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Eucken consequently comes to the conclusion that philosophy has not completely fulfilled its vocation until it has become a philosophy of Life until the truest meaning of every object is discovered in its relation to all the necessities of the spirit. And it is here that his teaching comes into conflict with so much that goes by the name of Idealism.
But he that is with us is more than all that are against us. Whoever keeps his ear ever open to duty, always forward, never attained, is not far from the kingdom. The gods may be against him, the demi-gods may depart; but he, as said Plotinus, 'if alone, is with the Alone." It is impossible for us, as Eucken constantly insists, to stop short of this.
He has freely chosen the highest, and continually reaffirms his choice this is perfect freedom. Man gains for himself, too, a personality in the true sense of the term. Eucken does not mean by personality "mere self-assertion on the part of an individual in opposition to others." He means something far deeper than this.
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.
In discussing the question of miracle, Eucken weighs the fact that a conviction of the possibility of miracle has been held by millions in various religions, and particularly in Christianity. He considers that the question of miracle is of more importance in the Christian religion than in any other, one miracle the Resurrection having been taken right into the heart of Christian doctrine.
Until he does this, his philosophy cannot be regarded as complete. Eucken, however, would be the last to claim that his solution is a finished or final one; he is content if his work is a substantial contribution to the final solution. Objection has been taken to the fact that he starts upon his task with a definite bias in a certain direction.
Thus the fact of religion becomes a perpetual task, and leads to the highest activity. Eucken speaks of two types of religion Universal and Characteristic Religion. The line of division between them is not easy to draw, but the distinction gives an opportunity for emphasising again the essential elements of true religion.
'Such as men themselves are, such will God appear to them to be. Spinoza rightly says that all true knowledge takes place sub specie æternitatis. For the pneymatikost the whole of life is spiritual, and, as Eucken says, he recognises the whole of the spiritual life as his own life-being. He learns, as Plotinus declares in a profound sentence, that 'all things that are Yonder are also Here below.
Eucken deals in these two books with the content of consciousness: that content reveals what is a Whole or Totality, what is beyond sense, what includes within itself the isolated impressions of the senses or of the understanding, and what is therefore spiritual in its nature. In the Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt a book of the greatest value we find Eucken at his best.
Eucken shows that the individual will obtain his true place in Society and the State only when spiritual ideals have become fixed norms norms which form the highest synthesis to be conceived of. And Society and the State will discover their vocations in precisely the same manner. It is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that things are not well with the world to-day.
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