The desire to find a meaning which will explain, and at the same time infuse zest and gladness into every department of life has become a passion with him, and in finding that meaning, his great endeavour is to prove the truth of human freedom and personality.

He wishes to solve the riddle in order that man may become a better man, the world a better world.

His aim is definitely an ethical aim, and his purpose a practical one of the noblest order, and not one of mere intellectual interest.
There is much, too, that is original in his methods--this will become evident in the chapters that follow.

He begins with an inquiry into the solutions that have been offered.

After careful investigation he finds they all fail to satisfy the conditions which a solution should satisfy.
His discussions of these theories are most illuminating, and those who do not agree with his conclusions cannot fail to admire his masterly treatment.
Having arrived at this conclusion, he searches the story of the past, studies the conditions of the present, and gazes into the maze of the future, and finds revealed in them all an eternal something, unaffected by time, which was, is, and ever shall be--the eternal, universal, spiritual his, which then must be the great reality.
Upon this basis he builds a system of philosophy, which he considers to be more satisfactory than the solutions already offered; with which contention, there is little doubt, the majority of his readers will be inclined to agree.
After the brief statement of Eucken's special problem, of the purpose and methods of his investigation, we can proceed to outline his theories in greater detail, beginning in the next chapter with his discussion of the solutions that have in the past been offered and accepted..