The Past, Present, and the Eternal

By Abel J. Jones

In investigating the problem of human life, Eucken lays great stress upon the history of man in past ages—this is one of the special aspects of his philosophy. The fact is, of course, not surprising; he who would explain the life of man would be unwise to ignore the records of the past life of the human race. The thinker who examines the present only, is apt to be narrow in his ideas, to fail to look upon events in their proper perspective, and to be unduly affected by the spirit of the age in which he lives—the student of history avoids these pitfalls.

Moreover, man does not become aware of the depth of his own soul, until he has "lived into" the experience of the past. This is what the profound investigator of history does; he lives again the life of the hero, he feels with him as he felt upon special occasions, and in this way there is revealed to him a profundity and greatness of human experience, of which he would have been largely unaware if he had trusted to his own experience alone, and to the superficial examination he is able to make of the experiences of those living men with whom he comes into contact. In this way he is able in a sense to appropriate the experience of the greatest personalities unto himself, and enrich considerably the contents of his own soul.

Through a study of history, too, we become aware of the intimate connection that exists between the present and the past. The present moment is a very transient thing; its roots are in the past, its hopes in the future. "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.... Without connection there is no content of life." We are apt to look on the past as something dead, but it exists in living evidence in our souls to-day. It oppresses us or stimulates us to action, it tyrannises over us or inspires us to higher things. It has been customary to look upon the past as irrevocable. Recent writers, of whom Maeterlinck and Eucken are striking instances, have endeavoured to show how the past can be remoulded and changed. The past depends upon what we make of it to-day; if we despise our evil conduct in former days, then the past itself is changed and conquered. The mistake that is made is to regard the past as a thing complete in itself; what appears to be finished is really only completing itself, and we must take a view of the whole of a thing, and not merely the parts that have already manifested themselves. Through such considerations we become more and more aware of the ultimate connection between the past and present, and of the part the present can play in the remaking of the past.

Our investigations of history leads us, too, to differentiate between the temporary and the eternal in the realm of thought. We find at a certain period of history a trend of thought that can largely be accounted for by the special conditions of life at the time, and which disappears at a later age. But in addition to this we become aware of truths that have found a place in the thoughts of various ages and countries, and we are led to regard these as the eternal truths—expressions of an eternal ever-present reality. This eternal present we find to be something independent of time, something that breaks the barriers between the past, present, and future. "Thought," says Eucken, "does not drift along with time; as certainly as it strives to attain truth it must rise above time, and its treatment must be timeless." The beliefs of any age are too much coloured by the special circumstances of that age to express the whole of truth, yet beneath the beliefs of the ages there is often an underlying truth, and this underlying truth is the eternal truth, which is not affected by time, and at the basis of which is the eternal reality.

This eternal truth persisting through a variety of temporary and more or less correct expressions of it is to be observed in a marked manner in the moral ideas of mankind. What a variety of ethical doctrines have been expounded and believed, yet how striking the similarity that becomes apparent when they are further examined! In practice, the standard of morality has often been based on mere utility, but it has taken a higher and more absolute basis in the mind of man. Ideas concerning morality have generally been nobler than can be accounted for by environment, and by the subjective life of the individual. Why this ultimate consistency in the moral aspirations of the ages, why a categorical imperative, and why does conscience exist in the human being?—these facts cannot be accounted for if there is no deeper basis for life than the life of humanity at any definite period of time.

The unchangeable laws of logic, too, are instances of the eternal truth. The principles of the validity of thought are entirely independent of individuals, of the passage of time, and of the environment of man. "Our thought cannot advance in the definite work of building up science without producing and employing a definite logical structure, with fixed principles; these principles are immanent in the work of thought, they are above all the caprice and all the differences of the individuals." Whence again this consistency in a changeable and subjective world?

The marvellous influence that ideas have exerted upon man again points to the persistence and power of the eternal. Is it not strange how it is that man often serves but as a mere instrument for the realisation of an idea, and how he is often carried away by an idea to do things which are against his own personal interests and desires? And when he and his generation have passed beyond human sight, we often find a new generation direct their endeavours in the same way, and we wonder what is behind such a continuity in the struggles of mankind.

