Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/259

Rh to recognise the distinction between chastity and physical intactness (virginity), failing here to transcend ecclesiastical materialism.

In his poems the poet-philosopher gives an intimate record of a succession of meetings. The nine-year-old boy conceived an ardent love for a girl of the same age, and at this early age already sought help against passion in the church. The second meeting took place in London; the third in Egypt. On several subsequent occasions Solov'ev had tender relationships with women. Once he was on the point of marrying a peasant girl; another-time, a family council dissuaded him from marrying a relative; a yet later intimacy was broken off by himself.

Solov'ev displayed similar inconsistencies as regards the other physical passions. He kept fasts, and ate no meat, but was fond of wine (not to excess) and sweets.

Solov'ev's doctrine of asceticism was connected with his view that man's nature is radically evil. In this matter, too, he followed Kant and not Rousseau, who considered that man was naturally good but had been corrupted in the course of history. In contradistinction to Kant, however, Solov'ev exhibited a habitual concern about life, tantamount to pessimism. This accounts for his antipathy to Nietzsche and to the Nietzschean cult of a pagan joie de vivre.

OLOV'EV is definitely opposed to egoism and therefore to eudemonism and to utilitarianism, since these are based on egoism. He rejects egoism as individualism and subjectivism; his metaphysical amalgam of monotheism and pantheism makes it impossible for him to find satisfaction in individualism. His conception of the relationship between the individual and society resembles that of Comte. There is for him no opposition; society forms the content of personality, and the individual is concentrated society; in the historical process, the individual is the dynamic factor, whilst society is the static factor. Thus, and in similar ways, does Solov'ev formulate the problem. He does not trouble himself with psychological and sociological analysis, but is interested in practical aspects. For him, humanity is, or to be more precise, will become, a unified organism, the organism of the church universal. At present,