Rudolph Eucken | Page 6

serious study of
things reveals to us the fact that the universe is not entirely reasonable
and harmonious. If it were, then man's effort towards the ideal would
be helped by the whole universe, but that is far from being the case;
progress means fight, and difficult fight; there is definite opposition to
the efforts of man to raise himself. Moreover, there is evil in the world,
let pantheists and others say what they will. Eucken refuses to close his
eyes to, or to explain away, opposition, pain, and evil--the world is far
from being wholly reasonable and harmonious, and idealists must
acknowledge this fact. The natural sciences, too, by emphasising the
reign of law, tend to limit more and more the possibilities of the human
being, ultimately robbing him of all freedom--hence of all possibility of
creation. And how can one be an enthusiastic devotee of idealism if he
is led to doubt man's power to aim at, fight towards, or even choose the
highest?

Idealism was at its height in those red-letter days when a high state of
culture had been attained, and great personalities produced
masterpieces in art, music, and literature. The progress of the sciences
and of man's natural activity has directed the spirit of the age towards
material progress; the ideals of mankind tend to become external and
superficial, and the interest in the invisible world falls to a minimum.
To some extent, too, idealism breathes of aristocracy--a most unpopular
characteristic in a democratic age. Experience shows that man is raised
above himself only in rare cases, and that the great things in the realms
of art, music, and literature are very largely the monopoly of the few,
and these mainly of the leisured classes. Hence the appeal of idealism
to certain types of men and women must necessarily be a feeble one.
Then, again, there is the general indifference of mankind to lofty aims;
this militates against the power of idealism even more than in the case
of religion, for while in the latter there is the idea of a personal God
who is pleased or displeased urging men to renewed effort, the
teachings of idealism may appear to be mere abstractions, and can, as
such, possess little driving-power for the ordinary mind.
Idealism, too, seems to be a mere compromise between religion and a
life devoted to sense experience, and like most compromises it lacks
the enthusing power of the original ideas.
Finally, the whole theory leaves us in uncertainty--"that which was
intended to give a firm support, and to point out a clear course to our
life, has itself become a difficult problem."
But Eucken has more to say concerning idealism, even though in a
different form from the theories of the past. Indeed, his philosophy is
generally classed amongst the idealisms. Eucken makes a great
endeavour, however, to avoid the difficulties and objections to the
idealistic position; later we shall see that a great measure of success has
crowned his efforts.
Having discussed the two solutions that place special stress on the
invisible world, he proceeds to deal with the theories which emphasise

the relation of the life of man to the material world.
He first treats of Naturalism, that solution of the problem that makes
the sense experience of surrounding nature the basis of life,
subordinating even the life of the soul to the level of the natural,
material world.
Nature in the early ages had been superficially explained, often in the
light of religious doctrine. Man gave to nature a variety of explanations
and of colouring, depending largely upon his ideas of the place of
nature in relation to himself and to the invisible world. But such
anthropomorphic explanations could not long survive the progress of
the sciences, for a scientific comprehension of nature could only be
attained by getting rid of all human colouring, and by investigating
nature entirely by itself, out of all relation to the human soul. Man then
investigated nature more and more as an object apart from himself.
The first result of these investigations was to impress upon him the
reality of nature as something independent, and to increase on a very
large scale his knowledge of, and control over nature. When man began
to formulate and understand nature, he began, too, to invent machines
to profit from the knowledge he gained. Hence followed a marvellously
fruitful period of human activity, an activity which at first strengthened
man in his own soul, and gave him increased consciousness of
independence and power. While he was compelled to admit the
greatness of the natural world, he became more and more convinced
that he himself was far greater, for could he not put the laws of nature
to his own use and profit? Hence the gain to man at