The history of great personalities in the realms of literature, art, and science show in a remarkable way how men have risen above the influences of their time, and beyond the cramping tiredness of the mere flesh. Could a great thinker like Aristotle be entirely conditioned by flesh and environment? And what of the great artists and poets who have conquered the chains of mortal finitude and breathed of higher worlds? Every one of them is a convincing testimony of the possibility of mankind transcending the material, and taking unto itself of the resources of a deeper world.

Then the dissatisfaction of the ages with their limited knowledge of truth cannot but tell of a great eternal something that stirs at the basis of the human soul. The people of to-day find the various systems of the day inadequate; they search for something higher, and the mere fact that they search beyond matter and the mere subjective human qualities is in itself a testimony to the existence of a world higher than the material and subjective.

What is it that makes it possible for one human being to "live into" the experience of others who lived long ago, and for the present to conquer and alter the past? How can we account for the eternal trait in thought, for the unchanging laws of logic, for the consistency of moral ideals, and their transcendence over flesh and immediate circumstances? What is the force behind the idea, and how can we account for the continuous struggle of mankind in certain directions? And, finally, what is it that makes it possible for men to rise beyond themselves, to shake away the shackles of matter and vicinity, and to delve deep into the profounder world?

If we can find what it is that makes all this possible, then surely we have found the greatest thing in the world—the reality. And Eucken's answer is clear and definite. It must be something that persists, is eternal and independent of time, and it must extend beyond the individual to a universal whole. This must be "the Universal Spiritual Life," which, though eternal, reveals itself in time, and though universal, reveals itself in the individual man, and forms the source from which the spiritual in man "draws its power and credentials."

This, then, is the result of Eucken's search for reality—he has found it to exist in a Universal Spiritual Life. Of course he has not arrived at his conclusion by a system of rigid proof; it has already been pointed out how impossible it is to arrive at the greater truths of life in such a manner.

He has done, however, that which can be reasonably expected in such cases. To begin with, he has given us a striking analysis of the essential characteristics of human life, and he has found there a yearning and a void. He has given us a masterly discussion of eternal truth as contrasted with the temporary expressions of it. He has taught us how the present can overcome the past, and how man can ascend beyond the subjective and material. And he has led us to feel that reality must lie in the eternal that appears to be at the basis of the highest and greatest in man.

Moreover, he has given a fair and thorough treatment of the solutions that have been offered in the past. He has shown how inadequate they are to explain life. He has shown how the modern solutions "cannot perform their own tasks without drawing incessantly upon another kind of reality, one richer and more substantial." This in itself shows "beyond possibility of refutation that they do not fill the whole of life." He has demonstrated how the acceptance of these systems depends upon an implicit acceptance of a higher life. "The naturalistic thinker ascribes unperceived to nature, which to him can be only a coexistence of soulless elements, an inner connection and a living soul. Only thus can he revere it as a higher power, as a kind of divinity; only thus can he pass from the fact of dependence to a devotional surrender of his feelings. The socialist bases human society, with its motives mixed with triviality and passion, on an invisible community, an ideal humanity.... The individualist in his conception exalts the individual to a height far more lofty than is justified by the individual as he is found in experience." All these assume more or less unconsciously the existence of that "something higher" which they attempt to deny.

So far, then, we have seen how Eucken proves the inadequacy of the realistic conceptions of life, and how they really depend for their acceptance upon the assumption of a Universal Spiritual Life. We have still to see how he attempts to prove that basing human life upon an eternal spiritual life satisfies the conditions he himself has laid down for a satisfactory solution of the problem. He has to show that the theory gives a satisfactory explanation of human life, that it gives a firm basis for life, that it releases man from being governed by low motives, and admits of the possibility of human personality, freedom, and creation. We shall see in the chapters that follow that he makes a convincing case for accepting the belief in the Universal Spiritual Life as the basis of human life and endeavour.

"Rudolph Eucken", Abel J. Jones