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THE UNIVERSITY

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CENTRAL BOOK STOnr*

RELIGION AND LIFE

Dr. RLIJOLF KUCKKN

Religion and Life

BY

RUDOLF EUCKEN

PROFESSOR OF PHII.OSOHHY
University of Jena

LONDON
British and Foreign Unitarian Association

Bs«cv Hall, Essex Street, Strand, W.C.
1911

PRINTED BY ELSOM AND CO., MARKET PLACE, HULL

3U

A.

PREFACE

The Lecture, ' Religion and Life,' by Professor Rudolf
Eucken, was delivered in German at Essex Hall, London,
on Wednesday, 7 June, 191 1, and repeated at Manchester
College, Oxford, on the following Friday, where it was
reported by Mr. Gustav F. Beckh, Ph. D., a student of
the College. After the MS. had been corrected by
Professor Eucken, the translation was kindly undertaken
by Dr. Beckh.

The outline of the Lecture, circulated beforehand, is here
reprinted ; but Dr. Eucken departed to some extent from
this outline in the actual delivery of his Lecture.

The Rev. W. Tudor Jones, Ph. D., contributed the
following brief biographical sketch : Rudolf Eucken, who
visits England for the first time, was born at Aurich, Ea.st
Friesland, 5th January, 1846. He lost his father when
quite a child. His mother, a woman of deep religious
experience, was the daughter of a liberal clergyman.
At the High School one of the masters — the theologian
Reuter — interested him greatly in religion. Religion be-
came of absorbing interest to him when quite a boy; and
this interest increased in significance with his classical and

H{\()7'47

6 PREFACE

philosophical training. He studied at the Universities of
Gottingen and Berlin. Lotze was Professor of Philosophy
at Gottingen and Trendelenburg at Berlin. Trendelenburg
influenced him deeply — indeed, settled the direction of his
future course in life. After graduating as Doctor of Philo-
sophy at Gottingen, he spent five years as a High School
teacher. In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy
at the University of Basel; in 1874 he succeeded Kuno
Fischer at Jena. And notwithstanding several calls to
larger Universities, it is in the ' little nest ' of Goethe
and Schiller he has chosen to remain. His philosophical
works are widely known ; his pupils are found from Iceland
in the North to New Zealand in the South, from Japan in
the East to Britain and America in the West. Those who
have had the privilege of knowing him — and his home is
always open to his students — are not quite the same ever
afterwards and can never forget him.

In the year 1908 Professor Eucken was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature. His books have been translated
into several European languages; his greatest work — The
Truth 0/ Religion — will be published by Messrs. Williams
and Norgate in October, 191 1.

OUTLINE OF THE LECTURE

1. In placing Religion and Life in close
mutual relation we are not concerned with
practical and social life, but with life in its
broadest sense, including the whole field of
science. Our problem is really confined to
this, whether in this life it is possible to
rise above merely human existence, whether
we can discern in it the activity of a Power
at once encompassing and transcending the
world.

2. This question we answer in the affirma-
tive with entire confidence. When we survey
and sum up the traits peculiar to man, we
discover a life essentially different from that
of sense ; this life >ve term the life of the
Spirit. This spiritual life which manifests
itself in the j)rogrcss of civilization, is not
displayed like the life of Nature in the mutual
relations of separate parts ; it forms a
Whole which is common to us all, and in

8 OUTLINE OF THE LECTURE

which we reaHze our fellowship with others.
The life of the soul is in this field not merely
a means of physical self-preservation, it
gains an independence. The products which
it brings forth — Truth, Goodness, Beauty —
rise into a realm of inwardness, into a sphere
of reality which exists for itself and in itself.
3. This spiritual life with its new contents
and relations cannot possibly be a creation
of man alone. It must come to him from
the universe ; it must form a new stage of
reality into which man, who first belongs
predominantly to Nature, is raised in the
progress of his life. Whatever spiritual
energy civilization displays, receives its
genuine content and impelling power only
when it is understood as a revelation of an
independent spiritual world. At this point,
however, we stand if not within the domain
of religion, yet at any rate on its threshold.
For henceforth all spiritual creation, all
scientific and artistic production, all moral
action, appear to be founded in the living
presence of a higher Power. With these
tasks the individual with his uncertainty and
weakness cannot grapple. A higher Power,

OUTLINE OF THE LECTURE 9

a power of the Whole, must bear him on,
and bring him beyond the gropings of
reflection into the security of achievement.
Accordingly just on the heights of spiritual
production we note a consciousness of de-
pendence and a feeling of deep gratitude.
Indeed, the higher the spiritual task which
men attempted, the more they felt themselves
in labouring at it to be the instruments of
a higher Power. We may thus say that
all spiritual activity, when traced to its
roots and recognized as independent in
contrast with petty human aims, develops a
kind of religion. This religion which alone
imparts a soul to all culture, we may call
Universal Religion.

