ORTEGA
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Goethe had reached a position outside rationalism. He is, as Ortega
expresses it, the first discoverer of the fact that the value of life is in
itself. The second is Nietzsche. "To him we owe one of the most
fruitful ideas which have fallen into the lap of our age: the distinction
between an ascending and a descending life, between a successful and
an unsuccessful life." Thus rationalism passes beyond its apogee.
Europeans begin to doubt the validity of reason beyond a certain
domain. They incline toward relativity-that is, toward a mode of
thought which sacrifices belief in an absolute truth out of respect for
the abundance of life. Rationalism proceeds in the opposite direction.
To save truth, it renounces life. Ortega acknowledges the conflict, but
resolves it by a new attitude. He can remain satisfied neither with
a human life without the organ of reason, nor yet with a truth which
is outside the stream of life. There is no intellectuality without vitality.
On the other hand, life, as Simmel correctly perceived, is .always
more than life. It comprises a transcendental function. Therefore the
two powers, reason and life, are not to be opposed to each other. They
must interpenetrate each other. A two-fold commandment applies:
Life must be intellectual, but at the same time the intellect must be
alive. In other words: Culture is only of value in so far as it is lived.
Mere professions of culture, mere faith in it which surrounds it with
religious veneration and which can degenerate into a false piety of
culture, is of no value. The task of our time consists in finding the
proper place for reason in biology. Pure reason must be replaced
by vital reason.
Since Bergson's influence struck the first spark, there has been a
long series of philosophies known as "vital philosophies." They have
differed greatly in value. While they could not abolish abstract think–
ing, they nevertheless set intuition, inner vision, and the like, beside it,
if not above it, as sources of knowledge.
With these "vital philosophies" Ortega's philosophy has no con–
nection. He holds fast to the severe discipline of abstraction, he holds
fast to reason. But he tries to find a place for reason in the vital. He
demands a vital reason. And at the same time it is present in his
thought like a new dimension of reason. He argues for his demand
with the greatest intensity, and with the same intensity he turns
against all the philosophical schools which had been successful in the
last decades-for example, against the phenomenology of Husserl
