Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/282

256 matters. Yet even Strossmayer found the new dogma repugnant!

None the less, the scholastics, some in especial, did much for the development of modern philosophy, and the slavophils were perfectly right in holding that scholasticism had inaugurated the reformation and the revolutionary movement. Scholasticism slew theology—and Solov'ev, like the scholastics, had a fondness for discovering reasons for what he already believed. Solov'ev's scholasticism was an attack upon Russian theology, upon clericalism, and helped the Russian movement towards liberty. Solov'ev praised the true monk for his willingness to undertake all kinds of distasteful and dirty work in addition to the service of God; such work was the fulfilment of the vow of obedience. In the field of literature, Solov'ev accepted service of this kind, and made a clearance of all the garbage of such pseudo-orthodox pseudo-patriots as Tihomirov & Co.

Solov'ev, however, was not solely concerned with this campaign against the Tihomirovs; he had an internal struggle of his own, the struggle with himself, the struggle between faith and untaith. "Kant" and "Plato" are the two war-cries wherein the tragic problem of Solov'ev is comprised. The man's whole life was a vain attempt to bring these two poles together, to reconcile their opposition. Kant represents deliberate action in accordance with the light of reason, represents individual activity and spontaneity; Plato represents deliberate receptivity, passive contemplation of the objective higher world. Kant represents the self-sufficiency and independence of the individual critical understanding; Plato represents dependence upon the absolute, upon the revelation of the absolute, upon dogma, upon the church. Solov'ev's life problem, life drama, life tragedy, was found in the epistemological impossibility of effecting an organic combination between fire and water, between two mutually destructive elements. It was impossible for Solov'ev to extinguish the Kantian flame with slavophil and orthodox holy water. The flame allured him; in the fireman, the artist awakened; the fireman forgot his duties, and in rapt contemplation, his eyes glistening in the radiance, he looked on admiringly at the splendour of the conflagration.

I am aware that this view of Solov'ev, this criticism, will please neither his friends nor his foes. I need not trouble myself about the foes, and in especial may ignore the theologians,