Part 33

The form of instruction suffers from the ceaseless onflow of new material, the constant increase in the number of claims. In itself each single demand may be quite justifiable; but whether it is better than the others can be decided only from an idea which governs the whole. If no such idea exists, a gain in the individual departments may be a loss to the whole; and an enrichment in one department may lead to a decline of the whole. In face of that which has been handed down from the past and that which arises in the present, it is difficult to come to a balanced judgment; the parties may be right in their attacks one upon another, but this does not imply that they are right in their own assertions. The immediate impression tends to give the balance in favour of the requirements of the present; from the point of view of the immediate impression, all occupation with the past may appear to be a flight from the living to the dead. The advocate of the claims of history may reply to this that man as a spiritual being is not a child of the mere moment, and that we concern ourselves with the past not on account of what is transitory in it, but for its eternal content. But he who thinks thus must throw the eternal content into relief and separate it sharply from that which is simply temporal; he must establish a relation between this content and his own life, and make that which is externally alien his inward possession. This does indeed come to pass in a few cases; but can we say that it comes to pass generally or predominantly? We Germans in particular have far too strong a tendency to substitute scholarly occupation for inner animation, and instead of spiritual substance to offer academically correct knowledge. It is therefore not without good reason if Classical Antiquity does not so much inspire as weary our youth; yet the blame for this does not rest upon Antiquity, but on ourselves, and upon the manner in which we treat it with calm scholarship, without transforming it into our own possession. For how could that influence the whole man which does not come from the whole man? Everything points again and again to the same thing--we lack spiritual independence, inner transcendence of history and environment, we lack a characteristic life as a whole. The contact with the incalculable abundance of impressions that we experience must therefore remain an external one; and with all our increasing wealth of knowledge we threaten to become spiritually poorer.

(b) SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Science, with its innumerable branches and its powerful penetration of life, is indisputably a strong feature of the age. Its effect is not exhausted in the abundance of particular achievements; by the objectivity of its work it has brought the world much nearer to us, has led our life to greater clearness, has made us more alert, and given us a secure dominion over things. Science, therefore, must also be a factor in the determination of a philosophy of life, and must raise the whole position of man. Of course, as soon as we survey and estimate its work from the life-process we find that there is no lack of difficult problems in science. Since the magnificent results of the natural sciences often give rise to the tendency to force their particular bent and methods on the human sciences, to which our conception of the spiritual life gives a characteristic sphere of their own, there is a danger that the balanced development of the individual sciences and the complete organisation of what is distinctive in them will be prevented. However, we do not lack energetic resistance of this danger; and ultimately it is less science itself than the movement to popularise it that falls into this danger. Further, the results of science with regard to the object easily tend to obscure the subjective element, the spiritual activity, the characteristic synthesis, which forms an organised collection of pieces of knowledge into the unity of a science. It is apt to appear as though science needs only to construct further on a given basis and in a given direction; while both of these are open to much dispute: different possibilities, prospects, types may be revealed; the work of history has run through different stages, and has certainly not already exhausted its possibilities. Nevertheless, the subjective element with its freedom, mobility, and many-sidedness is becoming more adequately appreciated, and there is no reason to fear that science will become dogmatically pursued in paths that have become fixed. Finally, the problem of the relation of thought to life is the source of much perplexity: we Germans, for example, have a strong tendency to take mere knowledge for inner appropriation of the object, and instead of spiritual substance to offer an abundance of scholarship. This, however, is not a defect in science itself, but an error on the part of man, who has no life of his own with which to meet the onflow of impressions from the environment; and so our estimate of science and our acknowledgment of its magnificent achievement cannot be affected by this charge.

Philosophy is in quite a different position: its present state cannot satisfy anyone who seeks rather for a universal science than for an academic discipline. For our philosophical efforts lack a common aim and close relation with the innermost need of the time; they do not even show any definite and energetic attempt to overcome the confusion from which our world of thought suffers. A great stream of philosophic effort came to an end with the speculative philosophy of the first decade of the nineteenth century. After a temporary ebb of this philosophic effort, we now wish to take up the work again with fresh power, but we have not yet acquired inner independence; and therefore, in sifting and collecting, we are unable to direct the age to definite aims, or radically expel the inconsistencies into which an indefinite relation to the past has led the present.

