Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/497

Rh Now we can understand why the Russians preferred Schelling and Hegel to Kant and Hume. Schelling, as against Kant, introduced mythology into philosophy; and Hegel, despite his opposition to theology, furthered both theology and mythology by his dialectic with its suspension of the principle of contradiction.

In this connection, too, certain separate doctrinal items brought forward by Russian thinkers acquire meaning and importance. I may refer, for example, to Solov'ev and his commendation of the "fantastic imagination" in poesy, which Kirěevskii had rejected (the fantastic imagination, be it noted, not simple imaginativeness, not the "exact fantasy" of Goethe!). See Vol. I, pp. 245 et seq., Vol. II, pp. and.

S a rule the fundamental problem of the theory of cognition is represented in contrast with rationalism and empiricism. In Russian philosophy, too, we find this contrast sustained, German philosophy in general and Kant in especial being rejected by the Russian defenders of empiricism. Since Bělinskii, and above all since Herzen, empiricism has been proclaimed as the starting-point of philosophy. Herzen and his successors declare themselves positivists and materialists, but none the less they cling to the rationalistic Hegel. Herzen enters no protest against rationalism; he merely demands positivist disillusionment, which he counterposes to mysticism, romanticism, and illusion (§ 80). It is not on account of rationalism that Herzen joins issue with Granovskii, nor is it rationalism that causes Herzen's opposition to the slavophils; the divergencies here are the outcome of Herzen's antagonism to religion, theology, and metaphysics. But it is precisely here that the Russian empiricists lack epistemological criticism. Kant did not counterpose empiricism to rationalism! Kant advanced from the lines established by Plato, but his criticism was ultimately directed, not against empiricism, but against the extravagances of