4. But however important it is to dis-
cover and recognize in the whole expanse
of life a connexion with religion, this
Universal Religion is not what is generally
understood by Religion. It rather accom-
panies the general life than constitutes a
separate field from which it exerts a peculiar
influence. We are thus carried beyond Uni-
versal Religion to one that is Characteristic.
This is first reached through the experiences,

10 OUTLINE OF THE LECTURE

the checks, the shocks, which human Mfe
exhibits. Spiritual activity, especially on its
moral side, does not advance among us from
victory to victory ; it encounters the most
stubborn resistance, not only from without
but in our own soul as well. Such opposition
is powerful enough to threaten to bring all
life and endeavour to a standstill. In reality,
however, life is not cut short by such a check.
A new depth is revealed beyond all entangle-
ment, issuing, however, out of an immediate
relation of the soul to a life which at once
constitutes and transcends the world — only
such a life can escape from the world's
entanglements. Thus the spiritual life is
roused to the conception of Deity, and in
developing its relation to the Divine en-
genders a Characteristic Religion. At the
summit of this development the approach
of the Deity to man is not limited to
occasional points of contact, it makes man
a partaker of the fulness of his own life.
The union of the divine and human nature
is the fundamental truth of religion, and
its deepest mystery consists in the fact that
the Divine enters into the compass of the

OUTLINE OF THE LECTURE II

Human without impairing its Divinity.
With this new phase life is completely
renewed and elevated. Man becomes im-
mediately conscious of the infinite and
eternal, of that within him which transcends
the world. For the first time the love of
God becomes the ruling motive of his life,
and brings him into an inner relation with
the whole scope of reality. But while this
Characteristic Religion unveils new deeps in
life, it must still remain within the sphere
of human experience, and must in particular
seek a friendly union with the Universal
Religion. If it cuts itself off and prides itself
on being a ' specific ' religion and evolving a
specific piety, it easily sinks into narrowness
and rigidity, and is even in danger of pharisaic
conceit.

5. Religion thus understood is judged by
the new life which it brings forth. It is
the task of thc)!ight to make this life clear
and set it vividly before our eyes. It cannot,
however, produce it by itself. The true
demonstration of religion is one of the spirit
and of power. The historical religions, how-
ever, have their essence in the life peculiar to

12 OUTLINE OF THE LECTURE

each, in their unique type of spiritual Ufe.
This is what severally distinguishes them,
and renders one superior to others. Such
life of course needs definite forms. Religion
cannot become an historical power and unite
men together without forming its own world
of ideas, and also without the practice of
a cultus which presents the new life to men
in visible form. But dogmas and rites have
no value except as expressions of the spiritual
life of which they are the servants. They
must continually be referred back to it or
they become lifeless. Further, from this
point of view it appears legitimate and
indeed necessary, whenever great transforma-
tions take place in the world of thought, to
exercise an impartial criticism upon them,
and reshape them in the interest of the life
which they express. Such criticism does
not lead to disintegration when it proceeds
from the kernel of religion itself instead of
from the outside.

6. Such is the situation at the present
day. In every field of life penetrating
changes have set in, and religion cannot pos-
sibly escape them. But while we practise

OUTLINE OF THE LECTURE I3

an open and honest criticism on traditional
foiTOS, it is needful to develop the essence
of religion the more vigorously. Freedom
should not diminish but increase its depth.
This, however, will be possible if we bring
the new life which unfolds itself in religion,
into full action, and transform it into our
own life. This will protect us against all
paralysing doubt, and give us a sure foothold
in the storms of the age. Life and its
activity alone can produce a Religion
of Life.

