At an early age he entered the University of Göttingen and attended the
philosophical classes of Hermann Lotze. Lotze interested him in
philosophical problems, but did not [p.14] satisfy the burning desire
for religious experience which was in the young man's soul. Lotze looked
at religion and all else from the intellectual point of view. His main
business was to discover proofs for the things of the spirit, and the
value of his work in this direction cannot be over-estimated. Hermann
Lotze's works are with us to-day; and he has probably made more
important contributions to philosophy and religion from the scientific
side than any other writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century.
But he seems to have been a man who was inclined to conceive of reality
as something which had value only in so far as it was _known_, and left
very largely out of account the inchoate stirrings and aspirations which
are found at a deeper level within the human soul than the _knowing_
level. Life is larger and deeper than logic, and is something, despite
all our efforts, which resists being reduced to logical propositions. It
is quite easy to understand how a young man of Eucken's temperament and
training should acquiesce in all the logical treatment of Lotze's
philosophy, and still find that _more_ was to be obtained from other
sources which had quenched the thirst of the great men of the past.

When Eucken entered the University of Berlin he came into contact with a
teacher who helped him immensely in the quest for religion, and in the
interpretation of religion as the [p.15] issue of that quest. Adolf
Trendelenburg was a great teacher as well as a noble idealist, and his
influence upon young Eucken was very great. Indeed, it seems that
Trendelenburg's influence was great on the life of every young man who
was fortunate enough to come into contact with him. The late Professor
Paulsen, in his beautiful autobiography, _Aus meinem Leben_ (1909),
presents us with a vivid picture of Trendelenburg and his work. Under