, or is he a mere tool in the hands of dark powers ? Thus could the old poet call out : " What then is man, and what not, too, is he ? The dream of a spirit that ceases to be " (Pindar), and with a turn towards the moral problem, a more recent great poet thus conceives of doubt : " Thou leadest man to life's domain, Thou countest to him many a blame, And then thou leavest him in pain " (Goethe). All doubt and sorrow, however, which call forth such a view of the world and such a situation of man, must fall with their whole energy on the soul of the individual after the inauguration of an Absolute I.ife within man's domain has immeasurably raised him. For now he is no longer able to cast off from himself the problems of the world ; now he has immediate participation in Infinity; now he must discover as his very own the destiny which the Spiritual Life experiences within the human province. Indeed, he sees all his work and being placed under a pointed contradiction which limits his actions, which renders his feelings uncertain, and which makes his whole existence problematic. So far as the Spiritual Life develops itself, the indi- vidual gains the unique place where an originality is able to break forth and to give an incomparable worth and a secure superiority against all the re- mainder of his existence. Here alone — if anywhere THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION 345 in human things — can there be a self-aim and self- worth. That which pertains to the development of man's soul — to the working out of his spiritual nature — must act on the individual and must precede all remaining tasks ; it must all the more set the individual's main energy in the direction of this goal because the path to such a goal is full of toil and obstacles ; and the individual dare not consider anything which belongs to such a tendency as small and insignificant. For in all this the individual struggles for something which brings forth with itself a world — an essential world, behind which all the " goods " of natural things take a secondary place ; here the matter deals concerning the salvation of his own soul, the loss of which is incapable of being counterbalanced by the gain of the whole world. Thus, his inmost consciousness enables man to dis- cover such a fact as a holy duty, and the human environment does not fail to support him in this. Religion and morality strengthen him powerfully in this task, and all deeper cultivation concerns itself with the effort of reaching such a goal. That such an upward movement proceeding from such an inward obligation clashes with the most pointed contradictions of the world-mechanism, has already been shown in our investigation ; such a mechanism treats all actions, and, indeed, all the being of the individual with indifference, so that from the mechanical standpoint they appear as futile and unreal. According to the meaning of the external world, all the inwardness of man appears as an insignificant point of an immensity whose original elements become ever more inaccessible the more 346 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION science binds its effects into laws, and which shows ever clearer its extreme callousness towards our strivings. Human connections give the individual a higher value, but here, again, the more the complexities grow, the more exclusively do the achievements of man turn towards merely external aims and, therefore, these achievements become more and more one-sided ; what is inwardly going on in man, what issues out of this inwardness, and what has become the standpoint of his soul, become largely subsidiary facts. Also, where all value depends on the achievements, no one is indispensable and no one but can be substituted by someone else, for all this mode of thought there is provision elsewhere for anything and everything ; thus the stream of social life flows quickly ovel" the individual with all his sorrows, hopes, and burning aspiration after a self of value. Consequently, on such a level, there remains but the relationship of indi- vidual to individual ; if there is anything here which man may hope for, it is to be found as a self-aim and self-value in reciprocal love in the whole of his being, in his drawing nearer to the spirituality of his nature, and in his directing himself towards sympathy, com- prehension, and love. But through such a relation- ship of individual and individual, we meet not only in the province of the accidental but also within the inner situation of the soul, difficulties and infirmities which cling with great energy. What is usually praised as love rests so little upon the whole, the inward, and the essential ; it is so entangled with bare natural impulses, and so dependent on external things, and especially so fugitive and transient, that it mirrors the deeper aspiration of the soul as an THE EXPLANATION OF THE OPPOSITION S47 illusion far more than it helps that aspiration to obtain its fulfilment. Thus the individual sees his impulses appropriated — impulses worthy in themselves : they become acknowledged, valued, furthered, but are of no help to him in his hard struggle ; he cannot, with all his aims, prevent himself from being dealt with by the whole of experience, because he himself must deal with all things from an inward necessity. What consequences, however, shall man draw from the fact that the world-mechanism is so indifferent towards him, and also seems so superfluous ? From of old — with special energy in Stoicism — the method has sought to loosen itself wholly from the world, and to withdraw solely to one's own inwardness, and here to construct an independence against all the environment. In reality, the power to accomplish this lies in the ability of man to place himself upon his own thoughts alone, and to reject all connections with the world ; he can then create a characteristic happiness and a stolid feeling of superiority out of the liberation from aU oppression and out of an elevation above the things of the world. But does such a self- affirmation of the individual suffice, and is it able to inspire the whole of life ? Is there not, first of all, in all true eiFort towards spirituality a reciprocal communication, an exchange of life, indispensable ? Does not the separation of man from things turn quickly into an inner impoverishment? And when man casts a glance at himself, does he not meet difficult entanglements within his own nature, and does he not need for their solution the Other — the Whole ? The fundamental mistake of such an abstraction is to see the problem only in the relation 348 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION of man to the environment ; and if the soul discovers itself as full of entanglements, the insufficiency of such a view is clear. But what shall man do when the world treats him indifferently, and when he finds no refuge in himself? Shall he, on his own side, acknowledge the negation which the world exercises on him ? Shall he simply renounce himself to that which coerces all effort, which suspends the Life-process, and which expects all safety through death and annihilation ? He could do this if the movement of life were his own concern — his own private fact. But he could not do this if within him a Life-process superior to all mere exact- ness — the opening out of a higher order of things — is acknowledged. Thus, there is something implanted in him which he dare not rob himself of; he now deals with a problem which he himself has not set, but which, as from a sublime energy, rises within him and refuses to be abandoned. However much of all this concerns itself with the renunciation of his own happiness, man is not able to disown his spiritual nature and its tasks. In his nature and its tasks a fact seems committed to him which is of value not only for himself but for the whole ; for the vindication of a higher order of things does not seem possible without his activity. Therefore, beyond all the physical oppression of life something meta- physical seems to govern, and which forbids a simple abandonment. If the fact stands thus, why does not that superior power help man ? And why is man placed in a situation where neither success can be expected nor abandonment be allowed ? Must not such a contra- diction destroy all courage for eflFort and creativeness ? PART III.— THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER X b. The Opposition Considered 1. The Inadequacy of Proposed Remedies We have followed the main directions in which the development of an independent spirituality met with oppositions ; evidently the hindrances do not flow separately side by side, but they mutually strengthen one another and raise one another into united action, so that they become an invincible power. The world outside seems indifferent and rigid ; human society is considered inadequate, and resting less upon truth than upon semblance ; the spiritual movement within our own province is weak and full of contradictions ; and in destiny there is to be recognised no govern- ment either of love or of righteousness ; all, with the whole of its energy, extends into the life of the in- dividual. Thus, how can man adhere to his effort after independent spirituality and to a belief in the presence of the Divine ? All attempts which human need has devised for its justification have been shattered on the rocks of these hindrances. First of all, all systems of optimism have been shattered. These may point out the 350 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION evident unreason of our situation and seek another standard of consideration, as an insertion of things into wider connections. Why could not the contra- dictions of the world disentangle themselves through such a standard into a pure harmony, or why could not what seems as a stubborn hindrance prove itself a means to the awakening and elevation of life ? A beautiful prospect, but only a prospect ! As we are not able to place ourselves upon that higher standard, such a solution at the best remains no more than a mere possibility; and compared with the very real reality of unreason, this possibility is hardly more than a shadow compared with a living body. The main error of this attempt consists in that the fact is conceived as a problem of mere observation. If we were related to the world merely as observers, and if all suffering were nothing other than a displeasure of the observer from what occurs externally, a variation of the standard might effect in all cases a complete change of judgment. But we stand in no manner as mere observers of the world, but through actions and sufferings are drawn into the depth of the world ; what we herewith experience is itself a piece of actuality, and this actuality will never allow itself to be placed on one side, or, through any dexterity, allow itself to vanish. Also, the delusion of hope of being able to bring forth more pure reason from the movement of culture has been demonstrated in the whole course of our in- vestigation. Indeed, the main point of the entangle- ment consisted in the fact that difficulties of an essential spirituality in connection with the highest questions made all progress insecure and all results THE OPPOSITION CONSIDERED 351 double-edged ; the alleged gain transformed itself lightly into a loss, and what has long seemed certain fell ever anew into doubt and struggle. He who hopes for an essential betterment of the position of facts from the historical movement has to weave to- gether independent and mere -human, central and peripheric spirituality into one. Thus the proposed remedies leave the fact un- furthered and the problem unsolved ; in the last resort we see ourselves ever thrown back upon the point from which we set out, and the attempt to switch off the entanglement makes it reappear all the greater. 2. The Impossibility of a Negation If the facts stand thus, the oppositions grow from stage to stage and frustrate all attempts for the welfare of the soul. What then remains but an entire negation ? If the intolerable entanglements do not untie themselves in some kind of way, the whole movement towards an independent spirituality is withdrawn, and the conviction of the presence of a Divine within the human province is relinquished. In whatever manner the conviction originated, it seems to prove itself an error in the impotence of its achievement. If the facts really stand thus, nothing must prevent us from drawing courageously and pronouncing honestly the legitimate conclusions. Thus, all that belongs to the turn towards spirituality or which results from it would be rejected as a mere illusion, and would be removed wholly from our life. Although this could not happen at one stroke, the duty of veracity at least would command an energetic striving towards such an end if after S52 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION such a breach there would be any place for veracity and duty. The consequences, difficult as they are, should not, therefore, hold us back from such a task. But we are not quite so sure whether absolute negation really brings the situation to a correct expression. We have already seen that a painful contradiction per- meates the whole of our existence, that neither the world nor our own capacity corresponds to the tasks laid on us and which gain our conviction. Could the contradiction long for the violent and stirring energy which we have already discussed, if such tasks hang on us only externally, and if such an energy deceived us as a merely transient play of fancy? If there grows within the whole of life an earnest, penetrating conflict, therefore a two-sidedness of life has taken place ; there originates now not only something that hinders, but also something that is being hindered — something whose development fails to succeed, something that is everywhere denied its request, but that never allows itself to be explained as pure nothingness, or to be blotted out of life as mere fancy. Pascal was right when he stated : " Qui se trouve malheureux de n'etre pas roi, si non un roi depossede " ; and were there not imbedded in human nature an elevated movement superior to all arbitrary action, the state of our world could never engender so much agitation, indignation, and pain. Through what other means do the strangeness and indifference of soulless nature become objects of complaint, but through the fact that we are able to reflect on a Whole and relate ourselves to higher aims ? How could the evanescence of our existence. THE OPPOSITION CONSIDERED 35S for example, create a pain unless something Eternal worked in us and withstood the dissolution of things into a mere flux of time ? Why do the inadequacy and the perversion of the social configuration of Spiritual Life grieve us unless another configuration of life aspires over against the social form, and which now relegates all actions and impulses to a lower level? Could such difficult entanglements be discovered in the inwardness of the Spiritual Life unless in some kind of way a superior kind of energy brought about the opposition, and unless we were, in some kind of way, inwardly raised beyond the sphere of conflict ? Why do the flaws in love and righteousness within our circle agitate us so powerfully unless some precious good suffers injury ? Finally, how could the individual experience the entanglements of the whole as his own particular life unless he had some- how raised up a new order of things to the level of cosmic significance ? All this has run as a leading thought through the whole of our explanation ; the hindrances have ap- peared so great because new and greater demands have been made ; so that here we only gather together what, as a matter of fact, manifested itself step by step in the actual condition of things, viz. that the strength of the suffering and the hardness of the contradictions prove themselves to be the best testimony for the depth of our existence, and for the efficacy of a higher energy. A Nay which calls forth so much stir and movement is impossible without a Yea, although such a Yea may be imbedded far in the background of life. The inward contradiction of absolute pessimism lies in that it sees but one side of the facts, in that it 354 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION ends with what falls within the realm of perception, and in that it does not concede that the impressions, the stirring, and the suffering, however deep and ardent they may be, could occur unless somehow a positive life and striving were being hindered. If all is futile, there originates no kind of disparity ; pain is an illusion which easily allows itself to be shaken off. It is an absurdity to bewail the privation or the loss of that the possession of which granted no happiness. Such a contradiction permeates the Indian conviction and feeling of life. Here pain originates primarily out of the experience and perception of the instability, transitoriness, and incessant flux of things. But how can the transient be an evil if we, root and branch, belong to the kingdom of flux, and, therefore, lead but the life of a day ? If in reality the evanescent can be felt as pain only by a nature intended for the Eternal and thirsting after Eternity, then the strength of pain bears immediate witness to that longing for Eternity. This is the truth-element in the HeUenic thoughts concerning the privative nature of evil — in the conception of evil as a mere hindrance and a robbing of the good — so that, in fact, without some kind of pre-existing good, suffering would have no energy and pain no d«pth. But such an optimistic conception made a mistake in conceiving that through the presence of a ready-made kind of good it was able to substantiate the predominant power and authority of the good. But a mistake quite as great is to be found in pessimism, in that, in the main, it wipes out all the good because its development in human existence clashes with difficult entanglements. Also, the experience of life speaks clearly enough THE OPPOSITION CONSIDERED 355 in the same strain. In no manner is the sense of hard suffering wont to drive man to an entire negation. But even when the calamities hurl them- selves against him, when he is threatened not only from without in all that he loves, but also when he is convulsed to the very depth of his existence, such a situation is able to awaken a certain axiomatic con- sciousness of his relationship to an order of things on the other side of all the conflict, and to the certainty of the indestructibility of his inner nature, as well as to a strength which will enable him to reach his goal. Such a province of hindrance appears then as a stage of reality, as a stage which cannot possibly signify the whole of man's existence. Nothing protects life so powerfully from abandoning the whole of existence and from a docile resignation to the thought of annihilation than deep suffering, especially suffering and pain in spiritual things — in such things as are here in question. It is not epochs of troubled experiences and diflficult entanglements which make humanity err in connection with its higher tasks, but far more epochs of idle pleasures and seeming plenty. Further, over against religion, a strong experience of the unreason of our existence has worked not so much in the weakening as in the strengthening of belief, and such an experience, beyond all capacity of a direct demonstration of the truth, heralds the necessity, the certainty, and the presence of a new world. In the midst of the most conclusive doubt — a doubt that cannot from its very root be refuted — the impossibility of an entire negation has dawned with victorious clearness. Through such a train of thought, all the difficult 356 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION hindrances which human existence reveals cannot lead towards an entire renunciation ; that which always stamps human existence as something petty and in- adequate — ^that which brings to the mind our long distance from the goals of life — transforms itself into a testimony for the reality and the altitude of these goals ; thus the greatness of the Spiritual and Divine appears clearly in the pettiness of the human. Thus, a depth of things is unmistakable in all hindrance, and such a depth makes clear the impossi- bility of a simple negation. Also, all the darkness leaves no doubt that the Divine emerges, first of all, not from the outermost boundary of our life, but through a creativeness and activity in the inmost life itself. In the form in which this work of the Divine appears first of all, it certainly negates more than it affirms : there does not result the construction of a kingdom of pure reason, but there is prevented all satis- faction for man in merely human things ; aU attempts of a self-revolving and of an anchorage in the merely human province are opposed, and an inflexible tribunal is exercised towards all self-sufficiency and towards all self-adulation of human nature. This appears clearly in a twofold direction. On the one hand, it is seen in the power of logical thought, in which something superior to all human opinion and inclination appears which shows fear- lessly the weal and woe of mere man. The movement of thought marches forward, is driven and linked solely through its own necessities ; all the attempts of man to draw such necessities into his own track and to adjust them to his aims are lamentably stranded. Certain ideas have appeared, they have won us, THE OPPOSITION CONSIDERED 357 they were welcomed by us so far as they performed for us some service and did not lay too great a sacrifice upon us. In such a situation we might, as individuals and classes, have retained such ideas and placed on one side certain uncongenial circum- stances ; we might have shaped them so that they might fit comfortably into our plans. But how- ever much we might labour and trouble, however much we might attempt to turn the current with all zeal and perseverance, it helps us nothing, because logical ideas wiU not allow themselves to be bent and turned ; a secure superiority over all the contents of time is presented to weakness and awkwardness when they possess the conclusions of thought and bring these to a clear expression. Thus, we find a secure superiority of thought over all the undertakings of mere man. A similar conclusion presents itself in the appear- ance of contradictions in human life. Pointed con- tradictions may lie within the bounds of an epoch, and may cause no unrest or disturbance so long as they do not pass into consciousness. But a moment arrives when this happens, and when it happens, all the possibilities of repression, enfeeblement, and cheer- ful accommodation disappear ; then the higher asser- tions develop their full strength, and the opposition to them is unceremoniously ended ; happiness, rest, and the earthly welfare of man become secondary things. It has happened thus in political and social move- ments. The encounter between such a progressiveness of logical conclusions and such an irreconcilability of the opposites creates a universal dialectic, which does not 858 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION move in the precise forms presented by Hegel, but whose mighty power is unmistakable in human life. The Spiritual Life always steps on a special path with- in the human ground, and the following of this path leads necessarily to a strong one-sidedness, where the success itself engenders more and more error. Now, a rejection of this error does not result through a toning down of the assertions that are made, or through the breaking oiF of points and angles, but through a sudden change into an entirely real — not logical — opposite ; after such a change, a new power is conferred on man, and yet he follows his track with the same exclusiveness until it threatens to pre- dominate over the truth, and one sudden change after another enables the man probably to enter into a new direction. Such movements fill the history of the world with their smaller and greater waves ; whether a positive progress towards reason is to be found in them, can in no manner be discovered. Viewed externally, the waves seem to run in an aimless ebb and flow. However, it is certain that all ascent and descent, all " becoming " and passing away, lie on the other side of the interests of the individual, and are confused in no way through his wishes and strivings. Such movements never allow man any kind of rest; they never reach a secure foundation ; they hold their existence always in jeopardy ; they destroy ever anew all self-satisfaction through the eiFects and creations which they produce. Thus spiritual forces rule in man — forces which humiliate him profoundly, and which adjudicate him a worth only in so far as he decides to become the tool of such forces, which, in spite of all his brilliant THE OPPOSITION CONSIDERED 359 characteristics, destroy him whenever he attempts to stem their course. In addition to this superhuman sovereignty of a formal kind, there associates itself a sovereignty of an intrinsic kind. It results in its characteristic features in morality, in its superiority and, indeed, in its oppo- sition to all purely human aims. So morality must consider the natural mode of man as something distant, alien, and even hostile ; it has a kind of natural instinct against itself ; it is quickly repressed through the ordinary everyday experience of the human situation, and is easily transformed into a mere semblance. It gains no strong positive power in such a situation. On the other hand, however, an influential negative authority is unmistakable. But such an authority renders man uneasy and brings clearly before his mind the inadequacy of all his undertakings ; it exercises, in the form of conscience, a judgment concerning his actions from which he is not able to withdraw himself permanently ; it destroys also satisfaction in the most brilliant achievements of a culture which believes itself able to dispense with such a sovereignty ; it avenges itself all along for aU neglect in considering that without such a sovereignty all the gains of life, with their tendency towards selfishness and pride, threaten to capsize into peril and loss. Matters do not stand otherwise with religion. Re- ligion, also, in so far as it outgrew superstition, had the natural inclination of mere man more against than in favour of it ; nature does not transmit a venera- tion for a "higher" than itself; and even where religion has stood in high external honour, there have 360 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION been many complaints of the unbelief of mankind. In the average of human conditions, religion has always been more of a semblance than of a reality, and what religion has performed on such a plane has been full of contradiction. But in spite of all this, religion remains a mighty power of human life and of the universal movements of mankind. For it has brought forth a new standard which makes inadequate all that previously sufficed; it has shown the evil doings of man and the limits of his valuation of things, and, along with this, it is called to create a cleft in the inmost soul itself. That great turn of religion is the raising up of new demands to the level of the Spiritual Life and a blotting out of what had hitherto satisfied man. Thus we find it most of all in the personality and Ufe-work of Jesus. Here we find a human existence of the most homely and simple kind, passing in a remote corner of the world, little heeded by his contemporaries, and, after a short- blossoming life, cruelly put to death. And yet, this life had an energy of spirit which filled it to the brim ; it had a standard which has transformed human existence to its very root ; it has made inadequate what hitherto seemed to bring entire happiness ; it has set limits to all petty natural culture ; it has stamped as frivolity not only aU resignation into the mere pleasures of life, but has also reduced the whole prior circle of man to the mere world of sense. Such a valuation holds us fast and refuses to be weakened by us even when all the dogmas and usages of the Church are seen through as human organisations. That life of Jesus exercises evermore a tribunal over the world ; and the majesty of such an effective bar THE OPPOSITION CONSIDERED 361 of judgment supersedes all the development of external power. Hence, in spite of all the confused state of human things, an elevated Spiritual Life is not merely an object of aspiration and hope, but also works in us in the form of immediacy ; first of all, certainly, as a law and a bar of judgment — as a power which forbids in an obligatory manner the conclusion that human effort is no more than the work of mere man, and which sets forth with unmerciful clearness the impotence of all merely human undertakings. Not only in certain directions but in all Spiritual Life such meek and energetic effects appear with mighty power. Man is incessantly endeavouring to attribute to himself what comes only from the Spiritual Life ; he interprets himself as a standard, as public opinion, etc. ; he makes himself judge over good and evil, the true and the false. But when he presents the semblance of truth, he does not present with this judgment the energy of truth ; sooner or later the definite standards of the Spiritual Life make their appearance and demolish the semblance. The Spiritual Life allows itself provisionally to be drawn into the service of human aims, but soon it disengages itself from the obscurity and humanisation, and de- monstrates its independence and superiority. All this remains full of problems and mysteries, but in spite of the darkness so much as this is certain, that a superhuman Spiritual Life signifies no illusion. If it rules over us as a power of sublimity, as law and tribunal, it is and it remains a reality founded on a rock — safe against all the waves of negation. 362 THE OPPOSITION TO RELIGION 3. The Necessity of Further Manifestations Impossible, however, as an entire abandonment of religion is, the entanglement receives through religion more of another configuration than of a satisfactory solution. For a greater depth of life may be recog- nised on the other side of the province of the hin- drances, and a directive power of a spiritual kind may work within our existence. We are not able, how- ever, to know whence such a power comes, but it is a positive participation in the Spiritual Life and a full vivification of imbedded depths planned within us. It is this alone which invests our action with value, and which is able to free our conviction from doubt. Without such a turn we remain permanently in a vacillating, intermediate position : a higher world is perceptible, but in our province it does not seem able so far to overcome the immense oppositions so as to reach a positive development ; it has certainly driven out all hope of deriving satisfaction from merely human things, but it has not granted us the compensation of a new life. Thus, we do not see what the goal of our action is, or the Why and the Wherefore of the action. Has the Divine only opened our eyes in order that we may discover the immeasurable distance from us and our own vanishing smallness at the same time ? But is then all that we may undertake of no avail, and must not, under such impressions, all human effort break in pieces ? Thus, even with the recognition of that depth of things, and of that sovereignty of the Divine, aU still remains in question ; and the most painful dilemma ever surrounds us, viz. that there is too much reason to THE OPPOSITION CONSIDERED pronounce a negation and too little to pronounce an affirmation. Si deus, unde malum ; si non deus, unde bonum ? How can we hope to escape from this dilemma ? All the previous facts and reflections do not help us to answer the question ; the one hope lies in the fact that the Divine, through some kind of positive effects, appears in our circle. It is only a further reality that can lead the Yea to a final conquest, and, along with this, rescue our life from a menacing destruction. Therefore, it behoves us to look for this. That man, in the upheaval of his life, cried for outward signs and wonders, we can under- stand without having to do it ourselves ; but we, too, remain dependent on a wonder, on an ampler and more pervading Divine, since this alone is able to raise us out of our hitherto-prevailing contradictions, and to guide our life to a secure path. Part IV. — Characteristic Religion INTRODUCTION Our previous discussion has resulted in a strong aspira- tion after new realities — after a further manifestation of the Godhead. The counterpart of this had de- veloped so powerfully within the domain of man that the life had entered into an entire deadlock ; there could be no doubt as to the inadequacy of mere man ; the Divine, however, revealed itself as law and tribunal, and brought new aims and standards to our life, but it granted not the energy to coincide vsdth such aims and standards ; it allowed the un- reason of existence to be unveiled to its very depth, but it did not lead reason to a victory against un- reason. Thus, the entanglement seems heightened within us ; what grows thence into doubt may not extend to the Divine itself, but man is saturated with it, and, indeed, it robs life of all its significance. Of what avail are all toil and activity if they are not able to raise themselves against such powerful op- position, and if we divine a new world but find the path to such a world closed ? We have already seen that there is only one hope of escaping from such an intolerable situation : the Divine Life and Being must reveal itself still further 364 INTRODUCTION 365 in the midst of the needs and struggles of our ex- istence ; such a new reality alone can prevent an inner collapse of life, and turn doubt and depression into fixity of purpose and joyousness. Does there indeed result such a turn ? A belief in this runs through humanity ; it speaks out of all religions, and has attained an independence over against culture, and has brought forth from the so-called historical and positive religions a charac- teristic world of thought. For to all religions be- longed the desire not so much to assist in obtaining the whole of the Spiritual Life through man's own achievement, as to bring forth something new, and to gain the whole soul for this. Over against the chaotic darkness of human existence they created their own kingdom and rescued in this, as in a sheltering ark, the ideals of humanity ; this kingdom, however, seemed especially strong through what it possessed in discernment and uniqueness. The his- torical religions, through such a configuration, appear as an answer to the question which presented itself in our prior investigation — an answer not through ideas and doctrines but through life and act, an answer not of the mere individual but of the cor- porate experience of humanity. A pity only, that where we long for an unerring certainty soon a strife breaks out, and that where we desire one answer the historical religions offer many and conflicting answers. How is this ? Do the various claims destroy one another, and does hope of help disappear at the same time ? Or does all the ramification allow a universal truth to break forth — a truth which promises to guard us and to lead us farther? PART IV.— CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER XI a. The Historical Religions 1. The Fact of Religions Our introduction dealt briefly with the historical religions, but it is our aim now in a more precise manner to conceive of their significance and great- ness, and to consider what is problematic in them. That such religions present a unique mode of life over against the ordinary world and reason, is shown by the mode of their origin. For they do not grow in a calm kind of way from the ordinary work of thought, but appear as an entirely new beginning in great personalities, who, as mediators between the Godhead and the world, announce the will of God to humanity, and establish a closer communion between the Godhead and humanity. The precise content of the message and the mode of communion decide the characteristic nature of the particular religions ; for religion may be understood as a con- joint struggle for goodness, light, and purity as means of protection from evil spirits as in Parseeism ; it may be a bond formed between God and his chosen people, which leads to a stricter fulfilment of the law THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 367 and to a corresponding retribution as in Judaism ; it may finally be a Kingdom of God which binds all men to their Heavenly Father in* mutual love, and which, indeed, leads to a union of the Divine and the human natures as in Christianity. Religion ever founds a unique communion of life with God ; it ever allows such a communion to engender a new reality which will signify not a mere addendum to the remaining life, but the kernel of the whole. The conceptions of God, the tasks of life, spiritual great- ness and values, shape themselves characteristically and incomparably in accordance with the quality of the new life. Thus, each religion has its own view of the universe and its own morality. And it is from this individual and underivable characteristic that religion feels itself mighty and hopes for redemption. Such an independence and individuality were at- tained by religions especially through the greatness and energy of their founders. To these founders the new kingdom was no vague outline and no feeble hope, but all stood clear in front of them ; the kingdom was so real to their souls and filled them so exclusively that the whole sensuous world was re- duced by them to a semblance and a shadow if they could not otherwise gain a new value from a superior power. The new world could attain to such im- mediacy and impressiveness only because a regal imagination wrestled for a unique picture in . the tangled heap of life, and held it up over against all the confusion, and because it invested this picture with the clearest outlines and the most vivid colours. Thus, the new world dawns on humanity with fascinating power, rousing it out of the sluggishness 368 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION of daily routine, binding it through a corporate aim, raising inspiring ardour through radiant promises and terrible threats, and creating achievements other- wise impossible. This prepared road into the king- dom of the invisible, this creation of a new reality which is no merely serene kind of play but a deep seriousness, this inversion of worlds which pushes sensuous existence down into a distance and which prepares a home for man within the kingdom of faith — all this is the greatest achievement that has ever been undertaken and that has ever worked upon human soil. In order to accomplish all this, the founders must be great thinkers, and far more than being thinkers they must be great artists, and far more than being artists they must be heroes of action. And, at the same time, they must be raised above all action to a secure repose in an Eternal Order, and be possessed of homely simplicity and a deeply child- like nature in the midst of all the complications and excitement of world-transforming power. Conse- quently it becomes easily conceivable how the estima- tion of their adherents raised the founders beyond all human measurements to a likeness to God, and, indeed, to an equality with God. Their works seemed to carry within them Divine energies ; wonders surrounded their paths ; their life and being bridged securely the gulf between heaven and earth. Thus, it became of the greatest importance to acknowledge these personalities in order to bring life into a secure track. But the reality founded in God became at the same time an enormous task for man. The new life had to be assimilated, to be developed, and to enforce its way against a hostile world ; thus man THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 369 became a co-worker with God, and his life through this gained immeasurably in value. Out of such a blending- work a corporate circk grew up ; high aims and great hopes united men together and drove their energies to the utmost tension ; in united convictions and their fundamental experi- ences men found the help of God entirely certain, and were fully armed against all doubts and temptations. The rights of what had been discovered as truth in such a new world could not be set aside by general reason. For it was precisely in that which brought something new over against such reason that the energy and strength were to be found ; therefore, the New must stand upon its own particular kind of proof, and thus it comes to possess an actuality against all reason, and demands for such an actuality a willing acknowledgment of the confiding faith of man. The conception of faith received through this a more definite meaning than is presented in the universal delineation of religion. It is not mainly a revelation of God that stands here in question but this special revelation existing in the midst of history ; the Yea bound itself more definitely with a Nay, and the acknowledgment bound itself with an exclusion. Here, the thought of the underivableness of the truth easily became excessive, so that the con- tradiction of reason was welcomed as an evidence of the incomparable and superhuman character of the new truth, and a credo quia absurdum inspired joy. In any case, one felt certain and joyful in the possession of a truth on the other side of all the complications and unnecessary formalities of brooding reason ; this truth ^4 370 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION alone seemed accessible to man independently of the position of intellectual development ; deep-penetrating spirits, however, could point to the justification of what they held in the fact that all mediate knowledge in the last resort rests upon something that is evident only in the form of immediacy, and that the final root of reality is to be conceived as an act of freedom which is simply non-derivable. To such a positiveness of the foundation there corresponds in historical religions a positiveness of content. We have already seen religion, in general, dividing life into a For or Against, and creat- ing an enormous movement, and all this in the historical religions experiences a general enhance- ment. As the affirmation here is more precise and is traced out in an enclosed circle of life, much is pushed out to the opposite side — even much that belongs to the Spiritual Life itself — and thus the tension and struggle must become incomparably harder. But this may signify from the standpoint of historical religion simply a gain, because it will more than anything else lift life out of the idle indifference which forms the worst enemy of all spiritual movement ; it will, too, exercise an energetic counter-effect to all that is small and mean, which otherwise chokes human life ; it will, through such a concentration, consolidate life securely in itself and place it on a foundation which seems simply indestructible. We have noticed the opposition to religion turning into a doubt whether man, in spite of all his efforts, penetrated in any kind of way to truth ; whether the union of the Divine and the human, which con- stitutes the kernel of religion, reaches any measure THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 371 of success. Historical religion overcomes this doubt from its very root and in the whole of its extent. For historical religion causes the Divine to enter into the province of man, and makes the eiFective com- munion the soul of all life. Through such a definite union of the Divine and the human, the image and the conception of the Godhead transform them- selves at the same time. How could the Godhead be moved by human need, and, on the other side, how accept the help of man ? How could the Godhead bind itself to an inner communion with us unless it left its superhuman abode and dwelt among men ? If, thus, the human appears as essentially related to the Divine, or if the human is raised beyond all narrowness and particularity through the descent of the Divine into its nature, the human may assign the highest conceptions of its own circle to the Divine, and thus it penetrates beyond the colourless concep- tion of the Godhead to the conception of a living and personal God who is present in the form of immediacy, and with whom the soul can converse as an I with a Thou. If man owes his greatness to the fact of a communion with the Divine alone, then it is not an anthropomorphism which the man holds ; but a return from the image to a prototype takes place when man, from the best in his own nature, traces out an image of the Godhead. Through such an approximation of God to man, the union between both could develop far more inward- ness — an inwardness which is able to dispense with all relationship to the world, and which is even able to exercise its entire energy in opposition to the world. It is here therefore that the individual 372 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION acquires a value, because it is here that the Highest Nature concerns itself with him; here man may- have intercourse with the Divine as with his best friend; here originates a religious emotional life — a piety in conscious opposition to all external forms and productions. In such a religious emotional life there develops a pure life within itself of the Spirit ; here a sanctuary unassailable from all strife and alarm is found ; here a pure stream flows from which life is able to refresh itself ever anew with energy. Through their achievements within their own province the historical religions have worked mightily upon the whole of life and have implanted into it an energetic motive for the deepening of the self ; wide circles of the human race have gained an energetic emotional life through such religions. As soon as religion relaxes, the inwardness turns into insecurity and succumbs to the power of the intrusive external world. A union so intimate and so fervent with God would have repelled all relationship with the world, and would have made all w;ork for the world so indifferent if the historical religions had not created by the side of the formation of such inwardness a visible sphere of life, and had not united men most intimately with each other. And how could these religions abstain from such a creation, since they were concerned fully to develop the fellowship of life mani- fested by them and to maintain such in the midst of a hostile world ? Thus, there arose communities and churches governed by religion which presented them- selves as the soul and kernel of the whole of life. In these religion gained a visible presence ; here THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 373 the Divine seemed to flow intimately into the human. On account of this, such institutions became in the course of their development the main evidences for the power and truth of religion as well as a solid bulwark against doubt. Life was here brought into a secure path ; here a pointed distinction between friend and foe was accomplished ; here individuals united themselves in a co-operation not only of character but also of work. Man, in the inmost depth of his being, was here united with the fellowship, because nothing other than this fellowship could grant and guarantee a Divine revelation superior to all subjective reflection. Thus, a withdrawal from the fellowship appeared as a falling from truth. True, difficult entanglements are imbedded in all this, and perhaps, also, contradictions ; and these will shortly occupy our attention. But, without a doubt, a great fact and a mighty enrichment of human life are to be recognised in the historical religions. Through the concentration which they accomplish and represent, they have bestowed upon history incomparably greater intrinsic value, contrast, and movement what other- wise threatens to dissolve into sheer unintelligible- ness ; they have incarnated in flesh and blood ; they have gained wide spheres of the human race for spiritual things ; and they have raised, in the midst of our world, an over-world of the most mighty power. If, then, every unbiassed view is compelled to acknowledge here a great and, indeed, a unique phenomenon, it means that a decisive and final turn has resulted for men through their entrance into historical religion. Life can no more come to a deadlock, and doubt can no more harm where God, over against 374 CHARACTERISTIC REIJGION the world, has revealed Himself to man and never ceases to reveal Himself. 2. The Opposition to Religions History bears testimony to the mighty effect of religions, but none the less does it show an incessant counter-effect; in spite of their development of power, religions are always objects which are spoken against. Such an opposition formed an undercurrent wherever religion stood externally in an entirely secure sovereignty. The constant complaints as to the indifference and the unbelief of its adherents show this. Whenever the relaxation of the social pressure permitted a free articulation, doubt grew quickly into a dangerous power, and threatened religion in the whole of its existence. If Augustine was right in stating that religion, as an historico-social institution, cannot subsist without a strong authority [sine quodam gravi autoritatis imperio), he indicated, at the same time, how slightly religion roots itself in the inwardness of man. But it is not mere individuals or even mankind at large, who, from an insipid disposi- tion, raise ever new doubts ; there are also entangle- ments of an actual kind — hesitations and doubts within the Spiritual I.ife itself, and which work for a painful upheaval of the whole. First of all, it is the plurality of historical religions which produces alienation and uncertainty. Religions themselves aimed at placing the facts on one side; indeed, they engendered a flame of passion against the facts. Through such an opposition to other modes of thought and religion — modes which ap- peared to the advocates of the " chosen " religion as THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 375 a web of human folly, and, indeed, as a deception of the devil — the greatest energy was awakened and the most frantic passions were not ofily tolerated but commended. Religions, in their struggle against one another, have fettered the soul of man to themselves ; also, within the individual religions such a schism has heightened work and zeal, and when peace was brought about, it brought inevitably along with itself an enervation. Struggle is the life-element of his- torical religions, for it alone seems able to set the truth in full light, and to carry the energy to its greatest tension. But the problems are not solved by the mere declaration of their solution by religion. Questions and doubts do not allow themselves to be banished out of the world by interdicts and threats. So long as man remains within an enclosed social sphere and brands all that exists outside that sphere as a monstrous folly, so long is he able unhesitatingly to consider his own religion as the only true one. Modern man, however, has outgrown such narrow- ness ; he surveys the different provinces of culture and also of the various religions ; an historical mode of observation compels him to estimate religions in their connections, to enter deeply into these con- nections, and to seek their validity. The more he does this, the more uncertain becomes the exclusive vahdity of his own religion. The sincerity of convic- tion and the passion of belief of the remaining religions are not less strong and genuine than those of our own religion ; they, too, rest upon great personalities ; they have their signs and wonders, and, what signifies more, they have their heroes and martyrs ; and they 376 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION have moved individuals from the depth of their souls as well as surged through the history of the world with mighty power. What right have we to interpret these phenomena outside our own sphere as fancy and deception whilst our own phenomena are of the same nature, and these are considered by us as solid facts and as safe citadels of truth ? Could the ideal world and the life-constructions of many miUions and whole millenniums originate through bare illusion ? What secures us, against all this, that it is not similar with us and that our belief, too, has not been revealed from on high but has issued from purely human ruminating ? Or shall we value ourselves and others by different weights and measures as the fanaticism of all times has done but which has by no means been sanctioned by justice ? But perhaps religions will deal with a proof obtained through a comparison of their most im- portant achievements, and thus seek to demonstrate the characteristic superiority of such achievements over all else. But does that demonstrate their truth, their absolute truth, their Divine truth? The achievements lead into the province of relativities ; one achievement may largely overtop all the others, but it remains still an open question whether such an achievement is the final, the highest, and the all- inclusive. Further, the human and historical situation is not a product of religion alone, but varied move- ments run crossways through the situation, so that it is hardly possible to decide whether that which happened within the life-circle of religion happened from religion's own energy, or whether it has not proceeded, in a far greater measure, from the more THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 377 or less gifted nature of peoples, from the characteristic greatness of special personalities, from the favour of external circumstances, etc. For example, is Christianity indebted to its most important origins and its religious contents alone ? Is it not also indebted to its union with highly-gifted peoples, to its coalescence with the rich and beautiful culture of antiquity, and to modern culture foi" the revival and restoration of its youth ? The questions, however, which most religions set us, lead back to the fundamental problem, as to how far, in the main, an historical religion can manifest absolute truth ; and, also, as to the doubt whether such a religion's concentration of life does not inevitably involve a contraction whose detriment counterbalances all gain, and which may transform all gain into a loss. The proof oflPered by a positive religion is in its nature an historical kind : certain events are exhibited ; a certain spiritual content is announced as a revelation. Even if we admit that there is not the least doubt concerning the events, yet an historical existence can never prove of itself that a certain fact is of Divine origin and its content is an ultimate truth, for such a claim can be proved only through the ideas and convictions into which it is brought ; and such a conclusion never comes to man from without, but is founded in his own inwardness by the whole of his life. In the historical data it is impossible to recognise the Divine as Divine without antecedent conceptions as to the nature of the Divine, and without the standard imbedded in such conceptions ; for otherwise, religion and magic, faith and super- stition, could not be separated from one another. 