RELIGION AND LIFE

New problems are always arising, chal-
lenging human endeavour. ' Each new morn
offers new tasks.' Now one of these new
tasks undoubtedly is involved in the * Prob-
lem of Religion.' In years gone by people
used to discuss this problem with special
reference to the nature of their proofs
and the particular ideas contained in them.
At the present day we must go to the
very root of the problem. The danger
has increased. Religion in its entirety is
being attacked, and we are compelled
to give evidence of its absolute justi-

l6 RELIGION AND LIFE

fication and necessity. Various lines have
been followed out, and our apology for
Religion, I believe, must be based on Life.
Life and Religion are things to be defined
more closely at the outset. Life, as we take
it, means more than practical life. It is
more than a mechanical application of laws
and doctrines to our daily work. For us,
life comprehends every possible kind of
activity (including the understanding),
superior in its entirety to all its particular
branches.

Rehgion, on the other hand, is not merely
a belief in some supreme Power, nor do I
consider it to be the establishment of rela-
tions of any kind between this supreme
Power and ourselves. It is an inner identifica-

RELIGION AND LIFE 1/

tion with it and the creation of a new life
through it. The problem may be therefore
defined in this way : Does man in the whole-
ness of his being experience an impulse to
acknowledge a divine element, and if so,
can he identify himself with it and rise to
its lofty height without transforming his
previous condition ? And it is to this form
of the problem that we must turn our
attention first.

Now, even a slight examination of the
nature of life will show that it is more than
mere existence ; that it contains two distinct
stages of development.

These stages are —

(a) The stage of natural life.
(6) The stage of spiritual life.

B

l8 RELIGION AND LIFE

Nobody can deny that to a certain extent
we are creatures of nature. It is not only
our physical organization that belongs to this
department. By means of sensation and
impulse nature has a firm hold on our souls
as well, and its laws sway our inner life.

In this stage of development there is no
inclination towards religion, or towards the
creation of an ' all-comprehensive ' life,
controlling, as it were, the world of experi-
ence from within. For this natural life is
constituted merely of cause and effect, of
single organic processes, whose sole purpose
it is to exist in opposition to their environ-
ments. There is no such thing as a Unity
pervading and comprehending the Many,
or causing successive experiences to react

RELIGION AND LIFE I9

on each other on the basis of a spiritual
principle. All the single elements and pro-
cesses exist alongside of each other, forming
a merely causal net of relations.

But human life is more than that. We
can rise above the limitation of the par-
ticular, and can view the ' Whole of life.'
Our mind is fit to deal with humanity at
large and with the very infinitude of the
universe. The whole of reality is our
problem. Man strives after greater things
than mere self-preservation in this struggle
for life. He is capable of establishing a
communion with all men and all things.
He can place himself in their position. He
can find his truest self in others, yea, even
in the whole of the universe. The result

20 RELIGION AND LIFE

is an almost instantaneous liberation of his
life from the limitation of the particular ;
he expands and grows above himself.

This progress beyond himself is particularly
manifest in the new turn his spiritual hfe
now takes, and in the altered nature of his
new problem. In the state of nature his
mental life had been but a means and an
instrument of self-preservation. All the
cleverness and acuteness of animals serve
merely to prolong the existence of individuals,
or the whole species, and mental life in this
case is but a secondary issue. In man, how-
ever, the spiritual life attains to independent
existence in the course of his evolution in
history. It evolves its own characteristic
contents and valuations in the ideas of the

RELIGION AND LIFE 21

True, the Good, and the Beautiful. It
expands and becomes a new world within
the soul, and in this new world each par-
ticular action is inspired by the idea of the
whole. This unifying idea of the whole of
life may be applied to each particular point
of life, and present in it.

Another important distinction ought to
be made here : Man in the state of mere
nature is but a part of his environment and
owes everything to his impressions. In the
higher stage, however, he begins to dis-
tinguish subject and object, holds them
apart, and finally succeeds in transcending
this distinction altogether. Science, in a
way, accomplishes this transcendence by
enabhng us to think ourselves into the

22 RELIGION AND LIFE

nature of the object. The work of the
artist, his mode of creating things and
looking at them, has a similar effect. His
work of art represents an inseparable unity
of inward soul and outward form, of spiritual
and tangible elements. In almost every
department we observe this growth of Life,
which in its all-comprehensive nature trans-
cends all scattered elements and petty
contrasts, and is best defined as ' Universal,
or Cosmic Life.*

We cannot come to realize this, however,
without perceiving at the same time that this
new turn of development involves a great
antinomy, which throws us into almost
intolerable difficulties. The new life is there,
in our souls, but it is, as yet, by no means

RELIGION AND LIFE 23

identical with our being and will. It seems
to be produced by us rather than to be a
part of ourselves. The natural limitation
of man remains, he still is but ' a series of
single points,' and lacks the power to com-
prehend and explicate this new life. Man
proves to be no match for this new task and
he cannot attain to this independent ' World
of the Spirit.'

