He has shown how inadequate they are to explain life.

He has shown how the modern solutions "cannot perform their own tasks without drawing incessantly upon another kind of reality, one richer and more substantial." This in itself shows "beyond possibility of refutation that they do not fill the whole of life." He has demonstrated how the acceptance of these systems depends upon an implicit acceptance of a higher life.

"The naturalistic thinker ascribes unperceived to nature, which to him can be only a coexistence of soulless elements, an inner connection and a living soul.

Only thus can he revere it as a higher power, as a kind of divinity; only thus can he pass from the fact of dependence to a devotional surrender of his feelings.

The socialist bases human society, with its motives mixed with triviality and passion, on an invisible community, an ideal humanity....
The individualist in his conception exalts the individual to a height far more lofty than is justified by the individual as he is found in experience." All these assume more or less unconsciously the existence of that "something higher" which they attempt to deny.
So far, then, we have seen how Eucken proves the inadequacy of the realistic conceptions of life, and how they really depend for their acceptance upon the assumption of a Universal Spiritual Life.