378 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION This train of thought leads necessarily to the point that all the argument of history must rest upon the immediate Ufe itself, and that the intrinsic nature of the truth of all historical facts can be measured by the Spiritual Life alone. Here Lessing's well-known words meet us : " Accidental truths of history can never become the proof of the necessary truths of reason." Though this may carry in its form the past mark of the Aufkldrung, its kernel contains a truth which it is not so easy to get over as was supposed by the historical positivism of the nineteenth century. True, history at the present day has come to mean incomparably more to us than it used to, and it may deem such a course of thought as antiquated, and for which it has no place ; but he who is not to fall into a destructive relativism must conceive of history as being encompassed and borne along by an intimate and timeless Spiritual Life which relegates history with all its accumulation to a secondary place. But, also, historical religion is through this withdrawn to a secondary place, and it can by no means become the final basis of our religious conviction, and by no means can its greatest achievements in the realm of time prove its eternal truth. And if religion is to secure a basis at all, it must secure it in eternal truth. Doubt, however, does not merely remain in the mode of the foundation, it also attacks the content of historical religion, and even combats that wherein it seeks its strength — the distinctive, the unique, the super-rational ; and, further, the definite union of the Divine and the human — the kernel of all religion — turns into doubt, and fashions itself into an inner prejudice towards the Divine. The historical religions THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 379 cannot claim for themselves a definite relationship to the Godhead without having to leave out of account portions of human nature. And yet we hear occasion- ally to-day people speak of a " God of the Christian," and who seek therein a special strength of belief. Does not this lead to the path of a particularism which lies not very far from the belief of a primitive stage of culture in special national gods? And as to each historical religion every other religion seems false, so here, all religious mode of thought of a more universal kind will appear to such a particularism as unreal and worthless. At the height of Hellenism, in men such as ^schylus, Pindar, and Plato, particularism can recognise no genuine religion ; and it will exclude the leaders of modern culture — men such as Leibniz and Kant, Schiller and Goethe. How close lies such a narrowness of belief to a pharisaic self-righteousness of small souls who have never laboured and grieved for the truth ! But how is this danger to be avoided if the affirmation of historical religion is considered as the sole source of truth? And who can find fault with anyone who would rather side with the men in all of whom there was something great — for there is no greatness without independence — with the unbelievers, than be included in the army of believers ? Further, it is not easy to accept the statement, viz. that historical religion draws inevitably the Godhead into the arena of time and thus into variableness. Such could happen if the Godhead did not pervade the whole of time with eternal truth, but had opened, only at a special moment, its inmost essence, and had in this manner communicated that essence to human nature. To place a variableness in God means 380 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION nothing less than to surrender the absoluteness of truth ; it means no less than to leave the field to a bUnd positiveness and a destructive relativism. Augustine, a man wont to think out any thought he had laid hold of, has in the main tendency of his conviction — in another direction he is more rational — ^maintained that prior to the advent of Christianity, not only were beliefs concerning morality different, but morality itself was something different from what it subsequently became ; prior to Christianity things were allowed which were forbidden after its advent. This is consistent thinking from the standpoint of a merely positive religion. But it shows, at the same time, that such a mode of thinking even transforms morality into a fluctuating precept, and, at the same time, inwardly destroys it. Also, the closer union of man with the Godhead and the clearer representation of this union which the historical religions have striven to present are of a double-sided kind, and produce a colossal complexity. Indeed, if in that intimacy the human arises too easily and perpetually to the Deity, not seldom has the Divine been drawn down into the narrowness and passions of the human situation ! But in the very conception of God there are diffi- culties which are very perceptible. The idea of personality is to render comprehensible the incom- prehensible, and to bring the representation of the Godhead nearer to a man ; but how power- fully does an anthropomorphism pervade such an idea and render it extremely dangerous, as it so easily resolves itself into a mere replica of man's own nature 1 And does the religious relationship THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 881 which develops on this ground bring with itself, always and with certainty, a spiritual elevation — an inner transformation of man ? How often do we ex- perience immeasurable waves of subjective feeling ! How often do an egotistic desire after success and a passionate excitation believe themselves justified and even consecrated by religion itself! Or, again, positive religion is, through its aspiration after a reality superior to all brooding reflection — after a tangible and incontestable reality — tempted to estab- lish a sensuous and even a materialistic mode of pictorial ideas, and, indeed, to announce with special zeal what has been left behind by the movement of the Spiritual Life. Thus, definite religion is measured by the doctrine of the sacraments which easily de- generate into mere magical charm ; thus, many even to-day believe that Christianity is threatened at its root if the belief in a reconciliation through the blood of Christ does not form the core of its nature. Wherever men insist primarily upon positiveness in religion, the danger of a relapse into an under-spiritual stage lies perilously near. Plotinus had good reason for giving the warning that man should not sink back below reason whilst striving to rise above it. The historical religions certainly represent a justifiable and even a necessary aspiration when they recon- solidate the tattered life through the inauguration of a new kingdom which is able to save the harassed soul. But in that which they offer there seems a higher and a lower, a right and a wrong inter- weaved, and they do succeed in finding the line of demarcation. It fares similarly with the effect of religions upon S82 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION the life and actions of man ; these bring him clearer aims and more energetic motives, but they also readily bring contractions and coarseness. Life, under the influence of positive rehgion, gains a strong consolidation ; a province of truths is traced out and dismisses all doubt ; men, through this, are brought into greater concord and are called to mutual assist- ance ; the direct relation to the Godhead gives a powerful vigour to all demands and an increas- ing earnestness to life. But the consolidation turns readily into a rigid fixation, and the reflection turns into a narrow exclusiveness. How often have re- ligions imagined something great in such elements as these, and how often have they rejected every- thing that lay beyond their own province as some- thing inferior, indifferent, and even dangerous ! This attitude does not limit itself to particular points, but enters into the whole. The direct relationship of man to man aims at placing in the foreground, as factors in the formation of life, the rendering of help and love in mutual intercourse and the well-being of the human province. But the relationship to the universe and to the inward expansion of one's own nature which science, art, and culture strive to set forth, is but little thought of. Thus, the governing life easily becomes subjective and merely human, and this soon turns the man to revolve around himself. But, also, within man's own province, that which seems first of all a pure gain may readily turn into a loss. Historical religion binds men closer together on the Godward side ; it creates more inward fellow- ship, more mutual understanding, more uniformity of the soul. But such can hardly happen otherwise THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 883 than at the cost of free movement and of individu- aUty. Each religion has its own type of hfe, and forces this upon its adherents from youth upwards with mild or strong constraint. Does not the life through this become bound and mechanised ? Does it not become to many individuals, who bring no inner movement against it, a mere clinging to the external, and does it not threaten to become a gross untruth- fulness — a mere conventional participation in an imposed order ? There is an hypocrisy which reaches beyond the conscious idea into the recesses of the soul, and which unites itself with the subjective notion of veracity ; there is an hypocrisy of the nature to which nothing more easily enters than religion. This is the pharisaism which true religious natures have to fight against with the whole ardour of their convic- tion ; and the sadness is that such hypocrisy is no transient appearance of certain times, but seems to connect itself indissolubly with religion. Historical religion is the strongest mainstay of morality, but, at the same time, nowhere else do such dangers grow. Historical religion consolidates mor- ality through a linkage of it to a Divine Will, and it strengthens the energy of morality through the awakening of an indestructible belief in the moral order of the universe. But, at the same time, the founding of morality upon an historical religion draws morality into great insecurity, and it clings to this insecurity ; the moral motives are threatened with defacement, for the winning of Divine favour becomes now the main motive-power of action. Thus, a religious morality, through its orientation of thought towards a " beyond," readily injures a joyous labour and 384 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION creativeness in the "here and now" — since with its pictorial ideas of future expectations and confidence in these, it may support a passive conduct ; it may repress a courageous entrance into reaUty and ex- change it for a mere logical and judicious kind of reality ; it disunites and estranges human nature ; it produces unutterable bitterness, to which it binds all the qualities of the moral disposition as an aid to its own propaganda, and explains everything existing outside its own circle as unreal and worthless. Do all these questions allow themselves to be placed on one side as an outflow of mere " unbelief," or as a shallow mode of thinking ? All these problems, however, culminate in the turn of religion to the Church. The Church presented itself as indispensable to historical religion, for only through the incorporation of religion with the Church did religion gain a full actuality for man ; only in connection with the Church did religion attain a distinct stamp of its characteristic features ; only in connection with the Church did religion work for the whole of humanity, and not merely for specially selected minds. But, at the same time, the danger of humanising the Divine increases most powerfully through the conception of its entrance into the province of man. The Church is not able to exist without a human and temporal element ; indeed, the more it develops to a full independence, the more will it bring forth the claims of the human and temporal elements and transfer them to the Divine and Eternal; it will then busy itself mechanically with the Divine, and probably consider quite worldly men as being religious and in communion with THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 385 the Divine. An inversion of the most deadly kind threatens the Church; it becomes liable, instead of labouring for the presence of the Divine, to clothe a certain kind of the human with a semblance of the Divine, and to confer upon this humanity the qualities of Divine truth and glory ; indeed, the Church is able, when it carries such a procedure to its uttermost, to elevate the priesthood above the Divine, and to attribute to it alleged power beyond that of the Godhead. Then the Church occupies itself with a veneration of itself and not of the Divine, and this becomes a mere means to the heightening of its own glory. However, through such a turn, through such a wanton exaggeration of the human to the level of the Divine, the Church becomes the greatest danger to, as well as the greatest enemy of, religion ; for, in fact, nothing has injured religion so much as the Church. But, at the same time, religion did not seem able to obtain for itself a secure foundation and its legitimate effect upon men without a development into a Church. How, then, can we disengage our- selves from the contradiction, and how can we find the line of demarcation between good and evil, between a genuine elevation of man through the Di\'ine and through the lowering of the Divine to the human ? If such a line of demarcation cannot be found, then a grave doubt is bound to arise in the whole of historical religions, and that doubt appears strongest in that re- ligion which bears most clearly the marks of historicity, i.e. in Christianity. Does not historical religion appear as something which of necessity must destroy itself through its own development and excess, and thus reveals itself as an untenable contradiction ? 85 386 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION 3. Impossihility of a simple Denial of Historical Religion What we have already discussed makes it con- ceivable that historical religions became a target for the hardest assaults, and, indeed, this did not happen only from the pettiness of a subjective mode of thought, but also from the numerous interests of the whole provinces of life. No struggle has kindled more passions and anger than this, and none so strongly has so pointedly divided men from one an- other. In earlier times, the attack was wont promptly to issue in a complete denial of religion ; religion, to such times, was explained as a mere web of illusions or even as a product of conscious fraud. To-day, the hazardous character of such a sweeping condemnation is clearly perceived. In any case, the capacities, achievements, and sense of truth of mankind fall into entire mistrust if the most powerful energy of the historical development and the most secure anchorage of peoples and times were to sink into an empty illusion. There is not a more deplorable contradic- tion to be witnessed than, at one time, to praise in the highest terms the greatness of human reason, and, at the same time, to surrender as entire error all that is inmost and holiest in human nature. Only to an absolute pessimism can such a turn give no shock. Therefore, one seeks to avoid this conclusion, and, in order to do this, devises a mid-path between truth and error. It is now declared that the historical religions were not merely pictorial illusions, but pro- ducts of the momentary situations of peoples and epochs ; such peoples and epochs have, in their re- THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 387 ligions, freed themselves from such situations, and raised themselves beyond them through the aims and ideals which were imbedded in thefr efforts. Thus, religions, in the form of union of ideals, have a certain kind of reality, and have undeniably contributed towards a progressive development of humanity. But all this has happened, it is said, only within the human circle and for human ideas ; life itself won nothing which it had not previously carried within itself and from which it was able to develop. Thus, the great problem seems smoothly and simply settled : religion receives a right to be approved of, and, at the same time, shows that what are exhibited as diiFerences and even as opposites are but an ex- pression of the characteristics of peoples and times. The consequence will be that we shall have to do with purely relative truths which do not exclude one another but subsist friendly side by side. But, in spite of such alleged superiority, this solu- tion is no more than one of those multi-coloured com- promises through whose presence the edge of the opposites is blunted and the energy of life is depreci- ated. The deeper conviction of religions has been all along to introduce man to something superhuman and to shield him from inner destruction. If such a super- human did not at all originate, man intoxicated him- self with his own creations, and climbed to the height of his own subjective notions ; thus the whole of religion appeared to him as a self-deception of human nature, and although the representatives of religion were not considered to be conscious deceivers, yet they were considered to be "deceived deceivers." In fact, such a view alters the situation but little. 388 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION so that the same answer which withstood the old sweeping denial must meet the new one. Without a doubt, the historical religions have strongly affected the life of the spirit of man ; they have carried it into original paths and have brought to it an inward elevation. They have, on the whole, done this less directly than indirectly through a transformation of the entire life. We need only trace back a little the threads of creativeness in art and in the mental con- structions regarding the universe, in morality and the formation of communities, in order to recognise everywhere the connection of all this with the effects and sway of religion. Therefore, the alleged illusory character of religion extends itself over the whole of the Spiritual Life ; and if we follow this path, it will lead us to the same conclusion as previously — to an entire bankruptcy of human capacity and to the extinction of any hope of help from truth. Out of the attempted obscuring of the problem the unmerciful Either-Or steps ever forward. Either man is nothing more than mere man — a ready-made kind of nature by the side of innumerable other similar natures ; and then certainly religion falls to the ground, but at the same time there falls each and every truth — even scientific trnth,for to truth belongs, necessarily a vahdity beyond human opinion and vacillation. Or there is implanted in man more than an isolated, completed nature, and he is able to take up a struggle against the petty-human self ; and then religion refuses from the very outset to be considered as a mere phantom, and it compels us to seek in it the element of truth. If an unequivocal condemnation of the historical re- ligions is thus prohibited, and if, at the same time, we THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS 389 can neither recognise different truths existing side by side nor consider any one of the his- torical reUgions as absolute truth and all the others as entire error, one possibility remains open : there must result in all historical religions a common further inference of the Spiritual Life ; a common fundamental fact must precede all the rami- fications and strife. This fundamental fact has to be set forth with the utmost clearness, and from it alone we must undertake a critical valuation of the particular religions, and seek to differentiate the more- than-human from the mere-human. That much of the petty-human flows into religion and filters into a seeming inseparableness with the Divine is only too evident ; indeed, it is this that constitutes the kernel of the problem and the main knot of the matter, that historical religions contain too much that is merely human to be valued as a pure work of God, and yet too much that is Spiritual and Divine to be con- sidered as a mere product of man. Thus, in connection with the historical religions, we come back to the same question with which we opened this section of our investigation — the question whether, within our life-province, some kind of a further development of Spiritual Reality culminates beyond the hitherto-explained situation, and whether the manifestation of a further cosmic depth results. The course of our investigation does not allow such a possibility to be rejected as a matter of course. For we have already seen a spirituality superior to the world dawning within our existence, but such a spirituality developed itself entirely through our work in the world, and remained united with the 390 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION advancement of this work. And on account of this we have witnessed the growth of inexpressible en- tanglements. Now, could not a spirituality superior to the world make its appearance in relation to man without the intervention of the world ? If this were possible, we might expect a new kind of life, new spiritual contents and values, an entire turn of our position, and, through all this, some kind of conquest over hitherto all-powerful oppositions. In the meantime, this is no more than a possibility ; whether a reality corresponds to such a possibility, only further experiences can decide, and to these we now turn. But it is important to know that the investigation even at our present stage is not mean- ingless, and is in some degree able to show the drift of the path we have to pursue. PART IV.— CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER XII b. Signs of a New Depth of Life We cannot, according to the whole course of our investigation, oflFer or expect a further depth of reahty from any external existence ; we can search for such a depth nowhere else than in the Life-process itself ; we have to work out this depth, and from this point to secure a connection with a new order of things. It is nowhere more necessary than at this point to avoid the mistake of a deep-rooted intellectualism which first of all constructs a world beyond man and from thence supplies his life with a content, instead of taking possession of such a world and grasping it into a Whole in order then to hazard convictions of the All. However, the new sought-for depth of life will not probably appear in front of us immediately as a Whole, but, in the first place, it appears in particular manifestations. But these manifestations are able, however, to lead further if they reveal themselves on closer inspection as portions of a larger connection, and if, in such an investigation, further avenues open out until at last a new world dawns in front of us. 391 392 CHARACTERISTIC REIJGION Therefore, we seek before all else to win some kind of tangible point of departure whose original nature announces a new order of things ; we seek then to gain, through a gradual ascent, more and more com- prehensive values and at last a total-life. 1. The Idea of Love of Enemy As a point of departure, we are helped by the fact that upon a certain height of historical life, the thought and demand of love of enemy appear not only in Christianity but also in other religions, and, beyond all religions, the fact has appeared as a general atmosphere of life. Love of enemy seems here as the summit of ethical conduct and as the most certain sign of its completion. Whilst, however, love of enemy was ardently praised, and the infinite aim seemed to raise man beyond himself, the question usually remained unasked whether the exalted virtue was possible within the given situation of man, whether the effort for the virtue aspired after inter- twining transformations in the whole of our life and being. This question may be lightly put aside if the two dispositions of the soul which we meet in love of enemy is taken up in a faint and slurring kind of way so that no earnest conflict originates. At the point, however, where the claims of love of enemy break forth, things relate themselves other- wise : here an entire turn — a transformation of the prior situation — is discovered. Enmity is no fleeting ill-humour, but an antagonism of the deepest character and of the whole mode of thinking ; it is an encounter from an objective necessity, since our highly valued goods are seized, reviled, and injured by another. SIGNS OF A NEW DEPTH OF LIFE S93 And love, however, is not that faint-hearted disposi- tion which begrudges to another his existence and which allows all blessings to fall on itself, but is an active and positive demeanour, a strong joy in the being of another, a furthering and a raising of its own life through the communion established with the other. If things are so, is there not an irreconcilable opposi- tion between love and enmity, and is it not an absurdity to will at the same time to hate truly and to love truly ? Indeed, the question lies here so near — whether an enfeeblement and slackening of the strife is de- sirable for man. It behoves us, first of all, to bring forth and to carry forward a Spiritual Reality over against a hostile or indifferent world. In order to accomplish this, the greatest tension of energy and an untiring struggle are needful ; as this struggle labours for the possession of the highest good, it demands the whole soul of man — the entire strength of his affections, the full glow of his feelings. Plato had good reason for desiring a "noble passion" for the success of the work of life. Now, does not the command to love our enemies threaten to weaken the earnestness of the matter, to handle good and evil as equally valid, and to concede willingly the right of the field of conflict to unreason ? Thus, unmanly cowardly compliance and a sentimental weakness are elevated as highest virtues, or the character remains a mere semblance and under the mantle of love such a passion and hate grow luxuriantly, as witnessed so often in religious strife. A depression of the energy indispensable in the struggle against evil has, from the beginning, been made a matter of reproach against 394 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION Christianity. Thus, we find Plotinus with this re- flection concerning the matter : " If we do not struggle, evil men will triumph." Should such weakening of man, so often witnessed in the history of Christianity, be the final word of Chris- tianity ? In any case, it was not the final word of Jesus when He delivered the mighty discourse against the Pharisees, and when He drove the money-changers out of the Temple. But how does it stand, then, with love for enemy ? Is it really no more than a deceitful semblance — a phantom of an overstrained disposition — and must we conclude in connection with it that a friend is a friend and an enemy is an enemy, and that we are indebted to justice for telling us the latter, and that we should preserve our love for friends alone ? It was thought thus at the zenith of Hellenic thought, and so, too, Confucius taught consciously and emphatically. " Someone asked, what shall one think of him who re- pays injury with kindness ? The philosopher replied : If one so acts, with what can kindness be repaid ? One must repay hate and injury through justice, and kindness through kindness." That is a clear andhonest mode of thinking which corresponds to the natural feelings of man. But it imposes limits on human life which the revolutionary experiences of the inmost soul have to burst asunder. Such a conclusion suffices only if, and upon the whole, a ready-made world surrounds us, if we develop ourselves in its railed-in province, and if there is nothing essential to be transformed or renewed. But such a con- culsion becomes an intolerable narrowness when the prior situation contains difficult entanglements. SIGNS OF A NEW DEPTH OF LIFE 395 and when only a fundamental renewal can give a value to our life and action. 1| such a new order of things makes its appearance, everything which divides and estranges us is able to pass away ; and out of a new foundation a new fellowship of life can be built which now binds the minds that other- wise strove against one another, so that we are raised above all strife, although many opposite points of view cannot be relinquished. That which otherwise is impossible now becomes possible through a funda- mental renewal of life — through the appearance of a depth which relegates the whole prior life, with all its struggles, to a mere superficiality. If, herewith, the demands of love for enemy emerge from and rest upon genuine love and not upon mere pity, the hope of a new order of things lies close to this foundation, and a yearning of human nature for an emancipation from the bounds and barriers of the " given " world takes place. Does not then the joy itself build such a hope, and does not the strength of the yearning itself constitute a testimony that here the matter does not deal with a mere phantom but with a new life within the domain of man ? 2. The Deepening of Love The problem of love for enemy is only a section of a more general problem — of the problem whether the direction of our life, in the last resort, belongs to justice or to love. There was good reason for the old Greek thinkers for siding with justice — with justice in the broad sense of an arrangement of all relationships ac- cording to merit. Each receives what falls to his share, no less, but also no more ; even love has thus to be 396 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION measured according to the degree of presented love, and all unmerit and all non-limits are excluded. Such an ideal calls for the utmost exertion, for the trans- position of all capacity into efficient activity, and for the construction of an organised kingdom of reason. Such a system of justice had also place for mercy in so far as the hardness of a literal measurement was toned down, and in so far as the over-tension of right was held to become an injury {summum jus summa injuria). The idea of justice has, first and foremost, brought forth and developed a connected spiritual order, and it is and remains indispensable for the vindication of such an order. How does it happen, then, that in spite of such a great achievement justice has not satisfied man ? How is it that the movement of universal history has left that ideal of justice behind itself ? The answer is : that such an ideal of justice has been left behind through the painful experience and feeling of the inadequacy of man as mere man, and through a knowledge of a deep disorder in his own nature. Such experience and knowledge, however, became an urgent need as soon as man did not continue within a " given " world, but raised himself beyond all earthly connections to infinity ; and as soon as he measured himself not with his equals but with the ideal of an absolute perfection. The growing depth of life, with its discovery of infinity in man's own nature, demands him to measure himself in this manner. His life does not exhaust itself with the solution of this or that problem, and does not content itself with the attain- ment of some kind of elevation, but it drives him from within towards the domain of the Whole ; he is now SIGNS OF A NEW DEPTH OF LIFE 397 after absolute perfection, and, before all else, after a perfection of a comprehensive life and conduct in the Whole. The presence of such a goal brings to clear- ness the entire inadequacy and even the hopelessness of his actual performances and situation. Along with this, the standard of justice becomes an intolerable hardness, and the valuation of the ordinary perform- ances threatens the man with entire rejection and ruin. On account of this, man defends himself through energies which have in no way originated out of his egotistic desires of life, but rather he feels himself convinced of a greater depth and, along with this, of a priceless value ; but he cannot call into life such depth and value from his own energy, and, therefore, he depends on redemption and love for the realisation of his own nature. Thus, there grows a burning desire after Infinite Love on the other side of all questions of merit, and after a new order of things beyond all calculation and measurement. Is such a longing a superfluous fancy, and could it arise and gain such power if some kind of reality did not stand behind it ? Also, the relationship of man to man would become cold and soulless if all unmerited and unmeasured love were removed from his soul. But how mysterious is such love ! How could it ever have originated out of the selfishness and impurity of the ordinary impulses of man ? Man has to be raised out of such a situation and set, from within, in other connections ; an energy out of the Whole must become his — an energy which lifts him beyond the initial stage and, indeed, beyond his natural capacity, and which, issuing out of a new life, brings the seemingly impossible to fruition. This is 398 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION especially clear in connection with the great person- alities whom human life has to thank for an inner elevation, and especially in connection with the heroes of religion. The external situation of life left them forsaken, and the circumstances of life carried them but little love, yet these men were too clear of vision to disguise the true position of things through mere phrases about the greatness and progressive develop- ment of mankind. Thus, they have often within human circles felt themselves so lonely, as the yearning and fervour with which they fled to the Godhead reveals. Mahomet did not belong to the deepest spirits, but even he brought that feeling to a tender expression. "In the glare of noonday and in the stillness of the night the Lord casts him not away, and the future will be better than the past. Did He not find him an orphan and has given him a place in His home? Did He not find him astray and has led him to the right road ? Did He not find him so poor and has made him so rich ? " But has such a loneliness of these leading spirits amongst men destroyed their love to man ? Has not a mighty power of love kindled itself in the midst of all opposition — a fire that enveloped also drowsy souls and became the illuminating energy for the welfare of mankind ? Thus, these men were able to see more in man than lies on the sur- face ; they were able to penetrate through all mean- ness and failure to a depth of the nature which unites the seemingly severed and which invests the seemingly worthless with a value. But could such a depth be possible without a new order of things — without the presence of an All-Life in the human SIGNS OF A NEW DEPTH OF LIFE 399 soul ? As these men were obliged to view humanity in the light of the new order of things in order to work as they did, it would kave been diffi- cult for them to find, without the energy of that AU-Iiife and without an ascent beyond themselves, the stability, the joy, and the inexhaustibleness which their work aspired after and to which their success testified. It has happened thus on the summits of historical life, but it did not remain confined to these summits. Our life would lose its deepest soul were it a mere system of effects and counter-effects ; we should have to measure all actions according to what should issue in the form of a result which corresponds to the thought of justice. Our life, as Goethe has often expressed it in a wonderful manner, would soon slacken and stagnate unless it contained much ac- tivity which expected no gratitude and much love which claimed no reciprocal love. Such a love — selfless and strong at the same time — may show itself in unpretentious achievements and may raise the inner worth of life beyond all the exploits of uni- versal history. In such daily occurrences — seemingly trivial — a mystery is imbedded and a marvel happens ; what happens contradicts not only the order of nature but also the order of the natural life : in so far as what happens follows justice, it hangs in the air and cannot find a foundation until a new order of things — a kingdom of creative love — carries and animates it. To acknowledge such a superiority of love does not mean that justice is to be attacked and banished out of the world, for justice is ever needed in human relationships for the growth of reason over the whole 400 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION expanse of life, and for the consolidation of mental and moral things over against bare nature. But a mere acknowledgment of a kingdom of love does not establish its order in the whole of our inner world; for it is not only through hope but also through its own effective presence that love is able to strike its roots into our life and alter the whole mode of life, and, at the same time, further the ac- knowledgment of a new depth of reality. 3. Self- Maintenance in the Midst of Hindrance and Suffering Our earlier consideration of this subject has shown us that in the acknowledgment of an independent spirituality, life presents itself not as a calm ascent but as a hard struggle. With the appearance of spirituality there appeared something essentially new, which has to forge its way over against an existing world ; collisions are bound to take place, and hind- rances and deadlocks are to be expected. But at first hope and conviction in all this endured and believed that the Spiritual Life, carried as it is by an Absolute Life, would emerge victoriously from the struggle, and that the hindrance, through the stimu- lated energy of such hope and conviction, would finally work towards an advancement. Now, we have witnessed the opposition gaining such strength and extension within our circle that the whole life is endangered, and the hope of a conquest within our domain breaks in pieces. Our effort everywhere clashes with stubborn barriers which it dare not conform to without becoming aimless and meaning- less. What does the experience of mankind point SIGNS OF A NEW DEPTH OF LIFE 401 out here ? It shows us that, amidst such painful hindrances and amidst an ecUpse of hope of any success, the Spiritual Life can be maintained and has been maintained by individuals as well as by mankind at large. Our scientific investigations collide with insurmountable obstacles ; we discover with pain our inability to wrestle with the dark mysteries of existence. In the wrestling for a genuine Art we find ourselves far too weak to give adequate form to what occurs in the deepest recesses of our soul, to what thirsts after an embodiment, and we fail to aid it towards its longed- for reality. Thus, we remain incomplete, and, in- deed, remain tattered and torn in our existence — in- sufficient for, and locked-out from, ourselves. Must we not become convinced of the impossibility of an essential betterment of the human situation, when we view the effects of experience of millenniums, and do we not see the goal recede ever in front of us ? And must not the individual, the more he stands upon an inner connection of his life, recognise life as a mere torso ? It is easily conceivable that human nature, under such a hard and harsh Nay, should lose all the courage of life and should relinquish all ac- tivity. In reality human nature has not done this. True, certain views of the universe and of religion seek an entire negation, but this negation, even if it did not carry within itself a prior affirmation, soon again turns to affirmation. Buddhism has toned down the entire negation of its initial stages, and has transformed itself into some kind of affirmation. Was this due to a mere stubbornness of the natural impulse, to an ineradicable quality of the common ffreed of life ? Hardly, for the affirmation itself has, ^ 26 402 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION in the form of spiritual self-preservation, brought forth so much labour and sorrow upon humanity that it would recommend, rather than a satisfaction in the bare natural desire for happiness, a calm submersion and dissolution of its own existence. Further, the affirmation has brought forth far too much spiritual movement and newness of life to allow itself to be swept on one side as a mere illusion. Therefore, there must be present in such a need of the life of man something deeper ; for man, through some kind of energy, will hold fast to his life and fill it with a confident hope and trust, although these cannot be justified by any nearest-at-hand view of things. No great thinker has more truly experienced these problems and brought them more powerfully to ex- pression than Augustine. Before his eyes the old world sank before a new one had yet emerged ; he found himself haunted by the phantom of an entire void, and felt all the havoc and barriers of human existence with the most painful intensity. And yet he held fast to life and withstood the total destruction of his soul. But why ? Because the hindrance itself brought him to the consciousness that something greater than it is imbedded in it ; because all menace and intimidation made him absolutely certain of some- thing in his nature which can never be lost. This something is something axiomatic — something, first of all, mysterious, but out of the mystery a powerful energy originates and gives birth to a new and higher need of life which, over against the energy of nature, may be termed metaphysical. Whence all this if life had exhausted itself with the hitherto-prevailing SIGNS OF A NEW DEPTH OF IJFE 403 situation, and was not able to bring forth a further depth for the strengthening and renewal of man ? The experience of Augustine is not 'singular, but is an experience of mankind, an experience of all indi- viduals to whom these problems come to signify their own destiny. It was not the most troubled times and experiences that allowed doubt to penetrate into the whole of life, but such a catastrophe has happened far more in times of idle super-abundant plenty and of an absence of great tasks. The former hard times have rather worked in the direction of strengthening and energising human nature. But how could they do this without the hope and even the certainty of a new order of things — an order in direct contradiction to all that life had hitherto brought to them ? 4. The Progressive Development of Inwardness According to our explanation, it was essentially necessary for the Spiritual Life to raise the inner life to an independence, to extend it to a world which does not merely stand by the side of other things, but which takes the things, in the whole of their exist- ence, up to itself, and which reveals to things their own nature. The development of the Spiritual Life becomes through this a progressive inwardness of existence. But we have already observed how this inwardness in all its toil clashes with most painful oppositions, so that a danger is here evident, viz. that what we attain as inwardness may be looked upon as an enclosed circle by the side of the great world, and that it may finally resolve itself into bare subjectivity. But mankind has in no manner surrendered it- self to such a disintegration ; it has ever sought to 404 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION shape the inwardness anew ; it has sought to lay such inwardness deeper in the nature and to give it a new foundation and a new content. And to it such effort seemed to be more than a mere aberration of judg- ment. At least, we often witness new movements issuing forth from the hindrances themselves. We get roughly thrown back by the objects around us upon ourselves, and we discover with pain stubborn obstacles. But what we witness and experience in all this becomes the point of departure of a new kind of life ; the hindrance engenders not only a sentimental echo and a timid reflection, but it gets taken up into a wider, deeper, and more basal life ; it serves towards a further development of the soul in regard to all the work of the world. Thus, an inwardness seems to constitute itself here, which rests purely within itself — an inwardness which transforms into a gain what was previously a sheer detriment for work. The acknowledgment of such unalloyed inwardness must change in an essential manner the aspect of Ufe : what seemed hitherto to be the whole of our world becomes now a mere segment of it and appears in comparison with the inwardness as something external ; what hitherto appeared as the total range of our soul now acknowledges a depth beyond itself. Man will be the readier to acknowledge this depth be- cause he sees through the prior hemmed-in life as inadequate, and because he feels his own previous mode of viewing things as a stubborn destiny from which he wants somehow to free himself. But how is such pure inwardness, which brings such great changes and awakens such great hopes, itself to SIGNS OF A NEW DEPTH OF LIFE 406 be explained ? How can such inwardness be possible unless our life had won further connections than before, and through this had drawn a ne\^ content ? All this can hardly happen without a further manifesta- tion of the Whole of Reality. 5. The Further Development of Morality The further inner development of life which occupies here our attention is nowhere more visible than in the problem of morality. Wherever we have had to deal with the problem in the course of our investigation, morality, in our view, had not separated itself from the whole of life and had not condensed itself into a province of its own. Morality has not merely a special task of its own, but it extends over all Spiritual Life, since all along it does not surround man as a natural inheritance but governs him through his own decision and appropriation. We must un- conditionally cling to such a universality of morality ; in particular the practical social domain — the domain of human intercourse — has no right to claim the moral disposition for itself alone, and to exclude from it, say, art and science. The antithesis extends over the whole of life, whether the action is governed by the necessities of the Spiritual Life itself, or by the interests of the individual ; whether the disposition is that of the individual who follows after truth and is affected by no kind of motive such as pleasure, gain, and renown, or is that of the artist who reflects in his soul how to bring an unborn form to expression — a form as morally valuable as the practical conduct which stands in the service of humanity. Understood thus, morality develops itself 406 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION all the happier the less it becomes an isolated province separated from all other tasks. But morality experiences oppositions and entangle- ments similar to those found in religion. That full devotion to the Spiritual Life is not entirely wanting in morality, yet it acquires but little strength, and the entanglements often cripple spiritual work as well as the character; and, also, the most brilliant results of work do not guarantee a corresponding disposition, for natural impulses penetrate deeply into the very province which intended to lead man beyond nature, and the petty-human holds the soul in its powerful grip. Thus, in the ordinary surface-life, morality has but little power, and it is considered as a quite subsidiary matter. Indeed, it is often considered an irksome and obtrusive dis- order — -an attempt at an unwarranted limitation. But human nature as a whole has not rested on such a denial ; it has ever returned to an appreciation of morality, and well it might, because in its abandon- ment of morality it had followed a track which led to an unbearable loss in depth and energy of life. In such upheavals of life, morality has carried itself above the initial formation of things, and has even attained a special province over against the former life. Morality, through the cultivation of pure inwardness over against the work of the world, gains a new task — the task of preserving unconditionally such inwardness and, along with it, the kernel of the life of the soul, and heroically and faithfully to preserve, a "soul of the soul" over against immense opposition. Life, through this, seems for the first time to reach its deepest root, and what occurs here is immeasur- SIGNS OP A NEW DEPTH OP LIFE 407 ably superior to all other work. Christianity espe- cially upheld such a conviction ; we find this in such appropriate words as that "the gain of the whole world can not counterbalance the loss of the soul, and that with the price of the whole world not one soul can be purchased " (Luther). So that in the case of collision with other aims there cannot be the slightest doubt that the a,utonomous moral task pre- cedes unconditionally all other tasks ; " the eye is to be plucked out and the hand is to be cut oflF" if they endanger the salvation of the soul. Hand in hand with such a high estimation goes a greater rigour of the demands of life. The preservation of that depth of the nature applies not to practice alone, but it grips the whole province of the Spiritual Life and there starts a struggle with "the life at ease." Thus, that which had a right in the particular situation must now rest in the Whole, and it is on account of this that a counter-effect is bound to arise. It is in this connection that conceptions such as responsibility, guilt, conscience, arise — conceptions of a most mysterious character — but in spite of all their darkness they are powers which defy dis- paragement and rejection and ever resurrect them- selves ; they are powers, once they dawn with their full energy, which bring the whole of life under their sway ; they obviously withstand being driven out of the world -of man because the maintenance of a spiritual self-reliance and the possibility of a spiritual self-preservation are indissolubly linked with them. It is easily possible to show that human life, despite its most brilliant achievements — as, for instance, in the period of the Renaissance — rapidly fell into inner 408 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION decay. Thus, that mysterious, uncomfortable, stir- ring force, is ever indispensable ; indeed, life seems to obtain through it alone an enduring consoli- dation, and, indeed, an incomparable worth. How does all this explain itself save that more must be present in the whole of our life, and that further energies must rule in us if morality is to attain the content and the position claimed for it here. When we view the several points which have hitherto occupied our attention, we discover in all the multiplicity one fact running through all — a further movement of life beyond the point of hindrance. And this fact is a pure inwardness from whose growth a further consolidation and a turn of life were expected. But, in the meantime, this inwardness floats entirely in the air, and we have not yet seen how it can gain a characteristic content, and how it can grow into a self-reliant kingdom. And yet there lies here far too much actuality for us to consider the whole as a mere play of fancy. What appears as not easily compre- hensible in the life of the individual is found in the history of mankind as a great characteristic trait. Here the new mode of life appears especially in the raising of life beyond all mere culture. At all times there is present in life more than civilisation and culture, but in special epochs this More comes into bold relief and to full self-consciousness. There are times when special circumstances bring civilisation and culture to a standstill and even to a retrogression, and yet, in spite of this, such circumstances do not invest the times with mental and moral emptiness but develop a noble and worthy life in another direction. The epoch of the dissolution of antiquity was, SIGNS OF A NEW DEPTH OF LIFE 409 measured by its achievements in culture, highly barren and, indeed, unedifying ; but it was this epoch which brought for the first time the life ofthe soul to a full self-reliance within the human province, and which penetrated beyond all purely subjective inwardness to an inner world — to one of the greatest turnings in the whole history of human life. Thus, we are ever able to draw much from such men as Plotinus and Augustine, and they are valued by us as heroes of the spirit although they damaged more than they aided culture. The fact that they made accessible to man a new world of pure inwardness signifies more than the most brilliant performances in the mere work of culture. Hitherto we have had more questions than answers, more puzzles than solutions, so that a conclusion at this stage of our inquiry is impossible. But within the province of the inner life an earnest effort is itself a fact, and it must, especially when an essential re- newal stands in question, be present in that which hovers as a far-away gleam but which also was the possession ofthe soul from the very start of its enter- prise. If it were not present, how could such a far- away aim move us ? Pascal's words are valid not only for religion : " Thou wouldest not seek me had it not been that thou hadst already found me." But it be- hoves us to work out the hidden possession in order to press on from mere ideas and suggestions to a full and joyous life. PART IV.— CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER XIII c. The Unfolding of a Religion of a Distinctive Kind 1. Introductory Various indications of a new depth have already become visible ; they all point to the fact that a further inner life, lying far beneath the surface, reveals itself, and that a reality previously hindered by the entangle- ments has now been gained. Such a movement could never originate from mere man, but must have originated from the All; it can only originate, according to the whole course of our investigation, because the All-Life is present not only in its un- folding to become a world, but also within us as a Whole in the form of immediacy. That this actually happens is the vindication of religion as it shapes itself into the Characteristic mode ; but such a religion allows itself to be proved only by the discovery of a new life — only by an original connection of life in which an actuality manifests itself, and reveals to us our own being as well as the whole of reality. This New cannot be of a sudden and unprepared 410 A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 411 kind, but must somehow be imbedded in us, or how otherwise could it become our inmost being ? But on the first view of it, it appears as sornething scattered, subsidiary, a mere addendum. But religion accom- plishes a transformation of this ; it gathers, binds, and brings the scattered elements into a Whole ; it turns this Whole into man's own act ; it places for the first time the significance of the New in a clear light and recognises in it the presence of a new kind of world. Thus, religion is not able to obtain the final depth and the inmost unity for the life without differentiating itself from the remaining spiritual life, and construct- ing for itself a province of its own. Through such a turn to the Characteristic mode religion comes into definite contact with the contention of the historical religions, and gains a nearer relationship to these than was possible through the Universal mode of religion. Along with the historical religions, religion of a Characteristic kind participates in the conviction that man, through a further manifestation of the Divine, has been raised beyond the province of entanglements into a new life ; and, further. Characteristic Religion recognises a gradation of reality through the further development of the Spiritual Life within one's own province ; it invests, at the same time, the inner ex- periences as well as the historical movement with more significance. But in spite of such a nearness between these two modes of religion there remains an essential difference. The new life, according to the Characteristic mode, appears, in so far as we under- stand it, not as the exclusive possession of a particular historical religion, but as the common aim and the common fundamental energy of all religion. These 412 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION historical religions are considered by us not as irre- concilable opponents, but as co-workers in the great enterprise of the spiritual redemption of humanity. This does not mean the placing of all religions on the same level and effacing their differences ; indeed, the measuring of them all by one common aim may bring out such differences still more. But the differences now lie within something deeper and common to them aU — they lie within a common striving, and thus cannot lead to a stubborn enmity. That which any one particular religion develops at all times into a spiritual content does not signify a subtraction from the truth of all other re- ligions, but is seen, when it is brought to the light of the substance common to all religions, as that which is able to protect and strengthen reciprocally all the others. In dealing with the several religions, the attention must direct itself especially upon what each religion contributes towards the formation of a re- ligion of the Characteristic kind ; we have to see how the one truth works in spite of the inadequacy of, and often in opposition to, the scaffolding of doctrines and organisations. Thus there has to be raised up in all religions what in reality is religious in them — what is substance and not a merely intellectual expression. On account of this, religion as well as its treatment are able thus to gain a broader basis only through the energetic concentration upon the inner life. The truth of religion rests upon facts, or, rather, upon a connected actuality of an inward kind. These facts are to be discovered nowhere outside the human soul, and, in- deed, the facts are beyond all particular achievements A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 413 and formations of life which have hitherto occupied our attention. In a far greater degree than we as yet have observed does man become the starting-point of a new world. Through this turn the motives of mere subjectivism and humanism will strengthen — motives which are only too liable to make their presence felt in Characteristic Religion from the out- set, and which were able to be guarded against more easily in the Universal mode. Further, he who recognises in the total-development of the Spiritual Life an inner unity and an invisible depth may oppose the turn to Characteristic Religion because it seems to be a relapse into a mere humanism which places itself over against the meaning of the remaining world, and which seems to exchange the driving energy of movements outside the individual for a foundation of life upon mere self-preservation. Does the alleged new kind of world construct no more than a mere web of human ideas and interests, and does it not merely spin around itself at a loss of aU connection with definite reality ? Is not the vigorous and assertive freedom of Universal Religion from mere humanisation lost again through the turn to Charac- teristic Religion ? Doubtless, much subjectivism and much that is merely human are imbedded in the historical religions, and threaten also the Characteristic Religion. Yet, however luxuriously such a subjectiv- ism may grow on the soil of ordinary life, it does not ex- haust the matter — indeed, it does not touch the kernel of the matter. In the turn to a Characteristic kind of religion, as in religion in general, the moving-energy is not the self-preservation of man as mere man, but the maintenance of a Spiritual Life superior to his 414 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION interests and notions — the impossibility of a renuncia- tion of spiritual contents and values. Thus, there works here a metaphysical and not a physical impetus of life. And what is hoped for as new is not a fostering and furthering of the mere-human — not a purely epi- curean well-being of a more refined nature — but a new stage of spirituality which creates something other than hitherto out of man, which reduces the value of what had hitherto sufficed as happiness, and which leads to a goodness which was hitherto alien to his life. The historical religions show this quite clearly. They are not mere mirror-images of human doings and dealings, but through them man has scaled spiritual heights ; he has learned to see and to understand himself : he has gained courage and energy in the struggle against a petty-human mode of conduct and a petty-human world. It has happened thus, too, within the intel- lectual province. Nothing has more clearly set forth the limitation of the range of human conceptions than the idea of an Absolute Reality and Life. The demands imbedded within the intellectual province have reduced in value, from their very foundation, the forms of space and time, and have relegated them to a particular — not equally valid — mode of existence. And not less have religions taught us to think of the moral capacities of man, for, in the standards which they have brought forth, the most splendid human achievements fell far short of the needs of the human soul. It is impossible to state that religions, through their representations to man of the problems of life, have made existence lighter and more agreeable, or that they have flattered his natural impulse for happiness. Although there has been much taught in A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 415 religions concerning the next world — far too much which belonged to the merely pictorial ideas of man — yet there has worked herein a* demand for an entire transformation of life — a demand which gave an immeasurable earnestness to the actions of man. This detaching of a spiritual world — a world of inde- pendent inwardness — from human doings and dealings operates in all religions, and is able to express itself in so far as religion is conceived by the entire conscious- ness to be a fact of the Spiritual Life and not of mere man, and in so far as the Spiritual Life itself is conceived as an encompassing and an overcoming of the antithesis between subject and object, and as a development and not a mere copy of reality. On such a ground as this, the movement to Characteristic Religion is secure against the danger of solipsism ; and so far as a further development of the Spiritual Life virtually appears, a new kind of an entirely active reality is gained. Everything depends then upon whether such a turn of life happens ; the turn can happen, as life shows, through its own development and through the construction of a new reality. Nevertheless, the danger of a humanising of religion is considerably increased at this new stage. And further, the more life is pushed back into an invisible region, the less are we able to bring the spiritual content to an adjusted expression ; and if man fails here, he becomes satisfied with mere symbols which incessantly, have to be referred back to their basal truth in order not to relapse into purely illusory images. In order to be armed against such a danger, it is necessary never to allow Characteristic Religion to fall outside the whole of religion, but to consider it 416 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION constantly as one side of that whole. The Universal mode of religion must remain at hand if the Characteristic mode is fully to preserve its spiritual character, and is to be protected also from dangers of all kinds. Thus, we come to the relation between these two modes of religion. How precisely this relationship is to be conceived, and what rights it has, are matters for further investigation, for misunder- standing is only too apt to enter here — misunderstand- ing which our prior consideration has not sufficiently dealt with. Certainly, there are not two religions but simply one religion, but this one could well have diffisrent stages, and such might be indispensable to an entire vivification of the whole. Indeed, if we take our stand decisively upon a religion of the Spiritual Life in opposition to a religion of the mere-human kind, the more necessary it is to relate our religion to the whole of the Spiritual Life, or, rather, to bind this Spiritual Life into a Whole, and to acknowledge it in its independence. But now we discover the hindrances upon which the development of the Spiritual Life clashed. These hindrances made us seek for a new stage of life and, through this, religion receives a definite meaning, and must now approve itself through definite achievements as a Characteristic Religion. All this connects itself again with the Universal mode, and obtains a secure footing against all embarrassments. Upon the ground of history there has never been presented a Universal religion of a self-reliant kind, but a Universal religious mode of thought has rapidly fallen into decay as soon as it gave up all connection with the Characteristic A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 417 mode of religion. But, at the same time, the Universal mode maintains an independent importance in so far as in it the elevation of man to spirituality attains to great energy and clearness, an elevation vv^hich also underlies the Characteristic mode. The Universal mode has to bring movements and experiences into a current out of which the turn to the Characteristic mode takes place ; for without the undertaking of a struggle against the whole of the world, the longing after a new order of things acquires no personal truth. How unsympathetic, for instance, is the officious confession of the inability of human reason presented by people who have never undertaken any struggle in order to possess genuine knowledge, and who are unaware of the pain and renunciation involved in such a struggle. How unsympathetic are those who depict the nature of man as totally depraved, and declare him as corrupt from the beginning because he is by no means equal to his spiritual tasks, and, indeed, has often stood in direct opposition to such tasks. But the Characteristic mode requires an incessant relation to Universal Religion also as a counter- weight against a threatening narrowness. Through every turn into the particular. Characteristic Religion must maintain an influence upon the whole of life, and the total-task must remain present in each particular point, and must be furthered by it. Otherwise Characteristic Religion becomes in itself a mere refuge from the exigencies of existence, and for the remainder of life it becomes a numb and gloomy narrowness. Indeed, such apartness may endanger the spiritual character of religion, since by it religion may lose n 418 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION evermore all definite content, and may sink finally to a mere agitation of empty emotion. Our affirmation of the growth of Characteristic Religion from the Universal pretends in no way to be an account of the historical course of religion with peoples and individuals. In connection with such a development, positive religion aims at constructing the starting-point, and it is only later that a general mode of thinking develops itself and exercises a criti- cism on the traditional material — a criticism which appears first of all as mainly negative but which finally leads back to a positive valuation of things Then only we reach the ground of philosophic dis- cussion, and now the double-sidedness of religion becomes recognisable within its one totality. Understood thus, both modes must remain per- manently side by side, and refer reciprocally to one another. Through this, the whole of religion gains an incessant movement, and this movement is of great advantage as a weapon of defence against the finality of dogmatism. At the same time, however, such a movement gives free room for the characteristics of individuals and times. In the whole of religion, indeed, the Universal and the Characteristic modes work together, but their relationship can shape itself in varied ways, and here the one, and there the other, stands in the foreground ; thus, either the greatness and energy of the Spiritual Life absorb the con- viction, or, first and foremost, the hindrances are felt, and a further manifestation of the Divine is desired as the only possible means of salvation. The leading religious personalities present us with very different combinations. How great, for instance, is the distance A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 419 between Luther and Zwingli in spite of all the affinity of their ideas ! Probably none of these personalities developed both sides of religion Inore energetically than Augustine, and even he was able to adjust both sides only in an imperfect degree. Thus, a view opens out upon much movement and a rich manifold, and also upon oppositions and struggles ; but nowhere more than in religion does the struggle itself demonstrate, through its stirring of all the energies, the power of the Whole and the necessity of striving. We have now attempted to find a secure place for Characteristic Religion, and our next object is to reach nearer to its content. 