There are three main streams of thought which come to us from the past, and we can neither completely take them up nor withdraw ourselves from them: the Enlightenment, with its philosophic summit in Descartes; the critical philosophy of Kant; and speculative philosophy, with its consummation in Hegel. It has been thought that the Enlightenment, with its starting out from the subject, its unadorned intellectualism, its formal ratiocination, its rejection of everything that is not comprehended in clear and distinct ideas, was transcended at the height of German classical literature, because at that time a life rich in content was set in contrast with it. But, as a fact, no adequate settlement with the Enlightenment has been arrived at; the supposed transcendence is not final, because the elements of truth in the Enlightenment, especially its turning from history to the immediacy and independence of spiritual life, were not properly acknowledged. But to-day it is less the elements of truth of the Enlightenment that are a force than that which is trivial and narrowly human in it--the ratiocination of the subject which, the more empty it is, the more it feels itself to be the measure of all things, and, rejoicing in negation, applies the results of the natural sciences in an attempt to bring about the greatest possible suppression of all spiritual relations. In this form the Enlightenment gains acceptance by the masses, which formerly had seemed inaccessible to it; and thus it becomes an instrument by which life is dissipated and made shallow. From its position of research, philosophy looks down upon this tendency with contempt; but it produces no movement that is able to take up the struggle with this tendency to shallowness, and pass through the struggle victoriously. Kant is often lauded as the spiritual guide of our time; and it is overlooked how much that was certain for him has become doubtful; how many new facts, new problems, new prospects, which cannot be lost to the world of thought we have received from the nineteenth century with its historico-social culture and its overwhelming widening of the horizon. Kant's critique of the reason is based on a conception of science; on a faith in the possibility of a knowledge of truth; on a conviction of a spiritual organisation of man, which are rather in contradiction than in harmony with the main tendencies of the present. His absolute ethic, the pillar of his constructive thought, is incompatible with the empirical and social treatment of morality to which the present does homage. But at the same time we cannot free ourselves from the influence of Kant. For we cannot refute his critique of the reason, breaking up, as it does, the old representation and conception of truth; and, without his ethic, our ethic would lose the appearance of truth and greatness. In the judgment of the present, Hegel experiences a treatment that is just the opposite of that which Kant receives: if in reference to the latter we do not notice what divides us, so in reference to the former we fail to recognise what joins us. For if Hegel's exaggeration of the power of the human spirit and his identification of spirit and thought appear alien to us, yet his idea of evolution, which embraces all multiplicity, and represents all realities and conceptions as in a state of flux; his elevation of spiritual factors to the form of independent powers which develop and establish their own necessities undeterred by the preference of man; his emphasis on the fact of the power of contradiction and opposition in history--all this, often in spite of our own conceptions, exerts an enormous influence over us; and we cannot shake it off without surrendering a considerable portion of our spiritual possession.

These tendencies all whirl confusedly together and draw us now in one direction, now in another; we can get beyond the state of decadence only when we have succeeded in giving to the world of thought an independent character, which corresponds with the spiritual condition of the present, and which can do justice to the old as well as the new experiences. After the whole course of our investigation, only a brief account is necessary to indicate the directions the system of life here advocated points out to reach this; a fuller treatment would make a particular theory of knowledge necessary. We must bring into prominence three of the chief points.

(1) Only the life-process can be the starting-point of philosophy, not some kind of being more ultimate than this process, whether we conceive of such being as an external world or as a subject existing independent of the world: the ideas of "world" and "subject," as also that of "being," can be evolved and made clear only within the life-process; at the same time, they remain in a state of flux, and never are so directly opposed to one another as modern thought has represented them as being. Philosophy, with this starting-point, would, however, attain an independence in relation to the special sciences only if it were possible within the life-process to form a unity and a distinctive synthesis, which should deepen our view of reality and set it as a whole in a new light. (2) Such a synthesis must transcend the state of change of all the relations and caprice of men; this is possible only by the revelation and appropriation of an independent spiritual life withdrawn from the life of sense. Without such a spiritual life there is no release from the chaos of subjective experiences and opinions; only from the position of the spiritual life is it possible for a spiritual occurrence to be revealed in the province of man, so that we do not need to infer from man to the world, but that within him a universal life can be immediately experienced. (3) As, on the one hand, the spiritual life is an indispensable presupposition, so on the other it is an infinite task; the former as far as the fundamental fact is concerned, the latter in reference to its detailed content. This content can be acquired only through the movement of history as a whole; thus a constructive philosophy--and not merely a critical one--could arise only where the spiritual life as a whole had acquired a characteristic form. In this case, philosophy was not simply an offspring of life, not merely something for life to occupy itself with. By its demand for a thorough clarification of our ideas and life, and by its raising the question of absolute truth, philosophy has exercised no little influence upon the progress of life. But that which it achieved of a fruitful nature, it achieved not in detachment from, but only in relation to, life, and by interaction with it, however much this relation may be concealed at the first glance.

