It is not difficult to see why the small nations of the North feel that in Eucken they possess a true friend who sees clearly what they feel instinctively, and who points out to them the path of their spiritual deliverance.

It is impossible, also, to understand Eucken’s system of philosophy without taking into account his religious experience.  This aspect has already been touched upon, but it requires elucidation from a more personal point of view.  Eucken’s philosophy is the result of the experience of his own soul.  It is something which can never be understood until it is lived through.  Everything is brought back to its roots in the needs, aspirations, and inwardness of the soul.  One must become “converted” [p.232] before he can understand Eucken’s teaching.  Something has not only to be understood but to be lived through; the body and the external world have to be relegated to a subsidiary place; the intellect has to merge into the spiritual intuition which is deeper than itself.  It is after one has been willing to pass through this fiery furnace that the great “illumination” begins to appear.  And such an illumination will increase in the degree that service and sacrifice are willingly undertaken for the sake of the infinite spiritual gains which remain in store.

This element in Eucken’s personality draws him to everybody he comes in contact with, and draws everybody to him.  He has drunk so deeply of the experiences of Plato and Plotinus, of the great Christian mystics and moralists of the centuries, that he sees the value of every soul that comes to him for help.  It is far from Eucken’s wish for these matters to be published.  And the present writer will only state the fact that nobody, however ignorant and obscure, has failed in Eucken to find a father and guide.  Hundreds of men who had either lost or had never found their moral and spiritual bearings in life have succeeded in doing so through coming into contact with him.  The present writer remembers well many a conversation among students of six or more different nationalities, concerning the secret of Eucken’s teaching [p.233] and influence.  Imagine Servians, Poles, Swedes, Scotch, English, and Welsh meeting together after a philosophical lecture to discuss the question of the spiritual life and wondering how to discover it!  Eucken’s personality had created in their deepest being a need which could never more be filled until the Divine entered into it.  In the class-room the great prophet makes it impossible for us to content ourselves with merely preparing for examinations.  The teacher’s exposition and inspiration are creating a deep uneasiness in us.  We feel how limited and shallow our nature has been when we are face to face with a man who reveals to us the eternal values of the things of the spirit; and who reveals them not as they have merely been revealed by the great thinkers of the world, but as he himself has felt and lived them.  We all become impressed with