The religio-philosophical problem is, then, a return to _the Whole of Life_. It is here that any satisfactory answer can be found if found [p.34] at all. It is necessary to investigate the final grounds as well as the most complete structure of Life; it is further necessary to discover whether the movement of Life necessarily leads to religion. As Eucken invariably presents the truth of religion, the meaning and significance of religion are to be found through self-consciousness. This meaning of consciousness is twofold in nature. On the one hand, it is something that may be _known_, and, on the other hand, it is something that is _active_ through its own inherent energy. Here we find a difference between what we may _know_ we are and what we _are_. Our knowledge of what we are, the conditions of what we are, the history of what we are--all these are a help for us to be what we are capable of becoming. But all these are not the very movement of the becoming itself. That movement is the resultant of the spiritual potency after experiences in the form of cognition have marked out the path for conation. This conation is an inheritance; it is present in the form of dissatisfaction with the present situation; it moves in the direction of a goal which is marked out by intellect. Now, however much this conation may be analysed, it resists being decomposed into a number of elements which make it up, for any such number, except in the very manner they are united, could not produce the situation. In other words, whatever the history of this conation may be, it is now a unity or whole. [p.35] Conditioned as it is by the surrounding world and by its own history, in so far as it is this, it is _determined_; but it is still _free_ in so far as it is capable of becoming a new point of departure for life and of proceeding on its way in a world of spirit. Unless man's nature contained within itself some unity or whole of the kind already referred to, it would mean no more than a receptacle of momentary impressions which would vanish as soon as their physical effects had passed away. But man is in reality more than all this. In the form of memory and experience he is able to hold together in a core of his being the _meaning_ of these impressions after they have filtered into his consciousness. That is what we find, in however obscure a way, as the very beginning of every human life. This unity or whole, as already stated, may be no more than a potency in the beginning of life, but it gains in content and depth as it passes from impression to impression, and from experience to experience. And all further impressions and experiences have to be referred to this nucleus of the nature in order that they may be used and may prove themselves helpful. It is in this nucleus of the nature that everything obtains its meaning and value.