Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/147

Rh fication of the sciences was an unorganised compromise between Comte and Spencer.

VOLUTION is the evolution of thought, of thinking. Since the sixteenth century, mankind has abandoned the religious outlook and the religious regulation of life which had hitherto prevailed, and a secular education has been the result. But there has ensued a disastrous dualism between scientific theory, between theory based upon the sciences (philosophy), on the one hand, and the police state (Lavrov means the absolutist state) which has replaced the church, upon the other—the police state characterised by competition in the economic field. This dualism must yield place to a new and superior unity of theory and practice. Scientific socialism and internationalism are competent to bring about such a synthesis. But religious views and practices will continue to exist as vestiges long after socialism and scientifically grounded social institutions have come into existence.

Thus far we have a presentation of Comte's developmental scheme, socialistically retouched, but it is not made clear to us why the absolutism which has replaced the church has manifested the same or a similar opposition to science as did the church.

The Comtist scheme is expanded by Lavrov in the Darwinian evolutionist sense, following the lines of Spencer and of more recent students of civilisation, notably French and English writers. Lavrov's History of Thought begins with the history of the cosmos and of the formation of the earth. Man separated himself from other animals in virtue of the organ of thought, living at first in loose isolated groups, which attained their acme in the patriarchal tribal organisation. Lavrov leaves open the question whether the patriarchate preceded the matriarchate, and in any case to him the problem is of less importance than it is to the Marxists. From out the patriarchal order the economic organisation of contemporary society developed through the division of labour, and the political and legal state organisation came into being. This development was completed (Lavrov here follows Comte) upon the basis of the theological and religious outlook on the universe. Like Comte's, is Lavrov's conception of the church, and of the medieval state subordinated to the church; the