It is especially interesting in this connection to observe that Germany, the land of destructive biblical criticism, which Browning before the middle of the century handled with the consummate skill characteristic of him, by accepting its historical conclusions while conserving the spirit of Christianity, has now in the person of Professor Rudolf Eucken done an almost similar thing. Like Browning, he is a strong individualist and believes that the development of the soul is the one thing of supreme moment. "There is a spontaneous springing up of the individual spiritual life," he writes, "only within the soul of the individual. All social and all historical life that does not unceasingly draw from this source falls irrecoverably into a state of stagnation and desolation. The individual can never be reduced to the position of a mere member of society, of a church, of a state; notwithstanding all external subordination, he must assert an inner superiority; each spiritual individual is more than the whole external world." [Illustration: BROWNING AT 77 (1889)] He calls his system "activism," which merely seems to be another way of saying that the soul-life is one of aspiration toward moral ideals and the will to carry them out. Such a life, he thinks, demands a new world and a new character in man, and is entirely at variance with nature. "Our whole life is an indefatigable seeking and pressing forward. In self-consciousness the framework is given which has to be filled; in it we have acquired only the basis upon which the superstructure has to be raised. We have to find experience in life itself to reveal something new, to develop life, to increase its range and depth. The endeavor to advance in spirituality, to win through struggle, is the soul of the life of the individual and the work of universal history." Readers of Browning will certainly not feel that there is anything new in this. In so far, however, as he finds the spiritual life at variance with nature he parts company with Browning, showing himself to be under the influence of the dualism of the past which regarded matter and spirit as antagonistic. In Browning's view, matter and spirit are the two aspects of God, in the one, power being manifested; in the other, love.