The conditions ensuing from this situation
are most disconcerting, as already stated. A
merely natural self-preservation does not
satisfy him at all. That task he finds to
be too small. And yet he cannot rise to the
higher stage. The actuating spirit wanes
to a shadow without disappearing entirely.
Man feels an estrangement towards his

24 RELIGION AND LIFE

inward life. Something separates his present
existence from that 'mysterious Being.'
And, what is more fatal still, this conflict
produces dualism and ambiguity, which can
be traced in the culture and civihzation of
all peoples, and which penetrate into the
very depth of every human soul. How are
we to get out of this conflict ?

It is absolutely impossible that man in
his limitation should be able to break through
this wall of separation. Some higher power
must do it for him, and more than that,
become part of his own life. It must
transfer him into this new world, the Life
Universal, and identify his truest self with it.
A spiritual hfe deserving that name is not
the activity of a single force but the reaUza-

RELIGION AND LIFE 2$

tion of Life in its entirety on this particular
point of action ; it is the tangible experience
of being supported and uplifted by this
divine power. AU productive geniuses have
felt that most distinctly. Goethe expresses
it in this way : ' In artistic production we
may collect the fagots and pile them up.
But to see them on fire we must wait for the
flash of lightning from above.'

Great thinkers, in a similar way, have
experienced this inward necessity, whenever
they opposed the current opinions of their
time. A statesman hke Gladstone, for ex-
ample, once said he could eiisily conceive
of theoretical doubts of the existence of a
higher Being, but a statesman, standing at the
helm, certainly could never experience such

26 RELIGION AND LIFE

doubts. For without this consciousness of
being led by a higher Power, the innumerable
responsibilities of his position would be
more than human nature could bear.

But as soon as man acknowledges the
manifestation of this divine element and
participates in this new creation through
divine power and grace, life will be altogether
transformed. Now at last we are standing
in the great river of Life, of which we were
allowed to touch no more than the brink in
our first stage of development ; it is here
that we find a new self, our true Spiritual
Life. The cleavage in the depth of our souls
is bridged over at last. That inner estrange-
ment, so often felt, has disappeared and the
whole universe is now part of regenerate

RELIGION AND LIFE 2/

man's experience. Now we may justly say,
' All things are yours, but ye are God's.*
Now true love may be developed and the
joys of life experienced to their fullest ex-
tent. That feeling of isolation disappears,
which has so often depressed us, and we are
conscious of partaking in that ' inner life *
common to all of us. And this autonomous
creation of a true spiritual hfe is the great
wonder, and the only certain evidence on
behalf of religion.

This kind of religion, the source of all
spiritual life, we may venture to call
' Universal Religion.'

Without this Religion no true civilization
is possible. A civilization declining all con-
tact with a supernatural life and refusing

28 RELIGION AND LIFE

to establish those mysterious ' inner rela-
tions ' gradually degenerates into a mere
human civilization, and becomes a ' Kultur
komodie ' (parody of civilization) as Pesta-
lozzi has called it.

The life of every individual person is
affected by this ' Problem of Religion.' I
cannot conceive of the development of a
powerful personality, a deep-rooted and
profound mind, or a character rising above
this world, without his having experienced
this divine life. And as surely as we can
create in ourselves a life in contrast to pure
nature, growing by degrees and extending
to the heights of the True, the Good, and
the Beautiful, we may have the same assur-
ance of that religion called Universal.

RELIGION AND LIFE 2g

But this great turning-point in our de-
velopment naturally brings us into contact
with new difficulties and grave problems.
We expect from a religious point of view
that the Divine element should be omnipotent
in this world, that it should expel the powers
of darkness, accomplish the definite victory
of good over evil, and turn this world of
sensible reality into a world of reason. This
is by no means the case. Our experience
soon tells us that sorrow and suffering,
weakness and wickedness, are still all-
powerful. For nature seems to take little
notice of our spiritual interests and purposes :
earthquakes, floods, and tempests are con-
tinually nipping the buds of life, and we arc
every one of us exposed to these crude

30 RELIGION AND LIFE

powers of destruction. Of a still graver
nature are the antinomies of our inner life.
* The Good ' fails to predominate in human
nature, spiritual powers are employed for
very unspiritual ends, and a kind of egotism
arises, such as the world has never seen before,
opposing the whole of life and making it a
means to an end rather than an end in itself ;
an egotism, which delights in opposing ' the
Good,' and warring against the divine
element. How will our universal religion
fit in with this power of evil ? Are we not
inevitably led to doubt the power and reality
of the Divine ?

