Chapter 6

RELIGION AND SOCIETY

Eucken shows that the problems of history are closely allied with those of society. The best accounts of the meaning he attaches to human society are to be found in _The Main Currents of Modern Thought, Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_, and _Life Basis and Life Ideal_. The conclusions reached in these three books are the same--they are an insistence on the need of spiritual life as a creative power in the utilisation of norms and ideals as well as in the creation of further norms and ideals. He points out the devious paths which human society has travelled over: all these, in the case of society and of the individual, are shown to lead to disaster when they depend merely upon the environment or upon the ideals of a utilitarian mode of a historico-social construction.

Society has gained much through the necessity of emphasising some aspects of a Whole--of thinking and acting collectively--instead [p.109] of emphasising merely the Parts. The history of human society, in a very large measure, is the history of shifting the centre of gravity of life alternately from the Whole to the Parts and _vice versa_. When the centre of gravity remains in some kind of Whole, a number of individuals move towards the same goal, and much that is subjective has to be shifted to the background of life. Now, this is a gain, and it is the only path on which a corporate life becomes possible. Men (and women too) stand shoulder to shoulder when some kind of Whole or Ideal seems to them to be a necessity of their nature. But progress is brought about not only through cementing human beings together in order to move towards _any kind_ of ideal. The energy is in the right place, but the question has to arise as to the _nature_ of the over-personal ideal itself. All over-personal ideals cannot connote the good of _all_, but the good of all must be present as possessing a validity of its own before any lower over-personal ideal can prevent landing men in disaster. The over-personal ideals which do not include the good of all often represent the good of a section alone, and all other sections have to become convinced that this is a good. Thus many Life-systems present themselves. Each of these includes a good. The problem is, How is each section to realise that there is a good present in what each other section presents? [p.110] There must be some common standard by which the ideal of each section of the community can be measured, for it is in the light of such a standard alone that the lower good receives its true place, meaning, and value. There are, beyond all sectional over-personal ideals, values which connote the highest welfare of everyone "who carries a human face." These values are the results of the partially collective experiences of the deepest in life, and have been gained in the history of the race. They are the values which are the needs and rights of all. Justice, Sympathy, Love--these and others are the highest syntheses. They have, as yet, been only partially reached; and this partial realisation is the possession of a few, and has not yet succeeded in becoming the necessary standard which shall pass judgment on all lower ideals. "Rights are rights," we are told. This may be true, but something higher has to interpret them, or else one set of rights comes into conflict with other sets and stands but little chance of realisation. And even if realised, a whole series of complexities immediately arises. This has been, in the main, the history of human society. And are we able to say that society has progressed much during the past century in this direction of illuminating lower needs in the light of higher ones which include the good of all? Eucken doubts whether the progress has been great. And here once more, [p.111] in connection with the deepest meaning of society and the individual, he sees the need of ideals which are universally true and universally valid. This means that the spiritual life as it presents itself in the universally true, good, and beautiful, must become the sun which will shine upon all that is below it; it is the Whole in which the Parts must find their function and meaning. If the life of society relates itself to anything lower than this, the best within it cannot come to flower and fruit. In other words, society will have to return to a conception and utilisation of an _absolute spiritual life_ before it can gain any new territory of eternal value. Probably quite as much attention will have to be devoted to the Parts--to the environment, the needs of the hour, the material comforts and happiness of life. But granting that the possession of all these will come about, what then? We are still wretchedly poor in the "inward parts." What we have won has not within itself sufficient spirituality to touch the deepest recesses of the soul. Material plenty and pleasure are a good when they are used as they ought to be used. Where is that "something" that teaches us this? Where is the Ought? The Ought is something outside and infinitely higher than all the gains which the environment or the group is ever able to bring forth. "Life," says Eucken,[36] "cannot be made simply [p.112] a question of relationship to environment and of the development of mutual relationships (as this tendency would have it) without the independence of the isolated factor [spiritual life] being most seriously reduced. And it must not be forgotten that the individual is the sole source of original spiritual life; corporate social life can do no more than unite and utilise. The maintenance of the strength and freedom of this original life would be less important, and its limitation would be more easily endurable, if human life stood upon a firm foundation and needed only to follow quietly in a naturally appointed direction. In reality, life is not only full of separate problems, but being situated (as it is) between the realm of mere Nature and the spiritual world, must begin by systematically directing itself aright and ascending from the semi-spiritual to the truly spiritual construction of life. It is hence called upon to perform great tasks, which cannot be carried out without serious efforts and the mobilisation of all our spiritual forces. This necessarily leads us back to the original sources of strength, and hence to the individual."

This passage represents well Eucken's main teaching in regard to our social problems. We shall ever fail in the highest sense if the spiritual content of life is no more than a _means_ to reach material ends, however necessary such ends may be. For in such a [p.113] manner spiritual life--the universally true and valid--is reduced to a lower plane; it becomes entangled in lower stages, and thus ceases to be a "light on the hill" illumining the steep upward path. Convictions of a spiritual nature--the very forces which have moulded society--are absent from such a system of life which has no more than the day or the hour to look forward to. Individual and society become the creatures of mere impulses and passions, stimulated to activity by a "dead-level" environment. Something of value is gained when even this kind of environment is a good; but the response is quite as readily given to that which is injurious, simply because the "universally true and good" is absent as an inwardness and conviction in the soul.