2. The New Life-Process (a) T'he Main Thesis. — The assertion of Character- istic religion consists in the fact that a pure self- subsistence of the Spiritual Life within the human soul, as a communication of an Absolute Inner Life, includes a claim which man acknowledges as his true nature and shapes his life accordingly, and includes the hope that he gains an entire superiority to all conflicts and hindrances. As a self-subsistence of the Spiritual Life, the inwardness here in question cannot signify a special province by the side of reality: it must signify the most essential nature — the inmost depth — of reality. And, at the same time, this inwardness may not be mere subjectivity, but has to unlock a new content ; and in such an achieve- ment it can in no way be the work of any indi- vidual point of the nature, but must originate from the whole of the Spiritual Life. This precisely is the 420 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION conviction of Characteristic religion that such an inwardness becomes a pure self-existence not merely through its development by means of the world but also in opposition to the world, and that it brings help to man in his troubles — troubles which otherwise threaten to make him succumb under his burden ; through the creation not merely of individual processes of life but of a new unity of life in man, life is freed from its imposed deadlock and is brought again into a fresh current. How all this happens with man is now to be considered more closely. The point of departure is to be found in the fact that the problem originates beyond all particular achievements of man, and also beyond the whole explanation of achievements ; it is a problem con- cerning what man is in the whole of his soul — in the whole of his character. In all this, Life appears solely concerned with itself — with its own situation — and in no way appears to reach beyond itself, and yet in what life does or leaves undone in such a seclusion seems to lie the decision concerning its work, concerning its success or failure. Expressions to re- present such a fact do not fail us here altogether : we speak of moral character, moral personality, etc., but we do so in danger of narrowing and coarsening what stands here in question from the very outset. What happens here is my,sterious enough. Life forges its way here, beyond the work of the world, to a persistency and duration in itself, to a new kind of being, but in all this it is at the outset split up into so many isolated appearances, and it falls easily into mere subjectivity. But some kind of unity seems present in the foundation, but it is not A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 421 able to overcome the hindrance, and succeeds in bringing forth no more than poor r^ults. The whole is as though nebulous or veiled, and how it is possible from such vague motives to gain a foothold over against the entire world-order or even to set up a new world over against the old is absolutely incomprehen- sible. And here Characteristic religion steps in with its fundamental assertion that a " becoming " inde- pendence of pure inwardness and the unfolding of a new unity of life result, but this is shown to happen not through the energy of these qualities themselves but through the communication of the inmost nature of things — from the pure self-subsistence of reality. Certainly that communication is no mechanical in- stillation, but must awaken the energy of the soul itself; but such an energy does not appear as a natural possession but as a gift and grace. What is always fundamental in religion seems in this special position to be certainly so : that the vivifica- tion of the Whole at this particular position is not able to succeed without man's own decision and appropriation, and this in its turn includes in itself an act of the Whole. That a new life of pure inwardness is not found in advance and does not rest upon particular effects, but still that man himself brings it forth and, in the inmost of his life, makes it the bearer and the cause of all, and that through this he gains a new kind of reality — all this is conceived by Characteristic religion as a fact and a wonder for the defence of which it is ready to take up with confidence a struggle against the whole of the remaining world. For this new centre alone is able to invest the CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION remaining fluctuating life with a stability, for no- where is life more entirely itself than at this centre, and nothing is able to destroy what appears to it here as a certainty. But this holds valid only in so far as the movement belongs to the Spiritual Life itself, and does not fall from this into subjectivity ; and the main business of religion is to see its being the former. When man is convinced of all this, the cosmic character of the Spiritual Life reaches a new stage, so that the new unity of life has to be viewed as the achievement of the one essential development which decides the decisive character of the Spiritual Life. Such a turn invests religion with a sovereignty over the whole of life. Henceforth man gains out of the relationship to God not only some kind of ascent of his life, but he gains also a self-reliant life and nature over against the world and in the midst of the most serious upheavals and a threatening destruction. In this new life the self-subsistence of infinity becomes his own, and opens out to him the final depth of reality. Thus the relationship to the Absolute Life as the exclusive ground of spiritual self-preservation must far precede all remaining tasks, and these tasks may not withhold man, for the relationship now demands recognition unconditionally and exclusively as self- sufficient. And thuswe find on thesummits of religion the claim raised that all things are to be loved not for their own sake, but for the sake of God from whose energy they proceed, and consequently they are always relegated to a secondary place through such a mediation ; all things thus had value only in so far as they were founded in God and were filled with A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND His Life. All devotion to anything but God appeared as a robbing of God ; all belief in one's own capacity to perform anything appeared as culpable pride {superbia). If thus God effects aU in all and yet remains in Himself, no aim can lie outside Himself, and consequently the conviction develops that all happens for the glory of God {propter majorem dei gloriam). It was by no means a gloomy fanaticism that thought thus, as is often imagined by shallow opinion, for even a Kant in the expression of his moral mode of thinking did not think so. " They who place the aim of creation in the glory of God (setting it forth in no anthropo- morphic way) have probably hit upon the best expres- sion." It was in fact the anthropomorphic expression which made such a thought appear hard and crass ; and such a thought becomes indispensable with the recognition of that pure subsistence-in-itself of reality and of the redemption of life solely through the communication of such a reality. This demand, however, is not able to develop its entire potencies unless it perceives with scrupulous clearness the wide difference between, and even the entire opposition of, the ordinary human situation and the deeper task in hand, and unless the problem of life is immeasurably heightened. The new standard causes all which proceeds from natural impulse and from a satisfaction in one's own powers to appear as insufficient, and, indeed, all now appears as a contra- diction in the light of the higher order of things. It is not only this or that particular act or tendency, but the whole clinging to natural existence — the existence of a mere creature — which stamps this 424 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION mode of thought as an insurrection against God and as an apostasy from God. Amongst thinkers on this subject Augustine appears prominent. Through him the elevation and emancipation of the ethical task resulted from this raising of the problem into the Whole, and a new being from the very foundation upwards was longed for, but none the less he also recognised great dangers that lie on this path. Here- with the demand heightens not only its content but also its urgency. For the contradiction extends not against something that is apart from us but against the nearest thinkable thing — against the Absolute Life that is the basis of our inmost being, and conse- quently against our own being itself. The contradic- tion runs against not only an impersonal law, but against the world-power immediately present as a whole. Thus evil appears as a personal outrage — a grieving wrong and a contempt of the highest good ; it shapes itself into sin and guilt, and it weighs upon the soul of man with incomparably greater heaviness ; it sets the soul in agitation and fills it with alarm. Religions have often expressed all this in too anthropomorphic a manner and have distorted it almost to morbidness, but despite the imperfection of the formulation the fundamental fact of an inner rift in life and of an imperative responsibility glimmer through it all clearly enough. This fact may slumber for a long time in the consciousness of the individual and of humanity ; it may be placed out of sight by a mode of thinking shallow and devoid of much toil, but it breaks forth ever anew against the opinions and inclinations of men, and as soon as this happens it becomes quickly the ruling energy of the entire life. A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 425 It is evident that man's own energy is not able to save him from such a disunion. If a rescue is possible, Divine power and grace must do the work. That such power and grace really accomplish this, is the fundamental conviction of religion. Religion doubtless cannot appeal, in proof, to any completed work, for usually just those personalities who felt themselves entirely certain of a new life have felt with painful intensity an opposition to such a new life within their own nature. But the experience of the conflict was at the same time an elevation above the conflict, and in this elevation they grasped the immediate presence of a Higher Power. The new life was further strengthened within them through this convulsion ; its origin in God had now become more clearly visible ; suffering and guilt not only demonstrated their deepest root in our being but they led to the point where a lofty " becoming " — indeed a new "becoming" — through a Higher Power shone forth in the seeming collapse of man. In all the unreadiness and darkness of the human circle the firm beUef and the certain confidence asserted that what was begun by such a Power can never get lost ; so that it was a trust in God which gave man once more a belief in himself. The effort to connect these movements and ex- periences of the soul, with all their clash and their dialectic, in the inmost nature — this resurrection of the nature out of its destruction, this progressive certainty of conviction in the midst of the most stubborn doubt — succeeds but imperfectly ; the facts tend to become more obscure a,nd, indeed, the more complicated becomes the apparatus of thought which 426 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION was called up for the elucidation of the facts. It is sufficient for religion that in man an independent point of departure, though in direct contradiction to the whole of his psychic life, has taken place and is maintained. Herewith there results not only a rearrangement but also an inversion of life, and it is this which becomes the fundamental fact which soon transforms itself into an immeasurable task. Fact and task together testify to the presence of a new order of things in the soul, and there originates, too, a new centre of life. But the man must not, as is often the case, mistake particular aspects and pro- ceedings for the whole of life, and especially must he not extol agitated feelings which disappear as rapidly as they originate. Whenever religion is developed out of the Spiritual Life, a new stage of the Spiritual Life on the other side of the branching of psychic activities is required ; the reflex of such a new stage may be observed in the immediate psychic life, but never allows itself to be founded on the psychic life. Severely, but not without justice, Kant termed " the will to feel such an immediate in- fluence of the Divine a self-contradictory presump- tion." There grows easily a luxury in alleged religious feelings which falls entirely outside the realm of truth, and which contains a good deal which helps to reduce religion to the level of a merely subjective fancy. Religion is best able to lay aside such a reproach when it brings with itself a new kind of being, and along with this a secure consolidation of the whole life. The spiritual concentration found in religion with its development of a pure self-subsistence of A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 427 the Spiritual Life and not of the mere subject — this gaining of a new stage of life — is lost to hina who holds fast to the naive, one might say, Ptolemaic mode of thought — a mode of thought which believes that certainty can proceed from the external alone, and which seeks to prove the inward by the out- ward. The historical development of humanity, and especially the inner movement of modern times, have resulted in an inversion of the old conviction in solid material existence, and have shown more and more that all reality is known only to our inner experience, and that there is no kind of stability possible for us unless there is a more stable unassailable point in our own life. If this is not true, then absolute Pheno- menalism is right in resolving the inner and outer world into a mere stream of appearances. Now, the main concern and the main achievement of religion are to offer a foothold above the vacillation of things, and to lead life to its most original sources. This conviction is the most certain thing of all to the Standard of the Spiritual Life, and it is that alone which gives certainty to everything else. That much strife occurs concerning this does not alter the fact itself but our relationship to the fact. Such a central life is not perceptible right in front of us, but we have to climb through our own movements and ex- perience to the point where it becomes accessible and convincing. And in connection with this fact there are various stages visible. To him who busies him- self entirely with the external world and who does not reach some kind of unfolding of an inner life, the whole question of religion appears as useless, and consequently he will only possess an anthropomorphic 428 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION interpretation of the external world, and will en- deavour to lay even that on one side. But he who recognises a complex of the inner life and yet sees in it only a succession of individual activities outweighing all else or a background of life, and takes his stand towards life from such a level, religion may be held valid as one province by the side of other provinces, but such a conception of religion will not attain an imperative energy and will not become the governing principle of his life. It is only to him who fastens the inward aspects into a Whole, and, along with this, measures the whole of his potencies by the whole of the demand, that a penetrating change of life will carry him to the point where the presence of an Infinite Life breaks forth and where the appro- priation of such an Infinite Life for the first time affords an indestructible foundation which all the contradictions of the remaining world can only strengthen. Thus there lies in the relationship of religion to man a more than subjective — a more than personal — element. Religion can produce this element only by recognising it as something that enters into the life and not by conceiving of it as something in the distance alone. But if life relates itself in a fundamentally different manner to morality, art, and even science in so far as these unite into a "Whole, is it not then characteristic of religion that it fastens the personal judgment into a Whole ? In any case, the questions of the acknowledgment of religion by the individual and of its truth within the Spiritual Life should not be confused with one another. The judgment concerning the latter question, which constitutes the main fact, depends A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 429 upon the fact whether Characteristic religion truly brings a further development of the life of the spirit, whether it leads to contents and "Values which lie far above all the subjective reflections and arbitrary actions of men. This question will be dealt with more fully, and its ramifications will be followed. But before we turn to it, we have to notice the idea of God which issues from Characteristic religion, and to determine its essential characteristic formation. (/3) The Idea of God and the Relationship to God. — Characteristic religion draws its idea of God from the Life-process ; it cannot expect the idea to come from an external revelation as the older and more child-like mode of thought imagined ; it cannot gain the idea from free speculative conceptions whose shadowy crea- tions are not able to move or take a warm interest in anything. But in the Life-process itself such a pene- trating culmination is not able to take place unless the idea of God discloses further characteristics for man. But there appears here the paradoxical character which belongs to religion everywhere, and more particularly to Characteristic religion. In the apprehension of man- kind the intimacy which the idea of God gains through its further inclusion in life is the most prominent thing. The Highest Power has not only harboured human needs, but such a Power has had communication with man, is present within his soul, has become his own life and nature, as well as his self-subsistence over against the order of the world. Here love is raised up into an image of the Godhead — love as a self-com- munication and as essential elevation of the nature, and as an expression of inmost fellowship. Since the whole of the Divine Life is here most intimately 430 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION present, the relationship of Whole to Whole creates a new unity of life and, through the constant relation- ship, preserves arid develops itself; there originates a mutual intercourse of the soul and God as betvi^een an I and a Thou ; and the thought concerning the Godhead is not able to attain genuine power unless it endeavours to be a living and operative unity. Con- sequently, there culminates here a turn from the colourless conception of the Godhead to that of a living and personal God. The idea of a personality of God, whose inadequacy shows itself as soon as it severs itself from the Life-process of religion and appears in a doctrinal form, is, when found within the Life-process, entirely obvious and indispensable. Man can be clearly conscious of the symbolism of the idea, and yet, at the same time, grasp in it an incon- testable intrinsic truth which he knows to be far above all mere anthropomorphism. For it is not a merely human greatness that has been transferred to the Divine, but it is a return to the source of a Divine Life and its mutual communication with man ; all this is not an argument of man concerning God, because the Divine must be apprehended through the Divine within us. All attacks on the personal character of God root themselves finally in the fact that an energetic religious Life-process is wanting — a Life- process which considers the question not so much from without as from within. Whenever such a Life-process is found, there is simultaneously found, often in direct opposition to the conscious wording, an element of such a personal character of God. But this intimacy is only one aspect of the idea of God ; and the danger of falling into a mere-human A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 431 mode of conception is avoided if the further removal of God from immediate existence is simultaneously acknowledged. Characteristic rdigion brings forth a new content only in so far as it penetrates beyond the Divine effects in the universe to a self-subsistence, and recognises in this a new depth of reality superior to all other formative action. This can only happen through a loosening from the bonds of the world and an elevation above all the conceptions of the world ; thus there appears here something simply not found in the world — an elevated summit, a mysterious subhmity. If this sublimity superior to the world acquires an abode in the soul, and, indeed, becomes the inmost and most intimate of our being, and enables us to participate in the self-subsistence of infinity, it implants within us a fathomless depth which pushes away the external nearest-at-hand existence, and it makes us a problem to ourselves — a problem which transforms the whole of life — whilst it learns to under- stand and to handle that which at the outset appeared to be its whole life as a mere phase and appearance. Thus it is the same religion which opens out from God to man and simultaneously opens itself out in man himself and becomes a great mystery to him. Therefore, in the idea of God the intimate and the ultimate must be present if religion is to reach its full development and to avoid the dangers which everywhere threaten it. Thus the Godhead appears, on the one side, at an infinite height and distance above man, so that man discovers his pettiness with great bitterness ; and, on the other side, the Divine appears as most intimate and as the dearest possession, so that man is raised through this to immeasurable 432 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION greatness. The fact that both interlace in one Life- process, that they do not follow one another but work together, that the unity is present in the manifold and the ultimate present in the intimate, implants an inexhaustible movement within the life, and enables it ever to renew its youth ; life is thus carried beyond all final formations and forbids all self-sufficient con- clusions. The contrast of the finite and the infinite, of the unreal and the perfect, which was already developed by religion of a Universal kind, and which was recognised as the source of all sublimity, becomes for the first time an immediate personal experience of the whole man. A closer relationship to the vicissitudes of life corresponds to the richer content of the idea of God. The fact that the new life discloses itself to man not as something at hand but as a counter-action to, and as the overcoming of, an unreason otherwise insuperable within its own domain, shows the idea of God in a quite different relationship to suffering and unreason than had hitherto been the case. The manifestation of the Divine in Universal religion also occurred within an incessant struggle with a resisting environment. But there the opposition seemed to lie mainly in the external situation, and a decisive ascent beyond it was confidently expected. But later the view of reality appeared still more gloomy, and our Spiritual liife shows itself involved in the entangle- ment to its very root, so that help was expected only through the communication of an entirely new life by means of an over- world Power. Now that Power has turned towards us and has had a care of our misery by raising us to itself. Can this happen A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 433 unless such a Power is itself affected by that suffer- ing, and unless it enters into the very sphere of suffering? Is there a genuine heip obtained where an inward participation — a conjoint experience — is wanting? The doctrine of a suffering God arose from such a train of thought — a God who took our misery upon Himself in order to free us entirely from it. This doctrine is an irrefragable testimony of a deep feeling, but, through its turn to a doctrinal form, it strikes a decisively wrong note. It is true that religion must insist on the intimacy — the closest intimacy — of the Divine presence precisely in suffering, but to place the very suffering in God Himself, and especially to press such a great mystery into formu- lated ideas, leads to anthropomorphic and even mythological ideas of an intolerable kind. Since such a train of thought does not set suffering in the final cause, it devises gradations in God ; it develops the idea of a reconciliation and substitution, and it feels itself justified in striving to express the impotence of man and his entire dependence on love and grace. This is a fundamental subversion of and a direct injury to religion in so far as it does not carry the efficacy to its final root — to God Himself, and in so far as it will not allow that any success can be brought forth through man's efforts. Further, in the religious pro- vince a reciprocal action of the Divine and the human takes place ; the intimate relationship to God suffers injury when redemption is expected through media- tion ; indeed, the notion that God does not help us through His own will and power, but requires first of all His own feeling of pity to be roused, is an outrage on God and a darkening of the foundation of religion 28 434 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION — of the intimate presence of infinite love and grace. Also, in spite of his guilt and in the midst of his guilt God must be near to man. Dare we for this reason ascribe guilt to God? All dogmatic formulation of such fundamental truths of religion becomes inevitably a rationalism and a treatment of the problem by means of human relationships and according to human standards. Such a rationalism would have injured religion far more than it has already done were not life itself raised beyond all the disputation of ideas through the inner abiding energy of the Divine. It is sufficient for the religious con- viction to experience the nearness of God in human suffering and His help in the raising of life out of suffering into a new life beyond all the insufficiency of reason. Indeed, the more intuitively this neces- sary truth is grasped, the less does it combine into a dogmatic speculation, and the purer and more energetically is it able to work. The facts are similar in connection with the relation of the Absolute Life to history as they are in connection with suffering. History also gains a far greater significance in the Life-process of Characteristic religion. For it is only through ex- periences, shocks, and transformations of the soul that the over- world life unlocks itself to us ; such a life appears as a higher stage which postulates a higher still beyond itself, and gains its energy from such a source. In reality there originates a " history of the soul" only in connection with Characteristic religion, and a place in the literature of the world was first gained for such a history by the Confessions of Augustine. But because the movement presents A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 435 itself to man as a succession, and because grades of revelation contrast with each other, yet, to place an historical process or even an inwawi change in God is again to judge from human analogy, and to measure God by human standards. But this happens if we con- ceive love in God as having only begun at a certain point of time, if under an appeasement of an alleged wrath, or if that love reached its consummation only through the efficacy of certain conditions. It is a mis- take to attempt to reach a greater intimacy of God through projecting forth human notions of His image. Even in its simple final root religion, as a union of the new nature of man with God and as a participa- tion of his being in an Absolute Life, places the whole of life under a new aspect, and causes an entire revolution of the being. Also, the union with the Divine brings an entire calm under the vicissitudes of life ; nowhere else than in the relationship with God can this be gained. The Infinite Power and Love that has grounded a new spontaneous nature in man over against a dark and hostile world, will conserve such a new nature and its spiritual nucleus, and shelter it against all perils and assaults, so that life as the bearer of Life Eternal can never be wholly lost in the stream of time. Thus we obtain in this connection an essential portion of religion with its belief in immortality — the conviction of the indestruc- tibility of that spiritual unity of life in man, which is the work of God. And it is from such a conception that the conviction of the eternity of the Divine Life proceeds — a conviction which gives man a trust in the preservation in some kind of way of the spiritual nucleus of his nature and not of his natural indivi- 436 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION duality ; and upon which the certainty is grounded in him " that what can not pass away for God can not pass away for itself either. But God is Lord of the living and the dead" (Augustine). The train of thought of religion here is : that where the greater is certain there can be no doubt about the less. Re- ligion holds as certain and conclusive that this new inner foundation is the greatest thing of all and the wonder of wonders, because it carries within itself the power and certainty of the overcoming of the old world and the creation of a new one ; it is on account of this that religion longs for the conviction of the whole man, and brands the denial of this as pettiness and unbelief. The world may therefore remain to the external glance as it appeared before — a kingdom of opposition and darkness ; its hindrances within and without may drive everything before themselves ; they may contract and even seemingly destroy man and his spiritual potencies ; all his acts may seem fruitless and lost, and his whole existence may seem to sink into nothingness and worthlessness. Yet through the entrance of the new life and a new world everything is transformed from within, and the clear- ness of the light appears all the more by the side of all the depth of the darkness. Indeed, in the midst of all the mysteries of existence, hope and conviction and certainty will consolidate our experience, so that ultimately evil itself must serve the development of the good. " This is the spiritual power which reigns and rules in the midst of enemies, and is powerful in the midst of all oppression. And this is nothing other than that strength is perfected in weakness, and that in all things I can gain life eternal, so that cross and A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 437 death are compelled to serve and to contribute towards my salvation " (Luther). * (7) The Verification of Religion through the Pro- gressive Development of Life. — Religion, as all things original and axiomatic, can establish its truth not through a reduction to general conceptions, but only through its development and effects. And in order to do this, its effects take place in the conditions and content of life and not merely in the reflec- tion and frame of mind of the subject ; it brings forth not merely isolated stimulations but a thorough- going further development. That such is the case in Characteristic religion, we shall seek to show ; but we have to show first of all how the indications of a new depth — a matter which has previously occupied us — now grow clear and integrate them- selves ; secondly, how the movements of life, begun in Universal religion, are now carried further ; and thirdly, how from such a further development new characteristic traits enter into the entire life. {aa) Elucidation and Integration of Life. — A yearning aspiration after a self-reliant inwardness grows over against all the work of the world and all culture and in the midst of all the confusion of life. But such an inwardness needs a new fundamental relation of life — it needs an inner world superior to all subjective reflection. Religion, and religion alone, is able to grant this through the manifestation of an absolute self-subsistence, and it is here alone that the reality integrates itself into a Whole and works as a Whole towards each individual ; here man is delivered from the psychic isolation into which he must other- wise fall, in proportion as the movement of culture 438 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION dissolves the sensuous connections of life and separates individuals ever farther from each other. Religion, in the experience of universal history, proved itself indis- pensable for the gaining of an inner connection of life, for the deepening life in itself, for overcoming all the alienation in one's ovi^n nature, for drawing to one's self and vivifying what hitherto had appeared as a mere environment. It has unlocked man to himself, and has revealed to him, through the presence of an absolute self-subsistence, a kingdom of pure inward- ness, and it is in religion that man found first of all his own inwardness and an inward relationship to the world. This comes to expression in innumerable examples. How, for instance, did the religious movement, prior to and after the Christian era, turn the ideal world of classical culture into a thing of soul and inwardness ! How definitely connected in the writings of Plotinus is the foundation of character with the turn to religion, and how much did Augustine enhance the soul's moods and the musical strains of the Latin tongue ! Also, an intimate relationship to environing nature and an emotional mutual intercourse with it desire a development only through the con- viction of an inner presence of an Absolute Life. German people pride themselves since Fichte on the possession of a Gemut, as a faculty specially developed amongst them, and who else has given the expression such a characteristic sense except the mystics who created such a " turn " from the intimate relationship to the Eternal Being ? The inwardness of the soul, which is the inheritance of our language, was gained and has unfolded itself in close connection wfth religion. And it is not only at its advent alone that the A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 439 inwardness needs religion ; if there exists no cosmic inwardness and if we acquire no participation in it, the inner life visibly loses its root, its energy, and its truth. Thus we often find to-day an empty subjectivity usurping the rights of inwardness ; men clutch eagerly at the letter and semblance of things whilst the reality is threatening to vanish entirely. Hand in hand with the progressive autonomy of inwardness goes a dominant position of morality, and the one is inseparable from the other. True inwardness grows only where life connects itself into a Whole, and in order to do this, it needs the subject's own elevating deed. Such a deed is not ready-made ; it has to be wrestled for and formed, and here is the point where an energetic, manly and healthy inwardness differentiates itself from the weak, effemi- nate and morbid disposition of romanticism. Contrari- wise, there is no genuine morality which does not aim at a whole of the inwardness and does not strive for a new being. But religion alone ensures such a mode because it opens out a new life from cosmic connec- tions, and makes the question of the redemption of the soul the kernel of all effort. True, morality has often attributed to itself an absolute value outside religion and often in opposition to religion : the Stoic mode of thought has proceeded through the centuries as a permanent type of this mind. But such a morality loosened from religion is deficient, as in connections, so also in a living content and a secure foundation ; man here wiU easily overestimate his own capacity, isolate himself, and thus fall into hoUow- ness. The single point is not able of itself to lead any 440 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION life from the Whole, if such a life is not communicated to it from the All. As soon as the moral problem has set itself upon the whole of life, and as soon as herewith not only the greatness but also the pettiness of man become evident, the union with religion becomes inevitable ; it is in such a union alone that the moral life integrates itself into a Whole and is able to justify its claims to the leading position, which otherwise would appear as dictatorial and arbitrary ; it is in this way alone that the pride and hardness of moralism can be held at bay — qualities which have invited many assaults on morality. True, an act — an encompassing act of the whole nature — has to carry our Spiritual Life, but this act is itself more than a subjective flight : it is the appropriation of a new life, and appears, in the midst of all its activity, as being carried and even engendered by the Spiritual Life. Life persists in the midst of painful hindrances and ever finds new courage for its ascent. In all this we have already recognised a difficult problem — even a mystery. For a merely instinctive clinging to life would not discover the energy for a new develop- ment, and all subjective agitation would quickly grow weary in face of the hardness of the opposition. That positive impetus of life is able to obtain an illumina- tion and a justification from religion — an illumination, because here a new life superior to the entangle- ments of human existence is reaUy mediated ; a justification, because this new life is freed from all that, in the self-preservation, was lower instinct or narrow selfishness. For it is not mere man but the preservation of the Divine Life which now governs A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 441 all the effort ; and the struggle is not for a finite being but for the presence of an Infinjjte Life. We hear over and again religion reproached of lessening the energy of life and even of breaking the courage of life. But such a statement holds valid only for special times of degeneration of religion, or for an' external view of the matter, to which the inner life remains a sealed book. Nothing in reality so much as religion has sustained man in painful tribulations from within and without, and filled him with a joyous courage of life. For man was now transplanted from the eflfect to the cause, from the periphery to the centre, and here Infinite Life with its per- fection became his own life. No doubt, as we have long realised, the entire energy of affirmation deepened here upon the thoroughness of the nega- tion. But how can men with any kind of alert- ness overlook the Yea which stands behind the Nay? We saw the claims of love and a shaping of life from out of love persisting in the midst of all the hardness of human relations ; but love itself found no secure " ground," and the movement towards it, restricted to itself, threatened to end in empty sentimentality or mere pompous talk ; and often enough such talk has to hide a want of substance and truth. New contents of life are absolutely necessary in which man shall acquire a value and shall grow beyond his former self; if such is to happen over against the whole condition of the world, there is need for new beginnings, a new world, an infinite power and love, which communicate of their fulness to man, which free him from oppression, and which 442 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION make him capable of genuine love. In this connec- tion the exercise of such a love is able to become a testimony of its Divine origin : " that we forgive our neighbour makes us certain that God has forgiven us " (Luther). Only that a real transformation of life has to take place herewith, and not simply a higher estimation of what has remained unchanged, else we sink back into the subjective and anthropomorphic which will prevent us, until we overcome them, from taking a single step forward in religion. The expres- sion " Infinite Love " contains something pictorial and human which can easily lead into error. But the mere approximateness, indeed, the inadequacy of the expression does not matter so long as the fact is held fast energetically that, beyond all nature and culture, a new being is bestowed on man from the relationship and in the relationship to the Absolute Life — a being whose most adequate expression is that genuine love. Such a founding of love in the Absolute Life wiU shield it from the eifeminacy and light- ness which it so easily assumes amongst human relations ; it will sever humanity from the external appearances to which it tends to cling, and will unite it with the kernel of man's being and, at the same time, will avoid all the false idealisations which inevitably lead to grave disappointments. Thus, secure against defacement and certain of a new spiritual content, love will work as a power- ful motive towards the shaping of human relation- ships from the foundation according to the valuation which is the due of man as a member of that new life. Love will undertake a manly struggle not only against A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 443 what oppresses and defaces it from the outside, but still more against what threatens to destroy it inwardly. Thus, love of enemy can now mean more than a mere demand or a mere phase, because the new life is able to found an inner fellowship which certainly does not simply abolish the opposition and struggle, indeed, it may not abolish them, but which, however, raises man beyond them and enables him to work against them. Thus religion binds together into a Whole move- ments otherwise isolated ; it gives a firm foothold to things otherwise insecure ; it illumines the darkness which otherwise enwraps such movements. Now for the first time what previously appeared more beside us than in us becomes our own act — our own being ; an inversion results and along with it an immense elevation of life, because we step out of the effect into the cause, and along with this, gain as our own an infinite life and creativeness of pure inwardness, and, indeed, find our true self in it. But all this comes about only in so far as religion in reality opens out a new content — a new stage of the Spiritual Life — not from a mere tendency of life based upon some indeterminate over-world and "beyond." It is essential to the religion of the Spiritual Life that it forges its way ever and ever into a content which raises man beyond his initial situation and not merely stirs him to bare move- ments within his unaltered condition. True, even the religion of the Spiritual Life cannot loosen itself from the human form of life, but it makes an immense difference whether it accepts such a form as valid without any more ado, or whether it deals with 444 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION such a form as a mere receptacle — an entirely insufficient receptacle — of a dawning Spiritual Life within us. {bb) The Further Development of the Movements of Life. — We have seen religion, even in its Universal mode, initiating the most fertile movements of life. But these movements experience the most varied hindrances within the human domain ; they threatened to come to an entire deadlock if the potency of religion does not strengthen itself, if it is not able, at least, to carry through that which aspires after a Whole. But how this becomes really possible through the manifestation of an absolute inner life will now be briefly explained. An effort after Infinity belongs to the very root of religion, but the world of man withstood such an effort in a harsh and hard manner. Striving man finds himself not only hemmed in from without ; but from within also he is tied by the particularity of his own nature, and its own psychic potency is doled out to it generally parsimoniously enough by destiny. How can he escape from such a barrier, and how can he make the whole of life his own real life? He is able to accomplish this only at a new level where the pure self-subsistence of reality communi- cates itself to him, and awakens within him a new life. In this life of pure inwardness, he grasps the whole of Infinity as his own possession, and his life is raised above all the hitherto-prevailing barriers. This is done first in an inwardness of the soul, but yet it does not arise out of a purely subjective imagination, but out of the energy of a new cosmic order — out of an All-life subsisting in itself. If, thus, our life anchors A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 445 itself in the inmost point of Infinity, it will be able to hold fast to such an Infinity in the midst of all hindrances. * The problem of freedom is closely connected with the problem of infinity. Life had to insist upon some kind of freedom, for without freedom, as already noticed, there is no originality, no personal life, and no genuine present moment. Religion, however, became the best advocate of freedom because it manifested an original life out of the Whole over against the concatenations of nature and destiny. But such a life of the whole of our existence does not forge its way right through the hindrances, but it falls right in its inner woof under the power of the concatenations ; and, thus, without a new start, freedom must succumb to destiny. Life gains such a new start from the new stage of life which Characteristic religion inaugurates. For here new beginnings are gained over against one's own psychic potency ; and in this domain of pure inwardness even that is not lost which does not succeed in transposing itself into visible work and achievement. This does not mean that a faint dis- position, in the form of a merely subjective emotion, suffices — little enough is gained through that — but the presence of an Absolute Life establishes an activity springing from pure inwardness, and creates herewith a new province of life removed from the hindrances of the world. Through the consolidation of this province of life the domain of natural causahty does not simply cease, but still exercises a power over the very soul of man. But it has lost its old monopoly ; man is now able to withstand its exhausted binding and 4.46 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION hemming in ; he is able to set his hfe in its inmost depth upon his own act and upon an original creative- ness, and, along with this, to drive out the old strange elements, and thus to bridge the chasm which other- wise lies between himself and his own soul. All Spiritual Life is here a struggle against the flux of time — an ascent to eternal and immortal truth. Because religion uplifts things into a Whole and a Principle, it executes an inversion of man's first view of things. But we have already seen how man's effort after truth fell under the power of time and change, and how this called forth the most difficult entanglements and a painful anxiety, so that ever anew the transient presents itself in the garb and with the claims of eternal truth. There is no secure over- coming of time and no consolidating of the eternal through the ordinary every-day existence, or even through the surface-aspect of spiritual things. This achievement is possible only through a new order which reduces our whole world to a particular kind or aspect of reality. In this new order hfe may gain a timeless character, and may transform itself in its inmost depth into a pure self-subsistence and into a persistence within its own essence. Characteristic religion inaugurates from the side of an absolute self- subsistence an emancipation from time ; it brings calm and consolidation into life ; hence it works beyond one's own circle for the maintenance and strengthening of the whole effi)rt after timeless truth. Wherever religion acquired full energy and independence, it has scorned being driven away on the current of time or being curbed by the fluctuating situations of man- kind ; rather has it held up a standard against the A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 447 movements of time, and such movements had to justify themselves before such a standard ; it has worked for the differentiation of* the transient from the permanent, and of pretentious culture from spirituality. But if religion itself falls into the entanglement, it finds no help in the wavering products of time, but in an energetic consciousness of the eternal within its own being — in a revivification of its indestructible foundation ; and it is this power alone, which supports religion in the midst of the movements of time, that can be considered by it as possessing value. Thus, religion has held up the idea of eternity present in human life ; it has estab- lished an abode for life in itself in the midst of all the hurry of work, and has founded a secure rest in the midst of all movement ; along with this it has given existence a depth, and has upheld a constancy of life against the vacillations of time. The aspiration after greatness is, as we have already seen, no mere outflow of vain, overweening pride and self-mirroring. Man has to think greatly of himself and of his potency when he pursues his own task over against his apparent lostness in an endless world, and is to forge his way through enormous oppositions. Religion gave such an aspiration a solid ground and a secure support, and since it revealed the presence of an Absolute Life in man it calls him to pursue this life and to transform its entire infinity into his own possession. But man could not succeed in drawing his whole domain into this infinite life ; the oppositions threaten to overpower him, and crippling doubt presses him down into littleness. In order to get beyond this, religion must establish a 448 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION new depth of life, and it accomplishes this through the turn to Absolute self-subsistence, and, further, through the ensuing union of human and Divine life. Man is here removed into the centre of reality ; here he has to reach decisions concerning the Whole; here the success of the Whole is tied to his decision in so far as the vivification cannot occur at this particular spot without his own deed, and this deed has to carry farther the movement of the world. Thus the deed has gained a cosmic character and cannot possibly be deemed trivial. Rather does, as against the inner forming and building of reality proceeding here, all that the external view of things exhibits, all that the history of the world shows in sensuous results, in catastrophes and colossal effects, become merely secondary. Everything has now a true value only in so far as it furthers that development ; and for the best minds the more or less equally valid environment is a coming and going, a rising and falling, a collecting and scattering, of human things. Thus, we have here also the inversion of life and of values which is characteristic of religion. Characteristic religion, in all this, brings the stag- nant life into a current. It does this not so much in that it breaks down the opposition, as in that it raises the life throughout above the domain of the opposition ; it does it through the production of a new characteristic domain ; but, as the longing for this ideal proceeded from out the Whole of life, so also will its satisfaction re-act upon the Whole and strengthen the Whole. (cc) Peculiar .Ejects of Characteristic Religion. Our previous exposition noticed the fact that A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 449 Characteristic religion not merely carries on, but also brings forth something new, and we have now to lay hold of some of the peculiar developments of this New. And here again there is nothing astonishing to be expected — nothing that was hitherto alien to us ; but it is to be expected that phenomena which hitherto were dispersed, and through the dis- persion remained without any effect within the Whole, now connect themselves together, and, along with this, gain a new significance and reveal a further development of the Whole. Religion thus appears as the power which teaches man, through a discovery of the connections and a transposition into the creative " grounds," to see the facts as a Whole and to grasp them as his own. Its action, viewed externally, may seem to emerge only on the horizon of life and to evade all precise description. Viewed inwardly, it accomplishes an inversion of life which pushes all that surrounds man with manifold abundance and limited form to a secondary place, and causes the ascent of a new kind of life, which appears over against the prior life as the fundamental depth, and which transforms the entire aspect of reality. Religion generally comprehends reality as a development or expression of a total-life ; but it makes a great difference whether such a total-life appears as effective in the concatenation of the Whole and as mediated through this to the individual parts, or whether it appears as immediately present in the part, and as directly related to the part. The former view predominates in Universal religion, and the latter predominates in Characteristic religion. The 89 450 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION development of the immediate presence of the Whole places the individual in possession of a new light, by teaching us to understand such light as an ex- pression of infinity — as the point where an original and self-subsisting life bursts forth. Through this a mode of reflection arises which is the direct opposite of the exact scientific mode with its all-pervading connection and its deduction of each element from out of the series to which it belongs ; the new mode cannot hope to eject or replace this scientific mode, but it is able to maintain over against it its independence and its own rights. For there results through this a more intuitive and aesthetic insight which cannot possibly be abandoned in our consideration of the whole meaning of the universe. The individual receives here an immense enhancement because the fact is grasped as an intimate verification of an inner life of the All — as an expression of Divine glory ; man in his indi- viduality gains along with this a self-subsistence, a self value, an inner infinity, and all this becomes an object of pure insight and of a disinterested de- votedness. Here Art has its pre-eminent task and develops, through its solution, a new and more inward relationship to the world ; " it does not raise nature and it does not make it more majestic than it really is, but it raises human nature to see its own glory and the glory of the world — it helps to see right through the confusion of the external " (Runeberg). Art will thus see and honour the Divine not merely in what is charming and harmonious, but also in what is mighty and awful. Would not such an inner vivification of nature — such an inner reflected light of the spiritual from out of nature — be an unreality, A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 451 and could it therewith unlock such an immeasurable fulness of individuality, if the reality had no self- subsistence and no inner depth ? All art becomes a testimony to such a depth. But such an insight into the infinite — such an intimate apprehension of the infinite in the particular point — reaches beyond all art into the whole of life ; for without this, life could never become a pure self-life and never attain to a full present. Just as with that turn, reflection is raised above mere causality, so also is action raised above merely serviceable activity and above the whole mechanism of ordinary life. It is only through the gain of an inner infinity that action has no need to be ever on the look-out for new tasks beyond the position attained at the moment, but it can rest in itself, return from all movements to itself with- out falling into an idle inaction. Herewith there opens out a sphere of inner peace — the calm of a Sabbath rest in the midst of all the tumult and struggle of the ordinary surface-world. Such an experience is either an empty delusion and, if so, we are the entire slaves of a restless and senseless world-work, or there is such a thing as a self-subsistence of reality which becomes man's own possession. The manifestation of such self-subsistence as is re- presented by religion works in another direction : it invests life with a greater simplicity and child-likeness than is possible through social relations. For where infinity is placed over against the individual, the individual's dependence upon infinity, his relationship to infinity, and his security therein are now perceived. And there can be no more suitable symbol to express 452 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION this than the life of a little child with the simplicity of its feelings, its full dependence on others, its unconditioned trust, its certain expectation of help as a matter of course. Life appears here as a return from a painful entanglement, and yet there results something more than a mere return — there results an inner renewal, the dawning of an otherwise locked- up depth. Religions first and foremost have brought forth such a spirit to development, and no one more than Jesus has done this. The reformers of education, too, were convinced that nowhere is man more him- self and nearer to the source of life than during the tender age of childhood, and hence that from such a source a rejuvenation of the whole life can proceed. Such a conviction penetrates the life-work of Froebel ; and Pestalozzi chose the dispositions that permeate child-life as the most secure point of departure for the cultivation of religion. " We quote once more his words : " The amazement of the sage in viewing the depth of creation and his search in the abyss for the Creator are not the education of humanity for the production of this belief In the abyss of creation the investigator loses himself, and in its waters he can only drift about aimlessly far away from the source of a fathomless sea." " Innocence and purity, an un- alloyed human feeling of gratitude and love, are the source of faith. In the pure child-like disposition of mankind, the hope of eternal life wells up, and the pure faith of mankind in God is not experienced in its energy without such a hope." These various traits are evidently developments of one single life. Such a life resists being A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 453 fastened to adjusted conceptions, and can reach some representation only through metaphors and parables. Yet notwithstanding this, it does not lose its power and reality, and in it alone is man able to gain a secure foothold and a pure self-subsistence without which his whole life must break in pieces. Thus, there culminates here something indispensable and urgent, but, at the same time, human life seems most unready — posited between different orders of the world, and moved within itself by sharp opposites. But the movement itself is the most valid testimony that the whole is no mere fancy, and religion will increase this assurance because it turns the matter entirely into an individual concern, and lets the world-problems be experienced directly by man. But religion must reflect with the greatest possible energy as to how to differentiate clearly between the new life-content and all the mere sub- jectivity which seems to accompany the new life as a shadow, but is utterly unable to produce it out of its own capacity. {dd) Retrospect.