Such a connection of philosophy with life as a whole is by no means new; it has existed in all times. Never has the world of thought acquired a distinctive character except in close relation with life as a whole: it is only from life as a whole that thought has received its problems, the nature of its procedure, and the demarcation of its work. A survey of the history of philosophy makes it evident that the leading thinkers differ mostly, and differ from the beginning, in that which they regard as the essence of life. In what they regard as the essence of life they have found the firm point of support for their work; from that the direction of their research has been determined; and from that the questions arose to which they required an answer from the universe. And we all know that in these matters the question often implies more than the answer, that it often carries the answer within itself.

If, therefore, this connection of philosophy with the life-process signifies an old and indisputable truth, this truth is not sufficiently acknowledged. Its adequate acknowledgment gives rise to a new situation; indeed, it tends to the development of a new type of philosophy. With the critical tendency of the Modern Age, this type shares the desire not to surrender thought to a state of defencelessness in face of the stream of appearances, but would primarily concentrate it in itself, and in an inner independence find a standard for all further undertaking. But this attainment of independence in thought is not accomplished by turning to the mere subject, but to a central occurrence, transcending the antithesis of subject and object. If thought cannot begin from such an occurrence, and understand the movement of life as an unfolding and perfecting of this comprehensive occurrence, then there is no truth for man. Truth, as a relation of two series absolutely alien to each other, is an absolutely nonsensical conception: truth must be immanent, in the sense that one life embraces both subject and object, and that in the movement of life there is as much a coming together of subject and object as a coming together of activity from the centre and from the circumference.

That in this we have to do with a peculiar formation of knowledge and not with a merely formal modification is shown by the following considerations. If thought, in the manner previously supposed, takes its starting-point in a world existing independently of the subject, then in order to subordinate reality spiritually thought will comprehend it in the most general conceptions. Ultimately, the being of things will be sought in formal ontological magnitudes, as, for example, in "pure being." If the whole abundance of reality appears to be derived simply from these general conceptions, it is in danger of being transformed into nothing but schemes and shadows, and of losing all genuine life. If, as opposed to this, the subject alone is taken as the starting-point, then more life and more movement is indeed assured, and a more varied prospect will be acquired, but there is no possibility of distinguishing between that which is only contingent to the individual and that which forms a common inner world; there is no possibility of a rejection of the narrowly human, or even of extricating a realm of ideas from the abundance of impressions: if in the former case knowledge lost all content, in the present case it threatens to be completely dissolved. If, further, on the one hand abstract universal conceptions, and on the other the subjective states of individuals, form the stem of knowledge, then neither in one nor in the other does the fullness of spiritual reality attain its due--the reality that exists in the building up of a genuine spiritual culture. But in the type of philosophy advocated by us this is the chief thing; since in contrast to the psychological and the cosmological treatment this philosophy develops a noölogical treatment, and sees the central domain of philosophical research in the elucidation and unification of facts which, in the construction of a spiritual world in the province of man, appear in the whole and in every branch. In this connection the conception of fact is something more ultimate and universal in its relations; but it is just that which makes it more valuable for the conviction as a whole.

