Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/384

358 his view is identical with God. But he combats also extreme, absolute objectivism. Of peculiar philosophic importance in this connection is an account given by Bělinskii in 1839 of two prophetical books published at that time. In this criticism he rejected absolute objectivism on the ground that it led to superstition and was itself superstition. The essay is one of the most original of Bělinskii's philosophic writings and bears witness to the penetrating powers of his understanding. Superstition, we are told, is a developmental phase of the individual ego, a phase in which the ego seeks truth exclusively in the object. In this extreme and absolute objectivism, the ego denominates as truth the very thing which is diametrically opposed to the understanding, and that precisely is selected for esteem which is most alien and most void of thought. Bělinskii therefore distinguishes between the mysterious that is beloved of superstition and the mysterious of mysticism. The mysterious in which superstition lives is cold and dead, and its mystery originates in despotism and caprice.

As far as I have been able to discover, the importance of these aperçus is nowhere recognised in the literature dealing with Bělinskii, and they have been simply ignored by his critics. Yet here Bělinskii touches upon the deepest problems of German idealism and of philosophy in general.

In the ancient dispute over the relationship between subject and object, a dispute so profoundly treated by German philosophy, Bělinskii rejects both extreme subjectivism in the form of solipsistic, egoistic individualism and extreme objectivism. For him the dilemma is one of crime versus superstition. He refuses to be intimidated by this dilemma, categorically insisting that we need have neither crime (revolution) nor superstition. He gets rid of the dilemma by refusing to admit that either subjectivism or objectivism is valid beyond a certain point, and by endeavouring to establish a harmony between them.

He turns away from Fichte, and still more from Stirner. He knew nothing of Marx and Engels as extreme objectivists, but interesting and brilliant is his discovery that in extreme objectivism lies the essence of superstition. In precisely the same manner did Vico and Hume characterise as extreme objectivism the first stage of mental development, and, following the lead of these philosophers, Feuerbach represented that the essence of religion was anthropomorphism, was extreme