— To derive the proof of religion from the experience of the Life-process is a doctrine in no way new. For from of old the raising up of a new life was the main achievement of religion and the most convincing proof of its truth. The new life won the soul and inclined it towards the imparted in- struction and not vice versa. But, however, the more religion turned into Church organisations, the more have they developed their doctrines into an enclosed system, and the more have they considered an acknowledgment of this system as the main end, and have readily treated life as a secondary, and doctrine 454 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION as the primary, thing. It is difficult to avoid such a course amongst human conditions, but it contains so many dangers and engenders so many abuses that a counter-action is ever necessary and ever important — a counter-effect that will raise life out of any and every opportune manifestation to the level of a principle. Such a turning of religion into doctrinal conceptions brings it easily into a condition of inertness and cripples man's own activity, because religion is thus conceived as something ready-made which stands with unconditional authority in front of man ; whereas if religion is referred to life, it appears far more as a progressive co-operative work, and set as a task from without. But life has to struggle gradually for its content, and work out such a content with increasing clearness ; it must ever ascend, ever draw reality more and more into itself and grow along with it. And, further, the setting of religion in doctrinal ideas can result onlyin definite con- nection with the momentary situation of culture ; thus there is found in religion a temporal and problematic element which easily treats itself as the main fact; and the violence which the main fact experiences through the advancement of culture turns easily into an assault upon religion, and causes it to appear far more insecure than it really is ; religion steps thus into immense entanglements because it is not able to carry on the struggle from the point where it is truly strong. Such and other abuses have for centuries pressed men to put life, which in reality has ever decided, first also in the consciousness and activity of mankind, and to work out its implications A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 455 with all possible clearness. The Reformation and Pietism acted thus ; Pascal and Schleiermacher did the same ; and the present (fay demands such an achievement with special insistence. But at the same time, history shows the great danger and entanglement connected with such an effort. The turn to life which shall energise the whole sinks easily into mere subjectivity, and this is certainly unable to give religion either a secure foundation or an original content, and consequently an evaporation and a dissolution of religion become unavoidable. It is, then, necessary to raise life beyond its usual vagueness, to discover within it inner connections, and indeed, the source of a reality ; and, further, to loosen life from merely isolated aspects and to invest it with a self- reliance as well as with a cosmic character. We have already sought to show this through the turn to the Spiritual Life and its clear differentiation from the empirical psychic life with its " given " existence ; and our whole investigation stands or falls with the acknowledgment of the Spiritual Life. We in modern times have long given up the attempt to found religion upon an investigation of the world, because the world itself has become far too much of a problem for us, and consequently we flee to man as our starting-point in the development of life. But man in his empirical existence is far too petty and confined to be able through his own potencies to set up against the boundless world a new and elevated world ; and thus religion threatens to become a mere radiation of subjective human craving and fancy, and its entire world threatens to sink down to a dream-world. No amount of shrewdness or acumen can prevent this 456 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION issue if man is no more than the first impressions show him to be, if there is not present within him a really- subsisting All-Life which enables him more and more to bring about an inversion of his natural existence. But this, however, is a question of fact and not of argument ; therefore our main investigation directed itself to the tracing of such facts. Because we con- vinced ourselves that things were so, we gained the standpoint of spiritual experience over against a merely psychological standpoint. For the latter standpoint occupies itself with purely psychic processes, and in the province of religion especially it occupies itself with the conditions of the stimulations of wiU and feeling, which are not able to prove anything beyond themselves. The spiritual experience, on the con- trary, has to do with life's contents and with the con- struction of reality ; it need not trouble itself concern- ing the connections of the world only in a subsidiary manner, because it stands in the midst" of such connections, and without these it cannot possibly exist. Man never succeeds in reaching the Divine unless the Divine works and is acknowledged in his own life ; what is omitted here in the first step is never again covered, and becomes more and more impossible as life proceeds on its merely natural course. If, however, the standpoint of spiritual ex- perience is gained, then religion succeeds in attaining entire certainty and immediacy ; then the struggles in which it was involved turn into a similar result, and its own inner movements become a testimony for the reality of the new world which it represents. A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 457 3. Religion in its Relation to Society and History Religion hitherto has been noticed as governing in the domain of the invisible — it was a life of pure inwardness. But it is not able to affect energetically the immediate existence of man and humanity unless it succeeds in coming into visibleness and in adopting a solid organisation, and these in their turn will appeal to, and will support themselves by means of special historical events. But immense entangle- ments result through religion entering into definite relationship with society and history, and also on account of the fact that religion had to substantiate its truth and reality within the domain of the visible. The invisible and eternal, upon which all the claims of religion in its foundation rest, steps into strange conditions within the domain of the visible ; and easily enough in these human conditions, those things which should serve as mere representation and orienta- tion compete eagerly amongst themselves for independ- ence ; they raise themselves up as main facts, and through such a subversion they work directly against the final aims of religion. As everywhere, the main danger here does not come from enemies but from friends — from erring friends. Simultaneously, the configuration within the visible world leads easily through such a turn into a contraction of, and a menace to, the other provinces of life, and the contradiction which these call forth easily impels to a rejection of religion itself; and thus religion has to suffer for the presumption and usurpation of the Church. Nothing has carried into religion so much confusion from within and so much contradiction from without as its 458 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION own visible incorporation — as that which intended to serve it, and which rehgion seems unable to abandon. (a) The Problem of the Church, {ad) The Necessity of a Religious Organisation. — Religion in its Universal mode works for an inner fellowship of mankind, but it does not press for a hard and fast organisation. The desire for organisation arises only when the opposition of our world to the Spiritual Life has been deeply felt, and when, over against this opposition, a new stage of life has succeeded in obtaining recognition. For not only is the new stage of the religion of a pure self-subsistence much more difficult to apprehend and to retain, but in its presence the inability of man becomes far more evident. How can individuals be roused out of the indifference of the mechanism of daily life, and how can they be brought, out of the chaos of opinions, into common convictions unless some solid organisation raises and stimulates and unites them ? He who denies the need for such a turning must either think very little of religion or very highly of man. If religion is no more than an artistic and delicate worldly disposition — a mere embrace of infinity in the exulting feeling of happiness and success — or, on the other hand, if man is held as from the outset filled with spiritual interests and in his intimate consciousness securely turned to high aims, then religion needs no kind of strengthening through fellowship. But where the greatness of the task and the littleness of man are present to the mind, some kind of incorporation of religion is not so easily rejected. A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 459 The fact that Characteristic religion first awakens such an aspiration for fellowship does not signify that it alone is able to satisfy it. Religion is not well able to develop an independent circle of life without falling back upon its Universal mode and calling up also the whole energy of this. Such a circle of life dare not contract into a mere refuge from the exigencies of life, but it has to consolidate the whole of life, and to shield it from dangers of an inner dissolution. Characteristic religion is able, as we have already noticed, to develop genuinely its spiritual nature and defend itself against the intrusion of mere-human elements, only if it occupies that broader foundation. Since religion is to open out to man's nature the entire depth of reality over against empirical existence, the Church seems indispensable in order to introduce and to hold at hand the new world and the new life to man in the midst of his ordinary existence ; it is indispensable in order to fortify the conviction and to strengthen the energy in the midst of all the opposite collisions ; it is indispensable in order to uphold an eternal truth and a universal problem in the midst of the changes of time and the fleetingness of the moment. In fact, the development of independent religious societies causes in human relationships divergences which un- doubtedly have many dangers and abuses, but there has gone forth from such societies a great enrichment and emancipation of life whose withdrawal would mean a loss hardly bearable. {bb) The Dangers of a Religious Organisation. — Our consideration of the historical religions has already placed before us clearly the dangers of a religious organisation. It is now only necessary to raise to 460 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION the level of a principle that which was visible in those religions, and to set it in a closer relation to the religion of the Spiritual Life. The religion of the Spiritual Life maintains with special energy that religion is in no way that which simply adorns mere-human existence, but that within it an elevated life is opened out — that it not merely annexes some kind of embroidery to a " given " world. Now the attempt to make such a new world to attain re- presentation within the old one contains a fundamental contradiction which can never be smoothly solved. The temporal and the human, beyond which religion will rise, unavoidably aspire after power ; even these exercise a counter-effect to the work of the ordinary and commonplace ; the Church must speak not only to spiritually distinguished souls, but must speak to all ; and it must speak every day and not merely in moments of elevated feeling ; it must reckon through- out with human nature and human weakness. Thus, the Church, measured by the standard of religion, will appear very inadequate. But what is dis- covered within the Church as limits and defects has been long fought against, and at present causes no real danger because the organisation is incessantly drawn back upon an inspiring life, and because the Church feels and conducts itself as a mere servant of religion. But in human and historical conditions there is a constant temptation to make the Church the main fact, and to degrade religion to a mere means for its power and glory ; through this the human, the temporal, and the finite gain power within religion, and, indeed, above religion ; immense abuses originate, and then a struggle against the Church may become A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 461 an imminent concern of religion — it may become a struggle for the self-preservation of religion. What perversion this positing of the human into the place of the Divine brings along with itself shall here be shown in at least some points. Religion is unable to attain to a visible form without the work of special personalities in its service, and consequently the sublimity of religion wiU confer upon these personalities a certain splen- dour. But, however, this fact easily takes a turn : the man who busies himself with the Divine claims for himself the honour due to the Divine alone ; the servant becomes a priest, and places himself as mediator between man and God, and therewith injures the kernel of all religion — injures the intimate partici- pation in the Divine Life. In the extreme develop- ment of this, the priesthood can claim power above that of the Godhead : thus the Brahmanic priest, through his sacrifices and incantations, seemed to subdue the very gods themselves ; and in perilous nearness to this lies the mass in the Roman doctrine. It is but natural that the power of the priest should be con- sidered as having been conferred upon him by the Godhead, but the usage of the Church places the priest in the very foreground ; it is the priest who possesses the truth and has the safety of man in his hands, and who finally aspires after Divine honour and imagines himself able to rule over the grace of God. Religion is able to create an organisation only with the consolidation of a world of ideas, and this results unavoidably in a narrowing of religion. The struc- ture of the Church was achieved at a particular 462 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION juncture ; this juncture had particular spiritual needs whose satisfaction preceded and drove back all other claims. Therefore particular central truths stand out from such a world of ideas and group themselves together and all others around themselves ; they succeed in the course of centuries in enforcing themselves with ten- acious energy, and more and more aim at governing the total intellectual world of the Church. This has happened for instance in connection with the ancient Christian doctrine of the Godhead of Christ and with that of the Sacraments in the Middle Ages. Such a taper- ing and a locking-up of the world of ideas is less serious so long as an invisible world of religion counteracts it, and puts the assertion of the Church within a more encompassing truth. But such a counteraction fails within the Church especially in times of greater lassi- tudeand narrowness, for then thenarrow thought- world of the Church becomes the thought- world of religion, and then the perils and injuries of such a narrowing come to full effect. On the one side, we find an iron logic which develops the governing main truths into such conclusions as the adherents hold easily to be a testimony of the Holy Spirit. On the other side, we find much non-logic, because the conclusions of the iron-logic tend to break down when they are face to face with unquestionable religious needs ; and, further, such a logic proceeds only in a special direction and not slant-wise — and hence it tolerates all kinds of contradictions in the juxtaposition of ideas and tasks — contradictions which, once they are dis- covered, become intolerable. But the Churches offer this circle of ideas with all their one-sided- ness as the absolute and final truth, and aim at A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 463 imposing it upon individuals with coercive authority. Can we wonder that an opposition arises against all this ? Can we wonder if the various ideas of the Church, with all their peculiarities, clash severely with each other, and cannot possibly come to terms ? For each of these ideas views the world from its own individual standpoint, and declares such a view as the only possible one ; each at the outset places itself in such a position that it sees clearly only in certain directions, whilst in other directions even the clearest things become dark to it. Now, as the main proof of religion lies in its own actuality — in the creation of a new reality of independent Spiritual Life — so also the Church proves the right of its existence through the greatness of its achievement in the midst of an alien and hostile world. The Church is no mere system of doctrines which has been produced by scientific reasons, and which can be convulsed and dissolved ; but as an organisation of life the Church has brought the supersensuous world to some kind of con- crete expression ; it has, through its training of souls and the formation of relationships, gained an actuality, and acts, from out of this actuality, with a power above all argument. But this actu- ality claims, as religious, to be not merely some sort of actuality ; it must represent the final depth of reality ; it must contain absolute truth. And here again a danger threatens all this : that what has its rights only in reference back to the In- visible presents itself as sovereign, and believes its truth to be established by the bare weight of 464 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION its existence and the empirical actuality of its achieve- ments. True, the Church appeals in this to the lead- ing of the Holy Spirit, but it makes bold to determine where and how the Holy Spirit governs, and, along with this, it takes upon itself to judge concerning truth and error, and again raises the human above the Divine. Thus it is the authority of the Church which is to assure man of the truth ; where the Church unites in a common conviction, there an absolute truth is supposed to have been won ; where the Church constructs a tradition, an eternal duration seems secured. Now, in the long run, it cannot be denied that much that is human has worked in all this, and that with the fixation of alleged divine truths this became so earthly that the serene halo vanishes with the insight that the sanction of such truths was far more of human than of Divine origin. Thus, the doubt concerning the Church passes easily into a doubt concerning religion itself, and the domain of religion will easily appear as a mere web of human illusions. A thousandfold experience shows that where the religious conviction of man rested mainly upon the authority of the Church and did not proceed from his own life, any injury to this basis led easily to a renunciation of the whole — to an entire negation and indifference. If once the Church had taken over entirely the solicitude for truth, and if man's entire convictions and conscience depended on a union with the Church, the relaxation of such a union could not but take away from him all fixed principles, and could not but surrender his soul to entire emptiness. The champions of ecclesiastic authority are ac- customed to insist that human nature will fall into A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 465 an entangled chaos without a strong authoritative binding, and that it needs for its own, welfare a strong control. Against this view let us take the following course. The Spiritual Life itself causes a union of mankind from within, and holds men also in visible connections in the general situation of culture, in art and science, in society and the state. Without such a union from within all the external union would become a mere constraint ; and, further, if all agreement were a work of authority, every deviation would mean the upheaval of the whole, and that could in no manner be tolerated, but would have to be repressed with the severest disciplinary punish- ment ; so that courts of inquisition and persecution of heretics were not only just but an unavoidable duty. However, that mode of thinking which took upon itself to decide that man had an alleged need beyond what religion itself testifies, fell finally into a crass and unworthy utilitarianism. Utilitarian considerations may possess a right in other situations, but in connection with the question of absolute truth, they signify a lowering of the matter and an entire subversion. The atheist in his denial of religion thinks more religiously than the utilitarian who turns the Divine into a mere means of human welfare. Finally, the prominence of the Church causes inevit- ably an externalising of the religious life. The organisation has to stand upon visible proofs of life and to come to expression through such proofs ; it will develop and hold forth certain doctrines ; it will value and desire certain activities ; and through all this connection it will develop a characteristic web of ao 466 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION life. So long as the organisation is drawn back ener- getically upon the fundamental life of religion and is vivified and held together through religion, all dangers to it can be fought against and overcome; but if the Church drives back religion, and ensnares the whole life in the web of its system of ordinances, the Ufe is in danger of being transformed entirely into a comparative number of deeds, and transferred into the shallows of a most industrious mechanism. Then the fatal conception of " religious obligations " arises, which places the religious task on a level with social, political and other obligations, without discovering at all how deeply such a turn degrades religion, and how soulless it moulds the life. There is here no possibility of a compromise of this kind — that a subordination of religion to ecclesiastical authority and the possession of an inwardness of disposition can be simultaneously preserved — but the fact stands here upon an inexorable Either — Or. Where the truth is presented from the external, the inner life is unable to gain entire self-reliance ; where the inner life has gained such self-reliance, it will survey the external by its own necessities and shape it to its own demands ; and it must reject any constraining leadership as an inadmissible bond- age. Freedom and inwardness are ever inseparable ; and he who will not accept the perils of freedom, must for good or evil renounce an independent inwardness and a genuine personality. Life can possess but one centre of gravity, and this lies either within the invisible inner world, and, if so, within the soul ; or within the visible and, thus, outside the soul ; and it is only a confused mode of A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 467 thinking that attempts to find a mid-path between this Either — Or. It may be that § certain inward- ness develops from the external binding, but it remains a dejected, weak and sentimental inwardness, and does not become the sanctuary of a new life and the carrier of a new world. The dangers of such an alleged superiority of the Church over religion vary in diiFerent times ; they adjust themselves essentially according to the position which religion itself occupies in the whole of Spiritual liife. If religion stands in close connection with Spiritual Life, and, if new energy and animation flow constantly into it, then it is able to hold a counter- balance to the expansion of the power of the Church ; but if such a connection has been loosened and the whole situation has become insecure, religion has to seek support in the Church, and thus the prominence of the Church and the rank growth of the merely human are hardly to be avoided. But the Church will then fail in greatness of creativeness, and it need not wonder if the age sees in it more of the human than of the Divine. {cc) The Reconstruction of a Religious Organisa- tion. — In connection with the Church, the dangers and defects have hitherto largely occupied our attention. But the fact should by no means be overlooked, how much greatness the Church has brought forth in the midst of all its mistakes, how it has strengthened 'the soul, and how it has given some kind of drift towards supersensuous values. What the historical view within this domain shows in the way of tangible events is usually unedifying enough, and seems fuUy to justify the severe judgment 468 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION of Goethe concerning Church history. But it does not show what entered into the souls of men, what led them to noble incentives, what brought them peace and happiness, and what upheld them in temptation and tribulation. He who takes this into consideration will be secure against a sweeping condemnation of the Church, and he will not, with its mistakes, com- bat the real achievements of the Church itself. Such a course will not be taken especially because the character of the religious organisation is not allotted to us as a rigid destiny, but was changed in the past and can be further changed. So that we should not simply abandon the Church because the present character of the Church displeases us, but strive according to the best of our ability to bring about a transformation. The following points would seem to be necessary in such a transformation. 1. In the first place, all coercion with regard to men's attitude towards the Church should disappear, and entire freedom should obtain of joining this or that Church or no Church at all. Earlier times felt the unworthiness of a compulsion in this respect less than it is felt to-day ; at the present time the con- sciousness of this has awakened to full clearness ; hence, in such a situation, it must directly injure religion, and turn the Church from being a fellowship of " holy people " to being an apathetic community if men are held fast to it through a stronger or softer pressure. At this point again we see how religion is threatened with greater injury from unwise friends than from open enemies. 2. Further, more freedom, more movement and individuality are necessary within the Church. We A RELIGION 01' A DISTINCTIVE KIND 469 refer herewith especially to the difference between a more universal and a more characteristic disposition in religion. The latter first drove men to a Church organisation and, in such an organisation, naturally maintains the foreground. But what it discerns and de- fends as the final result of the experience of life should not be imposed uniformly upon all individuals, and should not be expected from them as their confession. And especially should it not dominate the teaching of the young save to beckon them to it as to a Holy of Holies in the distance, and to assist them by way of suggestion to become conscious of a veiled mystery, but on no account should aspiring minds in their joyous fulness of life be distressed and grieved. How can every man and every child feel what such a mightily contrasted nature as Luther's with all its convulsive experiences felt ? Such an obtrusion injures re- ligion because it incites a strong ill-will against religion ; it injures life because life becomes thus accustomed to an unreality of feeling, as though to something self-evident. 3. In order to obtain a true reconstruction of the religious organisation, it is, before all else, needful to discern rightly the characteristic content of religion. Religion brings to man not some kind of trimmings of life but the depth of life itself — the positing of man within the nucleus of things, within a self-subsisting reality. Religion in the first place is life, but life not in the customary sense of a mere relationship of things to a sentient subject ; but it is a Spiritual Life in the fullest sense of the term — life of an en- tirely active kind which develops a reality out of itself, and which is present as a Whole in each situa- 470 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION tion. But such a life is entirely of an invisible kind and lies beyond all the differences of psychic activity. The religious organisation is not able to place itself in the service of such a life unless it is constantly re- ferred back to religion as the source of this life. The Church has therefore the task, not so much to propagate this or that doctrine, and not to set forth this or that particular mode of activity, but, in the midst of all the ramifications of activities, to point to the Spiritual Life, to set forth the conditions of its development, and to represent it amidst another kind of world to the best of its ability. It has through its convictions to penetrate into an acknowledgment of this Spiritual Life and its new and all-essential reality, and regard it as conclusive. True, there lie in all this assertions concerning the whole of the world — indeed, a Weltanschauung — but it makes a great difference whether such a view is developed from what has been assimilated by a genuine life and is carried continuously by one's own act, or whether the view is offered us independently of our own act and spiritual experiences, and whether life is to develop from out of itself It is not doctrines in the main, but mere dogmas severed from life and through the severance spinning further doctrines — it is this that constitutes an evil in religion. How much of all this is included in the traditional organisation of Christianity I What significance, for instance, has the doctrine of the Trinity to the re- ligious life — a doctrine which only a philosophically educated fraction of believers can somewhat understand and estimate its motives ? And if Christian dogmas on one side bring far too much, on another side they A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 471 bring far' too little. For instance, they have not a single word of appreciation for the developing and original Spiritual Life vpith its new configuration and fundamental relationship to God, found in the life and being of Jesus. So that often the subsidiary facts become the main facts, and the main facts the subsidiary ones. The age of the Reformation dis- covered this fact very clearly, but it did not bring things to a victorious issue ; but religion will never succeed in engendering a new life until such a change and issue have come about. Such a presentation of the Spiritual Life will by no means efface all differences ; it will rather enhance than contract the fundamental differences of minds. Also, according to our investigation, religion is in no manner a collection of all kinds of facts ; it cannot present its new world without culminating in a differentiation in regard to the qualities within the mind and spirit of man ; it is able to serve the char- acteristic power and genuineness of the entire Spiritual Life only when such a differentiation within the soul results, and it attempts to do this in the midst of the spiritual torpor and inertia of our day. The differen- tiation touches a point where minds part company, where essential truths stand in question ; the inmost nature of man and the main direction of his effort express themselves in the decision of appropriating or rejecting ; and it is through such a decision that the energy and depth of religion become evident. All this, however, has no relationship to the elaborate con- fessions of past generations ; such confessions can be accepted with great readiness, and be united with a great shallowness of religious life; and the opposi- 472 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION tion to all this may arise out of a genuine zeal for religion. How the recognition of the religion of the Spiritual Life with its inner gradations carries in itself definite decisions which have met us at each point of our inquiry, it is not necessary here to do more than to refer briefly to the fact. The main point to be borne in mind is, that the world of nearest-at-hand experience — outer and inner — does not signify the whole of reality, that such a world rests upon a deeper world, and it is only through this depth that it becomes intel- ligible ; in this depth the reality integrates itself into a Whole and is able to be present as a Whole in each individual place. But such a Whole is not able to develop without a pointed collision with the ordinary life and without demanding an energetic division of the prior elements of life. As the Spiritual Life becomes the true standard of all work, a spiritual culture stands out in bold relief to all mere-human culture, and produces a superiority over all the agitations of mere time. Religion places human life and all its efforts under the vista of eternity. True, the movement of history is not without value to religion ; but the immediate results of history are not of themselves standards and norms, but have to justify themselves first of aH before a higher tribunal. Hence religion is well able to acknowledge and to utilize for itself a position attained to by spiritual evolution and belonging to universal history, but it will discriminate such a position clearly from the surface of time and the shifting opinions of men. Religion will demand in a most decisive manner that time with all its change and caprice shall not pass judg- A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 473 ment on the Spiritual Life, but that the latter shall judge concerning the valuable and ^ the valueless of the things of time. If religion holds forth in all this a spiritual substance to life and calls all to battle for this substance, will it not also drive the minds which it has won for such a struggle to some kind of conjoint work and of visible coherence ? And will not religion do this all the more, the more clearly the wide dis- tance becomes visible between its own claims and the ordinary situation of life ? The growth of the task makes the opposition appear all the greater, and a further experience shows that the opposition does not succumb with the ac- ceptation of the Spiritual Life. Religion itself steps into evil entanglement and hindrance, and the dark- ness and unreason of our world heighten. This full acknowledgment is an essential portion of the religious conviction ; and it is in this that religion parts company with all abstract idealism which is satisfied with the mere fact of the Spiritual Life, but which pays no heed to the more intimate experiences of religion. Religious conviction further differentiates itself from all the enthusiasm of the culture and progress which believe themselves able to tone down irreconcilable contradictions ; it differentiates itself, too, from all purely aesthetic culture which shows only the light side of things in the foreground, and which threatens to transform the whole of life into a grace- ful but merely empty play. But the religious con- viction proclaims with all emphasis that life is no mere play, but that from its foundation it carries within itself a mighty strenuousness, and it is through this conviction that religion can bind together its adherents 474 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION But the dismissal of a weak optimism in all its forms does not drive religious conviction into the path of a melancholy pessimism. For the religious conviction ascends through all the comphcations and hindrances to a new stage which lies beyond the entanglements of human existence ; here it is able to found securely a reality, and here discover energy and courage to combat all opposition. That life finally reaches joyousness after painful toil, and that at last out of the Nay a Yea dawns — this is again a confession that can only proceed out of an original movement of life — a movement in which an energy for the union of souls dwells. When the religious fellowship realises this fact as well as other similar facts, it discovers for itself a mighty task within and without. True, the fact must ever be present that religion intends to raise man to a cosmic life which claims to be the deepest ground of all reality ; and therefore the religious fellowship dare not ever sever itself from the whole of life, but it will maintain its place in this whole, and take up the struggle against all perversion with joyous courage and certain trust. Hegel was justified in his warning against the petty retail- traders of belief. Nothing is more essential for religion — and nothing ought to be more essential for the religious community — than to raise life into Greatness, the finite into the Infinite, and the temporal into the Eternal. Here it is necessary to struggle against all that is sub-spiritual as well as against all admixture of the spiritual with the merely human, to struggle against defacements and malformations of the Spiritual Life, to struggle against a torpor on A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 475 one side and against shallowness on the other side. The spiritual is to be raised to its owjJl heights, whilst its ethical basal character, its superiority to all merely natural process, its roots in freedom and action, its formation of a relationship from a Whole to a Whole with great clearness, are worked out and are vindi- cated in the face of all contradiction. The decision for all this results not so much in particular propositions and doctrines as in convictions and modes of thinking ; it produces not so much finished results as sohd tendencies and broad lines of battle ; it furnishes a touch-stone for the separa- tion of the genuine and the spurious in time, and enables our effort to gain an over-individual stand- point. The deepest minds of men can and must meet together in such a standpoint ; then a concentration opposes a destruction ; a substance of life is main- tained over against all mere manifestation of energies ; and human existence, amidst the full estimation of conflicting experiences, signifies a meaning which never can fall upon us from without but which has to be struggled for ever anew. Such are the demands of all times ; such are especially the urgent demands of the present. (/3) The Relationship to History. — The inquiry into religion has led us often into the problem of history. We have already observed that there is no such thing as history — history as an inner experience — without a return-movement to an eternal order of things. We have also observed how religion, through its discovery of various stages in life, increased in a most important manner the significance of history and the historical character of our existence. In this place we 476 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION are not so much concerned with a question of principle as with the question how far is religion a matter of history, what promises does history make, and what dangers does it prepare. Religion of the Characteristic kind will urge history to assist in the development of life. For this religion is founded upon great experiences of life, and is unable to deny that these experiences do not clearly meet everyone at every moment, but that those deeper experiences of religion can become strongly obscured through the passing experiences of the moment. And since, at the same time, the conviction, with- in the province of religion, obtains that the course of time is not able to bring forth new truths but only an unfolding of a timeless truth, it is in no way impossible to gain stimulations and indications from past times, such as our own time does not offer. Should not the past thus bring the present to a completion, and does it not contain conspicuous epochs when the religious movement — ^the religious creativeness — scaled a height otherwise un- attainable ? Such summits might be found — summits where pressing problems of the general situation and great personalities came into contact with each other, and through the contact the otherwise stag- nant existence was brought into a current. Through this the historical religions originated, which in- corporate a type of spiritual life — a type which exhibits its power through the centuries and mil- lenniums, and brings and offers to man what has been gained in the form of achievements and experi- ences. Should we not set our own life in union with this ? A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 477 Certainly we must do this, but we must not pass over the Umits and dangers of such a union with history precisely in the domain of religion. Religion lays hold of an Absolute Life which in its very nature is timeless. If a particular epoch advances particularly far, yet it apprehends the Eternal far better as the source of its achievements ; and its genuine effect lies in the fact that it illumines the path to the Eternal, and not that it holds mankind fast in itself. In a word, it is only in so far as the epoch places itself in the service of an immediate and intimate life, only in so far as it leads out beyond itself, and only in so far as it frees man from the accidental nature of the moment and raises him into a genuine present, that history can further religion. Hence, that alone can be religiously valuable which transforms itself into an immediacy of life, and it is always necessary to test how far the historical quality of anything corresponds to such a demand. The soul's own life thus stands always above all mere communication of the past ; thus it adjusts the past from the standpoint of the height of its own experience ; thus religion develops itself not so much from out of history as within history ; and thus all genuine use of history becomes at the same time an annulment of bare history. This treatment of history differs from the tradi- tional and still prevalent church organisation of the present day more than is usually discovered ; and friends of the newer mode of thought often under- rate the greatness of such a turn. The old mode of thought conceived of the Divine as being enclosed in a particular point of time, and that the work of later generations was simply to appropriate and to 478 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION hold fast to what had there and then appeared ; they must copy truly the model presented there. Thus we obtain that ideal of the imitation of Christ — an ideal which has governed the life of Christendom from a height far above all other individual summits. This conception of religion possesses as its broad foundation a conviction of truth and of life's content which in its scientific aspect reaches back to Plato. Truth appears here as harmony with a pre-existing immutable Essence, and Spiritual Life appears as a copy, an imitation, and an explanation of this perfect Essence. According to this, there is nothing new to be reached ; there is no essential progress and no universal process ; all that is necessary is to guide reason and effort ever back to the summit which, according to Plato, did not lie within but above time, and which for the first time is planted by the Christian conviction within time. The new mode of thought has broken away from this ideal of truth not so much through theor- etical reflection as through the heightening of the needs of life, and through a deeper longing for in- dependence and originality. Truth appears now no more as a copy of an absolute essence but as an elevation to an Absolute Life, and as an intimate participation in such a Life. It does not belong to this particular part of our discussion to examine here how all this transforms the tasks and conditions of the individual provinces as well as especially the problem of knowledge ; but evidently there grows through all this a characteristic relationship of history to life, because now we have not to seek within life a ready- made truth which we have to hold fast and to imitate, but all that was great in history is to be A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 479 transformed back into the immediate timeless life from which it arose, in order that from out of the community of this life it may be able to profit us. The contact is able to become far more intimate than all merely historical communication is able to engender ; but at the same time the relationship becomes free, because life has ever to wrestle with greatness in order to win greatness. What is demanded by such a turn is not already fulfilled through any stronger relationship of history with the subject — not through an inner subjective appropriation. For as certainly as personal life, that forms worlds and elevates being, is something other than a subjective life, quite as certainly life con- tains the demand of a superiority to history, and quite as certainly must that life relate itself not so much in a passive as in an active way to history ; certainly, too, must that life incessantly free the eternal content from the transient of the mere form of time, and thus see another meaning in it and make something other out of it than the older mode of viewing it had done. Let us consider further, in the light of such a discussion, in what special manner history can aid religion. If it is necessary to obtain a new reality superior to the world, history becomes of use through its great personalities as well as its great organisations. Both are indispensable for the furtherance of the higher life. In personality alone does life reach the height of original creativeness, but without organisation the new creation gained could not unfold itself into a thoroughly complete reality, and could not encompass the individual with its spiritual atmosphere. 