OF THE SPIRIT. 407 



significance of the All. Now the latter is just what the 

 higher regions of thought desire to grasp from the be- 

 ginning and to place in the centre of their reasoning. 

 If then Keason lies at the bottom and forms the ground- 

 work of everything, it cannot be identified with the 

 rationale of exact and scientific knowledge which leads 

 ever more into detail and makes no distinction between 

 what is of higher and what is of lower value. Yet we 

 cannot look upon the world around us without intro- 

 ducing these aspects, which are essentially foreign to 

 scientific research or, should they exist, are brought 

 into it in its relation to an end or aim by purely 

 utilitarian and commercial considerations. This has 

 been recognised even by those thinkers who do not 

 despair of reaching an understanding of the highest 

 moral phenomena by employing purely scientific — i.e., 

 exact canons and methods. They are then confronted 

 with two definite problems. 



The first is : to find in the empirical and phenomenal 

 world which surrounds us a principle which, so to speak, 

 destroys the monotony of things and disturbs the im- 

 partiality of the purely scientific observer, introducing 

 a standard of value, a means of judging between the 

 higher and lower. Such a principle they find in the so. 



° . . The problem 



phenomenon of progress, and ultimately, under various of progress. 



denominations, in the mechanically un definable principle 



of Life. The second difficulty lies in this, that even as- si. 



'' The diffi- 



suming the rationality of things could be reached through cuityotEvii 

 the principles and defined in the vocabulary of science, 

 we have then to resolve the still remaining great irration- 

 ality of human existence — that of Evil and Sin. These 



