, which cannot originate,
prior to the appearance of the spiritual estimation of values, but which
becomes his when he is set in a strong current; then, on the one hand,
anxiety for external existence, division into parties, ambition, etc.,
and, on the other hand, the mechanism of the psychic life with its
association, reproduction, etc., are all seen in a new light. These
motive powers would certainly never produce a spiritual content out of
man's own ability; such a content is only reachable if the movement of
life raises man out of and above the initial performances and the
initial motives. No mechanism, [p.97] either of soul or of society, is
able to accomplish this; it can be accomplished alone by an inward
spirituality in man. Through such a conception, Realism and Idealism are
no longer irreconcilable opponents, but two sides of one encompassing
life; one may grow alongside the other, but not at the expense of the
other. Indeed, the more the content of the spiritual life grows, the
more becomes necessary on the side of psychic existence; the more we
submerge ourselves in this psychic existence, the greater appears the
superiority of the spiritual life."[29] This difference between noeology
and psychology is pointed out by Eucken in his delineation of spiritual
life along the whole course of its development. The insistence on the
reality of life within the region of values, brought forth through the
activity of the Will, is shown to be absolutely necessary in order that
life may not sink into the level of the mere physical object on the one
hand, and into mere subjectivity and momentary changes of consciousness
on the other hand. It is a decision at this point which constitutes the
great turn to a life of the spirit and to the granting to it of a
_self-subsistence_ as real as objects in the external world; it is a
turn which includes, further, a new beginning of a remove from the
content of the moment and from the impinging of the environment upon the
subject; it is a realisation by the mind and [p.98] soul that its own
content is now on a path which has to be carved out, step by step, by
its own spiritual potency. It is in the light of what is attempted and
accomplished in this respect that the external world and all its
ramifications into the soul are in the last resort to be interpreted.
When the foundation of life is thus placed upon a spiritual content of
meaning and value, norm and end, the _first impressions_