power in human life. It stands for a negation of the finite
and fleeting, and an affirmation of the spiritual and the eternal. This
is specially true of the Christian religion. Christianity is the supreme
type of religion because it best answers the question, 'What can religion
do for life?' But the old forms of its manifestation do not satisfy us
to-day. Christianity of the present fails to win conviction principally
for three reasons: (1) because it does not distinguish the eternal
substance of religion from its temporary forms; (2) because it professes
to be the final expression of all truth, thus closing the door against
progress of thought and life; and (3) while emphasising man's redemption
from evil, it forgets the elevation of his nature towards good. There is
a tendency to depreciate human nature, and to overlook the joyousness of
life. What is needed, therefore, is the expression of Christianity in a
new form--a reconstruction which shall emphasise the positiveness,
activity, and joy of Christian morality.[31]

While every one must feel the sublimity and inspiration in this
conception of a spiritual world, which it is the task of life to realise,
most people will be also conscious of a {124} certain vagueness and
elusiveness in its presentation. We are constrained to ask what is this
independent spiritual life? Is it a personal God, or is it only an
impersonal spirit, which pervades and interpenetrates the universe? The
elusive obscurity of the position and function which Eucken assigns to
his central conception of the _Geistes-Leben_ must strike every reader.
Even more than Hegel, Eucken seems to deal with an abstraction. The
spiritual life, we are told, 'grows,' 'divides,' 'advances'--but it
appears to be as much a 'bloodless category' as the Hegelian 'idea,'
having no connection with any living subject. God, the Spirit, may
exist, indeed Eucken says He does, but there is nowhere any indication of
how the spiritual life follows from, or is the creation of, the Divine
Spirit. Our author speaks with so great appreciation of Christianity
that it seems an ungracious thing to find fault with his interpretation
of it. Yet with so much that is positive and suggestive, there are also
some grave omissions. In a work that professes to deal with the
Christian faith--_The Truth of Religion_--and which indeed presents a
powerful vindication of historical Christianity, we miss any
philosophical interpretatio