Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/83

Rh sciences and for naturalism in general; hence his positivist esteem for scientific sobriety as contrasted with imaginings, illusions, and the like. "Facts," is one of his favourite words, as it is a favourite word with the realists in general. "Dreams and illusions pass; facts remain." Pisarev fights superstition. Were it not for the censorship, he would tell us plainly that he fights orthodoxy. Not merely orthodox theology but also the official philosophy and science of his day, are rejected by him as "scholastics," and in connection with these statements it is only just to recall the disastrous condition of the Russian universities. Pisarev, Černyševskii, and most of the oppositional writers, though they had a university training, were in literary and scientific matters self-made men.

But Pisarev is quite uncritical in the formulation of his leading concepts. Consider, for instance, his use of the term "utilitarianism." The significance is nowhere precisely explained, not even when Pisarev expressly wishes to make us understand what use, real use, is. He does not get beyond a rough statement based on the work of Bentham, Mill, and the accepted authorities of hedonism. The furthest he goes is to tell us that the idea of utility must not be taken "in a narrow sense." There is a marked difference between Mill's teaching and Bentham's; Mill does not recognise every desire as useful, but distinguishes between qualities of desire; these shades do not, however, disturb Pisarev, who is satisfied with the "healthy materialist human understanding."

Similarly as regards "materialism." Nowhere is this concept distinguished from that of positivism, though here Pisarev errs in the company of European philosophers, as for instance in that of Taine, who was an authority to Pisarev and many others. But further, Pisarev does not test his foundations. He does not distinguish the epistemological from the metaphysical or the religious. Thus, at one time when he talks of materialism he will mean sensualism ("the philosophy of the obvious"); at another time consciousness will be materialistically explained; and so on. It was natural that Jurkevič's protest against materialism should make no impression on Pisarev.

The concept of "positivism" is likewise left undefined. Pisarev, though a positivist, recommends dilettantism and rejects specialisation.