he
demands and potencies of life; the pragmatists emphasise the primary
place of the will in the development of the inner life, but they have
certainly ignored the presence of over-individual norms, as the goal of
volition, whilst Eucken holds to the necessity of both. With the
absolutists the relation of the Absolute with the will is not clearly
perceived, and consequently the Absolute becomes merely an object of
thought and contemplation; and in all this the individual does not
become aware of a burning desire to move in the direction of the goal.
[p.143] The pragmatist leaves the individual at the mercy of the
momentary content of consciousness; this content is quite as likely to
be trivial as to be great; and hence there is no absolute standard
present to determine the nature and value of this content of the moment,
and consequently no more than a life of effortless drifting can issue
out of all this.

This blend of absolutism and pragmatism is richer in its content than
either of the two. Each has missed something of importance, and it is
here supplied by Eucken.

Norms and potency become two indissoluble factors in the evolution of
the higher life. As already stated, the norms have an objectivity of
their own, and consequently when they enter into life, life becomes
conscious of their being something _given_ and not brought into
existence by its own potency. It is out of this conclusion to which life
is forced that the doctrine of Grace, found in some way or other in all
religions, is to be accounted for. And it is out of the consciousness of
the interval between norm and achievement that the sense of _guilt_
follows man whenever he penetrates deeply into the deeper experiences of
the soul. Grace and guilt--naming only two experiences of the soul--are
not remnants of a traditional theology, but essential elements which
accompany the deepest experience of the soul. When they are wanting, it
is most probable that the soul has not plumbed its own [p.144] existence
to its very depths, but has rather chosen to be satisfied with what lies
but a little way beneath the surface--with what does not cause too much
uneasiness, but is sufficient for a life to persist as a good member of
the society by which it is surrounded. Only half a religion can become
the possession of any individual who does not at least pay as much
attention to the nature and value of over-individual norms as he pays to
the nature of the environment a