We thus see that there are presented in such norms two aspects of a very different nature. On the one hand, we discover the contribution of each individual, and witness events dealing with situations which succeed one another with greater or less rapidity. This aspect is in constant flux. It constitutes the capability of meeting the needs of the moment. All this works well so long as the needs of the moment involve no great complexities. But immediately the situation becomes complex there is a turn to something besides this mere flow of things.[21] To what? It is a turn to something whose nucleus of meaning and value has persisted in the midst of all the flow. This is no other than one or other of the highest of the ideal constructions which formed the basis of the life of the community. The community had been unconsciously garnering something over-individual and over-historical for its future use. Thus, in history itself there is the presence of a reality higher than the individual, and higher than the ordinary meaning of the [p.75] hour. This becomes the standard by which everything has to be measured. Of course, this norm does not remain static in regard to its own content. But its growth of content depends upon the contributions made to it by individuals in their will-relations. Something over-individual issues out of all these relations, and this enters into the still higher over-individual norms which are the heritage of society. Eucken consequently shows that history itself is dependent upon something which works within it--interpreting its events, and absorbing into itself something that is of value. What other can this be but a spiritual life higher not only than physical things but even than the will-relations which accrue from moment to moment? It has already been noticed that on these lower levels the spiritual life is ever present--present as a potency and experience when viewed from the standpoint of the individual's creativeness, and present as norms and values when viewed as an object of thought brought forth through general conclusions founded on situations beyond any single situation of the individual. Thus, we get in Eucken's teaching the over-historical as the power which operates within the events of history. It is what philosophy has termed the Ideal, and what religion has termed the revelation of God. It is not correct, then, to say that we are dependent upon the content of the moment apart from the presence of the [p.76] content of the past in that moment in order to grasp reality. The Past does not mean a mere series of events which occurred some hundreds or thousands of years ago, and before which we bend and towards which we try to turn back the world, for that would mean what Eucken terms "mere historism." The Past has rolled its meaning down to the Present: the Past mingled with the content of the Present is at each point of its course something other than it was before.[22] But in any