Without such an inwardness and its content the deeper energy of life is not touched, and men drift with the tide of the environment. Without the ideals or syntheses which are, in their very nature, universal and absolute, progress comes to a standstill, and degeneration soon sets in. The ordinary situation, apart from the presence of the content of the over-world within the life of the soul, swings like a pendulum between a shallow optimism and a blind pessimism. There is no power present in the soul to come to any fundamental decision, but life drifts on a river between Yea and Nay; a failure to penetrate beneath the [p.114] crust of chance and circumstance becomes evident, and the deeper values and meanings of life disappear.

Eucken's only solution for our present-day troubles is a return to our own deeper nature as this was depicted in previous chapters. The signs of the times, he tells us, are encouraging; the utilitarian mode of life is wearing itself out; the tastes of material comforts have been with us long enough to experience the poverty of their quality; and the mad gamble for the "things which perish" is gradually weeding out its devotees. Eucken's solution to the problems of society is a _religious_ one. Where is the conception of religion as the solution of the momentous and intricate problems of our day to be found in the teachings and writings of our economists? It is not to be found. These deal either with petty details or with laws which have no spiritual content whatever in them. Society may proceed with various Life-systems--individualism, socialism, or any other, but until it gets into touch with its deepest soul, each such system of life is hastening towards its own destruction and towards the injury of progress.

The conception of the State is presented by Eucken in a similar manner. He points out how we stop short in our politics of dealing with the universally true and good. Party strives against party, and nation against nation. [p.115] Groups of all hues and cries propound their own particular ideals as the all-important ones. Higher ideals are left out of account, so that we find the world to-day spending its energies in warfare concerning many things of minor importance. How can we expect fruition and bliss to follow on such lines?

Eucken presents in a convincing manner the danger of resting upon the external in Society and State. "We are experiencing to-day a remarkable entanglement. The older forms of Life, which had hitherto governed history and its meaning, have become too narrow, petty, and subjective for human nature. Through emancipation from an easy-going subjectivity 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 drawing out of all that was merely human and trivial. 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 occasions no anxiety, but which, however, through painful experience, proves itself to have been the 'one thing needful.' Through its own development the work has destroyed its own vehicles; it has [p.116] 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 immersion of man into activity his deepest being has been sacrificed. Indeed, the more exclusively Life transforms itself into external work, the more it ceases to be an inner personal experience, and the more alien we become to ourselves. And yet the fact that we can be conscious of such an alienation--an alienation that we cannot accept indifferently --is a proof that more is firmly implanted in us than the modern direction of life is able to develop and satisfy. We acknowledge 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 to nought, and to take away our one secure foothold in the midst of the roaring torrent of material work."[37]

Eucken shows that the individual will obtain his true place in Society and the State only when spiritual ideals have become fixed norms--norms which form the highest synthesis to be conceived of. And Society and the State will discover their vocations in precisely the same manner. It is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that things are not well with the world to-day. The growth of the material [p.117] interests of the world and of life has become a menace on a scale unknown in the previous history of civilisation. There is only one refuge in the midst of all this welter and chaos. That indestructible refuge is "an inner synthesis and spiritual elevation of life." It is this alone which can prevent the disintegration that is bound to follow in its absence. The petty human element cannot be eliminated from this; and the mere life of the hour--the life that has no substance of duration within itself--cannot be stopped on its reckless career without the presence of spiritual ideals within and without. If the world proceeds in its denial of the reality and need of spiritual life and its over-world, the negation, when it reaches its climax of disaster and despair, will "turn again home"--to the necessity of spiritual values--and out of the ruins a new humanity will emerge.

Thus, once more we are landed into the province of a religion of spiritual life as a necessity in the affairs of the world and of the State. Eucken's great plea is that the civilised nations of the world should become aware of all this before it is too late to turn back--before the boat has reached too near the rapids to avoid disaster. The remedy is in our own hands. How to create the consciousness of the situation is the problem of problems, and all individuals are called to bring the whole of their energies to its solution.

[p.118] It is evident that some kind of uneasiness has to take place in the deepest recess of the human soul, but the best ways and means of doing this are not yet quite evident.[38] We know what we need and what prevents decadence of individuals and nations. "If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye _do_ them" (Gospel of John). The bridge between a knowledge of the Ought and its possession is difficult to construct, but its importance is necessary to be brought constantly before the people. The majority of the people have thought fit to leave almost the only place where such an obligation was presented--_i.e._ the Christian Church. Until they return, or some other institution higher than the Church is brought into existence, the peril will remain. No individual conviction, based on anything less than spiritual ideals, will suffice. What we are looking for is in our midst; it is and has been from the very beginning, in spite of an "existential form," largely archaic, present in the spiritual nucleus of the Christian religion.

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