This conception of its task will bring philosophy into a closer relation with personal life, as well as with the work of history, without making it the mere instrument either of the one or the other. Otherwise it would seem irrational, and a tendency from which one must free oneself as much as possible, that in philosophy, personality, not only in creative activity but also in appropriation, signifies so much. The object, on the contrary, acquires a positive value, if we are certain that the standard of life is ultimately also the standard of knowledge; if with this the degree of the development of life at a particular point necessarily decides the nature of the work of thought there achieved. The near relation of the thinker to the proximate and the more distant culture environment is explained from this position in a manner no less satisfactory: the relation can then remain close, even if in the first place it appears to be one of conflict and opposition. Similarly, the whole movement of history acquires a greater significance for knowledge; far-reaching changes of life transform the temporal situation, since they permit us to experience, see, and seek something else; all these changes, however, demand from thought an attention to and an appreciation of the whole. Nothing other than this is involved in the requirement that thought must correspond with the historical state of spiritual evolution.

This acknowledgment of personal and of historical life by philosophy makes it intelligible why philosophy manifests so much diversity and opposition, and why on the surface it shows so little unity. Where the conviction of an independent spiritual life rules, the faith in a unity of truth can be shaken by this fact just as little as the courage to creative activity can be paralysed. The basing of thought upon the spiritual life also has the advantage that the main types of thought can be derived from the different positions which may be taken up towards the spiritual life, and thus a limit may be set to the otherwise indefinite abundance. From this point of view there are for us five chief types of thought and world-conception. Minds first divide on the question whether we can unify life at all, and at the same time whether we may venture to make an assertion concerning reality as a whole. He who rejects this as impossible and readily surrenders himself to the conflict of immediate impressions might be called an indifferentist. If, however, a striving towards unity is admitted, then the question whether a spiritual life with a reality and values of its own in contrast with nature may be acknowledged or not becomes the point of decision, and the basis of division into opposing camps. He who gives a negative answer to the question, and regards nature as the whole of reality, becomes an advocate of Naturalism. He, however, who answers in the affirmative, and may be called an idealist, is immediately confronted with a new problem. He cannot acknowledge the spiritual life without at the same time giving it the supremacy; but now the doubt arises whether this supremacy may be easily and peacefully established, or whether it meets with strong opposition. When the existence of these oppositions is denied, or they are regarded as being easy to overcome, there grows up an optimistic, contemplative form of Idealism, which to the holders of other forms inevitably seems abstract and shallow. If, on the contrary, the oppositions are fully acknowledged, the final division originates with the question whether finally we are to submit to the state of stagnation brought about by these oppositions, or whether by some kind of reinforcement of the counteraction to this state of stagnation life may once more be set in progress: the former gives rise to Scepticism and Pessimism, the latter to Activism, as it has been discussed by us in an earlier section. It is easy to see what distinctive lines of conflict and what kinds of conflict must arise between the indifferentist, the naturalistic thinker, the optimist, the sceptic, and the activist. However, we cannot allow this to detain us; it must, nevertheless, be pointed out here, that in philosophy the possibilities are not yet exhausted, and that to avail ourselves of these possibilities nothing is more necessary than a close relation of its work with the life-process, and a firmer grounding in the independent spiritual life.

(c) ART AND LITERATURE

Nowhere does modern life throb more violently and more strongly than in art and literature. That which in this department has a claim to permanence acquires especial power from the fact that this department had to establish itself anew in opposition to an attempt to curtail it. For who could deny that a culture of work and of utility had a tendency to reduce artistic literary creation to the position of an accompaniment and a fringe of another kind of life, to a diversion for idle hours? The more we feel the limitations of the life of work and utility the more do art and literature become independent tasks. From art and literature we expect more lightness, more agility, and more joy in life; they should conduct life from too great an attention to externals to self-consciousness, and in this way give life a soul. They should strengthen individuality in opposition to the levelling tendency of the culture of the masses, wrest simple fundamentals from chaotic confusion of life, and aid the time in reaching a comprehensive vital-feeling and a synthesis transcending its inconsistencies. In opposition to that which oppresses us and degrades us to instruments of a meaningless machinery, we desire some kind of province where life rests in itself and purposes nothing else but itself; where it springs up with complete spontaneity; and where it can express itself with complete freedom, and in this expression find its highest joy.

From such a longing a new art that permeates our life has arisen. Art must seek new means of expression for the new situation; it cannot serve the development of a new life-content without bringing about liberation from all conventional statutes; it cannot prevent a threatened tendency of life to become stagnant without desiring a fully free place for the subject, and for the development of his individuality. He who sees chiefly the dangers in everything forgets that nothing new and great can arise without bringing dangers with it.