The unique character of Activism becomes clearer especially in comparison with organisations of life, of which one indeed makes activity the chief thing, but gives to it the character of a mere process; while another thinks of the fundamental relation of man to reality in general not under the ideas of conduct and progress but under those of contemplation and enjoyment. The idea that life constitutes a process transcending all human endeavour and decision has shown a strong power of attraction in the Modern Age; and, in the system of Hegel especially, has found an imposing embodiment. This idea is asserted most definitely in the evolutionary conception of history, since it regards the motive power of history as striving to its aim, certain of accomplishing it, and unaffected by human opinion and preference. By this deliverance from the insignificance of human motives and the variations of human conditions the object seemed to gain incomparably in greatness; but it was considered that this deliverance from man involved an elevation above the ethical conception, which then appeared to be something subjectively human. But not only does this conception of a process that ceaselessly advances with compelling necessity contradict the actual state of things as they are found in history, which shows so much stagnation and retrogression, and so many different spheres of culture existing side by side indifferent to one another, but the transformation of life into a mere process, if consistently carried out, must also destroy or seriously debase its spiritual character. If life were a mere process it would be nothing other than a soulless mechanism; only in the case of such a mechanism can one phase proceed immediately from the others without at the same time a whole of life becoming active and exercising an animating power within the whole process. As a fact, the process is usually supplemented in thought by a universal life unifying, sustaining, and controlling the individual phases; however, so far as such a life does not simply come to us, but needs our own activity, the deed comes before the process; and a new world reveals itself to us. The disregard of the ethical element by the systems which make mere process their fundamental idea is explained by the fact that they understand the ethical only as a decision and turning of man, accompanying the spiritual life, not as the motive and progressive power of the spiritual life itself. They know only a human ethic, not an ethic of the spiritual life--as a self-assertion and a self-elevation, through which it first attains its complete freedom and independence. Still, to trace this further is the less necessary since this mode of thought lives rather from earlier achievements than works from fresh impulse springing up in the present.