Papini, Giovanni

OpenSIUC

^be ®^cn CourtA MONTHLY MAGAZINEDevoted to tbe Science ot IRelfaton, tbe IRelfaion ot Science, an& tbeBitension of tbe IReligious parlfament 1&eaFounded by Edward C. HecelekVol. XXXVIII (No. 5) MAY, 1924 No. 816CONTENTSPAGEFrontispiece. Rudolph Eucken.Rudolph Eucken. Giovanni Papini 257Some Aspects of Chinese Poetry. Frederick W. Dupee 262The Social and Political Philosophy of Ludwig Stein. Harry Elmer Barnes 269"Mord" Lincoln, the Woman-Hater. William E. Barton 288Doubt, Presumption and the Open Mind. Victor S. Yarros 304Mysticism and Magic. Hardin T. McClelland 310Q;be ©pen Court IpubUsbino Companig122 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IllinoisPer copy, 20 cents (1 shiUing). Yearly, $2.00 (in the U.P.U., 9«. 64)Entered as Second-Class Matter March 26, 1887, at the Post Office at Chicagro. 111., under Act of March 3, 1879.Copyright by The Open Co€RT Publishing Company, 1924.Religfious BooksFor PASTORS and LAYMENPAUL, SON OF KISHBy Lyman I. HenryA vivid narrative reconstruction of the life of Paul that presents him asa very real personality. A skillful blending of history and romance intoa biography that shows Paul as a youth, as father of a family, persecutorof the followers of the Way, militant herald of Christianity, and martyrto the faith. $1.90 and $2.50, postage 10 cents extraEPOCHS IN BUDDHIST HISTORYBy Kenneth J. SaundersTo show how the great qualities which Gotama Buddha embodied haveled inevitably to a polytheistic cult is the purpose of this sympatheticchronicle. Doctor Saunders has caught much of the spirit of the greatand noble Order of the Yellow Robe, and describes the remarkable processby which Buddhism arose from Brahmanism and spread in an ever-widen-ing stream over the Eastern World. $3.00, postpaid $3.12THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITYBy Frederick Owen NortonGives in the compass of one readable volume a complete story of the originand messages of Christianity and its development to the point when itbecame established as a world-religion. A vivid description of the worldout of which Christianity arose, and a strictly scientific, yet singularlyclear and interesting interpretation of the original sources.$2.00, postpaid $2.10THE SOCIAL ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITYBy Shirley Jackson CaseIn this discussion of the rise and early development of the Christian move-ment, the first emphasis is placed on social environment as a formativefactor. Doctor Case has set forth the actual social and religious experi-ences of the men who, as individuals and groups, laid the foundationsupon which the new religion was to be perpetuated. $2.50, postpaid $2.60Let us send you our latest bulletin"About Religious Books'*THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS5832 ELLIS AVENUE CHICAGO, ILLINOISjCt^cto^ C<^c4lc^yi^Frontispiece to The Op.ii Court.The Open CourtA MONTHLY MAGAZINEDevoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, andthe Extension of the Religious Parliament IdeaVol. XXXVIII (No. 5) MAY, 1924 (No7816)Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Company, 1924RUDOLPH EUCKEN^HY GIOVANNI TAPINI[Note: The following paper is from Papini's 24 CcrvcUi ("Four andTwenty Minds"), published in 1912, l^iefore the author's conversion to Catholi-cism. It is one of the papers not included in Professor Wilkins' book ofPapini translations.]WHEN, a short while ago, a swarm of news dispatches an-nounced among;' the list of Nobel prize-winners, a namedeformed by German syllables, followed by the word Jena, certainItalian newspapers, better versed in matters of crime than in thehistory of philosophy, at once leaped to the conclusion that the for-tunate recipient-to-be of one of these annual checjues was none otherthan the celebrated Ernest Hackel, who also resided in Jena. How-ever, better informed journals and more intelligent persons under-stood at once that the savant in question was not the evolutionisticpope.It is possible also that down there in Jena they would have beenbetter satisfied if the prize had been awarded to Haeckel instead ofto Eucken. The contemporary history of the little university townis well known but interesting. Behind its walls dwelt three greatmen. The first, Haeckel. is the patron saint of the city. There isa Hackclstrassc, and the tobacco shops carry cigar boxes displayinga large bearded face, with the energetically satisfied inscription,Unscr Haeckel! beneath it. The second, Eucken, is known after afashion, and while he has many friends and acquaintances, it mightbe said that his good fortune had made him known for the first timeto a number of his fellow townsmen. The third, Erege, is absolutelyunknown, in Jena and out, although he is, perhaps, the most originalof the three. He is a modest mathematician, inventor of a