Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/284

258 followed Augustine in deducing the doctrine of grace. God, the absolute, exercises an influence upon the world and upon men; the logical consequences of absolute predestination cannot be evaded. Empirically, however, it suffices that we are aware of our freedom of choice, and that we are conscious of the fundamental distinction between the concepts of good and of evil. The Kantian ethic must be based upon the metaphysic of Anselm, Augustine, Origen, and Plato.

Baader led him astray into the attempt to transcend Kant entirely, and to establish even the theory of cognition upon a religions foundation; but Kant continually reasserted his rights, and Solov'ev found it necessary to concede that ethics could not be wholly grounded on religion. Again and again did he return to Kant.

More than once Solov'ev, in truth, forgot his past when he animadverted upon Tihomirov and the latter's rejection of "independent philosophising" in matters of religion.

Solov'ev was, as it were, a modern Origen, nor was it a chance matter that Origen should have exercised so strong an attraction upon him. We have in Solov'ev the same attempt as in Origen to reconcile gnosis with orthodoxy; upon a Platonist basis there is effected an association between mysticism and revelation, between the human and the divine. It gratified Solov'ev to find that Origen laid so much stress upon the idea of the God-man, whilst as a systematist Solov'ev was delighted with the first attempt at a systematisation of Christian doctrine.

I do not purpose to undertake a detailed description of Solov'ev's theory of cognition. Doubtless the attentive reader will already have perceived that Solov'ev gives an unjustifiable extension to the concept of belief, unhesitatingly subsuming religious faith in revelation under belief, which latter is in reality a judgment of truth. In fact, the question is begged.

For the further characterisation of Solov'ev's theory of cognition, I shall allude to two only of his doctrines. [sic]

As we have seen, from Plato and the neoplatonists Solov'ev likewise took the doctrine of ideas, not in the Kantian form, but in that which we owe to Plato. He adopted the view that ideas were not simply ideal concepts, but objectively existing ideal beings. It need hardly be said that there resulted for Solov'ev all the epistemological difficulties which resulted long ago for Plato.