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The Activism is started and kept going on its course by the over-personal norms and values already referred to. It is the union of norm and will that constitutes the full action. Life's greater meaning and value is, therefore, not a ready-made possession; it is rather something already possessed, and a vision of something more in the distance to be possessed.
But these are not found in the same place, neither is the same importance attached to them, once the meaning and value of the over-personal norms and the potency of spiritual creativeness have come into union with one another. What Eucken means by universal religion is the establishment of this independency and supremacy of spiritual life over all else in the world.
This digression from the subject of this chapter has probably prepared us to see that the potentiality of consciousness and the presence of over-personal elements presenting themselves to consciousness are the two main elements in the construction of the several grades of reality which present themselves on the lower level of Nature and on the higher level of History.
The over-personal norms and standards have now become our own possession; they enable us to see the world as it ought to be seen and to work for the realisation of the vision; and the norms mean even more than this, for we have already seen that they point to something beyond themselves and yet continuous with themselves. They point to Infinite Love as the very essence of the Godhead.
Thus many Life-systems present themselves. Each of these includes a good. 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.
These over-personal values increase as the soul passes along the upward path and as it grants a self-subsistence and unconditional significance to these values. As we have already seen, when this happens, the idea of God as Infinite Love presents itself, and the soul's main task is to climb to the summits "where on the glimmering limits far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn."
But as all this is a conception spiritual in its nature devoid of flesh and blood as its clothing it becomes extremely difficult for the majority of mankind to hold fast to its reality in a world where flesh and blood mean so much. Something more tangible is craved for by man as a proof of an over-world and of an over-personal life.
A further development of spiritual life has taken place; and reality has become objective in its nature and subjective in its apprehension and appropriation by the individual. Reality has, through the over-personal which has evolved in history, obtained a cosmic significance; and it is out of this region that a Lebensanschauung as well as a true Weltanschauung have developed.
Now, this is a gain, and it is the only path on which a corporate life becomes possible. 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.
Indeed, when, at certain moments, I perceived that my more ardent passages confused him, I purposely increased my ardour of narration. Yet one thing I regret: and that is that I made references to the Frenchman which were a little over-personal. Mr. Astley sat without moving as he listened to me. Not a word nor a sound of any kind did he utter as he stared into my eyes.
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