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Updated: June 27, 2025
Probably enough has been said to show that the idealistic systems of Germany are tending more and more in the direction of a philosophy which attempts to take into account not only the results of the physical sciences and psychology, but also those of the norms of history and of the over-individual contents of consciousness.
Here, again, the spiritual life has landed us out of psychology into the deepest experiences of religion and into the consciousness that the intermediate realities which presented themselves as over-individual norms and ideals are realities of cosmic significance. The Godhead is now possessed.
The three make their contribution towards the great affirmation which takes place, but they are united at a depth in consciousness which has no psychological name; they come to a kind of focus within the blending of the over-individual norms and the need and capacity of the soul for such norms.
Are there any reasons whatever for concluding that the whole universe is not co-operating now in its further development? Life, civilisation, culture, morality, and religion are proofs that this life of the spirit is moving onward and upward. The over-individual norms have planted themselves too strongly in the heart of humanity to be ever uprooted.
Even the physical world has to enter into consciousness before it can be known and interpreted; even the over-individual norms have to be accepted and interpreted by the spiritual potency before the reality which they possess in themselves can become our own personal reality. We receive from without on the plane of Nature and on the planes of mentality and spirituality.
History becomes no more than a succession of changes of which the later are of no more value than the earlier. All this happens, because there is no Eternal no over-world of over-individual and over-historical values present. In a large measure our very religion grants us here but little help.
But the understanding, when dealing with the content of the union of individual potency and over-individual norms, is dealing with a content infinitely larger and more complex than itself; the material is too great and intricate for the understanding to handle; it is a fruitless attempt of the Part to monopolise the meaning and value of the Whole.
Something over-individual issues out of all these relations, and this enters into the still higher over-individual norms which are the heritage of society. Eucken consequently shows that history itself is dependent upon something which works within it interpreting its events, and absorbing into itself something that is of value.
Still, something has been accomplished in the course of the ages; and although, probably, the progress has not been continuous, there has been a gain in the "long run." But the point to bear in mind is that it is the power of the over-individual ideal which has carried the race along.
For it is in the soul's relation with its over-individual and over-historical ideals that permanent qualities can be created and preserved: it is in our own deepest being, through a conviction of the values of sympathy, sacrifice, and love that any genuine history can find its birth and nurture.
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