480 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION Indeed, the stronger religion develops its character- istic mode, the more will it seek a close relationship to great personalities, for these alone present the life superior to the world in an intuitive form and as secure actuality ; and without such personalities such an elevated life would appear only in indefinite out- lines. The Divine within the depths of human nature is now awakened to a vivid life, and is brought to full effect for other lives also. That the new life is not in the main a product of mere man but is a com- munication of God, is the fundamental conviction of all religion. But the average of mankind fails to work out and to place in clear bold relief the Divine ; the Divine here loses itself in the merely human path, and does not disengage life from pettiness and doubt. To those rare ones only has power been given to sever the Divine from the merely human and to hold it forth in a clear form as a characteristic, immense, and elevated world to man, and to allow such Divine effects with all their energy to work upon the soul. When such happened, it produced a raising of the life into greatness and certainty ; it freed man from merely subjective particularity, and brought him a progressive certainty of the presence of a Divine within his own nature. Thus the customary and conventional life with all its petty aims sank to a lower level, and all its power faded away before the gloiy of a new world. But all this happens not through any new doctrines, but pre-eminently through the raising up of a new life, through the development of a characteristic spiritual type, which grips the man with irresistible power, and which brings him to a realisation of that which has been prepared in the A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 481 depth of his own nature, but which is not able to ascend from the realm of shadows tq, that of a clear reality without such a help. The main and essential effect of such great personalities is the fact that they, through the powerful energy with which they present before us a type of life incarnated within themselves, constrain us to a decision and lift us out of the stag- nation of the trivial occurrences of daily routine. In order to obtain such a power, it is essential that the content should succeed in reaching an intuitive form — that the sublime thought should gain flesh and blood. We have already recognised in this the work of an imagination which holds sway over entire worlds, and which makes the inconceivable easy and, indeed, self-evident, whilst it places the best that appears in this present world into the service of the new world. The representation of this sublime reality retains here also its aspiring and symbolical character. Is it not a symbol, for instance, when in the teaching of Jesus, the relationships of parents and children typify the union of God and humanity? But notwith- standing the symbol, no cleft is felt here because what actually belongs to our world is seen in the light of the new world, and is through it ennobled, raised, and transfigured. Because thus the higher draws to itself the lower, and because the higher can even shine out of the lower, the full presence of the Divine appears reached. Such a union of the Divine and the human is not confined to individual summits in the history of the world, but extends itself over the whole of humanity ; it results in an inner elevation and in a spiritualisation of the whole of existence ; it constructs, through the dawning of its content, an essentially 31 482 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION original life with its secure superiority to the confusion and unreliableness of the social sphere, and also with its energetic conviction of a life of the spirit founded upon the incontestable fact of the living presence of a new world within the human circle. Nowhere is it more true than here that it is not history that makes man, but that it is man who makes history. Thus, our estimation of the great personalities of the Church is able to follow a good portion of the path which they travelled over. But a point of divergence certainly occurs. Where the realisation of a new and intimate life founded in God appears as the main fact, and where, as greatest of all achieve- ments, the experience of this Divine Life is recog- nised, the Highest dare not sever itself from human nature, but must remain with it in genuine com- munion of life, for otherwise the elevation would mean no elevation of the whole nature of man. It is only when such great ones belong whoUy to us, only when they participate in our struggles and sorrows, our temptations and doubts, that their experi- ence is able to become our experience, their overcoming our overcoming, and that the miracle which occurred in them can ever renew itself. Further, the passive character of religion here falls away. The man moved greatness as far as possible into the distance in order to gaze upon it with a blind devotion instead of binding it most definitely with his own life and effort. • But such a binding is impossible through mere imitation and blind submission. That which can work best towards greatness is the training for an ever fuller freedom. The free person, however, must set and even prove all — even the Highest and A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 483 especially the Highest — upon the foundation of his own life, and see what all ^this can mean for life. All this prevents in no way a deep and sincere veneration of greatness ; but this greatness must never in itself become an object of religious faith, and all worship of man should be kept at a distance as an injury to God. In a way other than that of great religious person- alities, history works through the religious community. All pre-eminent greatness of such personalities does no injury to the significance of the religious com- munity. For mankind is in need not only of creativeness, but also of the preservation of this creativeness ; it is in need not only of a fundamental foundation for action, but also of continuous pro- gressive actions. He who bears in mind the fact that in religion it is not so much the question of the salva- tion of the mere individual that stands in the fore- ground, but the formation of a spiritual nature and of a cosmic life in the soul of man, will in no way wish to see the cosmic character of religion stunted ; he will perceive that his own consolidation and realisation are obtained through the community, which is indispensable on account of its spiritual atmosphere and its historical continuity. But this continuity does not lie in external things but in a unity of spirit, and this spirit cannot flow in, upon the later generations, from without, but must ever originate anew, in order that it may seek a strengthening in what is transmitted and in order to differentiate the eternal from the temporal. Consequently the position of man to the historical religions can never be that which the ecclesiastical 484 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION forms aim strongly to make it. These religions are receptacles of truth or pathways to truth, but are never the truth itself They ofFer in our human situation and exigencies the eternal not in its pure form but mixed with the temporal and the fluctuat- ing. In such a connection adherence to an histori- cal religion does not mean the recognition of simply everything in its total condition as so much pure truth, but the welcoming and reverencing in it the formation most readily capable of developing within itself the absolute religion, which can never exist without an historical religion. How much, however, history can mean in this re- spect is not decided in the last resort by general reflection, but by the witness of human experience. But it is decided before all else by this : whether, among the historical religions, one religion is extant that has seized with full consciousness, and has de- veloped through the whole of its being that which has presented itself to us as the kernel of religion — especially of Characteristic religion. If this is the case, then it is not necessary to find the path- way of truth beforehand, but only to proceed farther on the path already found. This point, however, is a later conclusion of our investigation. In the event of an affirmation, however, religion is no ready-made possession of man ; it remains a matter for incessant seeking and wrestling, and must ever issue anew from man's own work and experience. But what man loses in rest and alleged security, he gains in the greatness and truth of the new facts. For is there not far too large a picture of religion presented when we view it as A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 485 ever anew arising from the foundation of a timeless order of things and proceeding as a continuous work, and when the growth of the new reality encom- passes all ages and civilisations ? Would it not be better to present a smaller picture which shows religion as having been essentially completed at a special point of time, and that all succeeding ages have but to hold fast to what had been fixed there ? It is not in the fixation of its content to any one particular point of time that religion verifies its genuine eternity, but in a living and elevating present in the midst of all the fluctua- tions of time and over against the changes of time. But do not such a presentation of the inner life and such a critical relationship to history and society bring us perilously near to the rationalism which we do not fear so much as does the historicism of the nineteenth century, but whose limits, however, have been laid bare by the experience of the times in a way that cannot be contradicted ? We answer. No. For the bearer of life is not for us the individual with his supposed ready-made intelligence, but the personality only in its process of becoming, through its encompassing of the world and its upbuilding of a new reality. The intimate and timeless life which such a cosmic nature desires cannot be acquired by it either in a day or in isolation, for in order to climb to its own heights the life must draw the traditional religious world into itself and remain in constant intercourse with such a world. The content of this religious world can mean so much more to us than to rational- ism, because religion does not merely signify to us a view of the universe or theoretical notions for the 486 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION definition and explanation of phenomena. Religion means to us a mighty concentration of the Spiritual Life; in it we observe and revere great spiritual energies in which hidden experiences of our nature are revealed, and which have made life itself quite other than it was — made it richer and deeper. Thus Christianity has not so much brought forth new con- ceptions of God and the universe as that it has trans- formed the fundamental process of life, and along with this our fundamental relationship to reality ; since it became strong enough, through the most intimate union of God and man, to take up the whole depth of suffering into the Life-process, and at the same time to raise the Life-process beyond suffering. Through this, Christianity changed not merely the view of reality but reality itself, and thus introduced man to a more essential life. This further development of life does not depend on the mere environment or on mere time ; for unless such a development is laid in the very foundation of man's nature, unless it is constantly able to verify and to renew itself, it can never become our own truth, faith, and hope. But the penetration into this founda- tion of our being is made immeasurably easier through its linkage with history, and especially through the positing of the nature upon the formative process of the great religions where mighty convulsions and renewals have raised them out of all the insecurity of reflection, and out of all the pettiness of daily routine. It remains always a main fact that history is not able to deliver us from the decisive experiences and further developments of life, but it is able to make them easier. A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 487 The fact that the historical religions thus render the abiding truth far more intuitive and even per- sonified, through its close relations tcf special person alities, epochs, and environment, signifies a great gain so long as this embodiment does not enter into conflict with the spiritual substance. For it is only through this turn to intuition, to the entire individu- ality of an historical formation, that the religious life is able to free itself from the other-worldliness and shadowy character which otherwise cling to it. The individual instances in the historical religions are thus no mere examples, but a living factual proof — an in- contestable realisation. History is able through such a contact with intimate life to place on one side all alienation, and to become more confiding to us than all the visible things of the present moment, and than all sensuous nearness. Thus the distant land where the Saviour lived and worked and suffered has become to Christendom a spiritual home, and the personalities who surrounded him have become types that have permanently accompanied the work of life, and that have raised the centuries ever anew to either love or enmity. But such an interweaving of history and life depends on fixed conditions. It can succeed only in so far as life finds the pathway to history easy, only in so far as life furthers its own efforts through the aid of history, and only in so far as the interval between past and present is not perceived. But when this interval is perceived, most important transformations create a barrier between the intimate contact of the Now and the Then. Thus we are not able, in connection with the affairs of history, to 488 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION affirm anything without also denying something ; we are not able to acknowledge anything without also limiting it. Thus the naive fusion of past and present fails, and the historical tie can readily become a hindrance. History then recedes into the distance, and remains inwardly alien to us even in the midst of all the incessant scholarly disquisitions concerning it. Such days are critical days, and even painful days for man. But they are necessary phases of a universal movement ; they are indispensable for the purifying and deepening, for the purer working out of eternal truth, and for a fundamental preparation of a new configuration of the things of rehgion. What gets shaken in such days is in reality not the fundamental fact of religion itself — not the mani- festation of an intimate reality founded in God — but the human conception of this reality. Indeed, the upheaval itself is in the last resort a testimony of the presence of Superior Powers. Mere movements and transformations within its own province alone have always proved dangerous to traditional religion ; all changes in the conceptions of the universe, all adoption of new aims of activity do not, in spite of the strong agitation of souls, remain long outside the substance of religion, but enter into the ground and plant themselves in the soil of religion, and thus act as a real portion of religion itself. It is only then that a conflict of the new with the other views becomes irreconcilable. So that finally nothing other than religion itself produced the upheaval and the renewal ; or rather, the Divine in religion has anew proved its sublimity above all human configurations, whilst it A RELIGION OF A DISTINCTIVE KIND 489 proved, rejected, and transformed such configurations. Viewed thus, the most painful crisis, with all the anxieties and unrest which it prepares for man, is an expression of the sway of a Superior Power which does not create without destroying and which does not destroy without creating. PART IV.— CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION (Continued) CHAPTER XIV {d) The General Aspect of Religion and Life It is now necessary to examine in conclusion how, after the appearance of Characteristic religion, the general aspect of life presents itself, how far a solution of the problems which led to religion has been achieved, and whether the solution has resulted in the sense we strove to see at the commencement of our investigation. For it could very well be that the development of religion had made out of man something quite other than he seemed to be prior to this development, and that he in his aspiration after happiness found more than happiness in the sense of human well-being. Perhaps the experience of Saul, that Goethe was so fond of citing, applies to us all — of Saul who went out to seek his father's asses and found a kingdom. 1. The Persistence of Evil What drove man mainly to religion was the long- ing for a deliverance from evil — evil without and within — a longing after a fuller and purer happiness. Has religion, as it manifested itself to us, satisfied 490 GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 491 * this longing, and has it driven eyil out of life ? We do not find this to be the case. JEven after the manifestation of the Divine Life things proceed externally on their old course ; the rigid indifference of the course of the world remained unaltered towards the whole Spiritual Life of man. This Spiritual Life continues suddenly to disappear under the forms and aims of human frailty ; it remains an inner impotence, tattered and torn, and perverted ; the inscrutableness of destiny remains, which exhibits neither an order of righteousness nor a reign of love. Indeed, the pressure of evil and the gravity of unreason seem to be but further increased within man. It is, first of all, increased in itself. For now it is in direct contradiction to the new manifestation of Divine Life ; it sets itself against the domain of love, and love is hemmed in by it ; now evil integrates itself more into a totality and seems to set forth an energy of its own against the Divine. Nowhere is this heighten- ing more to be witnessed than in the problem of morality, because first of all Characteristic religion stamps any deviation from its path as a rebellion against a Holy Will and consequently as a guilt. Further, the elevation of the standard through the new life renders much problematic which was otherwise without any doubt. The standard now shows clearly the two-edged character of all human efforts and of mere culture and civilisation with all their ramifications. On the one hand, science and art appear now as the highest aims for obtaining a reality superior to the world, and for bringing about the redemption of the soul. On the other hand, practical and technical work appears not as Divine but as a potentially diabolical 492 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION power which can also turn into evil and demoralises man. Thus, it becomes clear that the most serious hindrance to the spiritual lies within the spiritual itself. But along with the thing, the consciousness of it also grows. Religion, in its progress towards a Character- istic mode, has filled man with a new need of life, and without such aid man's energy and courage grow weary amidst insurmountable obstacles of a hostile world. Religion further has ennobled this need from its very root, so that man in the inmost depth of his being succeeds in coming to a union with the Divine ; he cannot, and dare not if he could, consider himself and his actions as indifferent, and he dare not wholly despair. After his hopes have been strengthened, and a greater inwardness and a greater longing after love are awakened, he must experience, with all its poignancy, the insufficiency of all that human existence offers in the way of soul and of love. The lack of affection within the visible order of things, the fleetingness and the semblance of all -human love, the inner forlorn condition of the Spiritual Life in a dark world, meet man now in a far more painful manner than hitherto. And the leading spirits of religion were unanimous in pro- claiming that religion, with its heightening of the standard and the deepening of feeling, rendered suffering not easier but more difficult : " the more of a Christian a man is, the more is he subject to evil, suffering, and death " (Luther). In addition to this, religion not only appears powerless against the remaining world, but the very enemy whom it is supposed to overcome penetrates into its own province. The superhuman is not able to GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 493 communicate itself effectively to man without some kind of incarnation within man's own domain ; the mner fellowship must adopt external forms in order to become a power within the historical domain. But simultaneously with this, human frailty begins to draw to itself the Divine ; it begins to weld that which was to raise man beyond himself; but man welds this power far too much in accordance with his own frailty, and moulds it so disastrously by means of so much arrogance and pretence and of so much craving for power and intolerance that the whole may well seem to be rather a loss than a gain. In- deed, the more highly religion thinks of its own task, and the more seriously it undertakes such a task, the less is it able to conceive of the possibility of toning down and of glossing over the actual situation, or of leaving human nature in the condition it is in. If there is no toning down of the Nay, it can only be in the strengthening of the Yea that religion comes to the aid of man. 2. The Overcoming of Evil Such a strengthening of the Yea in reality estab- lishes itself The manifestation of a new life — of a new reality — raises man with entire certainty above the spheres of wrong and unreason. It is a funda- mental conviction of religion that the new life in its inmost nucleus withstands all hindrance, and that all defacement of the Divine within the human circle is not able to destroy it or to annul its effects. Also, the human point of departure of life is set by God, and the whole of life is maintained simply through His energy, and is simultaneously withdrawn from all 494 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION human insecurity. In this inmost original depth, no failure or guilt of man is able to destroy entirely his spiritual substance ; he cannot, in the words of a re- ligious mode of expression, again faU from grace if once he has been gripped by grace. Even in the midst of the most painful suffering, and in the over- throw of all that was termed happiness, the blessed- ness of a refuge in Infinite Love and of a peace superior to the world in the union with the Final Ground of things permanently remain. The fact that God Himself preserves the Divine alive within us and protects man also from himself has been the stand upon which all hope of an ultimate conquest of the Yea over the Nay within the soul of man rests. The new life appears first of all in opposition to the world, and only through loosening itself from the world is it able to succeed in gaining full self-reliance. But life does not on account of this become a merely isolated province which is enclosed within itself, and which allows the situation of the world to remain unaltered. For such a course could mean no more than a painful flight of individuals from the iniquity of the world, and could help in bringing forth no more than a devout disposition. But in all this the sub- stance of life would gain but little. The true meaning of religion is rather the fact that such a higher life signifies a higher stage of the total-life of man him- self, that it develops further the very substance of reality, and that it must strike its effects everywhere, and must come to a fundamental understanding with the environing world. The total aim of the Spiritual Life, its turn from the world to its own depth, the construction of an activity of the sustained and GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 495 transformed nature — all this is reached through an intimate inclusion of the final unity ; it is only through this that the movement of life entered once more into a current, whilst otherwise life would have become weary and worn on account of the oppositions. Through such a turn, it is not only this or that isolated good that is gained, but the whole of the Spiritual Life is redeemed ; through the positing of man from the fringe of things to their centre an inner relation- ship to the whole of reality is gained ; through the comprehension of a continuous Divine act in the formation and preservation of life, an indestructible consolidation is acquired. The union from a Whole to a Whole gave a depth of life to the Spiritual Life of humanity as well as to the souls of individuals, and it is from such a union that there originated what is known as our experience of an intimate relationship with things, of an inner expansion of human nature and of a creativeness ; and from such a union, too, all spirit to labour and all soul to act have issued. It is true that this life which originates in the deepest ground is not conveyed immediately into the domain of work and configuration. But it works upon the whole of one's being, and through this works indirectly upon all else it comes in contact with. But certainly this life is perverted and contains a germ of the most intricate confusion when, for instance, a Christian doctrine or a Christian State is desired through the carrying over bodily the mere formulas of religion, instead of realising that religion consists in the . possession of developing convictions and doctrines. It is only a shallow mode of thinking that can ignore the fact that Christianity is able 496 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION to work and has worked by transforming the whole man, and that it culminates in bringing about an alteration in his fundamental relationship to reality, through the power which issued out of itself. He who denies this connection with the fundamental questions of our spiritual existence thinks of Science and of the State not highly but meanly. The conquest of the Yea is determined all along the line by the turn to religion ; we gain a portion in an Absolute Life and, at the same time, an untold activity; and we become fellow- citizens of a new world. But in this final conquest of the Yea there are two different kinds of things which must not be forgotten : the negation and self-denial which the Yea desires, and also the whereabouts of the oppositions in the environing world and in the soul itself Man is not emancipated while he lives and thinks in his natural state ; he is set free only through an entire inversion of his first impressions of the world — through the germ of an Infinite and Eternal Life. What is usually deemed happiness — the full satisfaction of natural impulse — lies below this sphere of the higher life, and will also be overcome by the new emanci- pation ; it is only in opposition to the small self that there originates a spiritual self in man. So that re- ligion on its summits does not speak of prosperity or of supreme happiness, but of blessedness ; and when the popular idea falsely conceived of this as some- thing lying on the other side of the grave, even the mistake points to the truth that something must pass away if ever a genuine life and being are to be won. Religion rightly understood, is, in its direct affirmation of life, very far removed from all eudasmon- GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 4,97 ism, and, indeed, frees itself fundamentally from the narrowness of such an easy-going affirmation. Insepar- able from religion is the idea of sacrifice — the idea not of a sacrifice happening but once, but of a continu- ous sacrifice. Consequently there remains perma- nently a loud lament even in the conquest of the Yea, which is very different from the pleasurable Lubberland of which common theological eudgemonism dreams. Further, over against the turn to religion, the hostile world of darkness and unreason permanently remains ; these draw man to themselves ; they clutch him with the energy of sense impressions and with the eloquence of the mere expansion of things, and they gain power over his soul. This opposition is not overcome once for all, but is to be overcome ever anew ; pain does not entirely vanish, but remains and echoes within the blessedness of the new life, and never allows the conquest to enter into an inactive rest or to become an indulgent enjoyment. If, however, the energy is now a match to the oppositions, or rather if man now becomes superior to them through the presence of the Divine Life, this constant struggle becomes an incessant conquest ; the whole life shapes itself into a heroic deed ; suffering with its persistence can indeed disturb and destroy, but cannot check a final affirmation. In the great works of music we often observe the fundamental theme develop and maintain itself through a seeming chaos of tones and conflicting discords, and also, in the very conquest the conflict does not altogether vanish, but sounds on and on, yet now as something overcome, until at last the harmony finally triumphs. S2 498 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION 3. The Religious Interpretation of Life and the World The religious solution of the problem of life, with its strengthening of the good and its raising above evil, contains in no manner an explanation and justi- fication of evil. In order to do this it would be necessary to demonstrate that evil passes entirely into the good, and that in spite of all hostile appear- ances it finally shows itself as a means of the good — as a means by which we reach the depth of the good. A proof of this is not, however, found. Also within Christianity men have often troubled themselves over this problem. Suffering and guilt were supposed to be the only means of moving the Highest to unlock His love and grace ; and upon the human side, only grave guilt seemed to invest the feeling of need with an inwardness and a longing after deliverance through overpowering energy, as is explained in the parable of the prodigal son. Thus guilt itself could be extolled as fruit-bearing {felia;) because it had brought forth such a redeemer. A more philosophical and far-reaching mode of thought, however, could wish for a contrast of evil over against the full develop- ment of the good, just as a dark background is con- trasted with a clear light. " Who can speak of joy who has felt no pain, or of peace who has not seen or experienced strife ? " (Jacob Boehme). Certainly such a mode of thinking is able to call upon many experiences within the human circle in favour of its claim. An ascent of life may often result more easily from a precipitous fall with its scars than from the stagnation of daily routine. Evil may GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 499 exercise a stirring power, and along with this, point out the path of goodness ; suffering and guilt may occasionally be conducive to the inner advance of life and to the formation of a new nature. But that they are always this, or that they are pre- eminently this, is demonstrated in no manner. How often evil with its acute growth increases its grip upon man and fetters him for ever ! And how dangerous would such a teaching concerning evil as a necessary gate to the domain of the good become if it were raised to a doctrine and precept ! Also, in the totality of the world's order, we dare not consider evil as an indispensable means for the furtherance of the good. An Almighty Love, according to the conviction of religion, governs the world. And this Almighty Love could not unlock its depth otherwise than through the admission of guilt and suffering, in order then to oppose them utterly. Would not the Divine, through this, bend under the power of a destiny which had prescribed its path ? Do we not step here into a web of anthropomorphic ideas ? And would not such an explanation place in the very constitution of the universe the deadly proposition that the good "end" justified the evil means ? Such an explanation sets a greater puzzle than it attempts to solve. In reality, such an explanation of evil corre- sponds far more to the desire of speculation than to that of religion. The inner elevation above evil suffices religion ; religion must refuse everything that weakens the edge of the opposites and the tension of the struggle. And the reduction of evil to a means for realising the good is such 500 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION a weakening — a weakening which threatens to trans- form the mighty world-struggle into an artistic arrangement of things and into an effeminate play, and which takes away that bitterness from evil with- out which there is no strenuousness in the struggle and no virility in the life. Thus it remains perma- nently true that religion does not so much explain as presuppose evil. As religion sees the acme of suffering in guilt, therefore it is inclined to seek the deepest root of evil in guilt. But this is only a mere pushing back of the problem, and is no explanation ; indeed, every attempt at a didactic fashioning of the problem leads to impossibilities. If man, by his fall, is considered to have brought the whole world to deterioration, religion is in danger of sinking into a mythology. If religion heightens rather than lessens the view of the unreason of our existence, yet it brings a certain relief through the enlargement of the conception of reality — through the opening out of a new world-per- spective. To those epochs whose thoughts and tendencies were turned tenaciously towards another world, hope and conviction could hold that all suffering in the present world will find overflowing compensa- tion in a future glory. Why of course this suffering exists, remains dark. Help was sought in the thought that through all suffering, and even all guilt, our training is more and more completed, that what appears at the outset as hardness may finally serve the aims of love, that much which astonishes us as being a Divine command proves itself finally as a means for the elevation of our life. But this is no more than a possibility. And why GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 501 should this supposed education need such a circuitous route if an absolute reason directs our life ? Thus we roam in the midst of explanatory attempts in the region of mere possibilities ; and these possi- bilities lead towards dangerous reefs the more we follow them. The matter ever comes to this, that rehgion places evil in quite another light, but that it explains and interprets it in no way. Further, religion does not solve the riddle of the universe. The unfinished state of the whole — the gradual and toilsome " becoming " — turns into a difficult problem. And the "becoming" itself is full of entanglements : stage raises itself above stage, but the lower becomes no pure ascent to the higher but maintains an independence over against it and holds the movement rigid in itself, and, indeed, threatens to draw back to itself all further effort. The kingdom of nature constructs the foundation of an immeasurable extension and strikes its roots into the psychic life, and in this the sway of mechanism is found ; what points to the lawfulness of pheno- mena, to the universal causal connection, and to the construction of durable forms from a greater depth, remains permanently in an inaccessible back- ground. With the appearance of the Spiritual Life a great turn results, but this Life remains tied to the inadequate human form and succeeds but in a toilsome way towards a mediocre self-reliance. And it is able to maintain this self-reliance only in so far as man within his own domain progresses from a universal mode to a concentrated mode of viewing things, and only in so far as he withdraws from contact with the world of semblance to a pure 502 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION self-subsistence. This, however, seems to be not so much to take possession of the world as to be carried out of it. In this gradation the more developed stages, on account of their richer content, will deem themselves more highly valued, and will claim to govern the lower stages. Thus especially the Spiritual Life would like to handle nature as a mere means for its own aims. But nature maintains its independence over against the Spiritual Life and follows, as we have already observed, its own course heedless of all spiritual values. Similarly, within the Spiritual Life, the universal kind of spirituality maintains itself over against the con- centrated or characteristic mode, and such a general mode refuses to become a means and a preparatory stage for the concentrated mode. Whence, save on account of this, is the pointed opposition to religion found even within the Spiritual Life ? Thus the world-process itself seems to become narrowed and entangled in itself: what strives upwards within the world-process is not able to carry the whole domain of reality along with itself, and it consequently steps into a situation of the most insecure nature. Such an entanglement strikes also into the method of investigation, and places it under conflicting motives. At one time, the higher is explained out of the lower; at another time, the lower is explained out of the higher. The former view has the im- mediate impression of experience on its side ; the latter view calls to its own superiority for its better right as an explanation, but as soon as it carries its conceptions within the domain of the lower, it dis- turbs the particular mode of operation of the lower GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 503 and seems to drag human qualities into the domain of the lower. Thus the various views of the universe enter into an irreconcilable contradiction ; each view can injure the other views, but no single view is able to conquer completely. Within our human reality the entanglement grows further, because here the higher stage remains depen- dent on the lower for its own preservation, and is not able within our world with all its superiority to create an existence from out of its own energies. The spiritual nature must ever anew achieve the means for the maintenance of its life, and is thus drawn back and pinned down to that which it feels inwardly it has passed long ago. Even concentrated spirituality whose stable support is constructed by religion needs universal spirituality, beyond which, nevertheless, it intends to lead us ; for without this basis and the in- dispensable help which it offers, concentrated spirit- uality is in danger of fading and, indeed, of forfeiting its spiritual character. The entanglement reaches its climax, however, when the lower penetrates into the heart of the higher and gains strength for itself — when the Spiritual Life sets unspiritual aims before itself. Then the natural is refined, and self-preservation heightens into selfishness ; and then evil is no mere departure from the good, but grows into an entire perversion. If all this were only a matter of aesthetic reflection, the sublimity of the spectacle could be willingly acknowledged. The scene would then appear as the broad ground of nature developing unerringly into simple iron laws, drawing all effort back to itself, 504 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION and appearing entirely indifferent towards all which man calls good or evil. But on the contrary, a Spiritual Life grows beyond the world-process, en- genders an inwardness out of itself and turns towards it, shapes a new reality but in the shaping narrows and even destroys much of it, withdraws from its ascent, denies it affirmations, resigns its toilsome work, and allows itself to be overthrown. AH this appears as an ebb and flow — a colossal picture in life and death. But is it all a mere picture — a mere play? It is an awful self-contradiction, a tragic deception, an empty phantasmagoria, if it claims to be taken seriously and if it encloses in itself the whole of our life and being, and if it signifies the ultimate and the whole of all things. We are not able, how- ever, to view it other than with seriousness. If all this, with all its darkness, is not able to brow- beat religion, religion must be considered in its inward nature superior to that whole province, and it must prove its superiority through the construction of a new reality. We need only touch here on the point which our investigation attempted to show, viz., that religion not merely gathers together certain elements at hand, but that, through the inauguration of an independent spirituality, it brings forth something essentially new ; life and the world are transformed from their very foundations. As the whole of the Spiritual Life gathers itself together in religion and brings itself to expression, a new standard and a new content are gained by life. What was imbedded in existence prior to the advent of the Spiritual Life but was isolated and scattered, narrowed and dis- figured, insecure and dependent, is through its union GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 505 with the Divine raised to a fuller self-reliance, to a purer formation, and to a more consolidated position, so that it is now able to work as an energy for con- solidating and elevating, for selecting and rejecting. The dawning of new possibilities which result here is itself a fundamental fact, and renders insufficient what hitherto satisfied ; it reduces in value what hitherto stood in secure estimation. The ascending aspiration found in religion after an appropriation of the whole of infinity — after a life from out of the soul of reality — breaks away step by step from what hitherto captivated man. The working rights of civic life sink to the level of a merely preparatory stage or to a caricature of the genuine culmination of life with its essential and world-encompassing love ; the truth in which the ordinary routine of science finds satisfaction becomes a mere semblance and shadow when face to face with the genuine truth which opens out the inner nature of things, and which transforms these things into the soul. And also, genuine Art becomes an inner community of life with things— it becomes a new " becoming " which lies on the other side of all mere gratification and ease. There results thus a thorough and new fundamental relationship to reality — an essentially new life. This New, however, draws to itself from the situation of experience all that it can appropriate ; it drives asunder the opposites and it places the confusion of things before an Either- Or; and it manifests its energy in stimulation and movement. Simultaneously we discover a raising of characteristic features out of the depth, an insight into values and essentials, a simplification of reality, and a penetrating concentration of life. All this is an 506 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION actual current which can never issue from the mere reflection or mood of man but is a fact which gives man, in the midst of all his unreadiness, the con- scious certainty of his relationship to a higher order. How the view of the world and the task of life, through such a turn, alter their content in accordance with the main tendency revealed is to be further explained. Religion as the inauguration of an over- world life is no Weltanschauung. As it is unable to prove fully its own higher Divine order from the con- dition of the universe, it presents no explanation of this condition. But it is not able to make the over- world life the kernel of reality (not the kernel of an isolated province) unless it transforms its total view of reality, unless it brings the whole into a new light, and rearranges the relationships of the various sides of life to each other. Religion places a Whole in front of all the manifold, and understands this manifold as an expression of such a Whole ; it will emphasise and bring to effect all that reveals itself in the relationships and connections of the elements of the world. The laws of phenomena and their causal nexus become now testimonies to a unity of the Whole ; and so may be said of the possibility of a reciprocal understanding within the domain of the spirit, and the possibility of an inner conjoint work : they point towards a unity which carries and brings together aU the manifold. But before all else, as we have already seen, each indi- vidual appears now not merely as a link in a chain but also as being in intimate relationship to the Whole, and, consequently, as being in himself of intrinsic value and precious ; along with this, the individual is GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 507 able to form his own ends, and an aesthetic insight of things with its apprehension of infinity is founded in the individual situation. Finally, this Whole within the Spiritual Life is able to become, in the form of immediacy, a characteristic personal experience and a self-reliant deed ; it is able to work against placing all the inferences of life within the narrowness of any particular or isolated circle. Without the presence of the Infinite there would be no striving after truth, no energy for the good or for love over against egotistic utility. Similar transformations occur in the relationship of rest and movement. The world appears to modern reflection as a process existing in incessant change. Religion, on the contrary, proclaims an eternal order, and understands movement as an expression of this eternal order. Again, there comes here prominently forward for the first time into a persistent form what the world-configuration contains as substance and law, so that the movement itself cannot become a personal experience without a standpoint superior to it. And there is no genuine experience of history, and con- sequently no history of a spiritual kind, without an order of things which learns to survey, connect, and deepen the conditions of things. Along with this, the total view of occurrences transforms itself. The higher, which appears to an empirical considera- tion of the world as a mere evidence of a process, gains through religion an independence and superi- ority. Because religion develops a self-subsistence of reality and stands out in bold relief from all mere nature and from all that is unspiritual, it acknow- ledges in movement qualitative transformations — 508 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION essential enhancements — and it brings men, at the same time, to the discernment that what happened within the spiritual domain happens also in connection with the whole of reality, viz., that the result is somehow a principle — a principle that must be the presupposition and driving energy of the movement whenever any- thing shall issue out of the movement, as in reahty something does issue out of it. Because such a con- viction, arising out of religion, wends its way towards the world, it will everywhere carry forth the Character- istic and the New which the progress of the process brings with itself ; it will understand the development not as a result of the lower but as an ascent to a higher stage — as a breaking forth of such a stage ; it will not bind the situation of experience to the mere level on which experience now stands, but will guide it beyond its present situation. Culture appears as such a course of thought : it is not a mere bettering of a mere-human existence but an ascending tendency towards a new world ; the spiritual greatness which occurs in history appears now not as a mere More of the commonplaces of the environment but as the inaugu- ration of a self-reliant spiritual world over against such commonplaces. Thus, all that life contains for its inner ascent clarifies and connects itself together through religion. And as religion, through such a mode of thinking within its own domain, trans- forms the movement, from a drifting along towards vagueness, from a meaningless hurry to a return to itself, and along with this brings life to an inner rest, so will religion work against the abandonment of things to the mere movement, and it will be- come the focussing point of all that gives stability GENERAL ASPECT 01 RELIGION AND LIFE 509 to life, and invests all effort after a consolidation with more meaning and reason. Religion has opened out an intimate relationship with an Infinite and Absolute Life, and has given our life an originality over against all the attempts to classify it within the causal nexus. As religion thus places man between two worlds, it calls him to a self-decision and makes freedom for the first time possible, for freedom remains an empty delusion so long as we are only pieces of a merely " given " world. And, for the first time, religion furnishes the possibility of an inner renewal and of a new beginning through a contact with an inexhaustible depth. As thus worlds come to a focus within the deepest inwardness of the soul, and as freedom becomes a portion of our spiritual self-preservation, then this ennobles every effort after freedom and strengthens the confidence in the possibility of an inner renewal throughout the whole breadth of life. How much we are in need of such a confidence, since even the most brilliant civilisation finally outlives itself, and since mankind even amidst the greatest richness of results be- comes inwardly sterile ! And, further, the whole of life gains immensely in stimulation and tension, in meaning and value ; it passes out of merely ex- ternal occurrences to a genuine life of its own where it transforms itself in the struggle between an old and a new world, between originality and im- posed conditions, between its own deed and the process of nature. For " without the contradiction of necessity and freedom, not only philosophy but every higher will of the spirit would sink into death " (ScheUing). 510 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION Keligion founds the whole of reality upon a cosmic inner hfe. The fact that reUgion preserves such a depth within us must be discovered through the presence also of more inwardness in the rest of life, and everything must be strengthened which aspires after such a depth. Certainly, religion does not carry every outer into an inner, every visible thing into the invisible ; but in the midst of the visible an invisible kingdom can be present, which sees more and more in the visible, and which enables the visible to produce new effects. We have already observed how Art especially wrested a soul from the external, and simultaneously opened out a new king- dom of life. And in this connection, too, does the progressive deepening which is visible in life every- where find its true interpretation and its full acknow- ledgment. Thus the facts themselves illumine them- selves and gain an energy for our efforts, so that in the advance of the movement the Inner ceases more and more to be a mere addendum of the sensuous world, and becomes the main standard of life, and through this culminates in an effective re-valuation of all value and excellences. Such a progress would not have been possible without the differentiation of a substantial and intrinsic inwardness from a subjective and empty inwardness. The foundation of such a genuine in- wardness is secured only through the acknowledgment of an independent inner world as is represented by religion. In order to bring this truth to clearness, it has to be borne in mind that the inwardness not only engenders new contents and values, but in the main it makes in the first place these contents and GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 511 values possible. These values could never happen from without, and could never originate out of man's mere contact with external things, but they require an inwardness grounded in the soul itself. But this truth is not able to find a secure basis in religion unless its effects and sway illumine clearly the remainder of life, and connect themselves energetically together. Thus, to all striving belongs an actual necessity over against a merely subjective opinion and incUnation as presented in science and art, law and morality. Where otherwise lies and works that actual necessity save in the characteristic inwardness of the spirit of man ? It is out of this source alone that conceptions such as personality and spiritual individuality gain an independence and a characteristic content over against mere nature, and are able to obtain a value in what takes place within themselves. And it is from the same source that the standpoint and the inner scope of life, which all genuine spiritual work presupposes, are explained. For these dare not make either the external result or the merely subjective welfare their own final end without becoming inwardly degraded and, indeed, inwardly destroyed. If they are ever to maintain a self-reliance against carnal appetites without and within, and if they are to preserve the results of their labour from falling into emptiness, they must stand within an inner world, and find their entire satisfaction in the further development of such a world and in the incorporation of it within the human circle. Thus, the whole of life exhibits a struggle between a sub- jective and -a substantial inwardness. The latter, however, appears the greater, and gains in energy 512 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION when it finds through religion a firm centre and, at the same time, a closer bond of union. The movement against the mere humanising of our existence — a movement which penetrates all spiritual effort — stands in close relationship with what we have just discussed. For we could not speak at all of truth over against mere opinion, or of good over against mere utility, unless there is some point of departure from the limits of mere humanity, and unless there is an acknowledgment of a truth beyond man himself. But what is maintained in this statement is impossible of realisation without raising the Spiritual Life from the narrowness and subjection of its human mode ; and this religion does through the acknow- ledgment of a superhuman origin of the Spiritual Life. As, then, the wonderful seems now possible to religion, religion must now strengthen the power as well as the positive assurance of all effort to reach it. Now for the first time it can be fully realised that all genuine spiritual culture undertakes a struggle against the petty-human, and that the progress into the spiritual presents itself as an ever-further repression of thepetty-human, and that especially modern times form atthis point a sharp dividing-line. Its great thinkers — a Spinoza, a Kant, and a Hegel — set their best energy upon the attempt to bring life to such a point where all the isolation and limitation of man fall away, and where a spiritual content of a universal kind and of an absolute validity opens itself out. Thus religion, all along the line, throws a new light upon life ; new aspects of life become prominent in this light, and bind together elements otherwise isolated ; more aspiring reason comes into existence. GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 513 and more simplicity and greatness are discovered. The concentration which grows through rehgion works beyond itself into the whole of life, and binds all the manifold more energetically into a total activity. Life as a whole thus gains a new total view, and appears now more than a mere movement within a given circle — more than a maintenance, an enjoyment, or an ornamentation of natural existence ; it appears as an apprehension of a new and essentially different world, and, indeed, as an entire inversion of all prior existence. This does not mean that all existing things enter into such an ascent, as an optimistic evolutionary doctrine asserts, but it does mean that a connected movement to a new height arises, and carries with itself an immense current of actuality — a current which could never be produced by the re- flection of mere man. The fact that religion thus appears as the height and the animating soul of a wider life and that it illumines, collects, and strengthens so much, may be greeted as a corroboration of its own truth. But it dare not base its truth upon that wider life, as has often been attempted and has called forth inevitable opposition. For in our view the world receives its interpretation only after the develop- ment and consolidation of the absolute life by religion ; unless this fact is observed, the proof is searched for in the empirical situation, which may suggest the greater depth represented by religion ; but, prior to the appearance of religion, this More of religion remains an obscure background, and it is thus a leap of thought alone that can give it an intimate relationship to religion. Such a leap 83 514 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION takes place, for instance, when, through the observa- tion of the interaction of the elements in nature, it is sought to prove the existence of God as the connecting medium; or when, within the organic world, the existence of teleological tendencies and formations are made to prove the guidance and activity of God. But we must not forget that no province can prove anything outside its own reach, and that an attempt to do this leads into anthropo- morphism. It is similar with human and historical life. To him who sees life in the light of religion, life itself becomes a verification, and he will find everywhere indications of the presence of an Infinite Life, but he dare not reverse this method and attempt to make of an external derivative a foundation of religion. To allow the religious interpretation and the scientific explanation of the universe to blend into one injures not only science but also religion. We have already witnessed the religious interpreta- tion work in the direction of consolidating and gather- ing together, and through this raising the courage of life. But an explanation or even a diminution of evil is not brought forth. But rather the increase of the action on the good side makes the opposite side appear all the greater, and stronger than ever the power of destruction and of unreason comes promin- ently forward. But all this is a gain — and it is no small gain — because the matter is now abstracted from man's subjectivity, and a cosmic movement and a cosmic struggle have become evident. Mysterious as the whole may appear, there cannot be a doubt concerning one's own situation and task. Different grades of reality meet within our domain, and an GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 515 advance does not result through a restful further development, but painful entanglements and per- versions retard the advance, and any kind of success is hoped for only through a retreat to the Final Cause. But we have already noticed how such a dependence of man did not take away his own self-activity, and how in the particular situation the vindication and progress of the whole was set upon man's own act. Thus man's action gains a mighty expansion ; he works in the works of the All ; indeed, he becomes through the Divine Life a co-carrier of Infinity. The movement seems hardly to make head-way under such powerful hindrances, and it need not frighten or dishearten us that it does not compass the whole of our existence and that it carries only a por- tion of it along with itself. We are still able to hope, because religion carries within itself a secure eminence beyond the whole line of battle, and because its characteristic truth is not linked in the last resort even upon success in this battle. And further, our human world signifies to religion no more than a par- ticular kind of existence, but the unfinished condition of this world signifies in no way an utter absurdity, but is able to gain some kind of meaning through the presence of a higher standpoint, and is thus turned to something other than a tangled chaos. Certainly, our world is no simple evolution of reason, but a certain moving tendency in that direction is not to be denied it. More and more connections and more and more inwardness appear in bold relief. The Spiritual Life does not, indeed, gain the whole breadth of things, but it unlocks an ever richer content, and affords a 616 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION glimpse into ever greater depths. But simultaneously the oppositions grow too ; the problems become more and more difficult ; and what previously seemed so near and easily within our reach recedes more and more on the horizon. Is there a greater difference than this between antiquity and modern times : that the weightiest questions seemed near solution to the former, whilst with us the goals recede ever farther ? Thus, the main gain of the movement is a heightening of the problem ; and more incomplete our life appears. But who has given us the certainty that our world constitutes a completed Whole, and that it carries its complete interpretation in itself? How is it, if our world is such, that the problems are to be vigor- ously worked out, that the energies prepare themselves and set themselves against one another, and that the opposites gain so much in clearness ? Then, indeed, the whole of this world would be but a beginning, and might be compared to the development of the plot of a drama : the further development is lost for us in darkness, but religion has no doubt as to the final consummation. Thus we do not deal of course with the consummation ; it is sufficient for us to know that what we do is not lost. The words of Luther are valid for the whole of life : " We are not it yet, but we shall be it ; it is not yet done and has not yet happened, but it is, however, on the move and in fuU swing ; it is not the goal but the road ; all is not aglow and sparkling, but all is being cleansed." Religion may discover with pain the fact that we are not able to fathom the whole ; yet on account of its basal conviction of the intimate presence of an Absolute Life, religion will not allow itself to be GENERAL ASPECT OF REIJGION AND LIFE 517 overthrown, but rather it will derive the confidence from such a conviction ; an elevated reason enforces its way through all the unreason and will manifest itself in the vicissitudes of single souls. The darkness may even be of value, in view of the actual condition of man, in so far as it pushes back the idea of reward and directs the eifort upon the content of life itself. Thus a Kant, in a surveyed reflection, could greet this lack of insight into the wider connections of things as a gain for the purification of character, and could give expression to the conviction "that the inscrutable wisdom through which we exist is not less vener- able in what it denies us than in what it allows us." The religious interpretation of life, through such a course, will not work towards the lessening but towards the heightening of its energy, its self-reliance, and its virility. Where our life carries within itself so many oppositions and decisions, where so much within it has to be awakened and strengthened, where cosmic movements penetrate into our existence, and where a higher mode of existence has to gain a place over against the ordinary shallow routine, the task cannot consist in prudent evasion of the entanglements, in bringing things to the same centre of gravity, or in hunting after a smug happiness. But it is necessary to enter courageously into the great struggle, and to work without ceasing for the possession and the progression of the new world of an essential life ; and in the midst of confusion and obstruction, in unreadiness and darkness, in suffering and death, to be fully certain of the presence of an Eternal Life. 518 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION 4. Faith and Doubt: The Denial of Religion Religion has to prove its rights not only against certain propositions but against a deep-rooted mode of thinking. By this we mean, first of all, that naive fixed mode of thinking w^ith its intellectual outlook on the world — a mode of thinking which conceives that the truth can be determined independently of life, and that life can afterwards be led to it. Such happens only in connection with the relationship to a world existing outside ourselves ; but, if it is necessary to conceive of the whole of reality only as something external to ourselves, then religion stands con- demned. But it is not only religion but also the whole of the ascending Spiritual Life which insists upon an inner relationship to things ; and herewith the whole of life comes to the foreground, and determines also the particular mode of thinking — its direction and formation — in accordance with its own qualities. If religion thus leads into a characteristic conception of faith, such a life in the first place rests upon a characteristic life — upon a life in the special spiritual sense — which carries within itself a reality, and which develops it out of itself. Religion is not a communication of over-world secrets, but the in- auguration of an over- world life ; and it is with the acknowledgment and