The progress of the sciences and of man's natural activity has directed the spirit of the age towards material progress; the ideals of mankind tend to become external and superficial, and the interest in the invisible world falls to a minimum.
To some extent, too, idealism breathes of aristocracy--a most unpopular characteristic in a democratic age.

Experience shows that man is raised above himself only in rare cases, and that the great things in the realms of art, music, and literature are very largely the monopoly of the few, and these mainly of the leisured classes.

Hence the appeal of idealism to certain types of men and women must necessarily be a feeble one.
Then, again, there is the general indifference of mankind to lofty aims; this militates against the power of idealism even more than in the case of religion, for while in the latter there is the idea of a personal God who is pleased or displeased urging men to renewed effort, the teachings of idealism may appear to be mere abstractions, and can, as such, possess little driving-power for the ordinary mind.
Idealism, too, seems to be a mere compromise between religion and a life devoted to sense experience, and like most compromises it lacks the enthusing power of the original ideas.
Finally, the whole theory leaves us in uncertainty--"that which was intended to give a firm support, and to point out a clear course to our life, has itself become a difficult problem." But Eucken has more to say concerning idealism, even though in a different form from the theories of the past.

Indeed, his philosophy is generally classed amongst the idealisms.

Eucken makes a great endeavour, however, to avoid the difficulties and objections to the idealistic position; later we shall see that a great measure of success has crowned his efforts.
Having discussed the two solutions that place special stress on the invisible world, he proceeds to deal with the theories which emphasise the relation of the life of man to the material world.
He first treats of _Naturalism_, that solution of the problem that makes the sense experience of surrounding nature the basis of life, subordinating even the life of the soul to the level of the natural, material world.
Nature in the early ages had been superficially explained, often in the light of religious doctrine.