Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/537

Rh fact the new age is characterised, not by the universities, but by the establishment of universal compulsory education. Modern philosophy and science must not be identified with polymathy. The democratic demand is that all should think and observe; and democratic catholicity is based upon reflection and observation.

Comenius already considered it possible to formulate a metaphysic which should be within the comprehension of children. Here we touch the difficult tasks which modern philosophy, as a scientific outlook upon the universe and upon life, has to effect amidst the enlarging spheres of scientific specialisation. The problem of the correct division of labour in scientific matters is but a part of the general social problem of the division of labour.

In contradistinction to theology, science is knowledge of men and for men—not the knowledge of God and for God. For science, man is the measure of all things, man is the true and ultimate object of all research. This deliberate anthropism is quite different from the naive anthropocentrism of the theological outlook.

Scientific anthropism naturally asserts its validity in the ethical and social domains. Modern philosophy, as Kant showed, is essentially ethical and humanitarian; it aims at the foundation of a new morality, at. the elaboration of the new democratic political and administrative system, at democratic anthropocracy. Democracy demands a new system of politics, to be established upon scientific sociology and upon all the abstract sciences concerned with the problems of social life (the sciences of politics, jurisprudence, economics, etc.). Enlightenment and education are the chief concerns of democracy. Democracy wrestles with theocracy for the control of the school, the "officina humanitatis," as Comenius termed it. Comenius was one of the first educationists to propound the most conspicuous ideal of the new schooling—equality in education.

In this connection the question arises whether there is a specially democratic philosophy as a unified outlook on the universe and on life, and if so, which system is the chosen one. Marx and his adherents have contended that materialism and positivism constitute the essential foundations of