I. STATEMENT AND CRITICISM OF INDIVIDUAL SYSTEMS OF LIFE
It must be admitted that the first glance at the present conditions of life shows a chaotic confusion. A more careful examination, however, soon discloses a limited number of schemes of life, which, although they are often combined by individuals, are in their nature distinct and remain differentiated. We recognise five such systems of life: those of Religion and of Immanent Idealism on the one hand, and those of Naturalism, Socialism, and Individualism on the other hand. For, two main groups may be clearly distinguished: one, older, which gives to life an invisible world for its chief province; and one, newer, which places man entirely in the realm of sense experience; within these groups, the ways again lead in diverse directions. Let us see what each of these organisations makes out of life; on what each supports itself; and what each accomplishes. Let us see also where each meets with opposition and in what it finds its limits; and this not according to our individual opinion, but according to the experiences of the age.
The religious organisation of life has influenced us in the past with especial power. This has worked in the form of Christianity, which, as an ethical religion of redemption, occupies a thoroughly unique position among religions. As a religion it unites life to a supernatural world, and subjects our existence to its supremacy; as a religion of redemption it heightens the contrast between the two worlds to such a degree of harshness that a complete revolution becomes a necessity; as an ethical religion it regards the spiritual life as a power of positive creation and self-determination, and insists upon a complete change of the heart. Arising in an age of decay, an age weary of life, it confidently took up the conflict against this faintness; it did not carry on this conflict, however, by a further development of the natural world and of culture, but through the revelation of a supernatural order, of a new community of life, which, through the building up of an invisible Kingdom of God--which wins a visible expression in the Church--becomes to man in faith and hope the most certain presence. Christianity ratified an affirmation of life; still, it did not accomplish this immediately, but by the most fundamental and definite negation; and thus to a cursory consideration it might appear to be a flight from the world. In reality, it unites the negation and the affirmation, flight from, and renewal of, the world; the deepest feeling of, and the happiest deliverance from, guilt and suffering, and thereby gives to life a greater breadth as well as a ceaseless activity in search of its true self. Religion does not mean a special domain by the side of others; its intention is rather to be the innermost soul and the supreme power of the whole life. Through its ideals and its standards it lends to the whole sphere of life a distinctive character; it leads to a definite organisation of mankind and offers powerful opposition to all dissipation, all merely individual caprice. It comes to the individual as a supreme power which brings to him salvation and truth, shapes him for the highest ends, and connects his thought and feeling with an invisible world.