Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/153

Rh subjective aims, the outlook on the universe, on the one hand, and the consequent judgments, the valuation of the world outlook, on the other; between judgments concerning the course, the epochs, and the phases of progress, and judgments concerning the causes and consequences of these epochs and phases. It is obvious that this subjectivism implies nothing more than variations in the judgments of the individuals who are thinking historically—that it has nothing whatever to do with the great question of subjectivism and objectivism as studied by postkantian German idealists. The Marxists, for example, likewise speak of class morality, and thus, for all their objectivism, recognise such a "subjectivism," i.e. relativism.

But Lavrov furnishes us with supplements to critical subjectivism in so far as, with Schopenhauer, he cherishes epistemological and metaphysical illusionism. Nevertheless in this question Lavrov is less decided than Schopenhauer, for Lavrov is a sceptic, and his acceptance of illusionism is no more than conditional.

In the name of individual freedom, Bělinskii protested most energetically against history, its chronological sequence, and its individual data, and yet we should not term him a subjectivist. Lavrov, like Bělinskii, championed the individual and individual liberty against the historical and social totality. Society was no abstraction to Lavrov; it was a real complex of definite and 'more definite' individuals. Progress, says Lavrov, is not non-individual, it is definite persons who progress, who comprise society and make history. Some are the genuine factors of the historical process; others merely participate in it; and yet others are merely in it, are simply there while it goes on. We see that Lavrov rejects, not only the Marxist conception of society and history, but the Comtist conception as well; he holds fast to individual consciousness, and endeavours from this outlook, somewhat after the manner of Spencer, to effect a reconciliation between the views of Kant and those of Comte.

People often speak of Lavrov's "subjective method" but Lavrov himself rarely makes use of the expression. We have not, in fact, to do with a method, but with something more concrete, with a decision upon the question of objectivism versus subjectivism. The term "subjective method" is employed more frequently by Mihailovskii and subsequent writers.