This problem has occupied man's mind for
thousands of years, and continually disturbed
and harassed it. Many solutions have been

RELIGION AND LIFE 3I

attempted, of which the following are more
or less typical. Optimism tries to explain
away evil by adopting a standard of criticism
broad enough even to allow the power of
evil as being in harmony with a higher order
of the universe. But this solution of the
problem of evil is impossible for the simple
reason that we are not merely reflective,
but sensitive and active beings in this
world-process, and therefore cannot simply
' reason ' sufferings out of the way.

Stoicism is another of these typical
attempts. It found the purpose and great-
ness of life in keeping suffering and passion
at a distance, and by crushing the emotional
side of our nature. Fate has placed us in
this or that dangerous and exposed position.

32 RELIGION AND LIFE

In spite of the darkness around us we are
to persevere like brave soldiers. Alas, by-
crushing the emotional side, the virtues of
love and charity were exiled and an isolation
of the soul ensued. Besides, to persevere in
the battle of life is no satisfactory ideal of
life. We must know for what the battle is
fought, to what results it will lead, and
whether we shall achieve ' new things.*

Another typical solution, and to my mind
the only remaining one, lies in the narrowing
down of ' Universal Religion * to ' Charac-
teristic Religion.'

By ' Characteristic Religion ' I mean a
rehgion, which allows of conflict, suffering,
and sin, as opening new doors, leading into
greater depths, and creating a life of pure

RELIGION AND LIFE 33

* inwardness,' a life drawing its strength
from the relation of an individual soul to
the ' Spring of all Life.'

It is often said that ' Suffering makes a
man better and refines his nature.' But
that is not the inevitable consequence.
Experience proves that people often become
narrow, petty, and envious through suffering.

Sorrow in itself does not help man ; but
under its stress we may develop and gain a
new life, which may mean the opening up
of a divine life, given by the grace of a divine
power outside of us, creating in us a new
centre of spiritual life, lifting us above
material toil, and imbuing us with an inward
power transcending the world of things.

We Germans have the proverb, ' A man

34 RELIGION AND LIFE

is worth more than his work.' This * more,'
however, is only attained by means of a
Characteristic Religion. On that basis we
can understand the great saying of Jesus,
' What shall a man be profited, if he gain
the whole world and forfeit his soul ? '

I have not claimed that in this discovery
of the new depths of life our old conflicts and
antinomies disappear. Darkness there still
is ; but our struggle is not in vain, if we gain
a new hfe through it, and are bom a second
time. This struggle through harsh negation
to a cheerful ' yea,' this ascent above our
suffering through acknowledging it, is the
fundamental truth of Christianity as I under-
stand it. Through developing this idea and
working it out fully it has attained its pecuhar

RELIGION AND LIFE 35

characteristics. Only on the basis of this
conception could it make the cross its
symbol and carry it victoriously through the
world. This fundamental truth is beauti-
fully expressed by the greatest German poet :

Those who have not understood
' Die, and rise to-morrow ! '
They are but as passing shades
In this world of sorrow.

And Luther powerfully puts it thus :
' That I call spiritual power, which can remain
erect in the midst of our enemies and show
its strength in a state of humiliation. And
its very essence is strength in weakness,
enabling us to gain salvation in all conditions,
and compclhng death, yea, even the cross,
to further our salvation and yield life.*

That is what I believe to be the character

36 RELIGION AND LIFE

of Christianity, It is the preservation of
life in sharpest contradiction with the world.
It is a triumphant progress to cheerful
affirmation in spite of the spirit of negation.
It is the inward extinction of sorrow through
the creation of a higher life, and persists
in growing through all the turmoil of strife
and suffering. Human life may thus be said
to set itself a noble task and to develop
spiritually.

