Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/195

Rh not suffice to unify theoretical ideas. "The crumbling habitation" of ideas must be set in order in such a way as to be the starting point of action in a definite direction.

Mihailovskii did not forget Spencer's philosophy of religion, but Spencer's religion did not suffice him, for in his view it lacked the most essential characteristic of religion since it was incompetent to guide men's actions. Mihailovskii was aware that the demand for a coherent outlook on life was widespread, but this philosophical coherence the field of theory did not suffice for the demands of practical life; did not teach us how to live. Again and again, Mihailovskii alluded to the absolute certainty, definiteness, devotion, preparedness, and active zeal, of the Christian martyrs.

Mihailovskii consistently held to this theory, returning to it in his John the Terrible (1888) and again in the Fragments. In the work on John the Terrible he gave a more succinct definition of religion, saying that it was a harmonious blend of reason and sentiment. It is important to note that Mihailovskii, therefore, considered that the essence of religion must be sought in the sphere of reason as well as in that of feeling. Knowledge and faith, he said, are in a sense less widely separated one from another than is commonly assumed, faith or belief represents our provisional conclusions, before we have attained to knowledge; in the domain of science, hypotheses constitute the clement of faith; by a quite natural process, beliefs (hypothetical assumptions) are replaced by knowledge, and conversely from knowledge we pass on to beliefs (hypothetical assumptions).

We are not here concerned to ask whether Mihailovskii's philosophy of religion is sound, but it certainly seemed remarkable that in his critical studies, and above all in those dealing with Russian poets and prose writers, Mihailovskii did not undertake a profounder discussion of religious problems. I have previously referred in this connection to Tolstoi and Dostoevskii, but the remark applies equally to Merezkovskii and other writers about whom Mihailovskii wrote critiques.