light of higher ones which include the good of all? Eucken doubts
whether the progress has been great. And here once more, [p.111] in
connection with the deepest meaning of society and the individual, he
sees the need of ideals which are universally true and universally
valid. This means that the spiritual life as it presents itself in the
universally true, good, and beautiful, must become the sun which will
shine upon all that is below it; it is the Whole in which the Parts must
find their function and meaning. If the life of society relates itself
to anything lower than this, the best within it cannot come to flower
and fruit. In other words, society will have to return to a conception
and utilisation of an _absolute spiritual life_ before it can gain any
new territory of eternal value. Probably quite as much attention will
have to be devoted to the Parts--to the environment, the needs of the
hour, the material comforts and happiness of life. But granting that the
possession of all these will come about, what then? We are still
wretchedly poor in the "inward parts." What we have won has not within
itself sufficient spirituality to touch the deepest recesses of the
soul. Material plenty and pleasure are a good when they are used as they
ought to be used. Where is that "something" that teaches us this? Where
is the Ought? The Ought is something outside and infinitely higher than
all the gains which the environment or the group is ever able to bring
forth. "Life," says Eucken,[36] "cannot be made simply [p.112] a
question of relationship to environment and of the development of mutual
relationships (as this tendency would have it) without the independence
of the isolated factor [spiritual life] being most seriously reduced.
And it must not be forgotten that the individual is the sole source of
original spiritual life; corporate social life can do no more than unite
and utilise. The maintenance of the strength and freedom of this
original life would be less important, and its limitation would be more
easily endurable, if human life stood upon a firm foundation and needed