Is it not strange how it is that man often serves but as a mere instrument for the realisation of an idea, and how he is often carried away by an idea to do things which are against his own personal interests and desires?
And when he and his generation have passed beyond human sight, we often find a new generation direct their endeavours in the same way, and we wonder what is behind such a continuity in the struggles of mankind.
The history of great personalities in the realms of literature, art, and science show in a remarkable way how men have risen above the influences of their time, and beyond the cramping tiredness of the mere flesh.
Could a great thinker like Aristotle be entirely conditioned by flesh and environment?
And what of the great artists and poets who have conquered the chains of mortal finitude and breathed of higher worlds?
Every one of them is a convincing testimony of the possibility of mankind transcending the material, and taking unto itself of the resources of a deeper world.
Then the dissatisfaction of the ages with their limited knowledge of truth cannot but tell of a great eternal something that stirs at the basis of the human soul.

The people of to-day find the various systems of the day inadequate; they search for something higher, and the mere fact that they search beyond matter and the mere subjective human qualities is in itself a testimony to the existence of a world higher than the material and subjective.
What is it that makes it possible for one human being to "live into" the experience of others who lived long ago, and for the present to conquer and alter the past?
How can we account for the eternal trait in thought, for the unchanging laws of logic, for the consistency of moral ideals, and their transcendence over flesh and immediate circumstances?
What is the force behind the idea, and how can we account for the continuous struggle of mankind in certain directions?
And, finally, what is it that makes it possible for men to rise beyond themselves, to shake away the shackles of matter and vicinity, and to delve deep into the profounder world?
If we can find what it is that makes all this possible, then surely we have found the greatest thing in the world--the reality.

And Eucken's answer is clear and definite.

It must be something that persists, is eternal and independent of time, and it must extend beyond the individual to a universal whole.

This must be "the Universal Spiritual Life," which, though eternal, reveals itself in time, and though universal, reveals itself in the individual man, and forms the source from which the spiritual in man "draws its power and credentials." This, then, is the result of Eucken's search for reality--he has found it to exist in a Universal Spiritual Life.