ound was fallow twenty-five years ago when some of Eucken's
important works made their appearance. Even as late as 1896 he complains
of this in the preface of his _Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_:
"I am aware that the explanations offered in this [p.24] volume will prove
themselves to be in direct antagonism to the mental currents which
prevail to-day."[3] He states that his standpoint is different from that
of the conventional and official idealism then in vogue. By this he
means, on the one hand, the "absolute idealism" which constructed
systems entirely unconnected with science or experience--systems whose
Absolute had no direct relationship with man, or which made no appeal to
anything of a similar nature to itself in the deeper experience of the
soul; and, on the other hand, the degeneration of the neo-Kantian
movement to a mere description of the relations of bodily and mental
processes.

Probably enough has been said to show that the idealistic systems of
Germany are tending more and more in the direction of a philosophy which
attempts to take into account not only the results of the physical
sciences and psychology, but also those of the norms of history and of
the over-individual contents of consciousness.

It has been stated by several critics in England, Germany, and America,
that Eucken has ignored the results of physical science and psychology.
This was partially true in the past, when his main object was to present
his [p.25] own metaphysic of life. The problems of science and
psychology had to take a secondary place, but it is incorrect to state
that these problems were ignored. It is remarkable how Eucken has kept
himself abreast of these results which are outside his own province.[4]
But he has been all along conscious of the limitations of these results
of natural science and psychology. The results fail to connote the
phenomena of consciousness and its meaning. While Eucken has accepted
these results, I have not seen any evidence that any of his conceptions
concerning the main core of his teaching--the spiritual life--are
disproved by any of them. He shows us, as will be elucidated later, that
as sensations point in the direction of percepts, and percepts in the
direction of concepts, so concepts point in the direction of something
which is beyond themselves. And as the meaning of reality reveals itself
the more we pass along the mysterious transition from sensation to
concept, so a further me