logicalsymbolism, and, in many respects, worthy of a place beside our ownPeano. There are not ten persons in Europe, possibly, who have^ Translated from the Italian bv Samuel Putnam.258 THE OPEN COURTread and understood his works, but that detracts nothing from hisglory. Now, however, the great European pubhc knows that thereexists a philosoplier by the name of Eucken, and everybody wantsto know what sort of man he is. The hfe of Eucken has in it noth-ing of the extraordinary. It is the Hfe of a dihgent professor, of alaborious writer, and of the faithful father of a family.Rudolph Christian Eucken was born in Aurich, East Frisia, Janu-ary 5, 1846. He studied at the university of Goettingen from 1863to 1867; from 1867 to 1871, he taught in a gymnasium. In 1871, hereceived a call as professor ordinarius of philosophy at Basilea, andthere he found himself in the company of Buckhardt and Nietzsche.These latter, however, as the celebrated editor, Diedrichs, anotherof Jena's glories, assures me, did not attach much importance to theyoung professor and took no notice of him. possibly for the reasonthat he did not possess, in their eyes, sufficient pcrsonlichkcit. From1874, he taught at Jena, and from then on he never moved from thatplace.When it is added that Eucken has a wife who is a great admirerof her husband, that he has several sons and many friends, practi-cally all the necessary information about his life has been given.The philosophic life of Eucken, on the other hand, has beenquite an adventurous one. As a youth, through his masters, Tren-delenburg and Renter, he underwent the influence of Hegel, an influ-ence which was never efifaced. A little later, however, his own truemasters were Plato and Fichte, and to them he owes that vivid senseof the reality of the spirit which fills his eloquent pages.He began, as so many others have done, with history, with cer-tain studies in the method of Aristotle, with certain thorough re-searches in philosophic terminology, with certain acute observationson images and tests in philosophy, and with a series of studies onthe old German philosophers. His leading work, the Lchensanschau-ungcn dcr grosscn Dcnkcr, is a species of philosophic history fromPlato to Nietzsche, the whole viewed through the medium of hisown novel idealism.But Eucken, with the soul of an apostle and a moralist, couldnot remain in the field of history, even though it was history madeto his order, and for twenty-three years he continued to expound,in books large and small, a group of ideas on life and the world and,above all. his conception of an independent spiritual life, towardsthe development of which he believed mankind must tend and labor.He began, in 1878 with his Grimdhegriffc dcr Gegcnwart (Fun-RUDOLPH EUCKEX 259damental Concepts of the Present Time), which then became theGeistigc Stroonnngcn dcr Gcgcimart (The Spiritual Currents ofthe Present Time ) , in which, already, the central motives of his ide-ology were recognizable ; and in a few days, the Einfiichrung in euiePhilosophic dcs Cicistlcbcn (Introduction to a Philosophy of the Spir-itual Life) appeared, in which the same motives arc to be fovuidagain, with certain variations imposed l)y time. His most famouswork. Life Visions of Great Thinkers, is not the one best suited toconvey an idea of Eucken's genius. In it he is too critical, too pre-occupied with the idea of showing the contradictions between otherphilosophers, and, to tell the truth, a little tedious, though the spiritof Eucken is natural]}- an enthusiastic, optimistic, and spontaneousone.Eucken has written a great many books, but it is not to beassumed, for this reason, that he has put forth a large number ofideas. Some of his books are revisions of his earlier ones ; othersare repetitions, developments, amplifications and sometimes, it is tobe regretted, dilutions of ideas which have been put forth by himten and a hundred times before. He is fond of eloquence ; heexhibits a tendency to moral sermonizing; and he draws out histhoughts a little as if they were symphonic themes. For this reason,in reading his works, one has an impression ; if not of distastefulobscurity, certainly of prolixity ; and perhaps, one who has read oneof his books may be said to know Eucken as well as one who hasread them all.There should be no need, on the other hand, of drawing theunkind conclusion that this extensive literary output of Eucken isthe result of an inordinate desire for money or fame ; he has in him-self a need to expand, to communicate his thought, to make knownand accepted that which he believes to be true : and for this reason,he seems never to have been able to repeat any one idea oftenenough or to expound it with sufficient lucidity.His philosophy, on account of this oratorical, poetic, propagan-(iistic character, is not easily summed up. That with which Euckenis