Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/311

Rh a turning point in the evolution of human thought, and he realised why this was so. In the ethical sphere, Solov'ev even believed that Kant had established the basis of ethics for all time. It seemed to Solov'ev that the categorical imperative was as certain as are the axioms of pure mathematics.

Solov'ev understood the problem, formulated by Kant, of subjectivism versus objectivism; and he realised that Kant failed to discover the epistemological solution of this problem, remaining entangled in a powerless subjectivism and apriorism. Solov'ev set to work, building upon a Kantian foundation and using Kantian methods, to attempt his own solution. He had learned from Kant that the cognition of the thing-by-itself must really be the cognition of God, must be a creative and purely intellectual intuition, which after all originates in man. Solov'ev's creative and imaginative belief was to replace Kant's creative intellectual intuition. Solov'ev had learned from Kant that criticism led back to faith. He heard with gladness the tidings of this mission; and since Kant did not furnish any cogent doctrines, Solov'ev returned to the faith of the fathers of the eastern church, borrowing the while in addition from Plato, Spinoza, Jacob Boehme, and many others.

The attempt to effect an organic union between criticism and mysticism failed, and could not but fail. Solov'ev was, however, cautious enough to follow Kant in establishing religion, too, upon an ethical foundation. He was, I repeat, cautious. He could not but feel the inadequacy of his attempt, and for this very reason the internal warfare waged by Solov'ev with his critical rationalism against his own traditionalist mysticism, is so instructive and so fascinating. A more detailed study of Solov'ev's philosophical development would describe the vicissitudes of this struggle in its individual stages, would show how Solov'ev's views matured, and to what influences he was chiefly subjected at various epochs; and it would further be necessary to sympathise with his remarkable spiritual cleavage and the moods to which that cleavage gave rise from the time of its first appearance.

From this outlook, Solov'ev's Antichrist and his attack on Tolstoi, the religious rationalist, becomes comprehensible. Within the recesses of Solov'ev's own mind, Tolstoi threatened to gain the victory!

Solov'ev's influence upon Russian philosophy was powerful and beneficial, above all because philosophy was not for him