Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/276

250 man, and turn away from nature. The rationalists and idealists believe in man, but for them God shrinks to become an embryo man, whilst nature becomes the shadow of man. Since, however, this shadow makes itself strongly felt, the naturalists (realists and materialists) have come into existence; these worship the dead mechanism of nature, whilst denying all that is divine and spiritual.

Just as the three severed churches must be united, so must these three trends or "faiths" be theoretically synthetised and practically conciliated. The belief in God gives rise to belief in the God-man and in God-matter (the mother of God). True theism, true humanism, and true naturalism, in their organic unity, are the precondition for the realisation and diffusion of the kingdom of God on earth.

HE brief account that has been given of Solov'ev's theosophical and mythological speculations may suffice to furnish a general idea of his thought; I have done no more than select what is most important, and will not attempt an examination of the individual contentions, as regards their derivation from the works of this or that neoplatonist, from Plato, Paracelsus, Schelling, etc.

Essentially, Solov'ev's theosophical speculations are merely the projection of his ethics and politics into the universe, and Feuerbach would have claimed that Solov'ev's mythology was but additional confirmation of his theory.

In his Critique of Abstract Principles (1877–1880), Solov'ev already opens an attack upon the subjectivism of the new philosophy, and he combats it as scepticism. He finds even Kant unduly sceptical, for he considers that not rationalism alone (the dogmatic and critical rationalism of Kant and the absolute rationalism of Hegel), but likewise empiricism (sensualism, empiricism, positivism), leads to subjectivism, and therefore to scepticism. For experience and ratiocination lead only to relative knowledge; experience merely teaches what is, while reason tells us no more than what must be in given circumstances, so that in both cases we attain only to relativism. In contradistinction to this, Solov'ev demands absolute principles alike for practice and theory, demands absolute, absolutely certain, knowledge. "Nothing can furnish