assimilation of such a life that faith has to do ; it has to do with an appropriation which carries a synthesis and an ascent of man's own nature as well as an advancement and a lofty eleva- tion within itself. The new life brings forth with itself a new conception of reality, but faith all along proceeds to such a reality through life alone ; and it GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 519 is only in the obscuring of this connection and finally in its dissolution that faith becomes a mere assertion concerning things on the other sidef of this world, and consequently succumbs inevitably to the criticism of knowledge, whilst faith as a power of life precedes knowledge, and it is only out of faith that knowledge becomes possible. Such a faith is not only of a stirring and progressive, but also of a welding and defensive, nature. Then an unbroken decision for a new life and its appropriation in a Whole becomes a matter of significance, and life maintains itself against a hostile or indifferent world ; it holds itself fast to invisible facts against the hard opposition of visible existence, and to general ideas over against all the failures of the nearest-at-hand achievements. If faith carries within itself so much movement and struggle, it is not surprising if the matter does not run smoothly, if hindrances and deadlocks obtrude, if faith and doubt set themselves against one another, and if the soul is set in a painful dilemma. Doubt, in these connections, does not appear as something monstrous and atrocious, though it would appear so if a perfect circle of ideas presented itself to man and demanded his assent as a bounden duty. For where it is necessary to lay hold on a new life and to bring to consummation an inward transformation, then a personal experience and testing are needed. But no proof is definite which clings from the be- ginning to the final result, and places on one side all possibility of an antithesis. The opposite possi- bility must be thought out and lived through if the Yea is to possess full energy and genuineness. Thus doubt becomes a necessary, if also an un- 520 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION comfortable, companion of religion ; it is indispensable for the conservation of the full freshness and original- ity of religion — ^for the freeing of religion from con- ventional forms and phrases which w^ould lead the mighty current into well-ordered channels but which easily cause it to be lost in the sands. The history of religion presents us with a corrobora- tion of this estimate. For it shows only a mediocre kind of the religious life as being unassailable by any doubt — a life inclined to a pharisaic superiority ; and to such a life the stern suppression of all doubt or even of any problem seemed necessary for the con- solidation of its own belief But on the contrary, many creative spirits — for instance, Augustine and Luther — had much trouble with doubt. This was so, not because their impetus towards religion was less strong, but because, by means of the greater strength of such an impetus, they saw through the inadequacy of all the props which give the feeling of certainty to the average man, and because they longed for something essentially secure, intimately present, and free from every human error, in order to posit their life upon it and in order to defy even death itself. It was only through the possession of such a goal that these leaders could become other than they were ; but the realisation of such a goal claimed the greatest toil and a fearless analysis of doubt. And even with all this, no complete rest was gained. What was as steadfast as the rock in the depth of the soul, experienced temptations ever anew from a surrounding world which never allowed the soul a rest. So that the certainty constitutes no inert possession, but has ever anew to be struggled GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 521 for and ever anew has to wrestle with doubt. " I believe, Lord ; help Thou mine unbelief" : this is the best expression of the situation of the*soul which finds itself in such struggles. To bring forth tangible signs and wonders to the aid of threatened belief was a very natural and con- genial thought to a naive frame of mind. But with closer reflection, the observation renders this situation precarious because now external wonders have with- drawn entirely from the heights of spiritual creative- ness — from the inner wonder of the Spiritual Life and from the intimate presence of a Divine World. The founders of religion have themselves protested against a craving after such sensuous signs. " Go thither and hush up about your good works, and make a clean breast before the people of the sins you have committed, for that is the true wonder." These were the words of the Buddha ; and Mahomet would perform no wonders, but looked upon the great works of God in nature and in the human soul as the true signs and wonders which man is called to believe in. How did Jesus blame those who craved for wonders and who had mixed up his life's work with signs and wonders ? " An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet." This is no other than the sign of spiritual power and of a Divine message and greatness. Again, there is a mid-level of religion to which miracle seems indispensable in order to give faith the certainty from without which it is not able to obtain from within ; thus one will see and feel with Thomas before one believes. Great crises and 522 CHARACTERISTIC REUGION upheavals, however, have ever returned to the inner wonder of the spirit of man. The Reformation was attested by no external signs and wonders, and yet it found the energy to forge its way against an old and great existing world and its possessions, to renew life, and to fortify religious certainty. And so it was in connection with Savonarola in the dark days prior to his violent end — days which chronicle a touching insight into certainty and joyousness. Where did he finally find these ? He found them not in external signs and wonders which lay near to him in the environment or through tradition ; he found them in the inward presence of a life-elevating Divine Spirit that makes something better out of man, and whose communication can thus be no mere illusion. Doubt is far more an uncomfortable companion than an enemy of rieligion. Doubt always bears witness to a strong interest, anxiety, and labour in the cause ; it acknowledges the problem, it discovers the difficulty and even the impossibility of an easy solution. It is quite otherwise with the entire denial of religion — with the attempt to drive religion entirely out of life. But even this can appear monstrous to no one to whom the entanglements of the question have become evi- dent and who fully measures the wide distance between our world and the picture which religion demands. But the question arises, whether these entanglements can be overcome, and whether new realities — original facts — stand over against them. We sought to show that this is the case through the discovery of an autonomous depth of life— through the tracing of an intimate relationship of man to a cosmic and absolute life ; we ventured to assert the need of a GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 523 struggle with all things which, after the inauguration of the new life, become externals and a mere environ- ment, and also to assert the need of carrying forth such a struggle to a victorious issue. Herewith we are fully conscious of the fact that the new life carries within itself assertions which are in no way self-evident, and concerning which much uncertainty and discord can arise. But then the struggle is pushed back farther into life ; it does not concern an interpretation of a " given " world but the production and content of reaUty itself ; it is not a concern of the mere intellect but of the whole man ; it is a struggle of life against life. Let us inquire what possibilities are here in question, and what aspects of life oppose religion. There are three assertions, or rather, the conjoint action of three, which the characteristic life of religion carries within itself. The first is, that a self- reliant and inter-connected Spiritual Life develops over against bare nature as well as over against the particular individual with all his distractions. The second is, that this Spiritual Life collides in our world with the hardest oppositions within and with- out — oppositions not only in individual points but in the whole of our being, so that our existence presents itself as an inner contradiction. The third is, that the manifestation of a new life raises man above these oppositions and re-instates life in the position of positive action and creativeness. Thus, there bind themselves together the basis, the struggle, and the conquest of spirituality. Life is through this posited upon a new summit; it undergoes here sore trials under which it threatens to fade away, but finally reaches, through a strengthening from within, the 524 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION victory of a Yea. When these three grades bind them- selves through an adjustment of their conflicting ex- periences, and through a reciprocal relationship into a corporate life, then religion has secured a pre-eminent place in life. At the same time there becomes evident whence the rejection of religion arises — from what directions of life it is considered an error and an absurdity. Re- jected must religion be by all who make war upon its foundation and indispensable presupposition — upon the existence of an independent spirituality. Naturalism does this through its conceiving of all Spiritual Life as a mere product or a secondary accompanying phenomenon of the sensuous world. Phenomenalism or subjectivism acts similarly through the dissemina- tion and dissolution of the Spiritual Life into isolated and disconnected phenomena. Both do not bring forth either the need for, or the understanding of, religion. And even quite as little will a mode of thinking help life which does not perceive the difficulties and the manifold contradictions down to their very root, and which resolves all the discords of the first view of things into an encompassing world- harmony : these are the optimists of all kinds. Optimism is able to assume many different forms ; it is able to perceive reason in the. very structure of the universe or in the evolution of life ; it is able to determine the progress of human civilisation from a practico-social point of view ; it is able, on the romantic-speculative side, to take the greatness and beauty of nature as its basis. The enthusiasm of culture and the romanticism of nature find the solution of things within the given world, and do GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 525 not feel the need of religion, and they often con- ceive of the turn to religion as an expression of weakness. But, however, the full Acknowledgment of the hindrance leads in no way to religion. It can include far more a paralysing and a deadlock of life which turn either into a weak resignation or into a passionate pessimism. As soon, however, as pessimism becomes rigid and absolute it withstands religion, since it holds life fast to doubt — life which otherwise through the possession of a new stage would have turned to religion. From these assaults, the greater outer diffusion happens in the beginning of the series, and the greater inner dangers happen in the conclusion. Naturalism corresponds to the character of the great external accumulations found in all situations, and has but a slight contact with spiritual tasks. Pessimism fetters more the elevated things which carry within them- selves the movements and experiences of life. Special modes of thought and conceptions of the universe originate from these standpoints — modes of thought with which religion has to come to an understanding. But what arises into ideas and doctrines draws its energy from the formation of life out of which it proceeds and which brings it to expression. Religion, however, asserts its right and superiority in that it alone is able to estimate the different sides of things justly and to connect them together into a Whole ; and in that it is able to give its rights to each indi- vidual main experience without doing a wrong to any experience. Religion alone institutes a thorough- going movement and maintains this movement even at the end ; it alone is able simultaneously to 526 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION recognise fully the hindrances and inwardly to over- come them. If thus the source of the power of religion lies in such a universal and elevated character of its life, the defence of its truth depends especially in holding life fully to its summits, in developing the particular sides equably, and in gathering them together strongly into a Whole, thus avoiding a resignation into lower levels and courageously steering clear of dangerous courses. It is necessary before all else for the truth of religion that the elevation to the stage of the Spiritual Life should be consummated and conserved with all energy. Such a truth enters always into insecurity when religion is based upon mere feeling ; and, along with this, all spiritual contents disappear when re- ligion rests in the main upon isolated activities and does not lead into a new mode of being, and de- velops no new reality out of itself. If there results no elevation beyond the ordinary surface-tendency of life, if religion works only within a "given" world instead of manifesting a new world, it abandons its truth from the very beginning and becomes power- less against doubt. The second point is the need of the full acknowledgment of the opposition, and the rejection of all superficial optimism. Cer- tainly it is necessary to conquer finally the enemy somehow, but the conquest itself loses its energy when the problem is blunted from the very beginning. The opposition, however, will be estimated in a fuller measure only when the fact is laid hold of as a Whole and is made to depend upon one's own act, i.e. when the encounter takes on an ethical character. It GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 527 is thus alone that the problem steps into the centre of life, and thus alone does the matter shape itself into a struggle for a spiritual existence. This does not mean, in spite of great failures and the breaking off at the outset of many convictions, that all evil is an eiFect of guilt. That would present a far too narrow and rigid formation of life — a formation largely devoid of the ethical. Yet the whole of life must interpret every tendency ; for it is only when man himself participates in the great world-struggle, experiences and grasps the tasks as his own, that the opposition gains such a violent and stirring energy as to render a reconciliation with the given situation now simply impossible, and to have the choice only between an overthrow or a renewal of life. The third and final point we wish to emphasise is, that this renewal is actually realised, and is not a mere delusion ; it means that life is essentially raised from within — indeed, raised in its totality — and that it depends in no manner on purely particular excitations or mere injunctions from a " beyond," for such would keep life tied to a mere hope and tarrying, and would easily give it an oppressed and doleful character. The aspiring New must reach a living present, and dare not reconcile itself to a mere More of the prior situation ; it must not trace out in imagination a similar (but painless) world to ours, but it must bring forth an entire transformation and along with this consummate an essential elevation ; otherwise there is no genuine conquest and no convincing meaning of the whole. For why all this toil and sorrow if nothing new issues forth ? First of all, it is necessary to raise life to a height 528 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION of an essential self-subsisting spirituality, and to gain a new domain — a new place for spiritual experience ; it is here necessary to experience the Nay and the Yea and to bring them to a right relationship, and finally raise all to an undivided and encompassing life. The main proof of religion lies always in the Whole of the life developed out of religion. This Whole must draw to itself the whole circumference of existence ; it must sift and winnow, connect and raise ; it must conduct things to their own truth ; it must kindle a powerful movement which, through its own content and its progressive victorious superiority, demonstrates its own truth. Here it is not a doctrine which man has merely to accept and follow that leads him to religion, but a life held in front of him and brought near to him ; it is for this he is called, for it is this alone which grants him the right relationship to reality, and enables him to dive into the depth of his own nature. Through this the idea of reality is transformed, extended, and deepened. The ele- vation of the level of reality, the inner ascent of life in a manner superior to all capacity of the mere individual, the growth and creativeness — all these are the main proof which religion is able to bring forth. The fact that religion, with its willing and creating, stands in no isolation but finds itself in the centre of life, that it furthers the whole and not merely isolated sides, and that it leads it to its own truth — all this belongs essentially to this main proof. As with all things original and axiomatic, this new life is positively demonstrated through its own development and not through a deduction from GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 529 some other points : it carries its most eiFective energy of conviction in the strength and clearness of its own development ; it never allows itself to*be forced from without, but only to be stimulated from within, and it cannot possibly convince and gain us where such a stimulation finds no kind of accommodating spirit. An indirect proof, however, can be found in the fact that without the connection and elevation of life re- presented by religion, all that life possesses as any kind of content becomes insecure and unstable. We need only follow backwards the stages of ascent in order to become aware that with the surrender of religion a decay of life sets in, eats more and more into its essentials, and finally destroys its deepest foundation. When religion thus decays, a conquest of unreason takes its place, and pessimism becomes the uncon- tested lord of the field. As a final conclusion, how- ever, such a pessimism must become rigid, embittered, and barren ; the whole life sees itself threatened by it with stagnation — indeed, with destruction. An urgent natural impulse withstands this pessimism, and a tenacious clinging to existence softens it to some extent. One wishes in some kind of way to retain life, but is not able to do this without emphasis- ing the brighter sides of existence and placing the darker sides in the background ; thus we find an approach to optimism without a crossing over to optimism. Thus we witness in our own day an affirmation of life gaining ground over against an intolerable growing pessimism ; the ground is gained not so much through an inner elevation of life as through men's resistance to an entire denial. 34 530 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION But a solid support is granted in no way through such a resistance. Such a resistance either con- tains but little basal affirmation of life in face of the conflicting impressions of experience, and conse- quently sinks into superficiality and unveracity, or these contradictory impressions gain the overhand and destroy then all synthesis of hfe and annihilate all self-rehant spirituality. Thus, life loses all spiritual character, and renounces all ideality when it turns aside the inner advance of the movement and its conclusion from the realm of religion. It appears clear in connection with all this, that the matter does not deal with a special province, but with the pre- servation of the whole of life, and that the denial of religion leads inevitably to an inner dissolution of the whole of life. One may seek to evade such a conclusion of life as this through the belief that a certain kind of Spir- itual Life is possible and actual without penetrating to final questions — that it surrounds us with its multi- coloured fulness through the expansion of the work of culture. Why should we not accept the Spiritual Life as it offers itself to us in culture, dismiss all further questions, and cling to the actual whilst refusing to be involved in any problems of a subtle inward nature ? We are able to do this, and had it not been that we were able to do it, life would offer quite a different aspect, and its opposites would stand far more pointedly and clearly against each other. But such an explanation of the whole matter is obtained at a high price I It is possible only where the Spiritual Life is conceived as something " given " and presented from the outside and not as something inward and GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 531 originally engendered. Thus it appears more as an alien than as our own concern — more as an appended trimming than as our inmost nat«re^-and also it resolves itself into so many isolated appearances and does not connect itself together into a Whole. Who- soever tolerates such a degradation, alienation, and dis- integration, and through this can renounce all inward independence, and place aside the question of truth even at the source of life itself, may find such a compromise sufficient for him. But he who takes up the struggle for truth and is determined to live his life as his very own, must lay on one side such compromise, for he is not able to escape from the fact that the problem pro- ceeds from a Whole to a Whole, and that the nature of the movement is decided in the final conclusion of religion ; and further that what has been given upin the Whole and in the Substance cannot be retained in any one isolated point or in the subject, and that no indi- vidual stage can offer us a foothold if the Whole ends in unreason. If one believes therefore that a denial of religion is a legitimate procedure, one must at the same time throw away as semblance and delusion what life has developed in the form of ideal greatness and good- ness, and such a procedure leads inevitably to the con- ception of the spiritual evolution of humanity as an unparalleled great aberration. When this happens, man becomes from out of a cosmic nature a mere piece of a soulless and meaningless mechanism of culture, and all greatness and all emancipation from the mere-human to an inner independence disappear with the loss of the struggle from a Whole to a Whole. And with the resignation of all inner connections of reality, all unity of personality is given up. Now that 532 CHARACTERISTIC RELIGION there is no intimate relationship to the whole of reality, all originality, all freedom, and all genuine present moment of the soul fall away ; and now where a mere point holds hfe fast and rigid to itself, all love which has risen above a mere, natural impulse becomes an empty phrase. The so-called immanent idealism with its deceptive, intermediate formations has become a special danger to man and to religion. Such a system dazzles man be- cause it contends that the reason of reality and the meaning of life descend upon him without much labour, in a form of immediacy. Such an intermediate product springs from a flaw in the energy of life, and is bound to increase such a flaw ; but notwithstanding its clang- ing phrases it is never able to discover this flaw, and it injures the truth of life. It is not only in the realm of science but also in religion that the words of Bacon hold valid, that truth proceeds out of mistakes rather than out of chaos. The atheist is not the most dangerous enemy of religion. The Spiritual Life which attains full clearness in religion constantly remains in difficult opposition to the environing world, and an overcoming of this opposition is not to be found in the ordinary capacity of man. This opposition must and will move and stir ever anew head and heart, and will ever drive forth new doubts. The decision lies finally in the question whether for man the external world or a spring of life within himself is the main fact, whether the centre of gravity of reality is found without or within. It is a struggle for the governing centre of life. If the inner life attains to no independence and is not led as a Whole, the contradictions of the envir- GENERAL ASPECT OF RELIGION AND LIFE 533 oning world appear insurmountable, and man must decline religion as an impossibility. But if the inner life reaches such an independence, and if man finds within the Spiritual Life simultaneously a new world and his own genuine self, the gravest mis- givings will not be able to overthrow the certainty of this fundamental fact. Thus, this fundamental fact remains as the first and foremost, and uplifts itself far from the contradictions of the whole external world, so that the aspect of world has to accommodate itself to this fact and not this fact to that aspect. Certainly, even after such a decision the contradic- tion does not simply vanish, but as holiness retains the background of suffering, so certainty will preserve its " one thing needful " as the background of doubt. But the contradiction is now removed from the centre to the periphery of life ; it can therefore only touch us from without, and is not able to overthrow what is within ; it will now not so much weaken as strengthen the certainty, because it calls life to a perpetual renewal and brings to fruition the greatness of the conquest. Part V. — Christianity and the Present INTRODUCTORY REMARKS CONCERNING HIS- TORICAL AND ABSOLUTE RELIGION If we now open the question concerning the relation of Christianity to our present day, the question gives another kind of character to our investigation, and presents new difficulties. Hitherto we have striven to come to an understanding with all who ac- knowledge fully the significance of the religious problem, but now we enter into a domain where divergent opinions are hardly to be avoided. For scientific reflections alone are not able to decide con- cerning the material within this domain, because char- acteristics of the work of life, individual impressions and experiences, fall into the balance. Thus, much which appeared to us as a main tendency is separated from us through this further problem. But in spite of this we dare not place our further investigation on one side. Closely connected with the investigation concerning the intrinsic truth of religion lies an open pronouncement concerning the situation of our day, for it is such a pronouncement which is able to set forth the essential character of our general conviction. That which rejects being immersed in mere Time has yet to verify itself in Time. May we as friends, in 684 HISTORICAL AND ABSOLUTE RELIGION 535 the midst of all the differences, hold fast to what binds us together in the totality of our convictions. How we understand the relation of the historical religions, and amongst them of Christianity, to absolute religion, has been shown in the whole course of our investigation. As certainly as there is only one sole truth, there can only be one absolute religion, and this religion coincides entirely in no way with any one of the historical religions. For they all conceive of the Divine under the conditions of the human situation ; originating and growing in parti- cular epochs, they have all to pay their tribute to the characteristics and culture of such epochs. But what is problematic and transient in such particularity need not prevent the action of a truth superior to time. If we acknowledge as the one essential of rehgions that they manifest and represent a Divine Life, such a Life in its inmost foundation is superior to its external configuration and activity, and thus it is able to withstand all the changes of time, and to maintain in the midst of all its curtailment through the human situation an eternal truth. It is then necessary to differentiate such a Substance of religion from its Existential-form ; it is necessary to examine how far religion harbours and represents such a fundamental hfe which runs through all ages and nations, and which raises them beyond the merely human situation. That a religion confesses itself to be an historical religion does not mean that it is to be considered as the final and completed truth, but that it is accepted as a standpoint where there exists the closest possible contact with truth, and where we are able to take possession of it. 5S6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT The historical rehgions are not the truth itself, but appearances of the truth and pathways to the truth ; and it is only where the Divine and the human get mixed up that men can fail to perceive this limit of the historical religions, Tf from the standpoint of religion a critical investi- gation of historical religions becomes needful, critical investigation is nowhere more difficult than within this domain. Conflicting considerations work here especi- ally against each other. Now the historical religions may partially desire and deserve a great veneration because of their actual achievements. They are not mere systems of doctrine, but a concentration and development of life ; they have traced out ideals not through some bold flight of thought, but have rooted such ideals even in the stony ground of the life of humanity ; they have worked not merely for a period and upon select minds, but have operated along the whole vista of the ages for the welfare of humanity ; they carry within themselves, through their close con- tact with human reality, great experiences, and have gained an actuality which maintains itself through its own centre of gravity, because religion from the outset deals not so much with theoretical considerations of the world, but with a content of life which will secure for us a spiritual existence. Thus Hegel's words con- cerning a preponderatingly critical relationship to the State hold even more valid in the domain of religion. " The State is no work of art ; it stands within the world, and thus within the spheres of arbitrary action, of accidents, and of errors ; and evil conduct is able to disfigure it on many sides. But even the ugliest person, the criminal, the invalid, and the cripple, are HISTORICAL AND ABSOLUTE RELIGION 537 yet living beings : and this affirmation — Life — exists in spite of all the flaws, and it is wijh this affirma- tion that we have to do." Where the treatment of religion does not succeed in reaching this affirmative character, where religion is simply cavilled at, and no attempt is made to enter into its totality and its inwardness, such a carping criticism may attain a cheap popularity, but it has absolutely no value for the subject-matter. This is one side of the matter. But there remains another side, and it, too, has its rights. The historical religions may not be satisfied with their actual facts alone ; they raise the claim of being the truth — the final truth, which is superior to all else. Now, nothing — not even the most colossal achievement of an historical kind — is able to furnish the proof of such a truth, for such a proof is only to be found from a standpoint above Time and from the very nature of the Spirit- ual Life and its fundamental relationship to reality. Thus an intimate and immediate life has to stand over against every historical achievement, measure it, and test it. In fact there exists in all times, and especially in such times when historical religion was in a state of indisputable sovereignty, an interior tension between tradition and immediate life, and the assimilation of the presented material is ever a re- modelling and an adjustment. But as long as this adjustment was not too difficult to accomplish, no cleft was felt, and consequently the historical religion could appear to be in entire possession of the truth. When, however, important transformations of uni- versal life heighten the tension, a point is finally reached where men feel especially its distance from their own 538 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT ideas and efforts, and where, consequently, the relation- ship to such an historical religion becomes pre- dominantly critical and negative. The differences which thus originate may be twofold. Either life outgrows the content of the historical religion, and therefore great revolutions of an inward char- acter become inevitable ; or all the transformations in the existential-form leave so much of the Sub- stance untouched, so that still the changes in the external form can be connected with the inward nucleus, and thus in the midst of all the dis- arrangement the continuity of the historical religion can be preserved. Indeed, the transformation in the existential-form may even help towards a purer and more energetic effect of the Substance, and thus the seeming upheaval and destruction may prove itself finally to be a development and deepening of the Substance. All this has now to be applied in connection with Christianity. It is necessary to ask the question, how deeply Christianity is affected by the undeniable trans- formations of culture and human life, whether it is able to assert and maintain itself victoriously over against such culture and life, and what such an assertion demands in the way of new activities. PART v.— CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT (Continued) CHAPTER XV a. The Eteenal in Christianity 1. The Nucleus beyond all Loss. The whole of our investigation leaves no doubt as to our position in regard to Christianity. A double aspect has been already fully noticed. On the one hand, Christianity in the nature of its Substance appears as the highest embodiment of absolute re- ligion ; and, on the other hand, a fundamental revision of its traditional existential-form has become absolutely necessary. It has already appeared to us that we are not able to develop what proves itself as absolute religion without a constant reference to Christianity. Christianity has already appeared to us from its inmost foundation as the religion of religions, and, simultaneously, as being certain of a permanent dura- tion. But the Eternal in Christianity finds itself not only railed in and interlaced, but also welded with seemingly inseparable elements which bear the im- print of a special age, and which we dare not bind to ourselves — an age which is so distant from us and which in so many ways has been outrun. It is now necessary to present a connected view of the twofold 539 540 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT aspects, to mark clearly the boundaries between them, and to show the necessity of not allowing the religious problem to remain in a state of stagnation. If we bring together the results of our main discussion and the historical conditions of Christianity, we shall see how they illumine one another reciprocally, how they strengthen one another, and, also, how they diverge from one another. This will enable us to understand where the boundary between the temporal and the Eternal lies, and this in its turn will carry to clearer expression the manner in which Christianity has to be shaped in the future. Christianity is a religion of redemption and not a religion of law. Herein lies the acknowledgment of a pointed contrast between an actual and an urgent situation ; herein lies the assertion of the inability, out of one's own energy, to reach the longed-for summit through a general kind of improvement of the prior situation ; and herein lies the demand of a transformation and elevation through an intimate entrance of the Divine. Does the general experience of the Spiritual Life corroborate this assertion? It does. For we have already seen how the Spiritual Life is unable to find its necessary self-reliance in the world of ordinary experience ; we have seen a breach between genuine spirituality and the world taking place ; and we have seen how the effects of all this carry a new world within themselves. In spiritual things every pathway of man leads to a Yea through a Nay, and all toil is in vain without an inner eleva- tion through the energy of an Absolute Life. This happens in connection with the whole of the Spu'itual Life as soon as it aspires to climb from merely decora- THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 541 tive culture to genuine truth, and this Spiritual Life strengthens itself even through the very effort itself; it is only the inauguration of a new sl^ge of reality that is able here to prevent a shipwreck of all toilsome work. This new stage places the threatened over- throw of human life, the impotence of mere man, and the presence of an elevated world, far more intuitively and urgently before man's eyes. Thus, the religion of redemption only brings to a fuller expression and more tangible configuration what is present as a demand and a fact throughout the whole of life. The religions of redemption which are found along- side of Christianity are esoteric Brahmanism and Buddhism. But the difference between the latter and Christianity occupied our attention at the com- mencernent of our investigation, and has appeared all the greater in the course of the investigation. Now it becomes quite clear how wide an interval lies between a predominantly intellectual religion of re- demption and a predominantly ethical one, and how differently life shapes itself in each. In the former mode an emancipation from semblance becomes necessary ; in the latter mode an overcoming of evil is the one thing needful. In the former, the very basis of the world seems evil ; in the latter, it is the perversion of this basis which seems evil. In the former, the impulses of life are to be entirely eradi- cated ; in the latter, on the contrary, they are to be ennobled or rather to be transformed. In the former, no higher world of a positive kind dawns on man, so that life finally reaches a seemingly valid point of rest, whilst upon Christian ground life ever anew ascends beyond itself. 542 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT In Christianity suffering has its bitterness chiefly as a perversion of an original good, so that a Yea is able to work in the midst of all unreason, and a hope of a final conquest is able to become the possession of the soul in the midst of the seeming collapse of the world. But an elevation into a new world is even here not an entire casting off of the old world. For that elevation does not succeed at the outset in reaching the inmost depth — the centre of life. The old world with its darkness and suffering, its alarm and its error, persists in the whole breadth of existence. There arises thus a noteworthy dialectic of life. What man possesses in this existence has to be won and even abandoned. Thus, an overflow- ing joy and a deep pain, a serene security of the inner being and a drifting of existence before all the storms of life ; a steadfast conviction and a brooding doubt, a participation in the perfection of Absolute Life and a persistence of human pettiness meet as opposites in the one and same life. If life is ever to rise, it has to take upon itself, in a genuine manner, its own acts, and not be satisfied with a merely sentimental disposition ; it has to enter into an incessant tension and movement ; it has to be driven to ever further self-deepening ; and it has to take up its experiences in all their extent, to live through them, and to taste all their sweets and bitter- ness. Thus there arises energy without defiance, gentleness without weakness ; indeed, the deepest feeling and the most joyous activity sustain and inter- lace one another. Such an inner tension and move- ment, as we have already observed, are indispensable for the ascent of the Spiritual Life under human con- THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 543 ditions, and Christianity only develops here in a special direction what is struggling upwards from the whole of life and which is pressing towards a configuration. All religions proclaim and require morality. But this of itself signifies in no manner that freedom and deed constitute the source of their ideal world, or that the nucleus of the Spiritual Life is of an ethical nature. What constitutes the decisive characteristic of Christianity is the fact that it roots the whole world in freedom, and that it refuses altogether the reducing of the Spiritual Life to a natural or mental process. But, at the same time, Christianity steps into painful entanglements without and within. Without, a rigid kingdom of mechanism which enters into the soul and overpowers spiritual activity with- stands the attempts of a transformation into freedom, into a soul, and into love. The impression of a blind indifferent actuality is here so powerful against all inner greatness and goodness that an external glance of things deems it hopeless to overcome the opposition. At the same time, entanglements of an inward kind threaten to bring the movement towards freedom and personality under the ban of the petty-human, and to rob these qualities of their cosmic character ; and the threat goes so far as to coerce all inward aspira- tion under an all-powerful destiny. Therefore, there arises a painful hazardous enterprise when the struggle is taken up against such oppositions within and with- out ; but Christianity has found the courage and the faith for this colossal struggle, for it has become convinced that this is the only means for the spiritual preservation of human life and for the gaining of a meaning and value. At the same time, the inmost 544 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT nucleus of life must withdraw itself from all rational- istic deductions, and yet it has to remain in the midst of opposites. Christianity is the most ultra-rational of all religions, because it is the richest and deepest of them all. It was a main point in our investigation to show that the Spiritual Life is not a manifestation of mere man but of an independent reality, and that it, through a communication of this reality, gains a new and cosmic nature for man. What religion more fully meets such demands as that which makes the Kingdom of God its central idea, and which promises to help the individual not only in a " given " world, but to guide him to a new world ? And this new world is contiguous with man not only from the external ; it also becomes one's own world from within and as a Whole ; and as each particular point in life has now to be decided by reference to the Whole, and, indeed, has to carry the Whole within itself, life gains a task which cannot be measured and a greatness superior to that of the world. The union of the human and the Divine constitutes the nucleus of all genuine religion, and it is the manner in which this union is conceived that con- stitutes the main characteristics of the particular religions. Christianity has pursued this problem to its final depths, since it not only effects partic- ular relations of the Divine and the human, but presents a full union of the two natures, and has courageously maintained the indestructibility of the Divine in the midst of all the perversions of the human situation. Not all the crippling of this idea through unhappy dogmatic formulations can hide THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 545 the fact that the religious form presents here a truth which is the indispensable presupposition of every effort after truth, and without which' our life loses all possibility of a durable support. A warm love towards all humanity runs through Christianity ; it longs to redeem every individual ; it gives man a value beyond all special achievements and on the other side of all mental and moral deeds ; it has been the first to bring the pure inwardness of the soul to a clearer expression. But it has also, through the linking of the human to a Divine and Eternal Order, raised life beyond all the petty-human with its civic ordinances and social interests. He who, with the best intention, views Christianity as a mere means for the betterment of the social situation, draws it from the heights of its nature, and deprives it of the main constituent of its greatness — the emancipation from the petty-human within the depths of the human itself. It is essentially the nature of Christianity that it transplants man into a new world over against the nearest-at-hand world ; it has planted the fundamental conviction of Platonism of the exis- tence of an Eternal Order over against the world of time amongst a great portion of the human race, and has given a mighty impetus to all effort. But it has, though it separated the Eternal from Time, brought it back again into Time, and through this presence of the Eternal it has, for the first time, proposed to mankind and to each individual a fundamental inner renewal, and through this has inaugurated a genuine history. In order to render the Life-process of Christianity characteristic and significant two different elements have to be taken into account — a conception of the 35 546 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT Spiritual Life and a valuation of the actual world- situation. A hard contradiction and an immense movement issue from the contact of the two elements : that which from within is real and necessary, is set back and rejected by the surface-reality nearest- at-hand. Thus, life finds itself within a power- ful coil, and a great decision becomes urgent. Shall the new world which arises from within and which, viewed inwardly, appears the most certain thing of all, gain our energy and disposition in spite of the contradiction of the whole remaining world ? Or shall we merely accept the fulness of the external world and allow the overthrow of our inwardness to take place ? There is here no middle course. Chris- tianity has decided for the first alternative ; but it is important to bear in mind that Christianity presents no ready-made conclusion, but that it brings forth an inexhaustible movement. Christianity before all else is great in that it takes up the experiences and the opposites of life in their widest extent, and fastens them together into a Whole ; it is great in stirrings, struggles, and transformations ; it appears before all else as a powerful current of life which indeed does not flow into vagueness ; but over against all attempts to make it deviate from its course it adheres to its main tendency. The whole of the Spiritual Life and the total trend of human things point in the same direction. Thus, Christianity is not a special pheno- menon by the side of other similar phenomena, but is the main struggle for the soul of man. It has within the domain of religion, and, along with this, in the deepest configuration of life, brought forth to an historical realisation what genuine spirituality THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY .547 according to its total nature must demand as indispensable. Thus, there is no need of a breach witn Christianity ; it can be to us what an historical religion pre-eminently is meant to be — a sure pathway to truth, an awakener of immediate and intimate life, a vivid representation and realisation of an Eternal Order which all the changes of Time cannot possess or destroy. 2. The Maintenance of this Nucleus against the Changes of Time Let us now consider somewhat more closely how this Christian cardinal type of life retains its truth over against civilisation and culture. We limit our- selves to the consideration of the chief changes effected in the world of ideas. Our assertion proceeds from the fact that these changes undoubtedly enter into a sharp conflict with the traditional existential-form of Christianity, but the Substance of Christianity is not able to free itself from antiquated forms and gain a purer and more energetic development without much trouble and toil. The mighty expansion which the whole of modern times has brought forth need not become hostile to Christianity. Such an expan- sion can be assimilated by Christianity, and through the contact Christianity can even be strengthened, provided it turns to the depth of its own nature, fortifies itself with this Substance of Christianity, and simultaneously finds the courage for new creative- ness. (a) The Further Development over against Nature. — The most tangible result of modern investigation has been the immense extension of the natural world 548 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT and the shrinkage of the earthly circle to a minute littleness. The sharp point of modern investigation has undoubtedly turned against the Church-form of Christianity in so far as the latter considers the earth as the centre of the universe, and in so far as it makes our actions decide the destiny of the All. To give the earth such a significance, in spite of all the transformations of modern thought, has been attempted by an apologetic at any price ; but all manipulations of possibilities and subterfuges are of no avail against the natural impression of the altered position of our earthly circle. All such manipulations belong to a geocentric and anthropocentric mode of thought of the past. But when the new mode of thought enters deeply into the realm of traditional ideas and feelings, does it destroy the spiritual sub- stance of Christianity, and does it refute the convic- tion of the superiority of the soul of man ? It does this in no manner. For why should the expansion of things limit itself to nature ? Why should not the spiritual as well penetrate and encompass the world ? Indeed, the spiritual must do this if the web of relations of particular energies observed in nature does not constitute the final depth of reality, but that this depth is to be sought in subsistence-by- themselves of things, as the Spiritual Life alone offers. It may be that we, upon this earth, are able to apprehend but a small segment of this life, but in such a segment the cosmic character of the Spiritual Life is unmistakable. The fact is not to be overlooked that, in any comparison with the outward extension of nature, the inward transformations more than hold the balance. For a progressive intensify- THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 549 ing of the Life-process has made ever more clear the fact that nature is not the final reality it was conceived to be by an older mode of scientific thought, but that it signifies only a human vista of reality. The Theory of Knowledge which has brought to a clear conscious- ness the limitations of this vista on account of our bodily organisation is only an expression of the inner growth of the Life-process beyond mere nature. Nature, which at the outset entirely surrounded and captivated man, has become more and more a mere environment to him. If man in such an inwardness of the Life-process has gained an Archimedean point, all the palpableness of sensuous impressions is not able to endanger the priority of spirit. The earthly circle, however, notwithstanding all its contraction, does not lose its significance when it appears as an abode where cosmic problems are struggled for, and where a segment of reality is raised to a higher stage. Over against Infinity man appears petty, but he becomes great through the cosmic life and its turn to spirit, which develops also within him. Nature has not only extended externally; it has also altered inwardly. It has revealed itself as a connected causal web under simple laws ; it has thus obtained an independence through which it dismisses every alien influence as an unjust intruder. Along with this, all dependence of nature upon the Spiritual Life seems for the moment to cease, and especially all sensuous miracle is placed on one side as a break in the order of nature. Such a rejection of miracle is directed against all religions, for in all religions miracle is " the dearest child of faith." But nowhere is the rejection of 550 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT miracle more pointedly directed than towards Chris- tianity which, with its doctrine of the bodily resurrec- tion of Jesus, has planted miracle in the very nucleus of religious belief. This doctrine constituted not only the basis of the convictions of the apostles, but it has remained a main portion of the teaching of the Church up to the present day. To touch this subject- may appear serious even to men who otherwise will- ingly follow the newer mode of thinking. For must it not alienate and even wound our feelings to resolve into a mere semblance an event which was at the foundation of the belief of millenniums, and which has been of help to an innumerable number of souls ? Also, all the insufficiency and contradictions of the historical records leave the fact untouched that the apostles were entirely convinced of that bodily resurrection, and that this conviction alone explains the sudden change from entire despair to the joyous certainty which culminated within their souls in those dark and critical days. On the other side, the opposite reasons retain a mighty force, once the exact conception of nature has been adopted and once an historical criticism has de- veloped. To place a miracle in that one situation would now not merely mean an occasional exception ; it would mean an overthrow of the total order of nature, as this has been set forth through the fundamental work of modern investigation and through an incalcu- lable fulness of experiences. What would justify such a breach with the total mode of reality must appear to us with overwhelming, indisputable clearness. Has the traditional fact this degree of certainty, and can- not it be explained in any other way ? Who is able THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 55J to assert this with entire certainty ? If the superiority of the Divine was, on this particular occasion, to be proclaimed in a tangible manner, why did all this happen for the small circle of believers alone, and why did it not happen to others ? There seems, however, to have been necessary a certain state of the souls of the disciples to make them see what they thought they saw ; but in all this there is found a psychic and subjective factor in operation — a factor whose potency is very difficult to define and to mark its boundaries. It would have been a fact of a wonderful nature if the souls of the disciples, from within, became suddenly and without intermediary convinced of the continuation of the life and the presence of the Master : all this would have been no sensuous miracle — ^no break in the course of nature. But we have to bear in mind how times of strong religious agitation and convulsion are so little qualified to judge con- cerning external phenomena, and how easily a psychic state solidifies into a supposed percept ! Within and without Christianity there are numerous examples of the sensuous appearance of a dead person being con- sidered to be fully authenticated by the narrower circle of friends. Savonarola appeared more than a hundred times after his death, but always to those whose hearts clung to him ; and to fifteen nuns of the convent of St Lucia he gave the consecrated wafer through the opening in their grille. {Cf. Hase, Savonarola, 2nd ed., pp. 99 and foil.) We can, indeed, lay on one side such analogies, and still assert the uniqueness and inexplicableness of the events at the death of Jesus. In the midst of all the obscurity of the facts, no interpretation is pressed by 552 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT us as being universally valid. But on one point perfect clearness ought to reign — as to what such supposed events can and may be for our own life and faith. The bodily resurrection is an historical, or asserted as an historical fact. Such a fact is either capable of proof or incapable of it. If it is capable, it can be proved to everyone — even to the greatest unbeliever, and its acknowledgment needs no personal disposition. If it is not capable of proof or at least of sufficient proof, religion can never make it a duty. Even in con- nection with any point less critical and less difficult than is here in question, religion does not compel us to accept as proved what in reality has not been proved. Otherwise expressed : the acknowledgment of an his- torical fact is a matter of knowledge and not of faith. Faith has as its object what is of a timeless nature — what is able to be immediately present to each individual and able to manifest its own elevating energy ; faith, in fact, carries within itself an inner movement and a courageous ascent of the spirit of man. If an historical fact is put in the place of this object of faith, faith is externalised, and reduces religion to a level which has been passed by the most important movements of the world ; and thus religion becomes entangled in an insoluble contradiction with the whole of the rest of life. If, then, the belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus threatens to break up the whole of Christianity, wherein does faith in the truth of Christianity obtain its final root ? Are the new contents of life, which affirm an emancipa- tion from all petty-human capacities, and which pro- claim a new world of love and grace, to be explained as mere illusions if they are not guaranteed to you THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 553 by a tangible proof of a bodily resurrection ? If, in the manner of the Middle Ages, we make the reality of the spiritual dependent upon a sensuous' embodiment, we shall obtain the pertinacity of what is termed historical belief, but through this, we confess our unbelief in the all-presence of the Spiritual and Divine Life ; and consequently we have parted from the religion of the spirit and of personality and have sunk back into a religion of signs and wonders. Men certainly do not intend to do this, and yet they allow the confusion which originates through the mixing up of history and faith to remain, and which has brought so many entanglements upon humanity. We have already quoted the words of Fichte where he pointed out that the emphasis on the historical has resulted in considering subsidiary facts as of equal validity with the main facts, and even at the expense of the main facts, thus coercing the main facts and tormenting the conscience. Religion, which has already shown so much energy, will finally find the energy to subsist with- out sensuous signs and wonders. It discovers the true wonder in the Spiritual Life itself, which, with its cosmic creativeness and its deepening of itself, demands as well as manifests the presence of the Absolute Life. Nature, through its abandon- ment of sensuous miracle, is in no way surrendered to mere mechanism, and the denial of a break in its order does not mean