Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/151

Rh the organiser of the party of progress must alike theoretically and practically be a model of the right way of living.

Lavrov recognises as his fundamental dogma the idea of humanity; life is the cult of the ethics of humanity, but life further demands self-sacrifice; the struggle for progress is imposed upon individuals as a moral duty.

Lavrov criticises the various theories of progress, and rejects most of them. He cannot accept uncritical optimism; he rejects pessimism; and he is no less displeased with naturalism, which describes progress as an illusion, and considers mechanical and technical evolution to be the only real factors of history. In this connection, historical (economic) materialism is likewise rejected. Lavrov terms himself a historical realist, and for the historical realist the very formulation of the problem is different. Even if the universe and history were naught but illusion, man cannot help setting himself aims and seeking suitable means for their realisation. Man cannot comprehend the ultimate nature of things, and need not, therefore, waste his time over metaphysics; but we can and must act ethically, even though our ethical aspiration be purely subjective. Let the nature of things be what it may, for us insists Lavrov, the question of "the better," the question of progress, remains always of vital significance.

Lavrov's compromises are obvious. He has amalgamated Kant's thing-by-itself, the apriori of cognition, and the categorical imperative, with positivist relativism; he has fused and confused Kant with Comte. Of course, Lavrov is likewise extremely sceptical, admitting as he does the possibility of illusionism, even though he terms it "idealisation"; this idealisation, he considers, is found above all in the working of the consciousness of freedom (of free will), by which the power of the laws of unconscious matter is transcended. Lavrov accentuated his scepticism by the study of the ancient sceptics, quoting above all Protagoras in support of his relativist subjectivism.

Lavrov, like Kant, values practice more highly than theory. Or rather it may be said that Lavrov is so much the positivist that he here modifies Kant to some extent, placing theory and practice on the same level, postulating the unity of theory and practice. The idea of progress is doubtless theory, but at the same time it involves practice, and the practice of progress involves for our age that the conscious, the fully