most preoccupied is life—with the manner in which we ought tolive. Spiritual divisions grieve him, and he believes that metaphysi-cal as well as moral salvation lies in unity. This unity is not to befound in the philosophers, who are perpetually in contradiction toone another; it is not to be found in the various conceptions of lifewhich have been given us from time to time. It can only be realizedin a deeper and fuller spiritual life.260 THE OPEN COURTOne of the most important ideas of Eucken is that man, from apurely natural being, tends always to become a spiritual being, andthat we have the right to speak of an autonomous spiritual life, oneindependent, that is to say, of the other vital and social functions,and one which ought ever to extend itsi dominion more and more.But we are not to be content with hoping that this spiritual life willbe extended and deepened. We must cooperate more and more inthe coming of its kingdom. We must act in order to aid it, and notcontent ourselves merely with contemplation. "This life in its orderlydevelopment," he says in one of his most recent books, "receives itscoloring and its special tone by putting forth, above all, the factthat we do not belong by simple right of birth to a reasonable world,capable of being primarily reduced to contemplation and pleasure,but that it is necessary for us to hurl ourselves forth with energyagainst this world, and that for this reason there must be a revolu-tion of present conditions." {Grundlinicn einer neuen Lebcnsan-schauung, Leipzig, Veit, 1907, p. 210.)The philosopher, then, must not merely knoiu the world ; he mustchange it, as well. For this reason, he has ultimately given to hisphilosophy the name of activism, and for the same reason, that phil-osophy has been connected with the famous pragmatism, which hascreated so great a stir in America and in Europe in recent years. ButEucken holds us to an accurate distinction between his activism andpragmatism, and he has a right to do so, since he is more akin to thetwo masters of French spiritualism, Ravaisson and Boutroux, thanhe is to either James or Schiller.To Boutroux he bears a special resemblance on account of thegreat importance which he attaches to religious questions. Many ofhis volumes treat of religion, and not everybody knows, perhaps, thatin Germany he is one of those who have followed with the mostintelligent attention the Franco-Italian modernistic movement.With respect, however, to the religions of the past, as with respectto their philosophies, he preserves the attitude of a critic. Nochurch truly can call him her follower, as no philosophy can call himits disciple. He is constantly in search of something which shall beat one and the same time a perfect religion and a perfect state ofknowledge, of action and of contemplation. He has in himself the"torment for unity," and yet, he is constrained to recognize the dual-ism which is in all thought and the fact that thought must continu-ally triumph. And so the contradictions which he finds in othersare to be found also in himself. For Eucken, the great philosophersRUnOLni EUCKEN 261are those seekers who have ghmpsed little hy little something of thetruth ; the great revealers of religion are the experimenters who pre-pare the way for the luiknown God to come. But is there not some-thing of this in Eucken himself ? He also, a modern and thereforea dolorously contradictory spirit, finds himself caught in a dilemmafrom which all his beautiful phrases on the spiritual life are power-less to extricate him. He, as a religious soul, aspires to a unionwith God ; as a prophet of the kingdom of the spirit, he believes inthe coming of the Alan-God ; and for this reason, if he were consist-ent, he ought not to philosophize at all, he ought not to write books,but ought rather to live and to assist others to live in a manner pro-gressively more noble. If the spirit is activity, as Eucken is alwaysrepeating, metaphysics has no further cause for being. The greatproblem is to know what to do, and philosophy is thus reduced to amoral issue. Eucken, often as he has combatted intellectualism, hasnot had the courage to lay aside the pursuit of knowledge ; and so,in all his works, a contrast is to be perceived between a mystic spirit,tending to pure interior action, and an old-style philosophic mind,which cannot detach itself entirely from intellectualistic predilections.With a philosophic predication, he attempts to dissipate the contrast,but it is not possible. And for this reason, Eucken, while he is todaya valuable worker in the field of spiritual education, will not befound among those who have given to humanity a new and decisiveword.

Rudolph Eucken.

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3748&context=ocj

Rudolph Eucken.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

OpenSIUC