RUDOLF EUCKEN

Southland Times, Issue 20014, 30 October 1926, Page 11

RUDOLF EUCKEN

A GREAT PHILOSOPHER. A cable message from London dated September 15, announces the death, in his 81st year, of Rudolf Eucken, the celebrated philosopher of the University of Jena, in Germany says a writer in the Sydney Morning J Herald. For fifty years he had been a familiar and revered figure in that academic centre, to the cultural prestige of which he made no mean contribution. It is the German, Eucken, and the Frenchman, Bergson, one would say, who have been regarded as the two most eminent original thinkers of the day in the domain of philosophy. Shall we, then, allow “divine philosophy” to couple their great names, join them above the evil of strife and dissension as are being joined even now the names of the two statesmen of their respective countries, Stresemann and Briand- Eucken seemed to have lived just long enough to hear of that reconciliation. This return of the spirit of peace must have been a great joy to a man with admirers like Emile Boutroux and Henri Bergson among that great and adorable people across the Rhine. Though the time was ripe for the passing of pne so full of years, yet many, very many, of all nationalities will regret his going. They will feel sad at the silencing of a voice which spoke always so courageous!) and consistently for a lofty idealism, and at the laying aside of a pen which was prolific in the same cause. There is no one, I should think, who had heard Eucken lecture, who had read his books, or had met him in private life, but will feel the loss of his eloquence and zeal. Deeply religious, he was yet, as becomes a philosopher, critical of dogma. It was from these two circumstances that his philosophy took its characteristic idealist yet critical quality: “My spiritual development,” he says, “was determined by the fact that I grew up among people who were religious, yet liberal-minded and favourably disposed to philosophy.” NOT MATHEMATICS. Eucken was born at Aurich, in East Friesland. At first he intended to devote himself to mathematics, but soon philosophy won him. Everything he could get of philosophical literature he devoured greedily, but the materialistic trend of the philosophy of the day made no impression upon him whatever. There followed now a systematic study of philosophy at the University of Goettingen. Finally, he went to Jena, with its famous tradition, wondarfud natural surroundings, its fresh and even unique academic fife. There he taught students who came from ail parts of Germany, as also from many foreign countries. How well one remembers his lectures given in the University which had been removed from Wittenberg to Jena by the Elector, Johann Friederich. Eucken was now a teacher in a university which had known Novalis and Schiller, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, a university which was uplifted by the spirit of Goethe and of the other great departed who had made Weimar and Jena the cultural centre of Germany. It was in Jena, for example, that Goethe wrote his “Hermann and Dorothea,” and Schiller his “Wallenstein.” It was in Jena, too, that Ernst Haeckel taught and worked for so long. It calls for great men to fill the places of spirits like those, and Eucken was worthy of them. In June of this year he wrote—“Up to the outbreak of the Great War my life’s work had waxed continuously. Especially did foreign countries show me kindly appreciation. The French philosophers, Boutroux and Bergson, were very sympathetically disposed to my aims. The Academy at Lincei in Rome, the oldest of the modern academies, elected me as a foreign member. Two English universities wished to confer upon me the Doctorate ‘honoris causa.’ In the summer of 1914 a reception was to have been given me in England by a circle of people of standing and importance, while the Foreign Press Association had invited me to a luncheon, telling me that the decision to do so had been unanimous, and that it had been especially warmly supported from the French side. In August, 1914, as a result of a very friendly invitation to my wife and myself, a journey to China and Japan had been arranged, and the tickets had already been secured—when suddenly the storm burst!” Small of stature, and with hair and beard quite white, even then (1907), from the passage of time, he was yet alert to a degree, with bright searching eyes which were wont to take on the look of detachment so typical of the thinker. He would enter the Well-filled lecture room, and, taking his seat upon the rostrum, would begin forthwith to unfold his thoughts. Never did he lecture from notes, unless a ridiculous bit of paper a few inches square which I saw him take from his coat pocket three times in two years, is to be called lecturing from notes. He would begin his lecture sitting; but not for long did he remain in that posture. Soon he would be on his feet, leaning his head upon his right hand, his elbow upon the desk, and in his left his pocket handkerchief rolled into a ball and clutched tightly in his palm. That posture would give way immediately to one in which he ran his fingers through his long white hair, or to one in which he struck firmly with his right index finger upon the desk to drive home a point, or to one in which he rolled his handkerchief in both hands. So he passed from one posture to another restlessly. And yet one felt no irritation at this restlessness. He was “thinking on his feet,” as we say, offering the freshness of his reflection copiously and with a sense of service; the changing postures were but an expression of the restless activity of his brain. His eloquence never abated; men laid down their pens, and gave their ears and their minds as if in thrall to the magic of his words and thoughts. It must be remembered here that Eucken was a good classical scholar, and his linguistic training, added to his profound thinking, made a combination that was irresistible in his lectures. THE NOBEL PRIZE. This same combination of qualities is evident in his writings. Indeed, the award of the Nobel Prize for literature came to him, in the year 1908, not merely because his philosophical works are idealistic in content, but also because they are very beautiful in their style. Eucken’s published works are numerous and a consistently high quality. They have been translated into many languages, one of them, “The Life of the Spirit,” having for its translator Professor Boyce Gibson, of the University of Melbourne, a former student of Eucken, for whom the departed philosopher expressed to me his high regard. As far back as the year 1909 some of his books had run into their 10th edition. In these books, as in his lectures, Eucken never wearied in his efforts to make clear the existence of an actual spiritual realm above the welter and littleness of the world of the senses, and the possibility of an inner life of the spirit, no longer a slave to external stimulation.

