THE PAST, PRESENT, AND THE ETERNAL In investigating the problem of human life, Eucken lays great stress upon the history of man in past ages--this is one of the special aspects of his philosophy.

The fact is, of course, not surprising; he who would explain the life of man would be unwise to ignore the records of the past life of the human race.

The thinker who examines the present only, is apt to be narrow in his ideas, to fail to look upon events in their proper perspective, and to be unduly affected by the spirit of the age in which he lives--the student of history avoids these pitfalls.
Moreover, man does not become aware of the depth of his own soul, until he has "lived into" the experience of the past.

This is what the profound investigator of history does; he lives again the life of the hero, he feels with him as he felt upon special occasions, and in this way there is revealed to him a profundity and greatness of human experience, of which he would have been largely unaware if he had trusted to his own experience alone, and to the superficial examination he is able to make of the experiences of those living men with whom he comes into contact.

In this way he is able in a sense to appropriate the experience of the greatest personalities unto himself, and enrich considerably the contents of his own soul.
Through a study of history, too, we become aware of the intimate connection that exists between the present and the past.