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Rh inclined towards Orthodoxy by the study of theology. Guettée was ultimately received into the Orthodox church. To the official representatives of the church and of "coercive theology," Solov'ev's free theology and free theocracy were a stumbling-block. Solov'ev's campaign on behalf of freedom of conscience deserves full recognition.

Solov'ev saw clearly enough that the outward "temple Christianity" was difficult to reconcile with the inward "family Christianity," and yet he could not himself abandon the temple of the Pharisees—for there are, in truth, honest Pharisees.

"Men of action live a life apart, but it is not they who create life, not they, but the men of faith! Those who are called fantasts, utopists, imbeciles, these are the prophets, these are the best of men and the leaders of mankind!" Solov'ev did not realise that Bělinskii, Herzen, Černyševskii, and the other "just men" of modern days, likewise had faith, and sacrificed their lives to their faith. Solov'ev's own faith was hardly stronger. His own theory of faith should have enabled him to comprehend the faith of others. What was the real content of belief in the respective camps? In which camp were the better men to be found? Does a Katkov or a Pobědonoscev bear comparison for a moment with a Bělinskii or a Černyševskii?

The critics have drawn attention to one peculiarity in Solov'ev's letters. Side by side with the humorous cheerfulness which breathes from his confidential utterances to his friends, we discover a scathing cynicism, a cynical irony concerning himself and his most sacred feelings, religious feelings not excepted. The fact is undeniable, but the explanation of this cynicism is very different from that suggested by the aforesaid critics. We shall have to discuss this matter in fuller detail when we come to deal with Dostoevskii, and for the present it will suffice to indicate the circumstance, and to say that such cynicism could not exist in the absence of a profound inner scepticism.

Solov'ev suffered from spiritual disintegration. He himself declared that the disintegration of modern man was due to incapacity for uniting heaven with earth. Now Solov'ev, himself was unable to harmonise the past with the present. He was unequal to the task; he desired to be a Christian, but his metaphysic was Platonist, not evangelical. He wished to save monotheism, but pantheism was too strong for him, and his god, who was "more than personality," had less re-