either the breaking forth of a new kind of reality or the worst of all
possible illusions. And this great and inexorable _Either_--_Or_
presents itself in every decision taken towards what is higher than the
level we are standing on. The matter here does not belong to any
speculative domain, and is not the result of fancy or imagination out of
which reason has taken its flight. The matter is concrete--tangible
through and through. The history of mankind bears witness to the
validity of it; the experience of each individual in the deepest moments
of life echoes the experience of the race. The superiority of this _new
beginning in the over-world_ has to be established over and over again
by each individual on account of the danger of sinking back to a lower
level where the main power of spiritual life is not in action. A
certainty is therefore requisite in the very beginning of the
enterprise--an enterprise which is absolute and eternal. No limits are
perceptible to the possibilities of spiritual life when the fullest
conceivable content of the soul is seated at the centre of life, and
when every outward is interpreted and governed by an inward. This
experience is [p.103] far removed from all attempts to found religion on
speculation drawn either from the physical world or from the
generalisations of logic. These have their value--they point to the
presence of some degree of spiritual life when the human mind has worked
upon the material presented to it. But the matter at this highest level
does _not_ deal with the _relations_ of life but with _life itself_ in
the light of an over-world.

Eucken is nowhere finer than when he detects the necessity for the
acknowledgment of such a spiritual foundation of life. It is not a mere
individual need, but the union of an individual need with a reality
objective to the need. If the reality were already the possession of
man, no such need could arise. Still, the reality is present in his mind