Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/399

Rh bridge between Marx and the "ethico-sociological school" (Lavrov and Mihailovskii), the piers of his bridge being Riehl and Ward. Now as regards the evolution and ripening of ideas, such bridges may exist; but there is no justification for this particular bridge. Černov abandons the economic and metaphysical materialism of Marx and Engels, and accepts the empirio-criticism of Avenarius (adding the ideas of Mach)—but what have Riehl and Ward to do with the matter? It is obvious that Černov has learned epistemological criticism in the school of Riehl, and thus his native realism develops into empirio-criticism; Ward's "dynamic sociology" attracts him to the "active-dynamic" school of sociology and to active realism in general.

When Černov desires to construct a "synthetic" social revolutionary philosophy, we are compelled to ask whether he does not succumb more than he would like to admit to the eclecticism which is so much censured by himself and the other members of his party.

Černov commends empirio-criticism for its antagonism to all metaphysic, to all that is supranatural and transcendental, commends it for its view that man cannot get beyond "pure experience." He adopts this doctrine in order to prove that Mihailovskii's positivism was essentially a foreshadowing of the empirio-criticism of Avenarius and Mach. Černov is a declared monist, and even in his outlook on history he regards his own views as more monistic than economic materialism, wherein he detects a certain remnant of dualism. Ideas are simply extant as an important part of reality, and must therefore be recognised as social forces. Černov concedes, however, that ideas are not properly speaking primary forces (he borrows from Ward here); man is dominated by feeling, the emotions are the motive power, and the intelligence is merely the directive energy. But why, in this matter, should Černov base himself upon Ward, seeing that not Spencer alone, but also Mihailovskii's teacher, Comte, taught that the intelligence was a secondary factor? Ward's Dynamic Sociology had bewitched him. It seemed to him but a short step from the "dynamic" to revolution, although the idea of the dynamic as expounded by Ward, and Ward's whole sociology, contain but little admixture of revolutionary elements. [sic]

Subjectively, the dynamic appears in Černov as voluntarism. Like so many voluntarists, Černov's definition of truth