passion, on an invisible community, an ideal humanity....
The individualist in his conception exalts the individual to a height
far more lofty than is justified by the individual as he is found in
experience." 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. We have
still to see how he attempts to prove that basing human life upon an
eternal spiritual life satisfies the conditions he himself has laid down
for a satisfactory solution of the problem. He has to show that the
theory gives a satisfactory explanation of human life, that it gives a
firm basis for life, that it releases man from being governed by low
motives, and admits of the possibility of human personality, freedom,
and creation. We shall see in the chapters that follow that he makes a
convincing case for accepting the belief in the Universal Spiritual Life
as the basis of human life and endeavour.

CHAPTER V

THE "HIGH" AND THE "LOW"

Eucken makes the recognition of the existence of a Universal Spiritual
Life the starting-point of his constructive work. He takes up a position
which he calls the noeological position. Many theories take up a
materialistic position; they assert the reality of the material world,
and endeavour to explain the world of matter as something independent of
the human mind. Other theories assert the superiority of mind over
matter, and endeavour to examine the mind as though it were independent
of the material world. These two types of theories have been in
continual conflict; the one has attempted to prove that thought is
entirely conditioned by sense impressions received from the material
world, the other regards the phenomena of nature as really nothing other
than processes of the mind.

Eucken finds reality existing in the spiritual life, which while neither
material nor merely mental, is superior to both, admits the existence
(in a certain sense) of both, and does away with the opposition between
the rival types of theories. Eucken does not minimise or ignore the
existence of the natural world. The question for him is not the
independent existence of the worlds of nature and mind--this he admits;
he is concerned rather with the superiority of the spiritual life