a breaking off of all relationship with spirit. Mechanism itself has presuppositions which it is not able to explain and which point beyond it, as for instance, the laws of nature, reciprocal eiFects, the ascent of types and of animate life out of a 554, CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT seemingly scattered and soulless agitation. And with- out giving straight-away a religious significance to all this, yet a depth of reality is here unmistakable ; and that the whole of nature finally serves the whole of spirit is held fast by religion in spite of the impossi- bility of a detailed application. But the main fact for religion remains in the wonder of the Spirit and the wonder in the Spirit ; and in the most decisive manner religion must reject whatsoever threatens to weaken the significance of this wonder and its consolidating and elevating energy. Not less severely does modern natural science collide with traditional Christianity in the theory of evolu- tion. The fact that the world has at the present day entered into the current of scientific investigation, that its elements participate in this movement, that out of the supposed co-existence of types a succession of types has been shown, and that especially the organic kingdom has climbed from simple beginnings, through a long ascent to its present height — all this certainly contradicts not less irreconcilably the traditional doctrine of creation and the whole notion of the bringing of things into existence through a will " beyond," as the newer astronomy contra- dicts the old geocentric mode of thinking. It is only certain forms of the evolutionary theory, and in no way all its forms, which signify a danger to the substance of religion. If the interpretation of the universe from the evolutionary point of view signifies that the whole content of the universe has proceeded without the operation of any effective law from within, but solely through chance collisions of elements, so that all the higher is simply a product of the lower, THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 555 and so that all independence loses its value, then certainly a victory of mechanism and materialism has captured each and every religion. If evolution, however, signifies rather this — if it signifies that the attainment of the higher stages became possible only after having passed through the lower stages ; that in each stage the Whole brings forth a new beginning, and consequently all movement has the foundation of a timeless order, and its advancement happens within Time but not from Time, then evolution can in no manner injure the substance of religion. If things are thus, there is a growth in the depth of reality as well as in the living presence of a higher order. Indeed, we observe in natural science itself an inner law of a timeless kind restraining more and more the mere mechanism of a " becoming " brought forth through external adaptation to environment, re- straining the lawless flux of forms and the predomin- ance of a blind chaos of natural selection. But religion is not able, however, to base its convictions upon the currents of natural investigation, and there is no need for it to do so because the dawning of the Spiritual Life itself is a proof to it of a new stage over against all nature, and of the growth of a further new stage within the Spiritual Life itself Thus the Higher is not a mere More and a mechanical result of the lower, but within this Higher an immediate proof of Absolute Life is imbedded. Evolution is then a testimony not against but for religion. No unbiassed mind is able to deny a " becom- ing " within nature and spirit. Reason is for us no ready-made thing ; within our own circle it has to be wrestled for, and the wrestling needs both 556 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT the movement of external things and an activity on our own part. But the question which separates minds is : whether reason is a mere effect of a " becoming," or whether it can be an effect without at the same time being a principle — whether the universe must not be grounded upon reason in order to engender reason at all. He who occupies the former standpoint draws reality down to its lowest stages and is able to see no more in all the rest than a construction of that lower. But wherever character- istic features and independence are accorded to the Higher, wherever it stands clearly before us in all its fulness and depth, there reason is recognised as a principle in the midst of all its " becoming," and there the evolutionary theory and religion can and must walk together hand in hand. (/3) The Further Development over against History and Culture. — Changes in human life and actions threaten Christianity still more directly than the changes in our view of natxire. Here, again, our in- vestigation leads to the result that an irreconcilable collision originates not so much in connection with the real facts of the movements of life and actions as in connection with certain problematic tendencies which cling to these facts, and which grow in seeming in- separableness along with them. All that is true and genuine in these movements of life and actions can be accepted by Christianity, but Christianity can accept anything only in so far as it differentiates clearly between the Eternal Substance and the temporal existential-form, and only so far as it strives after a new existential-form which corresponds to the demands of the situation reached by the labours of the ages. THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 557 First of all, an opposition to religion originates on account of the rise of an historical view and treatment of existence. This view and treatment bring all things into a flux and unveil an incessant change. To draw religion — the work of God — into the current of time and to adjust its stability to the changes of the human situation, means to destroy it at its very foundation. A religion based upon mere time — accepted with the possibility of a notice to quit — is no religion. Chris- tianity, however, has welded together with special energy not only a fundamental body of doctrines and organisations, but also a characteristic content of life — a content which is to defy all the changes of time. This is the first glimpse of the opposition, but we shall see that it does not remain in possession of all this harshness. First of all, human life refuses to surrender itself entirely into this flux. Modern times, in their first fresh impression of the movement of things, saw only the bright side of the change — they saw only the greater freedom, the rich manifold of things, etc. But we are just beginning to discover difficult drawbacks in con- nection with the facts — the instability of all results, the speedy toppling over of all standards and values, the dissolution of life into mere moments which drive and dislodge each other. More and more we lose an inward connection of life ; we become the puppets of an ever- changing kaleidoscopic situation, and are in danger of becoming engulfed into nothingness. In the presence of such a catastrophe we are no longer able to speak of a history, and least of all of a history of a spiritual kind. For some kind of a persisting factor is present in all history ; and in history of a spiritual kind there is pre- sent an inner representation of the past, a view of the 558 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT whole course, a stepping out of the stream of time, and a transference to a timeless contemplation sub specie ceterni. If life ascends towards such an eternity, it ascends of necessity towards religion, which calls for a return to final depths, calls for the illumina- tion of the fundamental relationship of man to the All, calls for the setting forth of the abiding tasks and experiences of life, calls for the union of our life with the Absolute Life, and above all else to become the custodian of Eternity. If religion is anything at all, it is that which gives man a secure foundation, and which measures his undertakings by means of elevated norms. If thus a longing after Eternity arises through the fresh experience and deep feeling of the vanity of all the mere life of time, the turn to religion will gain full energy and veracity. But is religion able to satisfy the aspiration after Eternity without having to suppress aU movement and without having to prohibit the full flow of the current of life ? The aspiration is not satisfied if the tradi- tional existential-form signifies its final essence. The mode of thinking which conceived eternal truth only as it presented itself in time (of course this is an indispensable element of religion), and also which believed in the possibility of man reaching it at one stroke, has become untenable. This mode of thinking corresponded to the old view of truth which has been replaced by another view. According to the old view, the truth appeared so intimately related to man that a courageous tension of energy seemed able immediately to reach it at one stroke, and then an alleged durable truth was set forth and which had only to be guarded THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 559 in a true and heroic manner. Thus, it was believed at the height of Greek development that scientific knowledge could accomplish this for onc*e and for all ; and men believed themselves able to trace out a political constitution valid for all times. Correspond- ing to this, it was believed that religion could be brought into an inviolable and durable situation in the same manner. But it is characteristic of modern times, on the contrary, that a wider division between the truth of the Spiritual Life and the immediate situation of man has taken place, so that now, if an Eternal is not to be lost, man has to labour in the depth of his being, and it is only after a toilsome struggle that the Eternal can be gained and can become the true possession of man. The Eternal, in itself certain and firm, is to us an incessant task. Christianity is able to take over this latter view only when it differentiates between an existential-form characteristic of, and appropriate to, a certain age from the timeless Substance which is effective in all ages ; only when it works out the characteristic Life- process and its new reality founded in God, and only when it uplifts clearly this Life-process through thought and feeling from all mere-human formations of doctrines and works. Then Christianity will give its full rights to the Eternal as well as to the temporal, and the necessary contact between the two will lead to no injurious narrowness. The turn towards history and culture brought forth not only more mobility, it also raised man to greater self-activity and to the awakening of slum- bering energies within him. Life, through such experiences, is immeasurably raised, and man gains 560 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT power not only over nature but also over his own particular relationships and over his own soul : he has now undertaken the construction of a kingdom of reason on a great scale. Such a life, through its possession of reality, has made all things far richer in content than could ever have happened in the times when man stood impotent over against the darkness of the world, and expected, through tarrying and hoping, his entire welfare from a power beyond. Now, does not such a self-consciousness of human potency contain a strong protest against all religions, and especially against a mode of Christianity which pro- claims the vanity of mere man with such special emphasis ? A clash is here quite evident, and the question is, whether the necessities of life itself tend to level down this distinction, and whether, indeed, religion goes out half way to meet the desire for levelling it down. It is undoubtedly true that through the develop- ment of modern culture far more has resulted from man's capacities than had hitherto been the case, but it is doubtful whether it is the energy of the mere individual which has brought forth all this ; it is doubtful whether, in the very process of this develop- ment, nothing besides the merely human was at work. We have already noticed that Spiritual Life does not proceed from historico-social connections. In so far as civilisation and culture are no more than products of such connections they are, not- withstanding all their claims at being able to form a higher stage of things, afflicted with the curse of semblance and untruth. Indeed, the further they progress, the more do they get away from THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 561 their true basis, and thus become artificial and empty, and fall into the petty and the common. Whatsoever is genuine in civilisation and culture rests upon the fact that a superhuman Spiritual Life with its cosmic creativeness is operative within them. Through such a connection with the Spiritual Life all that is great in man is not given by nature but origi- nates from a deeper basis, and must rest permanently upon this basis. When it does this, the very sense of power will contain a consciousness of entire depen- dence on this basis and, at the same time, will contain a denial of all merely natural individuality. Civilisa- tion and culture will not then think lightly of religion, and will not attempt to push it back, but they will invoke it for their own preservation and purification, and for the elevation of man beyond the region of the petty-human. All merely secular culture will now be seen through as a mere farce, since man has realised that genuine culture has not merely to develop extant powers but has to form a new being — helps to develop an ascent from mere time to a timeless order, and from mere man to a world- embracing spirituality. Rehgion, however, is able to correspond to such a " call " of culture only if it grasps its own task in a great and free sense. Religion must not consider that the Divine in some external kind of way does the work, and thus reducing life to a merely passive level, but far more it has to posit itself into the centre of the highest activity, and yet must never forget that such a creative activity is fundamentally different from merely natural development of energy. And, over against culture, religion must at all times assert its 36 562 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT rights to prove and to winnow, for it is religion — the power which draws upon the deepest source of life — which takes to itself the whole of man and offers a fixed standard for all his undertakings. Religion, instead of being carried on the face of the changing currents of civilisation and culture, must provide through its timeless truth a secure foothold for the remainder of life. It must cavil less at the transient and particular in the domains of knowledge and life, and rather undertake to test their whole meaning; it has to hold fast to the fact that aU civilisation and culture are only phenomena of the Spiritual Life and not the Spiritual Life itself, and that consequently these exhibit only a few of the many possibilities and phases of things which have changed in the past and will continue to change in the future. Religion is thus unable to measure and to pass judgment on things without holding up definite aims before civilisation and culture, but it will accomplish this task less directly than indirectly : it will accomplish it through the working out of the further development of the total-life which connects and encompasses all the provinces of knowledge and life with itself It is through this reciprocal relationship that civilisation and culture can assert their independence and fi-ee- dom of movement. In this reciprocity then religion has not only to give but also to take. For the fundamental condition on which religion finds its secure superiority comes to a full effect in man when it finds an appropriate existential- form ; and man is not able to find this form without the aid of civilisation and culture. Thus, we may hope that such change which to-day urges culture to oppose THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 56S religion may finally serve the main aims of religion, so that a common spiritual world may span the provinces of both religion and culture. This homogeneousness of both has to be vi^orked out over against the traditional forms not only of culture but also of religion. Religion must not bring forth simply that which lies by the side of the rest of life — simply handling its one-sided content alongside of other contents which it deems as not belonging to itself and which it treats indifferently. Religion must never consider itself as an isolated province but as the characteristic depth of the totality of life ; and it must consider that its full energy and intimate knowledge are to be reached on this pathway alone. Through such an insight, religion will neither be anxious to win the individual to some kind of a mere assent to truth nor to lead individuals to some ready-made spiritual world, but it will far more constantly attempt to build up and hold forth a Whole of the Spiritual Life within the human domain over against the immense hindrances and perversions of an indifferent and hostile world. We need a religion of the total Spiritual Life and not one of the mere individual or a one of the sum-total of any number of individuals ; we need as our own that religion which has set forth more expressively than any other religion the central conception of the Kingdom of God. But here, however, it is necessary to purify further the traditional form if that which from of old has worked as an ideal and a demand is to find its energetic achievement and to become the entire possession of man. (7) The Further Development over against the 564 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT Changes of the Spiritual Life in Man. — The most important movements of the day have brought about great changes within the province of the Spiritual Life. But the fact is nowhere more perceptible than in the changes which have taken place in connection with the traditional existential-form of Christianity, but, rightly understood and carried further, these changes promise to develop the inmost essence of Christianity, and to extend it as the religion of universal life. This matter deals especially with the three points of analysis and emancipation of the Spiritual Life : its progressive superiority to sensuous nature, to mere history, and to the petty-human form of life. This emancipation and expansion of the Spiritual Life are no ready-made results which fall upon each individual in his smug situation, but are movements and invitations of a spiritual kind and from which no individual, who is to maintain human power and creativeness on the heights of the most important movements of life, dare withdraw himself; for these movements of the Spiritual Life present a standard beyond all the arbitrary actions of individuals and beyond all the vacillations of the moment. 1. The Spiritual Life has, upon the ground of modern times, succeeded in obtaining an independ- ence over against sensuous existence in all its forms. It has succeeded in obtaining this through a more energetic excitation and exertion of self- activity — an activity which does not tolerate a pas- sive immersion of man into the environment, but which precedes and measures the material that is presented to it from without, and even weaves the meaning of the fundamental construction of THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 565 the world from within. On account of this, the sen- suous is no longer able to remain an essentially integral part of the mental construction, but signifies now only a valuable helper and even an essential means of repre- senting the meaning of the mental construction. Sensuous nature extends to the domain of religion : we find this first in the senile disposition of waning antiquity as well as in the simple-minded way in which the middle ages made the sensuous an essential part of religion. But to the greater activity of awakened modern times, such a mixing of external signs with the inner life has become something magi- cal and an intolerable hindrance to freedom. This mingling of the sensuous and the spiritual is repre- sented in the main by Roman Catholicism, and it is largely owing to this that the strength of Catholicism was due in former times, but since the advent of the movement towards greater self-activity and purer spirituality of humanity, the situation suitable to former times has given way to an inward and higher stage of life. But Protestantism also, which has pro- tested against the magic of Catholicism, has by no means excluded it; it holds sensuous miracle in high estimation ; it preserves a sacramental mode in all its tendencies, and this shows itself in its doctrine of salvation through the " blood " of Christ. The sacra- ments are a child of an age of deep weariness and spiritual twilight : Divine energies were to proceed towards man, but it was imagined that these energies needed sensuous signs which, however, conceived as necessary pledges of the truth of Divine energies, be- came more than sensuous. In order to hide the con- tradiction imbedded in this, a dim twilight time 566 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT and a dreamy disposition of life are necessary, and these are needed further in order to obtain a foothold and conviction in the midst of the darkness of the situation. The fresher life of modern times has scattered this twilight and has reduced an alleged piety to magic. The residue of such magic which has remained in Protestantism works all the more vaguely, the more it fails to understand the life of our day. Many have found and do find to-day a sub- jective support in such magic, and its removal may appear to such minds a disaster. But it is necessary for modern man to bear in mind — and this truth is of the very essence of Christianity — that when Christianity entered into the arena of time as a religion of pure spirituality, magic served as help to it and was not inseparably connected with it. Certainly such magic ought not to disappear before some equivalent appears. The equivalent is at hand : it is the further development of the Spiritual Life itself ; and this development can take place through a turn of life to a level beyond all externals— a turn towards itself and towards a total-activity — and through the winning of an unassailable reality by means of a development of a basal and durable life and being. If the sensuous is not in this manner replaced by the self-consolidation of the Spiritual Life, every kind of spiritualisation tends to wither away, so that the Middle Ages was right in insisting that some- thing besides the sensuous was needful. But the sensuous through its removal from the centre of life becomes in no way superfluous and subordinate for the stimulation of man. Indeed, the more religion deepens itself by means of the whole of the Spiritual THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 567 Life, the more it makes the external recede into a distance ; the less religion is able to grasp the idea, the more necessary becomes the pictorial, and the more religion needs the help of imagination and art. But this indispensable means does not signify the reality itself and will not coalesce with it. 2. The progressive superiority of the Spiritual Life to bare history has occupied our attention so much that it is not necessary here to do more than remind ourselves of our previous conclusions. The fact that we as children of modern times posit all the offerings of history upon our own day and adjust them from such a situation comes into conflict with the traditional form of Christianity. Catholicism is not, on the whole, troubled with this entanglement because to it past and present join themselves intimately in the manner of the Middle Ages, and also because the differences of the generations are obliterated. To Protestantism, on the contrary, the distinction between past and present was made and an alleged yet conscientious return to the former became essential : it attempted to carry life back to a special epoch — the beginnings of Christianity— and to shape it in accordance with this epoch. But Protestantism discovered that it was still more essential to base religion within one's own life and personal experience ; but the attempt to carry both elements — the ex- perience of the personal hfe and its binding to an historical factor — has miscarried ; and this fact is dis- covered to-day, and it must soon become intolerable. Catholicism has here decidedly the logic on its side when it makes the Church and its past the guarantor 568 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT of its truth ; whilst Protestantism, through allowing matters of learned investigation and of an historical nature to decide concerning the meaning of life and the salvation of the soul, has entered into grave danger. If Protestantism is to remain true to its main idea, it must subjugate history to personal life, and this means a radical transformation of the tradi- tional material. The present day often shows an uncertain oscilla- tion of the religious life between history and the present, between authority and personal conviction ; one hopes to help the personal conviction through a retreat to the past, and thus the rich content of history is supposed to procure an intuitive content for life as well as for religion. We resign ourselves, through such a turn, to the impressions of unique epochs and personalities ; we transpose and submerge ourselves in these so far as to forget ourselves ; we seek to understand such epochs and personalities as they really were, and the intuitive presentation of such pictures seems to us a great gain in truth. But this historical and relative truth is not the eternal and absolute truth upon which religion must ever insist. The interweaving of these two things is not far removed from the German mode of conceiving life, and contains the danger of substituting merely imitative feeling for genuine feeling, many truths for the one truth, mere knowledge for life. Let us give the highest honour to history in its right place, but let us energetically oppose an enervating " historism." We are in entire unison with the spirit of Christi- anity when we place history and its results in a secondary place. It is true that the assertion of the THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 569 entrance of the Divine into Time made by Christianity has heightened mightily the significance of history, and, indeed, has for the first time made history in a spirit- ual sense possible. But Christianity has never made the temporal life the main fact, and has never turned the nature of man into a predominantly historical nature. For all that happens within time has here a worth only in so far as it develops what is eternal and in what it executes for the eternal. Thus it views and values not eternity by means of time, but time by means of eternity ; and thus it finds present within history a greatness : it is a greatness because it is an emanci- pation from history — a realisation of an eternal order. Herein is imbedded the demand that the contemplation of infinity must ever remain superior to all, so that Christianity forms an irreconcilable opposition to any form of evolution or of " historism." The more ener- getic working out of its eternal character — the aspira- tion after a present superior to time — is therefore no defection from Christianity. We have in our previous investigation become convinced of the fact that such a movement is not a relapse into the Enlightenment, and that history as a subsidiary element retains great value. We have already seen that a " here and now " superior to time must some- how through religion become the main standard of life, and that history will further us in our efforts only in so far as we encompass and govern it with an in- dependent life. 3. The third aspect of the emancipation of the Spiritual Life is the one of emancipating it from a merely human existential-form. We have already observed how the modern work of civilisation and 570 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT culture with its expansive tendency has broken through the merely human existential-form, and we have noticed how it took up an energetic struggle for the driving out of the mere-human. Throughout the whole development of modern times, the Spiritual Life has severed itself from a merely subjective inactivity and from resting upon a merely human opinion; it has engendered characteristic contents and necessities, laws and methods ; it has connected itself into an independent world and has made man a mere tool and means for its development. Modern development finds its most tangible expression in the linking of the Spiritual Life with a unique and seemingly free-moving thought-process. We have observed how this thought-process pointedly opposed not only Religion and Christianity but also how it lowered morality to a merely subjective and sub- sidiary phenomenon, and how it undertook to disin- tegrate all personal life, all independent self-sub- sistence, and all ideals favourable to the creation of spiritual energy. Now, through such a critical situation composed of an irreconcilable entanglement, the emancipation of the Spiritual l^ife becomes a great problem. But the reason for this opposition is highly problematic, but we dare say that it is a mistake — a colossal mistake. We have already seen in this book, and the same idea has been more fully developed in other works of the author, that the transformation of the Spiritual Life into an impersonal thought-process destroys it to its very foundation. This method of treating the Spiritual Life becomes its self-distortion, whilst at the same time, its content evaporates more THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 571 and more and the whole life is transformed into a kingdom of abstract values which slip through our hands as soon as they are graspM and subjected to a closer examination. If, however, the idea of an emancipation of the Spiritual Life frees itself from such an abstract process, and when it possesses the further insight that the Spiritual I^ife, in order to become a full reality, must become a self-subsist- ence and must, through a persistent self-develop- ment, encompass all activity, then this movement of thought need not go against Christianity, but can quite well serve for the furtherance of Christianity, whilst simultaneously it brings the Spiritual Life and man into a secure relationship. It is true that in Christianity a high estimation of man and a strong love for man are found. But these do not issue out of man as a merely natural being ; they do not fortify him in his merely human self-assertion, but they see him in the light of a new world and inaugur- ate for him a new life founded in God, so that his estimation and love rest, if not upon the reality itself, yet upon the possibility of an essential transformation of the nature of man. Throughout genuine Christi- anity everywhere there is operative a yearning after a new man and after a new kingdom of peace and love. The detailed elaboration, however, which this aspira- tion found in earlier ages is not able to satisfy entirely our age. Life in those ages, notwithstanding its en- nobled efforts, remained too much within the domain of human frailty and did not sufficiently distinguish the new spiritual contents developed by the relationship to God, from the subjective form of their appropriation by the soul. Such an idea of God to the modern 572 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT mode of thinking appears too much as a mere idealisa- tion of man, and the reUgious life too much as an inter- course of person with person, and consequently as too emotional and anthropomorphic. Pantheism, on the contrary, has insisted upon conceptions of the universe and has opposed energetically the religious tendency of dwelling on the sickness of the soul, and on account of this has gained a good deal of sympathy in modern times, but we can no more go back to it, notwithstanding the warmth of its definite ideas, than to the Ptolemaic conception of the universe. But we hear it asked, does not a danger arise to religion through such a conception of Pantheism ? Is there not a certain affirmation and strengthening of man essential for religion, and does not there belong to religion a certain anthropomorphism ? In any case, the view of God as well as of religion has become more shadow-Uke, the more it has attempted to drive every- thing human out of religion. We step thus into the dilemma : that the human is too small for us, and that with the renunciation of the human, religion threatens to break in pieces. Such a dilemma is to be escaped from only through an inner analysis of the human — through a sharp differentiation of the spiritual contents from the sub- jective inclinations. The whole of our investigation has been directed towards demonstrating that such an analysis is not only possible but even necessary, and that without it there is neither religion nor, speaking generally, truth. Our investigation sought also to show that not only did particular contents develop side by side, but also that they connected themselves together into a Whole of an entity and produced an THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 573 essentially new being, which we aspired after by means of our " ever-becoming " personality. Here- with the man gains a cosmic nature Vithin his own province, so that he is now able in religion and every- where else to take up a struggle against the petty- human ; he is now able to bring about, if not with ease, yet with great effort, a fundamental analysis of his own nature. The problem remains no longer for him in the relationship of himself with the external world, but lies within the domain of his own soul. Difficult tasks arise along with all this. As modern investigation transforms the immediate picture of nature into a mere phenomenon which appeared to an older mode of thought as the reality itself, and as it passes from the phenomenon to the meaning of this phenomenon in consciousness, we, too, have to pass from the surface-possession of human existence and have to work out the spiritual substance which lies be- neath this. The supposed facts then transform them- selves into tasks,but within the tasks themselves facts are imbedded which promise to bring us nearer to truth. It is from such a source as this that religion can hold man fast to his spiritual nature, and struggle vigorously against anthropomorphism. Thus all objects and qualities have to be changed within con- sciousness ; conceptions such as personality, morality, etc., have to be carried beyond their nearest-at-hand human meaning, and all merely subjective inward- ness has to give way to an essential inwardness ; in fact, there is now everywhere a remodelling of all into the great, the fully active, and the cosmic. Con- sequently, much that appeared previously as the reality itself is now reduced to a mere finger-post ; 574 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT but what we thus lose as a surface-possession is more than compensated for in the gain of a depth in our nature. Indeed, the more we fortify ourselves through such a spiritual substance and feel that the kernel of our life lies beyond the petty-human, the more truly are we able to employ and value such metaphors and symbols of the Divine. For then we know that they are indispensable means for the furtherance of the soul, and at the same time we find in them not the reality itself, but a parable of reality. If we consider how much is involved in such a change in the position of the Spiritual Life, and if we as well present before ourselves what transforma- tions, culture, history, and natural science carry within themselves, we see clearly the critical situation in which religion is placed, because these surface- changes are not of the essence of religion. Through the mighty expansion and fissures which these changes bring about, the old immediacy and intimacy of the soul have become lost, and religion has now receded into the distance, and is in danger of vanish- ing more and more. The disarrangement of things which such changes cause occurs not only in con- nection with their own facts and material and against their old forms, but the effect proceeds into the very character and feelings of man and into his religion. And yet, when we examine the matter closer, we find that such changes cause not so much a breach with Christianity as with its traditional form, and that they aspire to bring about a fundamental renewal of Christianity. For when we penetrate beyond the motives and dispositions of men to their spiritual basis, all the changes cannot contradict what is THE ETERNAL IN CHRISTIANITY 575 essential to Christianity, but they even promise to assist this essential element in its new, freer, and more energetic development. But ^^e have to bear in mind that all this will not descend upon us like a shower of rain, but will have to be brought forth through immense labour and toil. It becomes neces- sary to replace that which must pass away, and to reconsolidate the essentials which are threatened. All this cannot come about save through an energetic concentration and deepening of the Spiritual Life, save through a struggle against the superficiality of time regardless of all consequences, and save through a vivification and integration of all that points in the right direction. We now turn to the elucidation of this. PART v.— CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT (Continued) CHAPTER XVI b. The Transient in Christianity and the Necessity oe a Renewal of Christianity 1. The Removal from Past Forms We were not able to plead for the substance of Christianity, without, at the same time, emphasising strongly the temporal character of the traditional existential-form. This existential-form took shape under the influence of a highly characteristic epoch, and since that epoch fundamental transformations have taken place in human life and activity. The fourth and the fifth centuries, in which the conclusions of the existential-form of Christianity were formulated, were in the whole of their nature times of spiritual stagnation ; they could further Christianity only through the aid of the very antiquity with which primitive Christianity had had to wrestle. Thus, the doctrines and worship of Christianity during the earlier centuries developed under the strongest in- fluence of Greek thought, and its organisation was largely influenced by the Roman spirit. At a later period came the transmission of Christianity amongst a people imbued for the first time with aspirations ; 676 THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 577 then followed the mistakes and finally the decay of the ideals of these peoples ; and later the rise of a new civilisation and culture brought forth a new standpoint of viewing the world as well as a new kind of life, and all this could not proceed on its course without bringing about changes in the whole situation of man as well as in the whole of Chris- tianity — without revaluing old values and engender- ing new demands out of new situations. We have already protested sufficiently against subjugating rehgion to the ordinary changes of history as well as abandoning it to the limits of the elements of time. But where transformations in the world of thought reach back into the whole of life, and where these transformations find the soul something other than it was supposed to be, and where they are called to bring forth a different view of man and the world, then religion is not able to withdraw from such transformations without injury and without even the danger of being supplanted at the very core of life. Such transformations in reality resulted against the conclusions of the fourth and the fifth centuries. Thus, religion had to speak in a new way to a new man, for it dare not ever deal with this New in a concealed manner and offer portions of it as a mere embroidery of life, but it has always to pro- nounce openly concerning this New and take its stand independently upon it, if the religious life in its totahty is not to suffer in energy and veracity. The greatness of the change, and the necessity of a remodelling become most obvious if we compare the configuration of the religious world of thought at the spiritual height of ancient Christianity— as for 37 578 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT example in Augustine— with the configuration which is demanded after the experiences of the millenniums. By these experiences we do not mean the fleeting fancies of many of our contemporaries, which have little enough to recommend them, but we mean the experiences which have issued through the most important and universal results of the Spiritual Life through the centuries ; and this inheritance no one, in the long run, can deny. Augustine in three main points holds out before us a characteristic configura- tion of religion. The manifestation of the Divine in his writings stands in direct opposition to the develop- ment of human energy, and this doctrine conceived of and revered the Divine all the more, the deeper it lowered human nature and the more it divested man of all independence. And further, according to this view, religion seemed to be real and true only in so far as it gained a visible embodiment ; thus the kingdom of God had its embodiment in the Church ; all activity of a religious nature had its embodiment in tangible achievements which were in no way a mere semblance but were essential parts of the reality. Finally, the whole of culture was placed in the immediate service of religion and its doctrines ; all scientific, artistic, and political activities were admissible and of value only in so far as they dis- charged themselves into reUgion and corroborated its truth. And thus was obtained a thoroughly religious, but not a universal, system of life. The relation of the spiritual to the sensuous is investigated from these three points of view, and this relation shows how deeply the claims of the heightened self-activity of the Spiritual Life affects THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 579 the configuration of religion. But we have to bear in mind that the sharp conflict between an older and a newer mode of thinking allows no com- promise, but imperatively demands a decision. These two tendencies of thought contradict one another ; the inseparable blending of the sensuous with the spiritual signifies to the old tendency an unconditional necessity in order to reach the entire reality of the spiritual; but the newer tendency considers this as a drawing of the spiritual down to a lower level. The newer tendency must desire to drive the sensuous out of the centre of life, whilst the older tendency feels itself obliged here to assert and to consolidate the sensuous. What is to one a rock of offence is to the other a necessary demand. Further, in connection with the relationship of the Divine and the human, we are prohibited from hold- ing fast to the old mode. To Augustine belongs the merit of having formulated with full clearness the fundamental Christian thought of the nothingness of mere man, and also of having severed morality from all mere nature ; for with him all greatness in man was a work of Divine grace. But in dealing with one side of the question he allowed the other side, in accordance with the disposition of an enfeebled and despondent time, to become stunted — that is, the side of the restrengthening of man through his union with God and the transformation of his life into self-activity through the new connections. Grace and freedom, corresponding to that conception of the relationship of the Divine and the human, appeared to Augustine as irreconcilable opponents ; a welling- up of freedom out of grace remained alien to his 580 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT dualistic mode of thinking. That Augustine, on the other hand, does assign an activity of his own to man and that this activity often seems even to contain the main decision of life we are well aware of; but we are also aware that all this is in direct contra- diction to his fundamental tendency, and that it is rather a superficial compromise to the claims of practice than a deepened conception of Christianity. This conception of Augustine was bound to result in giving reUgion a character of passivity, of drowsy devotion, and of blind obedience ; it engendered a pleasure and even a passion to worship its object on account of the security it promises ; it threatened to take away all backbone out of life and to transform it into mere sentimentality, weakness, and dejection. Also the senile character of Augustine's time has here penetrated deep into religion itself At later periods in the history of the western world protests did not fail to arise. Especially do we find in the inaugura- tion of the Reformation a glowing aspiration after a manly, joyous, and world-renewing Christianity. But even these new beginnings did not succeed in coming to a full development, and infinitely much remains to be done in the future if world-denial and world-renewal effects are to find an entire equilibrium within Christianity, and if freedom and grace are to settle the dispute that exists between them, and are to bind themselves together for the construction of a new reality. Also, the relation of religion to culture needs a re- modelling. Because all the provinces of life, in the view of Augustine, had simply to serve religion, all that existed and worked from its own energy lost its THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 681 value, and the renunciation of all objective interests to a subjective state of the soul threatened to destroy aU culture. And, further, religion thftjugh its aspired isolation lost all living content ; and when religion degenerated into a highly abstract conception, it had as an alternative only the return to an anthropomor- phism. The Middle Ages through their Scholasticism gave a higher value to the work of culture, because it looked upon culture as possessing a certain independ- ence, and assigned to religion only the work of guiding the totality of things. But Scholasticism did not carry things to a true settlement — culture was narrowed and religion was still largely under the influence of an alien mass of thought. The Reformation accomplished a severer severance in favour of the independence of religion, but even here the danger of making religion too much of an isolated province became quite evident ; religion thus tended to lose its cosmic character, so that the results of knowledge had but little influence on life and were considered to be of a secular character. Although religion and knowledge have different starting points and took on opposite poles of the total-life, yet their entire severance would mean the rending of life in an intolerable manner. Thus, we stand face to face with new tasks ; we are obliged to do something more than merely carry further the past : we are to seek for new and in- dependent beginnings. A merely pietistic view of life has become too narrow for us ; but, on the other hand, the superficiality of a culture devoid of religion becomes more and more evident. Consequently, an understanding within the domain of a wider synthesis 582 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT has become necessary. We have already seen how the Spiritual Life, in the sense we conceived it, offers a basis for such an explanation. But this Spiritual Life is not a restful bond of union, which man has merely to accept ; it is not the setting forth of an equilibrium of life for once and for all. The point of departure and the drift of the movement of the Spiritual Life are fundamentally different from this old conception, and all attempts to weaken this difference threaten to lower the energy as well as the truth of life. The Spiritual Life, if it would remain healthy and fresh, must, founded though our being is in the Absolute Life and Eternal Truth, remain in constant movement. That the truth is to us simultaneously a fact and a task signifies an essential divergence from the older mode of thinking. Thus, there appears all along a great opposition between the traditionally old and the sought-for new types of life. And it is of no avail to veil this difference between the old and the new Christianity, or to endeavour to make the old and the new flow together in what can be no more than a seeming coalescence. And further, it is not sufficient merely to allow the New to assert itself, and merely to inter- pret the Old. He who attempts to give equal rights to both is in danger of doing injustice to both ; he is in danger of raising the claims of the Old to become crystallised through the centuries without any change although it has no longer the same meaning for the convictions of an increasing number of minds ; he is in danger, through the attempt to amalgamate both, to do injustice to the New, whose development is retarded through placing a millstone around its THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 583 neck, whilst it needs all its energy in order to re-set its truth, in order to overcome the present-day situation of painful unreadiness, atid in order to help in the bringing forth of a new phase of eternal truth. How great and irreconcilable the opposites are, appears most clearly in the different positions which the Founder of historical Christianity occupies in the Old and in the New. This question we are dis- cussing is in so far the kernel of the whole matter, since we here decide concerning the manner of the relationship of the human and the Divine, which re- lationship forms the fundamental truth of the whole of Christianity. For nothing differentiates Chris- tianity so much from other religions as the fact that in Christianity the union of mankind and God is not determined in an external manner through commands and achievements, but that it results from within through the growth of an entirely new and essential life founded in God and through the call of man, in the midst of an antagonistic world, to a participation in the perfection and blessedness, in the infinity and eternity of Absolute Being. The old conception presents this union of the natures of the Divine and the human in a supernatural, ontologic-metaphysical manner. The Founder of Christianity is thus simul- taneously truly God and truly man ; only at this one life does the miracle of the entrance of the Divine into the human appear accomplished ; only through the mediation of the Divine in this one situation and the relationship of man to the situation, that a - union with God is inaugurated for the rest of mankind. Thus the whole truth and certainty of this union is 584 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT stated to lie in the fact that in the personality of the Founder it was not merely the energy of the Godhead which was efficacious, but that the Founder himself was of a Divine Nature — was himself God in the fullest meaning of the term. In this connection, every attempt to weaken the Godhead of Christ meant a lessening of the substance of religion, and all similarity between Christ and God had to give way to the strict identity of the two. Thus the more metaphysical and also the more identical with God Christ became, the greater seemed his religion to be and the securer seemed the foundation of its Divine truth. But, however, the entire union of the Godhead and humanity in one person has become in no way through its dogmatic proclamation a living reality for the religious life, but the history of Christianity shows here a strong dualism. People have not so much revered Christ at the same time as God and as man, but rather they have revered him alternately now as God, now as man, according to the manner in which the dogmatic conception brought forth the one side, and the practico-ethical conception brought forth the other side. And the contradiction is in reality irreconcilable. The dog- matic conception views the Founder as a man who is at the same time God ; who as God possesses absolute truth and who from such a height leads a human existence ; who lays on one side only for a time his sovereign rank ; who participates in the cares and quests, the struggles and doubts which constitute not only the most difficult but also the greatest conceivable sufferings in human life. Even to the suffering that was preordained by a Divine THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 585 decree to bring forth the most beneficial results and, indeed, to bring a change in the destiny of the world— in all this the sting which* makes suffering genuine is wanting : the seeming senselessness of his death, the doubts, whether all the hard struggles, the bitter pain are not in vain — all these disappear if the dogmatic conception is correct. He who had no need to overcome also such a doubt, had not more but less laid upon him than is laid upon us other men, and such an one's conquest cannot bring consolation to others. And when traditional Chris- tianity fails to discover any contradiction in that, on the one hand, it grieves from the depth of its soul over the human sufferings of this Personality, and, on the other hand, reveres this Personality as a God superior to all human anxieties and needs, we are reminded, although they are separated by an infinite interval, of the words of Xenophanes so specially concerned for the unity and eternity of the Divine Nature. When the Eleatics questioned him whether they should sacrifice to Leucothea and bewail her, he replied, " Bewail her not if you consider her a goddess, sacrifice not to her if you consider her human." But the new conception dare not renounce the union of the human and the Divine. The renuncia- tion would be an abandonment not only of religion, but of any and every truth. But the new mode dare not fasten the union to any one individual event in history, and place everything else in a state of dependency upon that one event ; but it has much more to permeate, connect, and elevate all events of a spiritual kind ; it has to bring forth a world- 586 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT encompassing and continuous deed which can become the intimate experience of every individual. This involves also a severe clash of the new view with the traditional idea of mediation, which Christianity connects with the main idea of redemp- tion. According to the traditional view, redemp- tion does not proceed directly from the Absolute Life and Being that lies on the other side of man's own energy, but a mid-link is forged between the Divine and the human, and half of it belongs to each side ; both sides are brought into a definite connection which could be found in no other way. The power which this idea has exercised over the soul is shown through its origin and whole history. It was late Greek antiquity that fled towards it and clung to it. The presuppositions of the idea are quite evident. Deeply conscious of the opposites of our existence, especially of spirit and matter, man sought to elevate the Divine above the sordid mechanism of the world, and to conceive of it as much as possible on the other side of this world ; and consequently the Divine appears incapable of coming into direct contact with man. But if, at the same time, there energises in man a glow- ing aspiration after an emancipation from the hard exigencies and unreason of the world as well as after some kind of participation in the Godhead, and if simultaneously the consciousness of his own impotence is developed, what remains except the hope of intermediate powers that finally integrate themselves into one personality ? We are able to understand how such a conception offered a means of support to human frailty, how it seemed to THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 587 make the access to the Divine easier, and how it gave an intimacy to the idea of redemption. And yet there is imbedded in the doctflne of mediation a crass anthropomorphism which rehgion cannot possibly endure for ever, and the presuppositions of which must fall to the ground as soon as an energetic feeling of life and a firmer faith have bridged the deep cleft between the Divine and the human which ruled there. Then it is bound to become clear that the doctrine is not able to bring forth a gain on one side without bringing forth a great loss on the other side. For it injures the direct relationship with the Divine ; as it removes this relationship farther away from man, it lowers the Divine love and grace upon which in the last resort all depends ; as it places the entire inclusion of such love and grace in one particular point, it falls into anthropomorphism ; as it contracts the union of the human and the Divine to one special situation, it thus inevitably draws down the Divine into the existence-form of man. The main fact, however, is that, like to all other life and being, so also that of religion cannot have more than one centre ; either God or Christ stands in the centre, and the one consequently represses the other. Con- cerning the decision, there cannot be the least doubt : the fact is clear in the soul-struggles of the great religious personalities, that in a decisive act of the soul the doctrinal idea of mediation recedes into the background, and a direct relationship with God becomes a fact of immediacy and intimacy. And the idea of mediation glides easily into a further mediation. Has not the figure of Christ receded 588 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT in Catholicism, and does not the figure of Mary constitute the centre of the religious emotional life? Such a conviction does not exclude the fact that a man is able to be a great help to men in their upward path towards God ; and does not exclude the fact that the human personality who first and foremost brought eternal truth to the plane of time and through this inaugurated a new epoch remains per- manently present in the picture of the spiritual world, and is able permanently to exercise a mighty power upon the soul. Such a personality as Jesus is not the mere bearer of doctrines or of a special frame of mind, but is a convincing fact and proof of the Divine Life, a proof at which new life can be kindled ever anew. The fact is at the same time the source of a move- ment which cannot be estimated ; it is from this source that a great yearning has been implanted within the human breast — a longing for a new life of love and peace, of purity and simplicity. Such a life with its incomparable nature and its mysterious depths does not^ exhaust itself through historical effects, but humanity can from hence ever return afresh to its inmost essence, and can strengthen itself ever anew through the certainty of a new, pure and spiritual world over against the meaningless aspects of nature and over against the vulgar mechan- ism of a culture merely human. But all this is far removed from any idea of media- tion, and far removed from the setting of a human personality in Divine power and worship. And if we have thus to protest against the position accorded to Jesus by the traditional form of Christianity, so THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 589 that we have to part company with a Christo-centric configuration on account of the breach with the old mode of thinking, yet we cling to *an essential con- tent and a metaphysical depth in the human image of Jesus, and seek in this the sole standard of the religious life. One had good ground for doing this so long as Jesus Christ was considered in his humanity as true God, as the second person in the Trinity. But where this belief has been abandoned, the ex- clusive linking of life to Jesus becomes an inadmis- sible contraction and diminution of religion. Also, the pathway to the facts dare not become the facts themselves, and dare not bring the metaphysical and eternal in religion into obscurity. The Christianity which occupies itself solely with Jesus and which to many to-day seems an exit from all entanglements, is not yet a match for the mighty problems, and does not carry within itself the energy to overcome the world. Thus, we witness the most pointed antagonism between the traditional and a new aspiring Christi- anity. All along the line, the two conceptions do not appear as a More or a Less between which some kind of a Mean can be found, but they appear as opposites in their main tendencies. The breadth which the one desires is held by the other to be an evaporation ; the consolidation upon which the one insists is held by the other to be no more than a semblance and a humanisation ; the doctrine of mediation which signifies to the one an indispens- able entrance to the Godhead, appears to the other as a diminution of the Divine and as a weakening of the fundamental process of religion. 