Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/401

Rh empirio-criticism does not pay due attention to the theory of cognition. It is true that he attempts to discard apriorism, but he does not succeed in getting any further than Mihailovskii with the empirical explanation of the axiom. To-day, to do no more than this is to do too little.

Seeing that Černov emphasises the importance of ethics as contrasted with the amoralism of Marx, he ought to have considered the ethical problem more closely. Above all the problem of revolution ought to have been more precisely formulated from the outlook of the Social Revolutionary Party, seeing that this is preeminently the problem which has to be faced in practice. Other writers have of late considered the theory of revolution, and very notably has this been done in the novels of Ropšin. The maximalist discussions of the topic, discussions to which I have previously referred, are likewise worthy of attention.

In actual fact, in a series of articles published in the recently founded party magazine "Zavěty" (testaments), Černov has dealt with the question. He sees quite rightly that the revolution of 1905 has above all a moral significance for the new ethic. Černov, just like Bakunin, demands a new ethic, the ethic of the new man, of the new humanity, the ethic which is one of the primary aspirations of the social revolution.

Černov is much interested in the thought of Nietzsche, but does not identify his new man with the superman. On the contrary, it appears that the new ethic makes essentially the same demands as the old, the only difference being that the new ethic lays especial stress upon the social aspects of life. The new ethic, like the old, demands personal improvement, but efforts at personal improvement must always be directed with an eye to their bearing upon the social whole, and must not be undertaken merely in the interest of the individual.

Černov likewise terms his ethic "dynamic," but the new name denotes in truth a very old thing, the new morality aims at giving room for the strong and vigorous expression of individuality. At the same time, the concept of the dynamic is defined on the ethical plane after the Comtist example by saying that social statics constitutes the moral maximum, social dynamics the moral minimum; ethical maximalism is the demand for the universalised ideal harmony of mankind, of all the members of the human race; the moral minimum is the bridge to the maximalist ideal.