Now at last a true ' world-history ' begins,
for every individual soul can now make
its own history. Classical literature in all
its variety and profound value contains
not one ' history of a soul.' The memoirs
of Marcus Aurelius, though full of noble
reflections, contain no such testimony. It

RELIGION AND LIFE 37

is the imperishable merit of St. Augustine
to have written the first literary biography
of a soul in his Confessions. Such a bio-
graphy could only be of value and interest
in a time when people began to hold with
Luther ' that not for the price of the whole
world may we lose one single soul, however
humble.'

This new life with all its contrasts and rich
inner developments in spite of all external
vexation, cannot be described adequately in
words. The artist must do that for us, the
rehgious poet, and especially the composer
of sacred music, of music like that of
Bach and Handel. But this acquisition is
of ' world-historical ' importance, creating a
spiritual reality never dreamt of before, and

38 RELIGION AND LIFE

proving Christianity to be the rehgion of
all religions in the past history of this world.
Not that we understand things better now.
The elements of darkness may be as preva-
lent as ever. But with darkness we have
gained depth, and there are events in our
soul's Ufe at present which leave no doubt
as to the course of the future.

Fundamental truths, however, standing
above the change of time, are constantly
present 'monitors.' As soon as ReUgion
means the sounding of new depths and the
production of a new reality, we have passed
beyond the sphere of Intellectualism, which
would fain make religion a cosmology. But
we are just as unwilling to make religion a
purely emotional matter, rejecting the un-

RELIGION AND LIFE 39

deniable realities of human existence and
giving full sway to subjectivism. True
religion, with its new reality, must form a
characteristic sphere of life for itself and
produce a characteristic community of men,
seeking its most active realization in the
very estabhshment of this community. And
here again we meet with new conflicts arising
out of the relations between Divine and
Human elements. Certainly the new life is
altogether a gift of God. The Divine does
not conform and adapt itself to Human
standards. All human ' littleness ' is broken
up in the process of regeneration, man is
received into the fulness of divine life and
partakes of its infinitude. But all the same,
the formation of the new life cannot take

40 RELIGION AND LIFE

place without human endeavour, and this
power is roused in the struggle of life. I
admit that man can never express the Divine
adequately. ' All passing things are but
symbols ' (Goethe's Faust) is a truth for all
times. We cannot get beyond the quest
and search for truth. We may demand,
however, that the Divine should be ex-
pressed in the relatively highest forms, that
we should always try to find the most
adequate S3nTibol.

Thus we may account for changes and
varieties, and it may be that the process of
human history renders certain symbols in-
adequate, which in times past were considered
perfect. But as soon as we become aware of
such a cleavage between the essence of

RELIGION AND LIFE 4I

Religion and its latest rendering in symbol,
it is our most sacred duty to bridge it over and
provide a more adequate rendering.

No doubt we are aware of such a cleavage
at the present day. In order to preserve
Christianity in all its strength and beauty
we must find new forms and sjonbols for it.
For since it first came into existence and
received its traditional form, a tremendous
change has taken place. Our world is larger
than the world of those days with regard to
our conceptions of nature as well as those
of human history. Many forms are now
but anthropomorphisms which two thousand
years ago satisfied the very best of minds.
And what was considered in those times to
be a pure expression or reflection of the Divine

42 RELIGION AND LIFE

in Christianity, is now verging dangerously
near the mythological element. Let us not
forget that Christianity entered into history
at a time when the old world was in a state
of resignation and degeneration, when people
took the sorrows and evils of their days as a
kind of inevitable destiny. This is vividly
illustrated by the fact that nobody ventured
to combat the irrationality of their social
conditions, such as poverty and slavery,
and that their morality was of a purely
passive nature.

Our age, however, has inspired us with
wonderful self-confidence and manly vigour.
We are convinced that there are great possi-
bilities in man. We are challenged to throw
in the whole of our strength and labour in

RELIGION AND LIFE 43

uprooting misery and want. We desire to
make human life more rational. And in
the organization of religious and devotional
life we must needs demand more individual
liberty and greater possibilities of free
development than the ancients required.
They thought but little of the strength of
individuals and attempted chiefly to create
a powerful organization and authority taking
all responsibility from the shoulders of the
individual, and preserving him from all
manner of doubt and uncertainty. And
fmally ; we are no longer satisfied with a
traditional cult embodying the Divine in
more or less tangible forms. The ideas of
spiritual and material, of supernatural and
physical, were not held apart in ancient

