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Updated: May 16, 2025
The slight looseness in the use of terms, and a certain inexactness of expression that is sometimes apparent, must of course not be exaggerated; it is by no means serious enough to invalidate his main argument. It gives an opportunity for a great deal of superficial criticism on the part of unsympathetic writers, which, however, can do little harm to Eucken's position.
This aspect has already been touched upon, but it requires elucidation from a more personal point of view. Eucken's philosophy is the result of the experience of his own soul. It is something which can never be understood until it is lived through. Everything is brought back to its roots in the needs, aspirations, and inwardness of the soul.
From Eucken's point of view the difficulty is not so serious. When he speaks of personality he does not mean the mere subjective individual in all his selfishness. Eucken has no sympathy with the emphasis that is often placed on the individual in the low subjective sense, and is averse from the glorification of the individual of which some writers are fond.
Eucken's special problem is that of the reality in the universe, of the unity there exists in the diversity of things. In so far as he makes this his problem, he is at one with other philosophers in investigating what may perhaps be considered to be the most profound problem that the human mind has ever conceived.
Every search for truth must assume a certain position in this matter; in studying Eucken's philosophy it is of the first importance more so perhaps than in the case of most other philosophers to keep in mind clearly from the outset the position he implicitly assumes.
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.
The special value of Eucken's teaching lies, then, in the fact that it interprets what happens, can happen, and ought to happen within life itself. No system which leaves out the soul with its possibilities is complete. This has been done too often in the past, and is being done to-day.
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.
He has given to idealistic philosophies a possible rallying-point, where theories differing in detail can meet on common ground. As one eminent writer says: "The depth and inclusiveness of Eucken's philosophy, the comprehensiveness of its substructure and its stimulating personal quality, mark it out as the right rallying-point for the idealistic endeavour of to-day."
Eucken's philosophy is a philosophy of life, and he only touches incidentally those aspects of philosophy that are not immediately concerned with his special problem. He refuses to be allured from the main problem by subsidiary investigations, and perhaps rightly so, for one problem of such magnitude would seem to be enough for one human mind to attempt.
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