In 1924 Eucken was good enough to accede to the editor’s request that he should write an article for our own periodical, “The Australasian Journal of Phychology and Philosophy." That article on “The Relation of Philosophy to Religion" appeared in vol. 11., No. 1. The manuscript of the article lies now in my possession, a treasured relic of a great mind. Its rather cramped handwriting will always remind me vividly of my first visit to the notice case in the vestibule of the University at Jena in the autumn of the year 1907. I went there to learn the subject of his lectures for the ensuing semester. Unfamdliarity with the German language, added to the somewhat small and difficult handwriting, gave me much trouble at the time. The language is now familiar, and the handwriting do longer difficult, but the soul which expressed itself in that tongue is fled to its long home, and the hand which traced those characters is for ever still. For Eucken one was bound to feel affection —he was so filled with the spirit of service, so unaffected and kind. Especially kind was be to foreign students and scholars who visited Jena. At his home on the Forstweg there were many memorable gatherings to which one was bidden. To these my wife and I always looked forward with interest and pleasure. One knew, for example, that people would foregather there from the four corners of the earth.

On one occasion there were present, besides German students, two Scotsmen, one of whom had long tutored a Governor’s family in Tiflis, and was now the despair of his German landlady because he would insist on having his “tub” every morning, which he could not do without splashing the floor, an Englishman from London University, a New Zealander and his wife, a handsome Greek and his wife, a Bulgarian with a bushy black beard, a Russian who wore long hair and played the piano in a dreamy fashion. But the grace of these afternoons was the philosopher’s dis-tinguished-looking wife, a lady of high artistic accomplishments. One afternoon I remember particularly. It was after Eucken’s return from Upsala, whither he had repaired to receive the award of the Nobel Prize for literature. Recounting to us his experiences, he spoke of other recipients of awards, among them Sir Ernest Rutherford. He had been much attracted by the King of Sweden, who had been very gracious to all. We were told, too, how short the days had been, how darkness came on so early that the street lamps were lit at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. So he chatted on in the most natural and engaging manner. A day or two afterwards the German students showed their appreciation of the award by a torchlight procession. In an autobiographical sketch with appeared in June of this year, Eucken concluded with these words: “Thus may the review of my life close with a joyful hope for the future; we must believe and we must struggle.” He was optimistic to the end.