44 RELIGION AND LIFE

minds with the precision of to-day. They
believed that the Divine must needs manifest
himself in tangible matter, as the early
teachings of the Eucharist show. We are
poignantly conscious of the irremediable
contrast between Spirit and Matter and
resent the magical element, which seems to
us to impair the purely religious. Purely
rehgious it was to them. But we are
inevitably confronted with new problems,
which can only be solved in a state of
liberty, of absolute freedom for all minds.
In taking up the task of remodelling
Christianity [merely in its forms) we are
acting on behalf of Religion. We are not
criticizing for the sake of criticism, but are
longing to come to an everlasting ' yea.^

RELIGION AND LIFE 45

We do not want less, but more of religion.
New social problems are awaiting their
solution. Serious inroads are made on
Christianity and what is of still graver im-
portance, the whole of our people are making
them. And I assure you that Christianity
can ordy grapple with these difficulties by
absorbing and employing all the results and
fruits of the ' world-historical ' work of
humanity at large. And its best contents, its
very life-blood, can only become a possession
of the civilized world if it adapts its forms
and symbols to the conditions of our time.
It must become altogether a religion of the
moving and flowing present. Nothing ob-
solete and antique can be allowed to remain
in it, and it must unite and focus all our

^6 RELIGION AND LIFE

modem intellectual and spiritual aspirations.
It must excise all the pusillanimous and petty
elements of man's nature. In this refonning
process we must carefully avoid putting our
modem interpretation into old things. That
leads to unhealthy results and mns counter
to the saying of the greatest of the Greek
Fathers : ' In the soul of a tmly religious
man all elements must be absolutely genuine.'
Those standing at a greater distance may
object to this spiritualization of rehgion, as
being nothing more than a process of dilution
and evaporation, at any rate a surrender
of the best. But may I be allowed to say
that every single attempt in history to
reform religion and spirituaHze the symbols,
by rejecting its more tangible elements, has

RELIGION AND LIFE 47

been regarded by the adherents of sacred
tradition as a perilous process of dissolution.
The early Christians were called Atheists
because they rejected all images of their
godhead, and at the present day Catholics
believe that the Protestant rehgion sadly
lacks tangible elements of worship.

But as a matter of fact Reality is to be
found not outside of the world of the Spirit,
but in it. And the sooner we become aware
of this in religion, and the sooner it seeks
contact with the whole of life, casting its
anchor in the harbour of life, the sooner will
it appeal to humanity and counteract the
workings of scepticism.

Is it not true that we particularly want a
religion fresh and new-born, bringing forth

48 RELIGION AND LIFE

fruit of all kinds ? I admit that the waters
of the surface are all against religion. But
the undercurrent of man's soul is all in its
favour. Modem culture has succeeded on
many hnes. But it has also given us many
a grave problem, for which it is no match.
This yearning and craving amid the un-
wholesomeness of a secular, merely human
culture, this intolerable shallowness of Hfe,
which cannot reach beyond its circuit, all
the folly and madness of purely human
activities and aims, this rush to and fro,
without love and without soul — how do you
account for them ? And on the other side
the profound longing for greater depths, for
greater stability and permanence ! This
yearning to partake of a higher Hfe than that

RELIGION AND LIFE 49

which the process of natural and social self-
preser\'ation will allow us ! Believe me, this
incessantly growing impulse, running through
all nations and all civilizations of the East
and West, is in itself a proof that powers are
at work in our souls, of which our critics will
have to give account. Pascal justly re-
marked : ' You would not have sought me,
liad I not been there already.'

Of course, we are fully aware of the fact
that we are seekers, that our achievements
are not perfect yet. But we are convinced
at the same time that we are serving a
great end, which is not tlic creation of
our own brains, but set up for us in the
process of evolution.

And as to the attempt to reform Christian

D

50 RELIGION AND LIFE

truths, and clothe them in new symbols, let
us remember what the wise Gamaliel said :
(Acts 5^^,^^) 'And now I say imto you,
Refrain from these men, and let them alone ;
for if this counsel or this work be of men, it
will be overthrown ; but if it is of God, ye will
not be able to overthrow them ; lest haply
ye be found even to be lighting against God.'
Let us therefore work cheerfully, every
man in his own place and way ; all, however,
supported by the firm conviction that we
are partakers of the work of the Spirit, and
that nothing can be in vain, if it has been
done with a view to our great end and in the
faithful fulfilment of our task.

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Contents : — I. The Historical Jesus, II. Jesus and
the Kingdom of God. III. The Theological Christ. IV.
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