s of his own
being are higher and of more value than anything in Nature. Still, that
does not mean that Nature has to be discarded or condemned before the
potencies of his own being can develop. Nature is not a mere blind
machine; it has produced all--including man and his potencies--that is
to be found on the face of it. It is therefore not entirely meaningless,
and the meaning it possesses is a necessary element in the evolution of
personal spiritual life. Man must enter into some relation with Nature.
But such a relation produces even more than all this. When viewed in a
friendly mood, [p.123] Nature herself wears an aspect higher than a
materialistic or intellectual one. It calls forth the best in
imagination; it enables us to feel that something of the power that
dwells within the soul dwells also in all the manifestations of
phenomena.[40] This fact is evident in all the poetry of the world, and
without the perpetual presence of Nature to the soul in the form of
wonder, reverence, and admiration, no poetry worthy of the name is
possible. Nature thus is of value in the fact that when its phenomena
present themselves to a consciousness aware not only of its _knowing_
aspect but also of its _feeling_ aspect, the union of Nature and soul
produces a feeling of reality which creates an ideal nature. "The light
that never was on sea or land" becomes now on sea and land; it
illuminates the whole scene with a "halo and glory" which was concealed
before. But there must be present "an eye of the soul" united with the
physical impressions before all this is possible. Indeed, the effect of
all this is nothing less than an ideal creation of a world consisting of
Nature and the spiritual potencies of man. It is evident that if the
_internal_ [p.124] factor, which represents itself in the form of
morality or value, is absent, the picture of Nature is quite different.
And this is Eucken's complaint in regard to much of the art of the
present day: the internal factor is absent. Seriousness is not blended
with freedom in it; or, in other words, the _inward_ has no power to
pass its quality into the _outward_. But when the _inward_ is present in
the form of morality or value, then art becomes joyous, serious,
helpful, and disinterested. This last aspect of the disinterestedness of
art was perceived clearly by Kant, and has formed an important
contribution to the philosophy and even to the religion of the
nineteenth century. When a pot