590 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT In the midst of such antagonism and such an actual cleft, what can now signify a clinging to an appear- ance of unity ? The old mode is right when it com- plains that the traditional values are buried under new and strange phenomena and meanings ; the old view fears an injury to the substance of Christianity from such a new interpretation, and calls up and stands upon a tradition from century to century in order to hold fast the pure and true configuration of Christianity gained for once and for all. The new mode desires clear divisions of the material whenever it feels itself the representative of truth, and when it feels it its duty to set forth truth with the whole of its energy. It feels that it is only through an entire independence it can overcome all the prior hesitation of halting in front of a problem ; it feels that it is able to progress from a more negative to a more positive construction ; it feels that it is able to test the experience of human nature, and that through a struggle with the opposites it is able inwardly to grow. Thus, as things now stand, the opponents consume their best energy in reciprocal disputes ; through the one questioning the rights and wrongs of the other, the subject-matter itself is not furthered, and, more than all, the confused state of things hinders veracity, and without such veracity the pre- sent crisis in religion cannot be overcome. This new disunion will not be able for any great length of time to keep religion in the background. Indeed, this fact is even now becoming visible. Religious questions occupy and govern more and more the minds of men ; they kindle the passions and call to battle. They do this at present, it is true, THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 591 more from without and not always in a desirable manner, but an inward change is visible and wide- awake. Old and seemingly-settlecf questions arise anew and show that all the transformations of life have not entirely broken their power. Such a light in the direction of religion drives out with mighty power that gloomy twilight which is the abode of halfness and obscurity, and such a light brings the concealed contradiction to a clear consciousness and makes it intolerable. It is out of an honourable adjustment of the Old and the New, however, that the effort after a reconstruction of Christian truth must issue — a reconstruction of the universal validity of the Spiritual Life, which already wells up as a mighty aspiration in the hearts of many who hunger and thirst after truth and eternity, but whose deep craving is no longer satisfied by the old forms. How long shall religion be considered a mere stepchild of that which suppresses conscience and conviction ? How long are we to search for eternal truth upon an obsolete road ? That things are not easy and comfort- able on the new road is easily seen, and it is to this fact we now pass. 2. The Necessity of a New Mode of Christianity When we aspire after a new form of Christianity and simultaneously deem necessary a breach with tradition, we are not blind in any way to the danger and difficulty of the problem. The traditional form has for centuries held together a large portion of humanity ; it has given life and conviction a fixed direction, as well as a foothold and confidence to an innumerable number of souls, and it has been the 592 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT means of interesting the widest circles in spiritual tasks. All this is already evident as something great beyond measure when we compare it with the small spiritual activity brought forth by the ordinary life of men and with the instability of the Spiritual Life within the mere-human circle. In reflecting on all this, the breach with the traditional form of religion may appear as an upheaval of morality as well as of intellectual connections. In a word, this may appear as an endangering of all that lifted man beyond his small self and beyond mere nature. In reality, there exist here grave dangers, and a great risk is un- mistakable. Such a breach is justified only if it is aspired after on account of a spiritual necessity of man's nature, superior to all human considerations and reflections. And this will be the case in the province of religion when it is perceived that the old form of religion is unable to solve our own religious problems, and when simultaneously our own interest in religion has turned into an aspiration and effort after an inner renewal. That this is actually the case to-day has been the leading thought of the whole of our in- vestigation, and we need here do no more than bring this thought to its final connection and conclusion. Religion has its nucleus in eternal truths — in truths which, once they are grasped, cannot be overthrown by any transformation of the work of the world. But such truths want to produce effects upon man, and, in order to do this, they must enter into his sphere, and their existential-form must correspond to the universal situation of spiritual evolution. Within this universal situation, as we have already observed, not only slight re- arrangements but deep and pene- THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 593 trating transformations have already occurred against the old mode of Christianity, and these transforma- tions are not merely in contact wifli the periphery but reach into the very centre of life itself. A mere change of views concerning the external would stir only slightly, but something infinitely more happens when simultaneously the Life-process and the whole mode of thinking transform themselves, when man becomes something other than he was before, when his fundamental relationship to reality is transformed, and when the whole domain of his life is reshaped. For as certainly as religion does not stand merely by the side but within life, quite as certain is it that it relates itself to such transforma- tions. The thought-world of the old form has become far too narrow and anthropomorphic ; its opposition to reason — an opposition which was for- merly considered to be the doing of man alone — ^has spread by to-day over the whole religious world, and such a conception has increased immeasurably the obscurity of reality and has given rise to an in- creased difficulty in discovering what religion really means. In its earlier stages, this old thought-world presented a picture of the greatness and goodness of the All, and thus religion appeared as the rela- tionship of man to a nature incomparably higher than himself, but still a nature in analogy with his own nature. But now the world of nature has drawn man to itself; he becomes now a mere drop in the sea unless he recognises the dawning of a new and essential reality within his spiritual nature. Thus, what appeared as his secure possession turns now into a difficult problem ; he now undertakes a 38 594 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT task — the task how to penetrate from his ordinary surface-situation to the spiritual depth of life. Con- sequently a religion of the Spiritual Life must stand in bold relief from that of mere man, for the latter aspect of religion threatens more and more to become a mere mythology. Therewith all conceptions of Divine things become inadequate ; much that was held hitherto valid as entire truth has now become a mere symbol from which it is necessary to move further and further. But, at the same time, the spiritual contents gain an independence, and exercise a transforming energy on man ; life raises itself now through religion from the subjective to the substantial, and subsists more and more upon a real transforma- tion of its own being. All along we stand here face to face with new tasks, and we can never hope to come nearer their solution unless the altered situation is fully acknowledged and unless a struggle is under- taken from such an altered situation. The old mode of religion withdraws itself from such an acknowledgment of the altered situation ; it allows only some isolated elements to fall upon itself — results which have now become incontestable. It accepts now, for instance, the Copernican view of the universe, but it had to be dragged to accept it ; it does not posit itself willingly even now within the whole meaning of the conception, but stands mistrustful and on the defensive over against it, so that it cannot loyally adjust itself on the side of the Yea or the Nay of that and other movements. Con- sequently it cannot seize the fruit offered by such movements to religion. The consequence of this leads to a constant and THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 595 unbearable frittering away of life. Culture more and more pushes back the old mode of religion, and through this enters into an ever-g?eater secular and soulless mode. Religion thus becomes more and more of an isolated province, and the channel between it and knowledge widens ; thus its distance from men becomes ever greater until the mental efforts and ascents of humanity become indifferent to it. This indifference is the greatest enemy to religion, and is in reality more dangerous than all the assaults of doubt. And yet this indifference cannot be avoided if religion is severed from the whole of life. The indifference, indeed, will strike its roots ever deeper until religion once more gains a fixed connec- tion with the whole of life. The older mode of religion, in the midst of all these hindrances, exercises still a powerful effect, and in so far as positive achievements are concerned, it is still far ahead of the new mode. But these effects confine themselves to particular provinces : the totality of spiritual work and the main current of life are no longer dominated by the older mode ; it is not so much a universal as a particular mode as " all who call themselves Christians " are only too apt to let us know. The fact that great masses of the people cling to the older mode does not at all prove that they have come to any kind of conscious decision concerning the differences of the Old and the New, but only proves that they have not as yet come into contact with the problems and doubts of the age — that these problems have not as yet entered into their consciousness. But these problems and doubts are the very things which render the position of 596 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT religion insecure. For sooner or later a contact with them is bound to take place. The question is, will people then be true to the old customs and practices ? In fact, religion is able to reveal its entitled position when it holds the full heights of the Spiritual Life, and through this proves itself necessary and fruit- bearing ; and also when, in connection with the move- ments of life, it draws the " kinsman " within these movements and drives out the " old enemy." But as the old form cannot lend itself in any great degree to such a task, it needs a new existential-form ; it needs before all else — in the very interest of religion itself — to free the Eternal within itself from its temporal forms, and the spiritual substance from human notions. We discover in the old mode too much that is languid and alien. Men have become tired of its form and also of its language, and it does not any longer issue forth from a rapturous energy and youthful freshness of the whole of our own life, as it always does when the entire truth and effects of religion are at work. Now, as we have to live our own life and carry our own destiny, shall we reject the aid of our indis- pensable helper on the road of life — religion ? There are no such things as restorations, in religion as else- where, and the Spiritual Life will never return to the old forms. It thus behoves us to take heed of what is ahead of us and to strive to reach it. But, indispensable as the effort after a new existential- form is, yet there can be no doubt as to the immense difficulty of the task if we do not conceive it in a wrong or petty manner. The first demand is, that in the transformation of the existential-form nothing of THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 597 the genuine substance should be lost, but that the new existential-form should succeed in giving this sub- stance purer, more energetic, ancf more universal effects. This is, however, possible only if the problem of the adjustment of religion and culture is not under- stood as in any way desirous of a relaxation of religion with knowledge, and, on the other hand, is not desirous of an absolute adjustment of both. The solution will come when religion enters into the relationship as an independent power and with all its independent content — when it is not only measured by culture, but when it, in its turn, measures, judges, rejects, and selects. All this is necessary for religion when face to face with modern culture, because modern culture is not of a simple and obvious nature. It comprises movements, experiences, and unfoldings of the Spiritual Life from which it cannot for ever withdraw itself ; but such a culture also carries within itself temporal and human tendencies of a highly pro- blematic character — tendencies which contradict most pointedly the dominant trend of religion and even of Christianity. Modern culture as it expresses itself in human formulations — with its material joy in, and its ready affirmations of, life, with its repression and even displacement of ethical greatness, with its abandon- ment of eternity to the doctrine of evolution — is not only at variance with this or that existential -form of religion but with each and all religion. He who makes, therefore, such a culture a standard for measuring religion has there and then decided against religion. But for him to whom religion has become a serious concern a struggle against such tendencies of culture has become inevitable, and he must forge his way 598 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT with all the energy at his command to the funda- mental differentiation of the elements of spiritual truth and of the human errors found within the whole situation of culture. Hence all definite movements for a renewal of religion must be differentiated clearly from the move- ments which are found within the domain of culture. Unless this is done, we may hold fast to a kind of religion which inevitably falls into great shallowness. In an age of religious crisis, as we witness to-day, the superficial is always the nearest-at-hand remedy and the loudest in its claims ; it is able to hide its own poverty of life under the colours of freedom ; it has on its side the half-educated and, even more, the over- educated to whom negations are so pleasing and smugness is so welcome. This is also true of those movements that attempt to shape religion in harmony with what is termed " the spirit of the age " — shape it in harmony with all that bubbles from the playful fountains of time — and that avoid every genuine Nay and look upon every sharp collision as a disturbance of their "life at ease." Even to-day any movement be it ever so perverted and hostile to genuine religion will find so-called " liberal-minded " people who feel themselves the true messengers of the times when they declare that their message can be made to fit excellently with religion and even with Christianity, and that it is here alone the meaning of both can be found. It is necessary over against such an unworthy adjustment of the times to hold forth the superiority and the trenchancy of the timeless truth ; it is necessary to uphold the independence of religion over against a superficiality of knowledge and to THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 599 exercise an energetic criticism on the claims of culture from the standpoint of religion. Those who are unable any longer to cling to 1!he Old constitute two main classes. The one class feels the need for no more than a minimum of religion, whilst the other class strives to obtain a maximum. The former places itself under the contents of time, whilst the latter attempts to raise itself above time ; the former feels itself already in possession of all essentials, whilst the latter sees itself as only just entering on an infinite quest. The sincerity of life and the progress of the religious movement can only be furthered when the two classes are differentiated more clearly from one another than has hitherto been the case. He who conceives the religious problem in its varied difficulties is unable to deny that religion has lost unspeakably much through the upheaval of the old form, and, further, he sees the need of making good such a loss. But such an urgent result can come about only through a strengthening of the substance of religion — through the energetic working out of its fundamental characteristics, and through the un- daunted assertion of all that raises religion above the mere level of time. Religion is thus raised to the metaphysical and transcendental which frighten so much the ordinary man of the present. The con- tradictions of human life must be fully acknowledged if ever a true effort for overcoming them is to be set in motion. The Either -Or which runs through the whole of life must stand clearly in front of us, and we must take a decisive stand within the situation. A thorough-going clarification of the 600 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT entangled situation and a severance of spirits accord- ing to their fundamental convictions are the first requisites for the turn towards a better state of things. And then comes the need of building up and creating, of collecting and penetrating, of select- ing and possessing, a new reality. But all this is not possible without a deepening of the total Life-pro- cess — without an energetic self-recollection of the Spiritual Life and a stepping beyond the situation of the times. Our whole investigation rests upon the conviction that the religious problem is not to be handled isolated from, but within, the totality of life ; it rests upon the fact of the phenomenon of the Spiritual Life and the characteristic way in which it is to be conceived ; it rests upon the fact that this Spiritual Life binds itself into a Whole, and upon the acknowledgment of an essential and independent reality within it which became the fixed standard and great task of religion. The necessary conditions for a renewal of religion are solely the elevation and the energetic development of the Spiritual Life. It is in this alone that a sufficient compensation for the loss of the Old can be found, and it is here alone that the new mode can overcome the opposition directed against it from the side of the old mode. The old mode often misses a sufficiency of actuality in the New ; the New seems to the Old to lack the certainty that man in religion is raised above himself by means of a superior power, and is also led to a new life. This complaint is valid in connection with all attempts to found religion upon mere psychology, for when this happens, it is either the intellectual or the affective side of the nature — either THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 601 ideas and concepts, or judgments of value and feelings — which take the lead. Through any of these, man may be able to revolve vs^ithin his own circle, but he is never able to come out of his subjectivity, and the energy of truth can never invest his psychic state or his partial and one-sided qualities with an absolute value. But it is quite otherwise when the Spiritual Life in its independence is acknowledged, and when it is understood as the presence of a new kind of world. Through this the total outlook of life changes itself, so that it is not now necessary that man should be guided to this new world by means of some iso- lated portion of his nature. The man now possesses energy of a spiritual nature to be a participator in such a new world ; his need now is to develop such a cosmic life within his own consciousness and all that it includes. Thus, the fundamental fact and proof of all lies in the totality of the Spiritual Life itself, and all remaining facts and proofs have to be connected with this one fundamental fact. The result then is that religion is raised above all mere subjectivity. Further, the new mode complains of the " abstract- ness " found in the indeterminate concepts of the old mode, and states that such an " abstractness " does not help towards bringing about an energetic effect of religion. Much is to be said in favour of this com- plaint of the new mode, but it is not in its favour that it often does not attempt to discover the nature of religion within the characteristic formation of Spiritual Life. It is in doing this that the concrete- ness of religion lies and not in copious and learned disquisitions concerning doctrines and organisations 602 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT — disquisitions which may concede that some kind of needed nucleus lies beneath all this but is imbedded in great obscurity. How is it, if no more than this were needed, that CathoUcism with its colossal machinery often fails to manifest with sufficient clear- ness and energy what is new and world-renovating in Christianity ? The characteristic and the concrete in religion can be brought forth, however, by the New through an exclusive concentration upon the spiritual content ; and once this Yea has become the conviction of the new mode, it can pronounce judgment on any Nay it likes. It is characteristic of religion before all else that it constitutes the ethical formation of the Spiritual Life, its foundation in freedom and deed, its demand for a new kind of existence, and its creation of a world subsisting within itself. This signifies incomparably more than a mere fulfilment of moral rules within a given earthly organisation ; it contains the most unique and decisive assertions and denials ; it withstands the alleged sovereign claims of all intellectual and aesthetic formations of life ; it withstands the im- mersion of our life into an environing world and into a blind destiny. But notwithstanding all such characteristics, ethical idealism is only the presup- position of religion and not religion itself. A turn to religion results only through the problems and con- flicts which originate from this foundation through a deep convulsion of the nature of man ; and when this has happened, the elevation and transformation become religion. It is obvious that all this, through its reciprocal relations, exhibits an entirely new and characteristic type of life, and it is this type with its THE TRANSIENT IN CHRISTIANITY 603 facts and tasks, its developments and conquests — as our whole investigation has attempted to prove — which constitutes the genuine cdhcreteness of the Spiritual Life upon which we take our stand. It may appear at the first glance as though the new mode does not place the problem of moral wrong so exclusively in the foreground as the old mode places it, and this assertion appears to the old mode as a sign of a laxer mode of thinking. This may be true concerning a number of the forms of the New, but it is not true of all. The New is able to acknowledge in the fullest possible manner that nothing reveals the depth of life so much as the discovery of an ethical conflict within human nature. And it is this fact which gives the religious problem a compelling power. But the acknowledgment of this inner conflict has to pass beneath the level of conscious mental reflection and shallow delineation, because such a procedure blunts the real facts and glides easily into unveracity. Thus, the conceptions of freedom and moral guilt must be viewed in a wider sense than the old mode has yet done. We cannot agree with the old mode that all evil is to be traced back to the deeds of man or that sin brought death for the first time into our world. We must hold fast to freedom, but at the same time we must not deny the fact of the mighty power of a dark destiny. This problem has to be placed in the very front of the old mode, and it has to be shown that the problem has mysterious depths. The problem Avill thus be handled in a more circumspect, more tender, and less anthropomorphic manner than has been the case with the past Protestantism of the 604 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT Church ; and notwithstanding the change, the earnest- ness concerning the facts will preserve everything essential from being lost. The New then may live convinced that nothing of the energy and depth of religion need be lost upon its path. And it will certainly realise that it is only at the beginning of the road and still far removed from any kind of terminus. How the course of things will shape themselves in the distant future lies for us enwrapped in deep darkness. For manifold factors are operating at the present day which are creating some of the elements of that distant future. These factors are the fortunes and experiences of humanity, of great personalities, and of the character- istic and most important universal elements of the times. But we need not trouble our hearts concern- ing the contour of that distant future. There is in the present enough and to spare for us to do. The activism of the present, taken in its deepest sense, has work enough under its very eyes to trace the outlines of a new ideal world in the midst of a per- verse generation and the midst of immense con- fusions. The great task to-day is to carve out deeply and clearly the main bearings of life— bearings where all efforts can co-operate and where the deepest spirit of man can find its greatest energy. Even if all this be only of a preparatory kind, preparation itself is part of the total-work, and no one, at bottom, can know where the preliminaries go over into the work itself. PART v.— CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT (Continued) CHAPTER XVII c. The Situation and Demands of the Present Great as the difficulties of a new configuration of religion are, they must not discourage us from entering upon the task, for behind this task an urgent need of the times calls us to the work — a need which wells up ever to the surface. We live in an age of richness and movement — an age which no one dare brand as paltry, and which, with all its activities, capacity for work, and its over-flowing life, should never be assimilated too closely with the stagnation of waning antiquity. But it is an age afflicted with an immense contra- diction. It is wonderfully great in its mastery of, and achievements within, the environing world, but, on the other hand, it is deplorably poor and insecure in regard to the problems of the inner life and the inner world. Such a contradiction cannot be toler- ated forever. As certain as it is that it will be overcome, quite as certain is the fact that religion will once more step forth as the fact of facts, and prepare for itself an appropriate configuration of the essential and universal elements of life and existence. 605 606 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT There is no need for us here to delineate the power of man over the world : it is evident to all. Most evident are the gains over nature through science and technics ; and also the conditions of human relations have become incomparably clearer and more tract- able. We understand how to unravel the skein of the past and how to weave a meaning out of its isolated threads, and how to differentiate the sub- jective clothing of things from their essential aspects. Further, we observe in the corporate life of men the immense growth of the power of administration and organisation, and through all this we are able to obtain our wants and needs in an incomparably securer and easier way than at any other period in the history of our world. In all this, man has be- come more and more the master of things. But all this potency has a measured and limited boundary. This potency is confined to what the capacities of man are able to extract from the external world, but the potency does not reach to that which exists with- in his own soul, and does not lead to the growth and the blossoming of an inner world. And consequently life in the midst of all its achievements remains resting upon the external, and man has to consider himself ever as something of an alien in the midst of it all if he is ever to exercise real power and to exhibit his genuine superiority over the world. Whilst the effort and the energy are so strongly drawn towards the external, the inner life — the heritage of long millenniums — has become afflicted with a grave anxiety and insecurity. But this inner life is too deeply implanted and rooted in human nature through the work of the millenniums to be ever THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT 607 shaken off as an alien thing or to be considered in any light-hearted manner. It holds us fast and raises its claims ; it forbids us to find satisfaction in all the things of sense and time. But in the midst of all the contradictions the inner life is unable to reach by itself a clear and energetic content, and it will never reach it by looking externally. We remain therefore on the inward side as poor in the midst of all the external plenty which surrounds us as if we were not the possessors of it at all. We discover this poverty " in the inward parts " in a stronger and more painful manner if we do not wrap our inward exigency with historical tra- dition, if we do not call upon antiquity or upon the beginnings of modern times to come to our immediate assistance, and if we cease to look to the traditional form of religion for the deepening of life and for consolidation. In fact, the situation of mankind has altered so much through the work and experience of modern times that the older mode of thinking cannot possibly satisfy our life in its entirety. We may feel great interest in much that is contained in the old mode and allow ourselves to be carried along with it, but a point arrives where a parting of the ways takes place for ever. In reality, we cannot approach certain aspects of the Old without simul- taneously moving away from other aspects ; we cannot affirm certain aspects of history without at the same time having to deny other aspects. There- fore, if we take the whole of any historical occurrence as our guide, there cannot be at work more than half of our energy and character ; we shall thus turn hither and thither in the most unsteady manner ; and 608 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT amongst all the chaos of the contradictory impressions we shall fall at last into dulness and weariness. What remains? The immediate present moment remains. And if this present moment possesses not as yet a connected inner world, still it possesses the free spontaneous feeling and the natural individuality of the individual. But can these become the standard of a new life ? It is certain that from this source much can become alive and move, raise and turn itself, affirm and deny, devote itself energetically in divers ways to vista beyond vista and task beyond task. But notwithstanding such a possession life still remains under the ban of the accidental and the superficial ; it has not yet possessed the genuine substance and the durable truth. Indeed, the farther life travels on this road without these essentials on its journey, the more it falls amongst strange situa- tions, mistakes, and eccentricities. And thus there arises that shallow situation of which we are all aware, and which we need only briefly refer to here. The basing of life upon subjectivity and natural individuality causes inner divisions of the human race ; it causes a frittering away of the life of the soul of the whole and the soul of each individual. It was the main service of traditional religion that it raised up and presented a total-task and total-aim for humanity ; the individual was introduced to the life of the fellowship ; he received from this source light and guidance ; each individual experienced intimately the fate of the whole, and so could always with- draw from the fleetingness of his own individual conclusions to this ; it is in this total-life of the fellowship that the individual finds support and THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT 609 consolation, motive and enhancement, norm and standard. And, further, men were thus held closely together ; the common task and*the daily burden of each and all was understood by each and all ; they laboured and suffered together, and they loved and hated together. Here was a source of spiritual energy and ethical character which no proclamation of mere doctrine and no appeal of mere emotion could ever replace. It is a loss which cannot be estimated when such an inner fellowship and, along with it, a life out of the Whole decay. It is a loss when each individual plants himself upon the particularity of his natural individuality, and when an exaggerated individualism is developed without any reservation and counter- poise. If this calamity happens, all the energies which worked together in 1;he fellowship now work against one another. The result is an intellectual and moral disintegration ; men understand one another less and less, live less and less for one another, and more and more rarely are they to be found shoulder to shoulder. Can we deny that mankind divides itself more and more into opposites and parties, and that the colossal associations in the domains of material work oppose the independence of the inner life ? It is a strange life which issues out of such an unbounded development of subjectivity and natural individuality. Man in all this is most busy with himself, observes himself, mirrors and reflects his own states ; he ruminates and broods more and more over himself, seeks to refine his small artistic soul and to free himself from all the deeper concerns 610 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT of life and existence. Thus, life is posited more and more upon mere reflection and is turned towards whims and delusions ; it loses all its naivete — all simple innocence and inner necessities. But here- with it enters into a track where mind and soul are neither well nor sick, and where artificiality and eccentricity keep company with prejudice and jealousy. The elevation of natural individuality to the level of a guide of life has as its result the shaping of life in a puny, piecemeal, irregular, and curious fashion. Paradoxes and commonplaces now present themselves as excellences, but they never lead to even a medi- ocre independence although the man is in urgent need of greatness and independence in order to compare his life with such trivial things and in order to be raised above them. The individual has here no inner world beyond himself, so that he cannot measure himself and cannot obtain fulfilment for his life. What remains for him but to return towards the external world and seek there a flimsy greatness by means of a " brilliant career " and often of an overstrain ? Through the convergence of these individual cur- rents of life, no life of greatness can ever issue forth. A chaos of conflicting movements, contrary hin- drances and weaknesses, sudden rising and abrupt falling, no governing main drift which differentiates between good and evil and between the real and the apparent, no energetic counter-effect to the petty and the common on the highways of human life, and, instead of an energetic spirituality, a refining of the sensuous right up to a senile sensuality — all this THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT 611 takes place. All culture which possesses no sub- stance, notwithstanding all its aspiration after reality and notwithstanding all the excitement of its sub- jectivity, possesses no soul, and in the whirl of fleeting appearances obscures the great Either-Or. The words of Pestalozzi are even more needful for our day than for his own : " Light and darkness have always been in our world, but most of the light and darkness stood out in greater bold relief in days of yore — in the dark days themselves — and were clearer and more real to the eyes of men. Darkness was then recognised by the seer fully as darkness. But to-day the darkness has become light and the light darkness." In such a critical time as ours, which meets the life of humanity everywhere, this truth of Pestalozzi becomes particularly plain if we compare the universal weakness of the inner life with the colossal capacity of a scientific, technical, and practical kind. We are occupying ourselves very diligently in a scientific, historical, and reflective way with Philosophy, but we possess no Philosophy of our own — no philosophical creativeness of an independent kind. We occupy ourselves incessantly with history, and have carried the results of technics to a marvellous height, but we lack all along the meaning of history as a totality, and are not able to cross the bridge from the past to the present. Our literature sets in motion individual sides of the soul, but it does not seize and bind together man in the totality of his being — it does not strike its root into the depth of man's nature. Our art works diligently and aspires zealously after truth, but it does not 612 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT succeed in bringing the chaos of the times to its own track. We deal more than ever to-day with educa- tion, but we possess no united and simple ideal. We trouble incessantly for the betterment of political and social relations, but we come to a painful halt wherever the final aims and the highest happiness of man are at stake. Everywhere we witness the absence of a self-reliant Spiritual Life which would be superior to the wealth of the conflicting im- pressions, and which would carry the universal situation of the present into a connected and simple expression. Our day is also full of inner problems, and we have not grown strong enough to attack them ; we sink back ever anew into the petty- human level and fail to reach a genuine content of life — fail to reach consolidation and greatness. All this will not be seen so long as man allows himself to remain entirely in such a state of impulse and mechanism and only hurries breathlessly along from one small point to another. But once he steps out of such a situation and strikes out for a new path of the Whole, he will certainly discover the nature of the painful situation. He will discover the situation to be that of incessant toil and work without many pure gains, of fascinating achievements in isolated things but of a trivial value for the totality of life, of a highly complicated apparatus of civilisation and culture but of no living soul in the Whole, of burning impulses of the fleeting moment but of no creative- ness, eternal values, or eternal hopes. Why all this labour and toil if the whole thing has no meaning but relapses at last into nothingness ? But one needs but grasp clearly the crisis of THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT 613 such a culture in order to raise himself above all anxiety for the future. The boundaries of such negations and shallowness have beeh set : there comes a point where man within his own being and life discovers their destructive energy, and when this happens the counter-effect is not far away. Man now takes up the struggle on behalf of his threatened spiritual existence ; he grips the inner connections of his being once again — connections in which his deepest being has its foundation — and new energies will flow from such a source and strengthen him towards producing a culture which signifies once more an independent inner world, and which is able to grant their true valuation to all the relationships of his life. We really stand to-day on the verge of an aspiration after an essential culture — a culture of the whole man — after an inwardness which corre- sponds to the most important meanings of the Spiritual Life. In the midst of the tangle and the loud lament of the initial stages, the aspiration will become stronger and stronger ; it needs but an energetic concentration of effort as well as a definite focussing of energies in order that the movement may proceed on its upward course — beyond the realm of the petty circle and into a realm beyond all earthly bounds. The possibilities of life are not yet exhausted : new avenues and tasks open out whenever we discover the courage of creativeness and the right point of attack, but it is imperative that we should possess the conviction and that the conviction should possess us that reality has a depth beyond the natural man, and that we are able to gain admission to such a depth. 614 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT But a movement towards a more essential and soul-stirring culture — to a progressive superiority of a total-life beyond all individual activities — cannot arise without bringing the problem of religion once more to the foreground. Our life is not able to find its bearings within this deep or to gather its treasures into a Whole unless it realises how many acute opposites it carries within itself. Life will either be torn in pieces by these opposites or it must somehow be raised above them all. It is the latter alone that can bring about a fundamental transformation of our first and shallow view of the universe as well as the inauguration of a new reality. It is this which religion announces to man and promises to bring to his soul in its dire need. Man has emerged out of the darkness of nature and remains afflicted with the afflictions of nature, yet at the same time, with his appearance upon the earth the darkness begins to illumine, and " nature kindles within him a light " (Schopenhauer) ; he who is a mere speck on the face of a boundless expanse can yet aspire to a participation in the whole of Infinity ; he who stands in the midst of the flux of time yet pos- sesses an aspiration after infinite truth ; he who forms but a mere piece of nature constructs at the same time a new world within the Spiritual Life over against it all ; he who finds himself confined by contradictions of all kinds, and which immediate existence in no way can solve, yet struggles after a further depth of reality and after the " narrow gate " which opens into religion. Through and beyond all the individual problems of life and the world, it behoves us to raise the Spiritual Life to a level of THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT 615 full independence, to make it simultaneously supe- rior to man as an individual and to bring it back into his soul. When this happefis, there happens at the same time a transformation of his inmost being, and for the first time he becomes capable of genuine greatness. The aspiration after a new culture carries thus within itself in an immediate and intimate manner the aspiration after a rejuvenation of religion. Re- ligion and culture will thus instruct one another. Without religion the inwardness cannot become a self-reliant province and cannot rise above the ex- ternal world ; without a connection with the whole of life and also with culture, religion loses its char- acteristic spiritual content and threatens to sink into a merely subjective disposition. Consequently the deficiency or the curtailment of one is also an injury to the other. These final conclusions strengthen the aspiration after a religion of the Spiritual Life, which has run through the whole of our investigation. Such a religion is in no way new, and Christianity has proclaimed it and clung to it from the very begin- ning. But it has been so interweaved with traditional forms which are now seen through by so many as pictorial ideas of epochs and times. Earlier times could allow the essence and the form to flow in- separably together without discovering any incon- gruity in this. But the time for doing this has irrevocably passed away. The human which once seemed to bring the Spiritual and Divine so near to man has now become a burden and a hind- rance to him. A keener analysis, a more independent 616 CHRISTIANITY AND THE PRESENT development of the Spiritual and Divine, and along with this, the truth of religion, do not succeed in reaching their full effects if religion is looked upon as merely something to protect individuals, instead of looking upon it as that which furthers the whole of humanity — as that which is not merely a succour in times of trouble and sorrow but also as that which guarantees an enhancement in work and creativeness. The situation is difficult and full of dangers, and small in the meantime are the number of those who grasp it in a deep and free sense, and who yet are determined to penetrate victoriously into it, so that the inner necessities of the Spiritual Life may dawn within the soul of man. Whatever new tasks and difficulties lie in the lap of the future, to-day it behoves us before all else to proceed a step upward in that direction of the summits and to draw new energies and depths of the Spiritual Life into the domain of man, for this kind of work will prevent the coming of an " old age " upon humanity and will breathe into its soul the gift of Eternal Youth. INDEX OF NAMES AND OF SUBJECT MATTERS Absolute and Historical Re- ligion, 534 W. life: its conception, 193, 208. Activity demanded in religion, 483, 562, 580 ff. Antithetic character of the Spiritual, especially of the Religious Life, 242 ff., 542 ff. Art : as an overcoming of an interior opposition and in connection with religion, 133 ff., 450 ff., 505. Autonomous Life and Auto- nomies, 152, 153, 204, 205. Bacon, 532. Being, and the formation of Being, 161, 162, 422. Biological conception of life : its peculiarity and its danger, 27, 51, 52. Bodily resurrection of Jesus : no object of faith, 550, 551. Bohme, J., 498. Buddha, 521. Catholicism (Roman), 565, 567, 602. Changes and crises in historical movements, 357, 358. Characteristic Religion : its con- ception, 410 ff. its detailed development, 419 ff. Characteristic Religion : its place in education, 468 ff. its relation to the historical religions, 41 1 ff. its relation to Universal Re- ligion, 411 ff. Christian religion, the : as over against history and culture, 556 ff as over against the changes within the Spiritual Life itself, 563 ff. effect of its beginnings, 227. its eternal substance, 539 ff- its maintenance, as over against the changes in the outlook on to Nature, 547 ff. its peculiarity, 7, 539 ff., 546, 547. its temporal form, 576 ff. its union of the Divine and the human, 206, 544. of its mediaeval form, 41, 42, 194. peculiarity of its older form, 20 ff., 40, 41, 65, 559, 576 ff. Christian State, Christian Sci- ence : the right and the wrong in these conceptions, 495 ff. Childlikeness : its connection with religion, 451, 452. Church, the : demands concern- ing its formation, 467 ff. 617 618 INDEX Church, the : its necessity and its dangers, 458 fF. Cognition : its complications, 100 ff. its conditions, 148. Concreteness in religion ; how to be understood, 601 fF, Confucius, 394. Conscience : its significance and its limits, 336 S. Cosmic Interior Life : as pre- supposition of all striving after interiority, 1 65 ff. Creativeness (spiritual) : its char- acter and its conditions, 146 ff. Culture and Civilisation : their character and their relation to religion, 58, 68 ff., 142, 560 ff in contrast to morals, 318. in contrast to religion, 296 ff. Dead, judgment of the : motive of this conception, 334. Determinism : its presupposi- tions and its insufficiency, 172 ff., 223 ff, 265 ff. Development, doctrine of, and idea of Evolution : their limits, 109, 116 ff. their relation to religion, 27, 29, 554 ff., 569. Diabolical, the, in human nature, 324. Dialectic, the, of religion, 425 ff., 436, 542. of universal religion, 357. Disposition and power: their alienation, 316 ff. Divine, the, and the human : their inter-relation, 222 ft., 579 ff. complication of this inter- relation within the histori- cal religions, 380 ff. Doubt : its power, its right and its wrong, 9, 233, 519 ff- Drama, the, as an image of human life, 288, 516. Eckhart, Meister, 188, 190, 207. Emancipation of the Spiritual Life from man, 36, 569 ff- Enemies, love of our (as indica- tion of a new world-order), 392 ff. Eternal, the, and the temporal : their mutual relations with- in religion, 193. Eternity, the longing for, 270, 446. as presupposition of history, 176. Ethical Idealism : its character and its superiority, 173, 602. Evil : its reality recognised by religion, 1 4, 499. its treatment in religion, 502 ff. Existence, Existential Form (in contradistinction to sub- stance), 182 ff., 514 ff. Existences (in contradistinction to Natures), 184. Experience (distinguished from merely empirical know- ledge), 137. Faith and doubt, 518 ff. its necessary conception, 232, 237 ff., 518 ff. Fatalism, 324. Fate and guilt, 324, 340 ff. of the work, 144. Feeling : its significance for the psychic starting-point of religion, 226. its insufficiency as a basis of rehgion, 67, 78. Fichte, 34, 271. Following of Christ, 553. INDEX 619 Formal reason : its quarrel with material reason, 212, 293. Freedom and depth, 319. and Equality : their connec- tion with religion, 263 iF., 444 ff. and grace, 205 ff., 223 ff. God, the idea of, 181, 208 ff., 371 ff, 429 ff. its twofold interpretation in ecclesiastical Christianity, 210 ff. Godhead and God, 429 ff. Goethe, 54, 133, 140, 151, 215, 337, 344. Good, the, and the useful, 124 ff. Greatness, the longing for : its connection with religion, 278, 290 ff., 447. Greek manner of thinking and view of life, 101, 105, 233, 263, 559. Guilt, 500, 527, 603. Habit : limits of its efficiency, 125 ff. Hegel, 80, 149, 474, 536. Higher, the, and the lower : opposite direction of the ex- planation of them, 502 ff., 507, 556. History : conditions for a history of a spiritual kind, 55 ff. its relation to religion, 28 ff., 434 ff. its significance within religion, 475 ff. limits of its efficacy in the domain of the Spiritual Life, 113 ff, 176. of the soul : introduced by religion, 434. Historical criticism : its origin and effect, 32 ff. religions, 6 ff., 366 ff. Historism : refusal of, 567 ff. Historico-social culture and civil- isation : its incapacity to produce the Spiritual Life, 50, 6% ff., 142, 560 ff. is interpretable in two differ- ent ways, 318. its opposition to religion, 296 ff. Idealism and Realism : they can be conjoined, 178 ff. Idealist Culture and Realistic Culture and Civilisation in modern times, 43 ff. Ideals ; their peculiar action, 200 ff. their constant change, 300 ff. Imagination : its operation with- in religion, 8, 367, 368, 481, 567. Immanent Idealism : refusal of, 532. Immortality, 216, 272, 291 ff.,435. Impersonal character of the pro- cess of civilisation and cul- ture in modern times, 36. Indian religions, 11 ff., 541. Indirect proof furnished by uni- versal history, 258. Individual, the : as interlaced with the environment, 338 ff. in relation to society, 300 ff. treated by fate as though in- different, 347 ff Infinite Love, 441 ff. Infinity : the longing after, 261 ff., 445. Interiority : discrimination be- tween subjective and sub- stantial interiority, 67 ff., 150 ff., 274, 426, 439, 510, 572. strengthened by religioji, 437 ff. Intellectualism : conditions for overcoming it, 181 ff. its insufficiency, 74, 232. Intolerance, the : of religion, 248. INDEX Jesus: His personality-j l6 ff., 360, 521, 588. His position within the Christ- ian faith, 16 fF., 588 ff. Judaism, 367. Justice and love, 395 ff. Kant, 34, 200, 275, 423, 426, 517. Leibniz, l6l, 275. Lessing, 378. Life, types of: their difference and their onesidedness, 171 ff., 307 ff Life-work, 138 ff. Love and justice, 395 ff. its nature and its presup- positions, 148 ff., 395 ff., 505. Luther, 151, 222, 407, 437, 442, 492, 516. Magical, the, in religion com- bated, 565 ff. Man : his smallness and his greatness, l69 ff- Matter of fact, in religion : how to be understood, 600 ff. Mediation, the idea of: its pre- suppositions, 583 ff. its dangers, 585. Metaphysic indispensable for re- ligion, 68. Metaphysical life : the thirst after (distinguished from the thirst after physical life), 402. Miracles (in the false and in the right sense), 25 ff., 205, 223, 282, 521 ff., 549 ff Modern culture and civilisation : discrimination between its spiritual substance and its merely human tendency, 593 ff. Mohammed, 398, 521. Morality and civic worthiness, 108. and religion, 223. is no diminution of energy, 128 ff. its interior growth and de- velopment, 405 ff. its nature and action, 128 ff. its power, 130. its seeming impossibility, 103 ff. its weakness in human life, 95, 320 ff. no natural quality of man, 170 ff., 240 ff. Movement and rest: influence of religion upon the con- stitution of their inter- relations, 507 ff. Mysticism : its right and its wrong, 74, 213 ff. Natural Science : its relation- ship to religion, 24 ff., 547 ff. Nature and spirit as grades of reality, 86, l64, l67. opposed to religion, 290 ff. Negative element of all the work of life, 93, 94. Noeticism opposed to intel- lectualism and voluntarism, 235. Noological method differentiated from the psychological, 178 ff., 455, 456. differentiated from specula- tive metaphysic, 1 80. Object and objectivity : their true meaning, 90 ff. Objectivist and subjectivist modes of life : their con- flict, 313 ff. Optimism : its insufficiency, 349 ff. . INDEX 621 Optimism : its contrast with religion, 524, 526, 529. Organisation of the work of culture : demands concern- ing it, 185 ff. Original sin, a mistaken con- ception, 222. Pantheism : its development in modern times, 43 ff. its mistaken interpretation of the process of life, l68. the right and the wrong of, 217 ff. Paracelsus, 204. Parseeism, 366. Pascal, 337, 352, 409. Passive kind, the, of religion combated, 482, 484, 56], 579. Paul, 216, 224. Personal : distinguished from subjective, 151, 152. Personality, 150 ff. of God, 212, 429 ff. of the founders of the re- ligions, 7, 367 ff., 480 ff. Pessimism : as opponent of re- ligion, 526 ff., 529 ff. its interior contradiction, 353 ff. Pestalozzi, 77, 452, 6ll. Pietism, refusal of, 225. Pindar, 344. Plato, 236, 393, 478. Plotinus, 154, 256, 277, 393. Positivism: rejection of its attack upon religion, 255. Presence, characteristics of spiri- tual, 256 ff. Priesthood, its dangers for re- ligion, 461 ff. Privative conception of Evil ; its right and its wrong, 355. Proof, the kind of, possible for religion considered, 72 ff. Providence, belief in, 325 ff. Rationalism : position taken up towards it, 485 ff. Reformation, the, 23, 581. Religion : ^nd cosmic contempla- tion, 448 ff., 506 ff., 513 ff. and culture and civilisation, 597 ff and speculation, 255, 256. its affirmative character, 249, 250. its discriminating and integ- rating action, 235, 236, 471 ff. its kernel, 187 ff., 249 ff. its method of proof, 193 ff., 453 ff., 526 ff. its psychic starting-point, 226 ff reasons for men's different attitudes towards it, 228, 243 ff., 426 ff, 523 ff., 530 ff. Renaissance, the : its ideal of life, 43. Right, the idea of: its spiritual conditions, 135. Runeberg, 450. Sacraments, 553, 565 ff. Sacrifice : how far necessary, 237, 497. Savonarola, 522, 551. Schelling, 341, 509. Schopenhauer, 6 14. Science and Truth, 103. Self-actuation : distinguished from mere activity, 151, 152. Self-life of the Spirit, the, ex- plained, 147 ff. Soul, depth of, 262. powers of the, 273 ff. Souls, transmigration of, 335. Sovereign treatment of life (as against the subjectivist and the obj activist treatments), 133 ff. 622 INDEX Spiritual, the, and the sensible : form taken by their inter- relation in modern timeSj 564 ff., 578. Spiritual culture : its contradis- tinction to merely human culture, 239 ff., 4,72. Life, the : difference between our conception of it, and that which obtained in the classical period of German literature, l68. its gradual independence over against man, 35 ff., 563, 569. its position in the universe, 156 ff. its scatteredness in human existence, 307-.ff. Stoicism, 347, 439. Substance : in contradistinction to Existence and Exist- ential form, 182 ff. Suffering : its effect upon man, 328 ff., 355. God ; objections to this con- ception, 432 ff. Thinking (logical) : its power in history, 356. Truth : its apparent self-contra- diction, 101 ff. its new formulation, l6l ff., 478, 505. Two chief directions in the movement of religious re- form, 599- Universal Religion : its concep- tion, 192. its relation to Characteristic Religion, 412 ff. Utilitarianism (in religion) re- jected, 64, 465. Voluntarism (see Willing) : a mere reaction against In- tellectualism, 80 ff., 185. Willing, not suitable as a founda- tion for religion, 8 1 ff. Winckelmann, 47. Work : its greatness, 136 ff. its limits, 144. world of, the : its conception, 135 ff. Xenophanes, 585. PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINDURGH