Душевная драма Герцена

A. I. Herzen is one of those our national heroes, at the mere mention of whose name the chest expands and the heart beats faster. At the same time, he is one of the most characteristic figures who embodied the complex contradictions of the controversial 19th century. It combines the most numerous and varied influences, from serfdom to Western socialism, from exile in Perm to the revolution of 1848. His head is like a peak illuminated by the rays of two suns - as Herzen himself would compare, the setting sun of Western civilization and the rising sun of Eastern civilization; from both he collected the best flowers and the ripest fruit. He was closely acquainted with the most outstanding people of Russia and Europe, and, we think, of all the representatives of 1948, Herzen had perhaps the broadest mental horizon. To this must be added his multifaceted education and remarkable literary talent, which makes Herzen one of the most brilliant representatives of Russian prose. Literature, writing, in fact, was Herzen’s true calling - everything else seemed to him like a kind of historical misunderstanding. As an artist, Herzen created an independent genre of memoirs in Russian literature, in which he was a true master. As a publicist, he combined the most ardent pathos of a citizen with sobriety of mind and practicality of demands; The time has not yet come for a full assessment of Herzen’s merits before the Russian public; but our time, more than any other, is capable of appreciating the full significance of Herzen’s civil feat. However, we intend to talk in this article about Herzen the artist and not about Herzen the publicist and generally not about any separate side of his activity; we are interested here in the whole of Herzen, Herzen as a person, the true spiritual substrate and basis of all these individual types of activity. The mental life of everyone, even the most insignificant person, represents many elements of a dramatic struggle, a drama with oneself, which to a certain extent is spiritual life in general; A constantly active volcano was bubbling in Herzen’s chest, constant cataclysms were occurring, there was a constant drama. And this drama does not need to be unraveled, but guesswork needs to be made about it - he himself told the world about its various vicissitudes in brilliant prose, sometimes not inferior in musicality to poetry. Mir gab der Gott zu sagen, was ich leide, Herzen once applied to himself the words of Goethe's Tasso. And therefore it falls to our lot to show the meaning and significance of this drama. What makes up a person in individuals whom we know as representatives of various activities - a writer, a merchant, a doctor, a navvy, a clerk, a prostitute - what makes up that inner spiritual church that is closed to people, but open to God? This truly, truly and only human element is his religion, understood, of course, in the broadest sense of the word: how he lives, what he considers most sacred and dear to himself, and how he lives, how he serves his shrine. To know a person means to know his religious life, to enter this hidden church. Herzen himself opens this church and invites people into it. Let's enter here, here we will find a lot of instructive things; perhaps more instructive than in dozens of learned and thick volumes, than in all the works of Herzen himself. Herzen will tell us about his passionate religious quest, about his falls, disappointments, revivals; we will see how, with groans and curses, Herzen overthrows his old gods, in whom he has already lost faith, how he wanders in the darkness of unbelief, how he again piously bends his knees. The religious quest of this fiery soul, this, in Strakhov’s beautiful expression, self-immolator, who all his life went to the longed-for plaintiff, without getting tired and without stopping in the face of internal breakdown, before heart wounds, is full of high teaching for us, has in a certain sense national significance, and it is bitter to think that until now the Russian people still do not have their Herzen Before talking about what has changed in Herzen’s views, it is necessary to indicate what he was faithful to all his life, to paint the general background of the picture. And here, first of all, we should note the basic fact that Herzen, whom we want to present here as a religious seeker, was and remained an atheist for almost his entire adult life. Herzen's atheism, as we will see, is the key to understanding the entire spiritual drama. We do not undertake to indicate here all the reasons for atheism in a person with such broad religious needs. In addition to the general prejudice towards religion that official Russia could and did instill in him, of great importance, in our opinion, was his upbringing, which represented the most disgusting example of lordly religious indifference, interpretation of religion from the point of view of a code of decency, which, of course, is worse than the most consistent atheism. 97 It is worth mentioning that Herzen always retained a warm feeling for the Gospel. 98 In general, his writings almost invariably express a hostile, even malicious attitude towards Christianity, the understanding of which is extremely meager and one-sided, based mainly on church abuses, but not on the true spirit of the teaching. Sometimes you can even find in him a flaunting attitude towards him, completely incomprehensible in relation to the teaching, which is presented as an outdated delusion. Herzen's religious views also correspond to his philosophical views, which form the foundation of the former. It is impossible to talk about Herzen’s philosophical views, of course in the sense of a coherent philosophical system. According to his entire mental makeup, his views on the world and life had value for him not as logical constructions, in terms of their logical technique and harmony, but primarily in terms of their vital, practical significance. In his writings one cannot even find mention of purely theoretical philosophical problems, for example, epistemology; his interests are concentrated in the field of moral, practical philosophy. The problems of Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky are at the same time the problems of Herzen. If we consider Herzen’s views from the point of view of school philosophy, we will have to admit that Herzen was not a philosopher at all. His reasoning, the clarity of which is often directly hampered by the exquisite imagery of his style, sometimes even turning into rhetoric, is sometimes striking in its obvious contradictions and arbitrariness. Herzen went through a good philosophical school, for, being a Hegelian for some time, he diligently studied Hegel. But the influence of this school, apart from purely external features of style, is not felt at all in Herzen, and the directly compromising ease with which Herzen threw off the influence of Hegel while reading Feuerbach’s Wesen des Cliristenthums (it is curious that exactly the same thing happened with Marx and Engels) testifies to the superficial nature of this influence. Herzen himself did not consider himself a supporter of any philosophical doctrine, but his views can most likely be characterized as a philosophy of positivism - not in the sense that Herzen was an admirer (or even a reader) of O. Comte (his sympathies belonged rather to the vulgar natural-scientific materialism of Vogt), but in the sense of the denial of any philosophy, which is the essence of positivism. Positivism is the unconscious philosophy of all people alien to philosophy, the philosophy of common sense, which Hegel quite rightly disliked so much. The main provisions of positivism - the denial of the rights of metaphysics and religious faith - were fully shared by Herzen: the hypertrophy of common sense in Herzen was his true theoretical misfortune, as Strakhov already pointed out. Herzen denied the possibility of transcendental existence, and the only reality for him was our sensually tangible world. Beyond this, he did not have any specific doctrine, and this is his main feature. He shakes “with his dialectical muscles all these venerable idols that frighten the weak,” not in the name of truth, as he understands it, but “in the name of logical freedom, in the name of unhindered thinking, analyzing everything, looking at everything.” 99 But if Herzen’s views are not of independent interest as a philosophical doctrine, this does not make them lose their significance as mental experiences, as a mental mood. In order to determine the real strength of a philosophical teaching, it is necessary not only to construct it, but also to experience it, and during this experience, new aspects of this teaching are often revealed. This is valid, at least with regard to all the problems of practical philosophy that interested Herzen, and for a deep experience of its teachings, Herzen had all the data - logical courage, sincerity, love of truth. With philosophical radicalism, he did not stop at the most extreme conclusions, he brought to the most extreme limit all the conclusions that can be drawn from his philosophical premises - positivism and atheism. I. Disappointment in the West A person has the ability for “holy dissatisfaction” (in the beautiful expression of the poet) with both himself and the environment and the desire for constant improvement. The higher a person stands on the moral and mental ladder, the more developed is this “holy discontent” in him, and, on the contrary, it becomes silent, pouring out what was drowned in the animal nature of man, for which therefore there is nothing more harmful, nothing more base than complacency. Many different definitions of man have been given: both ζῶον πολιτικὸν and toolmaking animal, but the true demarcation line separating the human from the animal is dissatisfaction with the existing and the desire for a better future. In this aspiration, the true spiritual homeland of man is revealed - a religious idea, expressed with wondrous artistic beauty in Lermontov’s “Angel”. The possibility of striving for improvement necessarily presupposes perfection, as the ideal scale with which the imperfect present is compared. Without the assumption of the existence of such perfection, we cannot even think of improvement. The idea of ​​perfection is thus given to us along with the desire for improvement. Absolute perfection is the Divine, and It is revealed to us, therefore, in the most basic aspiration of our life. But, speaking in this way, we are already predetermining a whole series of controversial issues, we are giving a ready-made “theory of progress”, because the controversial question is the question of all questions, and is where to look for this perfection, in “heaven” or on “earth”? Is this ideal achievable on earth or is it unattainable, and therefore the movement towards it is endless? Idealistic metaphysics and religious teachings answer this question in the negative. Absolute, including absolute perfection, is not given in “experience”. “The world lies in evil,” is one of the most basic provisions of Christian teaching. In his farewell conversation, Christ taught his disciples not to be like “the world.” A certain pessimism, the denial of the “world” in the name of a higher ideal, constitutes a necessary property of any metaphysical and religious teaching, which discerns an absolute, super-worldly principle behind this world. But this pessimism is, in any case, optimistic-pessimism, it makes room for relative optimism, and leaves the possibility of continuous and endless progress. It is the absoluteness and, therefore, the unattainability of the ideal that is the best guarantee of the infinity of movement towards it. Christianity, despite its initial pessimism, gives the absolute commandment of improvement: be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect. It considers the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth to be the main aspiration of historical humanity. Despite the recognition that the main feature of the world is the absence of love (see farewell conversation), it gives the commandment of love, which denies this world. Christianity thereby opens up the prospect of endless, not only personal, but also social improvement, in whatever special historical form the desire for it may be expressed (and therefore, it necessarily embraces the current social movement, striving for the implementation of the commandment of love in social relations). So, from the point of view of idealistic metaphysics and positive religious teaching, the ideal of perfection is in “heaven”, in the realm of the transcendental, and is unattainable on “earth”, in experimental, empirical reality, which is left with an endless movement towards it; in this sense it has the meaning not of a goal in the narrow sense of the word, but of a regulatory principle. But this is how this matter appears to those who fundamentally reject the very realm of the transcendent, for whom there is no “heaven,” but only “earth.” In itself, this denial is not able to extinguish the fire of Prometheus, the desire for perfection, but due to this denial they must look for the ideal of perfection not in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of empirical existence Wir wollen hier auf Erden schon Das Himmelreich errichten, as Heine states with naive frankness in his famous poem. Positivists can also do without the positive ideal of perfection, because without this ideal progress cannot be distinguished from “any other movement: progress is not just movement, but movement towards a specific goal, and this goal is thought of as achievable. An inevitable consequence of the philosophy of positivism and atheism is therefore the idea of ​​such a limiting point of movement, which embodies the fullness of perfection. But such a view is obviously contradictory, for it presupposes, on the one hand, the development of moral self-consciousness, which, due to this development, is increasingly moving away from the state of complacency or simply contentment, and on the other hand, the growth of this complacency. Thus, this philosophy necessarily leads to utopianism, to contradictory and therefore completely unrealizable aspirations; the most typical example of utopianism is the idea of ​​modern social democracy about the Zukunftstaat. Since social democracy is also atheism, Zukunftstaat in one form or another is its necessary attribute, for it fills the missing area of ​​the transcendent. At the same time, it is completely indifferent how this doctrine defines itself: it can call itself scientific socialism and proudly oppose itself in this capacity to utopianism, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bZukunftstaate, which carries the fundamental elements of utopianism, is absolutely necessary for it. Let us note that Zukunftstaat should be thought of as immobile, not progressing - with its onset, history ends, which is movement, for the assumption that Zukunftstaat is changing means that it is not yet a real Zukunftstaat, not that perfection that, in essence, is no longer subject to change. Social utopianism thus stems from the unsuppressed religious need of the spirit and is therefore a necessary companion to any atheistic doctrine, and the particular content of utopia remains indifferent in each individual case, whether it is the idea of a socialist organization of production or of a superman, or a combination of both ideas, etc. It is easy to understand that the confusion of the realms of the transcendental and the empiric does not go unpunished for the utopians. The lack of a correct spiritual perspective leads to the fact that objects appear as if in a distorting mirror; natural impatience, the desire to speed up the onset of the Zukunftstaat that has been slow for so long interfere with a sober understanding of reality. There is, if not a logical, then a psychological connection between positivism and socio-political utopianism, just as there is one between idealism and socio-political realism. 100 In our literature there is a very interesting artistic image of a utopian - however, not in politics, but in love - in the person of Don Juan Alexei Tolstoy. Satan explains his insidious intentions regarding Don Juan this way: Let's take any woman as this point: If we continue its outline upward, That's your line, as I said, The ideal will run right into it, In that pure prototype, in that perfect image, Reserved in advance for each individual. I am this prototype, invisible to anyone, Out of friendship I will show it to my favorite. Let in every face, at least somewhat suitable, Whatever he chooses for himself, Instead of a copy, he sees the original, Our last conclusion is in ascending order. Whenever he wants, we’ll fill it with my fire, Find bliss in the arms of love, The vision of perfection will disappear for him, And the woman, as she is, will appear before him. And let him be mad. Let him catch with eternal thirst A new ideal in the arms of every virgin! So with a fiery will, with perseverance on the brow, With despair in my chest, with passion in my eyes, Let Juan look for heavenly things on earth And in every celebration he prepares grief for himself. We have already indicated that utopianism is characterized not by the special content of the idea of ​​the ideal, but by the very excessiveness of idealization, the need to think of a certain state as absolute perfection. The ideal in a relative sense is for us the achievement of any unattained goal towards which we are currently striving, for example. rule of law. But such a relative ideal, of course, differs from the absolute ideal that is utopia. It is precisely about that psychological flavor, about those glasses through which a person looks at the world, depending on how he has decided for himself the basic questions of existence. It is possible, therefore, to speak not so much about utopia as about a utopian attitude to ideas: the idea of ​​goals that are completely unrealizable or erroneous may nevertheless not contain anything utopian, while ideas about goals that are completely feasible can be more or less strongly colored in the colors of utopianism (I personally hold precisely this opinion regarding modern ideas about socialism). What has been said is enough to understand the first act of Herzen’s spiritual drama - his disappointment in the West. In the 40s, before traveling abroad, Herzen was already an atheist; while remaining a religious nature, he was therefore necessarily a utopian. The conditions under which the utopianism of Russian society of the 40s took shape (they, in some of their essential features, have remained unchanged to this day) were extremely unique. The main feeling that united all Russian people of that time was disgust towards official Russia. Serfdom, all kinds of restrictions, the whole situation of life at that time forced the best people of Russia to suffocate, and it is known that to a suffocating person there is nothing dearer than air, and it is quite natural if he values ​​the life-giving abilities of this air more than they really are. And the more darkness thickened in the homeland, the more intensely the gaze focused on that promised country, where there is nothing that Russia suffers from, where life flows freely, where air is available to everyone. In this way, faith in the West arises, or, better said, is squeezed out in the Russian soul, which is preserved by our society to this day. Naturally, under such conditions, knowledge of the real West as it is, and not as the tormented Russian soul wants it, is out of the question. Faith in the West is completely utopian and has all the signs of religious faith. The West as a religious problem is a strange and wild phrase, and yet this is how things really stood throughout the entire 19th century. This was well understood by Herzen, who said that “we believe in Europe, just as Christians believe in heaven.” 101 The West is a real Zukunftstaat for Russians. Coloring our ideal with all the colors of our continuously inflamed imagination, we, of course, form an idea of ​​Europe that is obviously false, obviously incorrect. And this becomes clear during the first collision with Europe. But let Herzen himself tell us about this: “We feel bad at home. The eyes are constantly turned to the door, which is locked - and which opens little by little and occasionally. Going abroad is the dream of every decent person. We strive to see, to touch the world, familiar to us through study, whose magnificent and majestic façade, formed over centuries, amazed us from childhood... The Russian rushes abroad in a kind of intoxication - his heart is wide open, his tongue is loose - the Prussian gendarme in Lauzagen seems to us like a man, Koenigsberg is a free city. We loved and respected this world in absentia, we enter it with some embarrassment, we respectfully trample on the ground on which the great struggle for independence and human rights took place. At first everything seems good and as we expected; then, little by little, we begin to not recognize something, to get angry at something - we don’t have enough space, width, air, we just feel awkward; We hide this discovery with shame, break the direct and frank feeling and pretend to be closed-minded Europeans - this does not work. In vain do we try to give senile features to a young face, in vain do we put on a worn out narrow caftan; sooner or later the caftan will tear and the barbarian appears in shame with his chest bare, blushing at his inability to wear someone else’s dress. The famous grattez un Russo et vous trouverez un barbare is absolutely fair. “...The fact is that we come to Europe with our own ideal and with faith in it. We know Europe bookishly, literary, by its festive clothes, by purified, distilled abstractions, by thoughts that have surfaced and settled, by issues occupying the upper layer of life, by exceptional events in which it is not like itself. All this together makes up a bright quarter of European life. The life of the dark three quarters is not visible from afar; up close it is constantly before your eyes.” 102 With a utopia oriented to the future, one can live a whole century in peace, because utopianism here cannot be established directly; it can only be clarified through abstract thinking. A utopia, which is located at a certain point in space, is very easy to verify - you just have to go there. For Herzen, a trip abroad was enough to immediately become disillusioned with the West. A number of works, from Letters from France and Italy to From the Other Shore and Beginnings and Endings, document the speed and extent of this disillusionment. Herzen becomes unfair and irritable towards the West, rushes from one extreme to the other and, burning his old gods, curses them and loudly complains. The whole West appears to him as dead bones, seen by the prophet Ezekiel, and he does not know the creative verb whose power can revive them. But Herzen can be forgiven for the excessive severity of his attacks - he put too much at stake and lost too much with one bet. It is permissible not to ask at all whether the events of European history were really capable of causing and justifying such disappointment, especially since Herzen is disappointed with people, not with events, and sees in the insignificance of people the reason for the bleakness of the present and the hopelessness of the future. This is permissible because the reasons for the discontent this time lay not in Europe, but in Herzen himself. Herzen would not be satisfied with any Europe or any reality at all, for no reality is capable of containing the ideal that Herzen was looking for. He found himself in the position of Don Juan, who, striving for an ideal prototype, embraces an ordinary earthly woman. Nowadays, fantasy novels depicting the life of a future happy humanity are readily written and read. It would be a more interesting and rewarding task to describe how people, in conditions that now seem ideal to us, are also eager to join the Zukunftstaat, just as we are now, and not only have not turned into angels, but are not free from old and new shortcomings. It is unlikely that such insight into the future would be less instructive than that achieved by Bellamy and others like him. Such a novel, fortunately, has already been written, and not only written, but also experienced, suffered, cried out... We have it in the works of Herzen, where we find the sorrowful story of the collapse of utopianism, all the more sorrowful because this collapse was completely inevitable. The moral of this story, if a moral is needed here, is short, it says: do not make for yourself an idol or any likeness... The imaginary god turned out to be a crude idol. What to believe in, where to go? Herzen will give himself over to gloomy despair; Deadening unbelief, like cancer, invades more and more areas, the disease intensifies and becomes life-threatening. Let's get acquainted with what Herzen thought and felt in this darkest and gloomiest time of his life, the first half of the 50s. The awakening consciousness of a person finds him in a world of variously intertwined phenomena, in which he represents one of the conscious nodes. A person does not passively accept this world, but tries to understand it, is surprised by it, and this surprise, which the Greeks rightly considered the first beginning of philosophy, sooner or later becomes a question. Man wants to penetrate beyond the limits of what is immediately given to him, to lift the “bark of nature”; with primitive surprise, he repeats the questions heard in his chest, questions about the meaning of everything that exists, about the meaning of his own life, the life of the whole world or the world process, the life of his brothers or humanity. He knows directly only one thing: that he is a fact of the external world, the same fact as this tree, this stone, this insect. But he does not put up with this bare factuality of his existence, but wants to see in it a meaning, an idea, a goal. This initial surprise already contains all the world’s questions, and all sorts of philosophical and religious teachings that have ever appeared among humanity are trying to give a solution to this riddle pre-determined to our mind. In the 19th century, people had a crazy idea - to throw away all these “idle” questions. As the crown of philosophical wisdom, a doctrine was presented that fundamentally forbade asking these questions and asserted that there is only a visible, audible, olfactory world of phenomena, and behind this world of phenomena there is nothing. This teaching also declared human existence to be only a fact, therefore philosophical surprise, and all our ideal aspirations, is also only a fact, that is, a link in a series of causes and effects, like a stone falling from a roof, like a bubble rising in a swamp and bursting, like Poprishchin’s discovery that he is also a master’s king; beyond this they have no objective meaning, in other words, they represent an illusion. The philosophy of positivism, consistently carried out, is a psychological impossibility, except for a person who has decided to commit suicide, because, according to V.S. Solovyov: But positivism does not have the courage to be consistent, therefore it always evades its latest conclusions and, allowing for a number of logical inconsistencies, puts forward various theories of progress, the main task of which is to return the lost meaning of life and revive the disgusted truth. 103 This reveals the moral impotence of the doctrine of positivism, which is even greater than the mental one. For the triumph of truth, it is necessary, however, to clearly demonstrate this powerlessness, to make a moral reductio ad absurdum of positivism. To do this, it is necessary to reveal all the despair of consistent positivism. Dostoevsky did this in an artistic form, creating Ivan Karamazov, the Russian Faust. 104 It was Herzen’s lot to experience this despair firsthand. The main difference between Karamazov and Herzen is also that the former seeks God and therefore still asks where Herzen, who has already completely lost faith, has completely ready-made answers. But they are both tormented by questions of the same order - questions of moral philosophy. First of all, the moral dignity of a person poses before his consciousness the main question that contains all other questions: does our life have meaning? Is it worth living and, moreover, not ζῆν, but εὖ ζῆν? This is what we find in Herzen about this; – Believe me, nothing is intended for people. – So-so, they were born and live. Why does everything live? Here, it seems to me, the limit of questions; life is both a goal, a means, a reason, and an action. This is the eternal restlessness of an active, tense substance, looking for balance in order to lose it again, this continuous movement, ultima ratio, there is nowhere to go further. Life does not achieve the goal, but fulfills everything possible, continues everything that has been accomplished; she is always ready to step further in order to live more fully, to live even more, if possible; there is no other goal. We often take successive phases of the same development to which we have become accustomed as a goal: we think that the child’s goal is coming of age, because he is becoming an adult; and the child’s goal is rather to play, enjoy, be a child. If you look at the limit, then the goal of all living things is death. 105 In a remarkable passage from “Past and Thoughts,” entitled “Robert Aries” and containing the quintessence of Herzen’s philosophy, we read: “isn’t it easier to understand that a person lives not to fulfill destinies, not to embody an idea, not for progress, but solely because he was born for (however bad this word is) the present, which does not at all prevent him from receiving an inheritance from the past, or leaving something behind? will. This seems humiliating and rude to idealists; They in no way want to pay attention to the fact that all our great significance, despite our insignificance, with the barely perceptible flickering of personal life, lies in this: while we are alive, until the knot that you held back has not been untied by the elements, we are still ourselves, and not dolls appointed to suffer progress or embody some homeless idea. We should be proud of the fact that we are not threads or needles in the hands of fate, sewing the colorful fabric of history... We know that this fabric is not sewn without us, but this is our goal, not a purpose, not a given lesson, but a consequence of that complex mutual responsibility that connects all things with ends and beginnings, causes and actions. And that's not all, we can change the carpet pattern. There is no owner, no drawing, one basis, but we are alone. The former weavers of fate, all these Vulcans and Neptunes, ordered us to live long. The executors hide their wills from us, but the dead bequeathed their power to us.” 106 It is impossible to recognize the reference to the fact that “we are ourselves, and not dolls,” as consistent and convincing on the part of a determinist who views the whole world as a chain of necessary causes and effects; People with such a view are precisely dolls, and not creators of history. Positive determinism destroys personality, because it destroys free will. But let’s make a concession to Herzen and admit that we can “change the pattern” a little. This doesn't make it any easier. This philosophy comes down to the recognition of the bare factuality of our existence. Herzen’s view in its content is the view of a naive person who does not yet know philosophical “surprise,” but in Herzen it is precisely devoid of naivety; it is a result, not a starting point, and represents a silent monument to theoretical despair and conscious errors. The long path was traveled in vain, for it turned out to be a circle and led again to the starting point. And yet, who would dare to say that Herzen is wrong if his philosophy is correct? Let someone indicate the meaning of life, if indeed being is exhausted by this world of appearance? Herzen has the courage and logical honesty to reach the end where others turn aside. What about humanity? and progress? and the religion of humanity? But look how mercilessly Herzen destroys all these beliefs. “Please explain to me,” says the doctor (“From the Other Shore”), “why it is funny to believe in God, but not funny to believe in humanity; to believe in the kingdom of heaven is stupid, but to believe in earthly utopias is smart? Having abandoned positive religion, we remain with all religious habits, and, having lost paradise in heaven, we believe in the coming of earthly paradise and boast about it.” 107 “If progress is the goal,” we read elsewhere, “then for whom are we working? who is this Moloch, who, as the workers approach him, instead of rewarding him, retreats back and, in consolation to the exhausted and doomed crowds who shout to him: morituri te salutant, only knows how to answer with bitter mockery that after their death everything will be wonderful on earth. Are you really dooming modern people to the pitiful fate of carryatids, supporting the terrace on which someday others will dance... Or to be unhappy workers who drag a barge up to their knees in mud with a mysterious fleece and with the humble inscription “progress in the future” on the flag. The tired ones fall on the road, others with fresh strength take up the ropes, and the road, as you yourself said, remains the same as at the beginning, because progress is endless. This alone should have alerted people; an infinitely distant goal is not a goal, but, if you like, a trick; the goal should be closer, at least the wages earned or pleasure in work.” 108 Here, among other things, the irreconcilability of positivism with the idea of ​​​​infinite progress, which was indicated earlier, is clearly revealed. The ideal of ultimate progress is utopia; Herzen, having just experienced “the collapse of faith in the West, was naturally not inclined towards utopianism; all he had to do was deny progress completely, which is what he does. “Neither nature nor history goes anywhere and therefore they are ready to go wherever they are shown, if possible, i.e. if nothing interferes. They are composed au lur et à mesure by an abyss of particulars acting on each other, meeting each other, stopping each other and captivating each other: but a person is not at all lost from this, like a grain of sand in a mountain, no more subject to the elements, no more firmly bound by necessity, but grows by understanding his position into a helmsman who proudly cuts through the waves with his boat, forcing the bottomless abyss to serve himself through communication. “Having no program, no given theme, no inevitable denouement, the disheveled improvisation of history is ready to go with everyone, everyone can insert their own verse into it and, if it is sonorous, it will remain their verse until the poem ends, while the past wanders in its blood and memory. Only by depriving history of every destined path do man and history become something serious, real and filled with deep interest. If events are manipulated, if the whole story is the development of some prehistoric conspiracy, and it comes down to one execution, one mise on scène, at least we will take wooden swords and brass shields. Are we really supposed to shed real blood and real tears to perform a providential charade? With a predetermined plan, history is reduced to inserting numbers into an algebraic formula, the future is given into bondage until birth.” 109 This is the theory of progress, this is Herzen’s theodicy. In the light of his, in this case, too cold reason, Herzen gives the “piebald demigod” - humanity - the most unflattering assessments, looks at life with an unbelieving eye, leaving behind even the Great Inquisitor of Dostoevsky in this regard. “Owen believes,” he says, “with the indomitable strength of the thinker of the 18th century (called the age of unbelief), that humanity is on the eve of its solemn donning of the virile toga. But it seems to us that all guardians and shepherds, guys and mothers can calmly eat and sleep at the expense of the undergrowth. No matter what nonsense the people demand, in our lifetime they will not demand the right of adulthood. Humanity will continue to live with collars “a lʼenfant” for a long time. 110 “Accepting all the best chances, we still do not foresee that people will soon feel the need for common sense. Brain development takes its time. There is no haste in nature; she could lie in a stony faint for thousands and thousands of years and for other thousands chirp as birds, scour the forest as animals, or swim as a fish in the sea. She will be left with historical delirium for a long time; It also perfectly continues the plasticity of nature, exhausted in other areas.” 111 In the present, Herzen did not see elements of the future; he considered the calling of his time only to destroy the old, and only from this point of view does he consider both democracy and socialism. “In democracy there is a terrible power of destruction, but as soon as it begins to create, it is lost in student experiments, in political sketches. Of course, destruction creates, it clears a place, and this is creation, it removes a whole series of waves, and this is the truth. But there is no real creativity in democracy – and that is why it is not the future.” 112 What about science? Doesn't she prove it? Is there no “scientific” theory of progress, is there no “scientific” socialism? Currently, many quite seriously explain Herzen’s theoretical wanderings by the fact that he did not read “Capital” by K. Marx and was not familiar with the “sociology” of our time. They assume that such a free and clear mind, having destroyed so many idols and conquered so many superstitions, would respectfully stop in superstitious admiration of sociology. Herzen loved science, valued its pursuit of truth and preached “humility” before it, but he understood too well its actual competence. He knew that science could not tell him anything about the questions discussed here, could not invent or discover in a retort the meaning of life or history. Therefore, along with other idols, this one had to be destroyed. Of course, Herzen did not destroy science, which in any case remains above any encroachment, but a superstitious attitude towards it, the “mysticism of science.” 113 “Well, miracles are here and there,” says “Damaged,” “it doesn’t matter, only that religion comes from them, and science comes to them. Religion already openly says that you will understand with your mind, but there is, - it says, another mind that is smarter, he supposedly said this and that. But science deceives, imagining that it understands how... but in essence, both of them prove one thing: that a person is incapable of knowing everything, but still understands something.” 114 Herzen cruelly takes up arms against scientific fetishism, so common especially among natural scientists. “There is not that logical abstraction, there is not that collective name, there is not that unknown beginning or unexplored cause that would not be, at least for a short time, a deity or a shrine. The iconoclasts of rationalism, who strongly advocate against idols, are surprised to see that, as they throw some off their pedestals, others appear on them. And for the most part they are not surprised, either because they do not notice them at all or because they themselves mistake them for true gods. Natural scientists, boasting of their materialism, talk about some kind of forward-conceived plans of nature, about its goals and clever choice of means, you will not understand anything, as if natura sic voluit is clearer than fiat lux? This is fatalism in the third degree, in cube, in the first the blood of Januarius boils, in the second fields are irrigated with rain through prayer, in the third the secret plans of the chemical process are revealed, the economic abilities of the vital force that prepares yolks for embryos are praised, etc.” 115 Thus Herzen strikes one after another at the ghosts with which positivism tried to populate its dead kingdom; they fall under the knife of his critical analysis. But in the heat of battle, the fighter does not feel that he himself is bleeding and, having covered the field with the dead, falls as a moral corpse. With his incomparable lyricism, Herzen tells us how gloomy despair filled his heart, as the illusions dear to his heart dissipated, “no stone was left unturned from his former life,” says Herzen in “Western Arabesques.” “I no longer expect anything, nothing, after what I have seen and experienced, will surprise or deeply delight; surprise and joy are curbed by memories of the past and fear of the future. Almost everything has become indifferent to me and I still don’t want to die tomorrow or live for a very long time; let your end come as randomly and meaninglessly as your beginning. But I found everything I was looking for, even recognition from the old self of a contented world - and next to this, the loss of all beliefs, all blessings”... etc. “Many times,” we read below, “in moments of despair and weakness, when the bitterness overwhelmed the measure, when my whole life seemed to me one long mistake, when I doubted myself, the latter, the rest, these words came to my mind: “why didn’t I take the gun from the worker and stay behind the barricade”... Accidentally struck by a bullet, I would have taken two or three more beliefs with me to the grave... What Finally, is this all a joke? Everything cherished, what we loved, what we strived for, what we sacrificed. Life has deceived, history has deceived in its favor; she needs crazy people to leaven her.” 116 “Western Arabesques” seem to be one chord of despair. Herzen's favorite poets are now Leopardi 117 and Byron, especially the latter. “Neither Cain, nor Manfred, nor Don Juan, nor Byron have any conclusion, no denouement, no “moral teaching.” Maybe from the point of view of dramatic art this does not work, but this is the stamp of sincerity and depth of the gap. Byron's epilogue, his last word, if you like, is the Darkness; this is the result of a life that began with “Dream.” Our historical vocation, our deed lies in this: through our disappointment, through our suffering, we reach the point of humility and submission before the truth and deliver the next generations from these sorrows. We sober up humanity, we are its hangover, we are its pains of childbirth. If the birth ends well, everything will be good; but we must not forget that along the way a child or a mother, or maybe both, may die, and then - well, then history with its Marmonism will begin a new pregnancy... E sempre bene, gentlemen!.. ...That is why I now appreciate Byron’s courageous thought so highly. He saw that there was no way out and proudly expressed it. 118 There is no way out, this italics belongs to Herzen himself. Let us summarize and try to determine in the two elephants the content of this act of Herzen’s stifling drama. Herzen came to the conclusion that, from the point of view of consistent positivism, there is no reason either in the world or in history and that therefore a person determines himself solely at his own discretion. The forehead is the measure of things - this is the essence of Herzen’s entire philosophy; Herzen's principle, therefore, does not represent anything new - it is the principle of the sophists, those positivists and Nietzscheans of antiquity. We involuntarily mentioned the name of Nietzsche; indeed, for all the difference that exists between the personalities of Herzen and Nietzsche and the direction of their minds, 119 their philosophical position is extremely similar. Both of them were the most consistent representatives of positivism, and both discovered its real ideological content: man is the measure of things. They tore off his dress and jewelry that did not belong to him, and thus exposed his real essence. Roughly speaking, there are two worldviews (which, of course, have many varieties and shades): religious, which recognizes the highest principle of the world, God, whose will is the law for man, and anti-religious, in which the existence of a higher principle is denied, and in this case man (i.e., each individual person) is necessarily the measure of things. This basic and exhaustive antithesis received ideal historical embodiment in the clashes between Socrates and the Sophists. Positivism, due to a misunderstanding, for a long time did not consider itself an anti-religious teaching in this sense: Nietzsche and Herzen revealed its secret to everyone, discovered its true content. This, to put it in modern terms, is egotism or, what is the same, philosophical nihilism, 120 i.e. not only complete philosophical unprincipledness, but the elevation of this unprincipledness to a principle (nihilism cannot do without such a degree of principledness). So, man is the measure of things, that’s the whole content of this philosophy. This outcome of an entire philosophical development can be expressed in the image of Pushkin’s fairy tale: the old man returned to the old woman, and again there was a broken trough in front of him. The teachings of both Herzen and Nietzsche are, in a certain sense, a spectacular tombstone of positivism. This exposure of positivism, which is at the same time its denunciation, has enormous positive significance. Herzen (and Nietzsche) is the borderline for a certain direction; there is nowhere to go further in this direction. Herzen boldly looked into the abyss that others had not noticed; he descended into its depths and returned to us to tell us that despair lurks at its bottom. Although in a negative way, he showed with complete clarity that any ideals - including the ideals of socialism - cannot receive the sanction of objectivity from positivism, that only a religious-idealistic worldview can provide support for social idealism and faith in humanity. Outside of this foundation there is only room for boundless skepticism and occasionalism, a morality of personal whim. Therefore, every viable social teaching instinctively seeks a religious-idealistic support, which necessarily bases itself on faith in history and humanity. Herzen's main but unconscious illness, from which all his conscious suffering stemmed, was his positivism and atheism. Despite his positive atheistic views, Herzen was constantly occupied with questions of religious consciousness - about the meaning of life, history, etc., Karamazov questions. But, like Karamazov, Herzen was destined to experience not the joy of a positive resolution of these great and terrible questions, but the bitterness of the consciousness of their insolubility. He searched and did not find; but true religiosity consists precisely in seeking. III. Spiritual homecoming We left Herzen in a state of moral crisis, from which the only worthy way out could only be suicide. Only a new faith, a new religion could save him. Herzen still retained all the fullness of his vitality, and he frantically sought a way out of his painful state. The realm of the transcendent, the religion of the heavenly, remained alien to him as before: he was too removed from it by all layers of the past. A new faith had to be sought only in the area of ​​earthly, empirical reality. In other words, it could only constitute a new kind of utopianism, in all its foundations similar to the lost faith in the West: in the algebraic formula of utopianism, new numbers must be substituted, and then everything remains as before. And the moral necessity of a new faith, a new utopia for Herzen was so great that the voice of skepticism in him becomes silent, the critical knife becomes dulled, the mind, hitherto strict and demanding, puts up with arguments that are obviously weak and shaky. The new faith is therefore a theoretical fall for Herzen, which did not prevent it from serving as a source of moral revival for him. We can only rejoice at this fall, for it preserved and gave us that Herzen, whose liberating behests feed our journalism to this day. Faith in the West was replaced by faith in the East, in Russia, which was now in relation to Herzen in the position of the same “beautiful distance” as originally the West. “What started with a cry of joy when crossing the border, I ended with my spiritual return to my homeland. Faith in Russia saved me on the brink of moral death. For this faith in her, for this healing by her, I thank my homeland. Whether I’ll see you or not, the feeling of love for her will carry me to the grave.” 121 This spiritual revolution of Herzen meets with many detractors, who easily find a theoretical refutation of the new beliefs of Herzen, who they portray as something like a fallen angel; Turgenev, who is the addressee of Herzen’s famous letters “Beginnings and Ends,” was among such detractors at one time. But to us, on the contrary, this incessant religious need of Herzen’s spirit seems extremely touching, and in it we see the main element of his soul. Turgenev quite rightly called Herzen’s wanderings a pursuit of the absolute, which, due to his positivism, Herzen was forced to deny, but without which he practically could not do for a single minute of his conscious life. And how Herzen, in this inconsistency, is superior to the sober Turgenev, who supplemented himself with flabby and unstable skepticism and managed to find in it the basis of moral balance. 122 But in addition to its general philosophical significance, Herzen’s experiences retain vital interest for us and are full of instructiveness for modern Russian people. Despite its utopian shell, Herzen’s disappointment in the West and spiritual return to his homeland also have a completely realistic content, which we will now deal with. Passion for the West, reaching the point of denial of everything Russian, cooling towards the West, but destroying, however, full recognition of its cultural power, faith in the future of Russia and work for this future, this history of Herzen’s development provides, as it were, a diagram of the normal development of the Russian intelligent soul, and in the sequence of these phases there is a deep moral necessity. The first phase that needs least explanation is the extreme fascination with the West. The imperfections of our social forms are too obvious, they grossly offend the eye, conscience, and human dignity, we are too ashamed that we tolerate them. The eye involuntarily rushes to where these forms no longer exist, where life takes shape and develops freely. All the shortcomings in our life, which are recognized by conscience as such, but which social forces have not yet had enough to eliminate, all of them arouse such an acute feeling of shame and dissatisfaction that the simple absence of these shortcomings, a negative ideal, begins to seem positive to us. Thus, having before us the external forms of life of the West as an unattained ideal, we involuntarily fall into an idealization of all this life, which takes shape not only under this influence, but also under a thousand others that we do not take into account. The undeniable positive benefits of Western culture, its science, its art, its majestic history, also contribute to this. One cannot help but begin to think that these flowers of Western civilization make up the entire tree, that the life of the West consists only of them. This optical illusion is almost inevitable, especially taking into account that all these conclusions are not the fruit of a cold, Turgenev-like reason, but a passionate, Herzen-like feeling. 123 This optical illusion dissipates as soon as the West, in fact, ceases to be for us a Zukunftstaat, an earthly paradise, and from an ideal it becomes a historical fact, which has only bright, but also shadow sides. In any case, he retains the importance of school for us, especially in the field of everything related to the technology of life, although who would consider school lessons to be the final wisdom. It remains for us a repository of universal human treasures of the spirit, sciences and arts. The West is, finally, a political banner for us; in fact, this moment has always constituted the true basis for the distinction between Slavophilism and Westernism. But the West is no longer for us either the most perfect or the only possible embodiment of culture. (Obviously, the “West” is taken here not in the geographical sense - it includes America - but in the cultural-historical sense, in the sense of a certain unity of culture). What attitude will our culturally backward fatherland take towards its older brother? This relationship can be thought of in three ways. Firstly, you can simply deny the Russian people any cultural abilities, consider their very existence to be some kind of sad mistake of nature, in short, not believe at all in the cultural future of your people and, at the same time, deny their cultural past and present. This point of view was expressed with all decisiveness only once in Russian literature, only once was the full depth of despair of this view measured, namely by Chaadaev in his “Philosophical Letters.” However, the well-known Chaadayev taste remains among extreme Westerners, although in an indecisive and therefore difficult to detect form. Secondly, one can see in Western civilization, considered as a whole, the only possible type of development, which all other peoples must repeat, albeit with individual, insignificant deviations. The fate of Russia in this regard is no different from the fate of Japan and, perhaps, China. This is a very widespread point of view, and it is characteristic, by the way, of Turgenev, who in a written polemic with Herzen defends precisely this identity of development. It is characteristic of modern cosmopolitan Marxism, which, of all historical differences, recognizes only class or property differences, and sees the main content of the historical process in the economic struggle. With such a simplification of history, of course, there are no national cultures, no Jewish, Greek, Roman culture, but there are only economic interests that are always equal, only coming into different proportions, those who affirm this unity of cultural development are certainly right, since they attribute this statement to the technology of life, i.e. to political forms, industry, routes of communication, etc. At present, there is no need to refute at length the view of the old Slavophilism, according to which national identity lies in certain political and economic institutions. Railroads and banks are also cosmopolitan, like the well-known foundations of the rule of law; their assimilation is only a matter of cultural maturity or simply time. But civilization is not exhausted by these material aspects of cultural life, or rather, they are only the conditions of truly cultural life, that is, spiritual culture, spiritual creativity. And in this area, Western civilization is not an absolute, unique type; on the contrary, it itself is far from perfect, and, on the other hand, the area of ​​spiritual creativity not only allows for diversity and division of cultural labor, but requires it. Nations that, having assimilated external culture, have settled on it, do not, strictly speaking, still have the right to the name of cultural states. Spiritual creativity is inexhaustible, and every people, once again entering the field of civilization, can truly say a new word, fill in the gaps of the existing one, be a creator, not a student. Faith in the creative powers of his people naturally and necessarily exists in every Russian and is clearly recognized after the first fever of passion for Western civilization, the school years, passes; Herzen also felt it with great passion. “I believe in the ability of the Russian people, I see from the shoots what a harvest can be, I see in the poor, suppressed manifestations of their life - an affinity they have not realized for that social ideal to which human thought has consciously reached.” 124 This is what becomes the guiding principle of Herzen’s life and work in the second half of his life. From a spectator he becomes a doer; Jeremiah, crying on European ruins, begins to ring the “Bell”, awakening public thought and conscience. Without this enthusiastic and ardent faith that inspired him, could Herzen have developed that power of enthusiasm, that fire of passion that we feel on every page of “The Bell”! Holy faith! But can you prove it, sober minds protest... I concede without a fight, it is impossible to “prove”, it cannot be proven in the sense in which the Pythagorean theorem or even Darwin’s theory is proven; those alleged evidence that can be given by reference to already accomplished cultural affairs, obviously, but cover the thesis, are insufficient; faith in the people is nourished by them, but it is not created by them. And yet, without proof, this faith can be unshakable, because instead of logical, it has other, moral proofs that love will give. Whoever really loves believes, cannot help but believe that the loved one has in any respect exceptional merits, represents an individual and, as such, irreplaceable value. This does not mean that all kinds of perfections and a complete absence of shortcomings are attributed to him, but something is seen in him that no one else in the world has. And the same thing that happens in individual love also happens with love for the homeland, from which faith in the national vocation will be born. Faith in one's people is also rooted in the metaphysical foundations of a worldview, which must necessarily take into account the problem of nationality. Peoples, like individuals, have their own moral task, their own historical mission, and this mission is provided for in the moral world order, where the fraternal competition of peoples in the pastures of history is taken into account in advance. From this point of view, the very fact of the historical existence of a great people testifies that they are destined to serve good in their own way, to have their say. The idea of ​​nationality, thus understood, is a religious idea; it is associated with the general idea of ​​​​the existence of a moral world order. (But, of course, positivists who deny this idea should see in the people only an ethnographic fact). Praise be to the old Slavophiles that in dark and difficult times they preserved this faith in themselves and supported in others, a merit that Herzen fully recognized for them (in Khomyakov’s obituary). At the same time, they fell into many prejudices, ridiculous and harmful, but this was an inevitable tribute to passion and the result of historical conditions. They fell, moreover, into a grave moral sin, the sin of national self-aggrandizement, which V.S. Solovyov denounced with such energy. 125 The doctrine of the rotting of the West is also a sad feature of Slavophilism, although the mitigating circumstance is that Westernizing teachings at that time took the opposite extreme. Judgment of others and historical ingratitude are, of course, unworthy of true patriotism, just as unworthy as moral servility. In Herzen one sometimes hears tones akin to Slavophil teachings about the rotting of the West. But for him this is not the fruit of national exclusivity, but rather the result of a severe moral shipwreck that he suffered in the West. He recognizes the principles of Western civilization. “You love European ideas - I love them too - these are the ideas of all history, this is a tombstone on which is written the testament not only of yesterday, but of Egypt and India, Greece and Rome, Catholicism and Protestantism, the Roman peoples and the German peoples. Without them we would fall into Asian quietism, into African stupidity. Russia with them and only with them can be brought into possession of that large share of the inheritance that goes to it.” 126 “There was a time when you defended the ideas of the Western world,” Herzen writes to Turgenev in “Ends and Beginnings,” “and you did well; It’s just a pity that this was completely unnecessary. The ideas of the West, i.e. Science has long been the universally recognized superiority of humanity. Science is completely free from the meridian, from the equator, it is like Goethe’s Divan - west-east. 127 The peculiarity of Herzen’s views lies in the fact that he considered the West completely incapable of implementing the swap of its own ideas, and he considered this implementation to be the future of Russia’s destiny. This opinion, nourished by the bitterness of emigration and the acute disappointment of the Russian utopian who lived through 1849 and 1852, is, of course, an incongruous sentence in its courage and severity and is distinguished, moreover, by national conceit, reminiscent of Herzen’s old Moscow friends - Khomyakov and others. But what is extremely instructive are the motives that lead Herzen to his disbelief in the vital forces of Europe, the diagnosis that he makes of its moral illness. On the brow of the brilliant European civilization, Herzen read a scorched inscription, its mene-tekel, and this inscription: philistinism. Herzen chose, as it were, an artistic specialty to expose European philistinism; he devotes many truly Juvenalian pages to him. Herzen considered philistinism to be a property not only of the entrepreneurial class, but a disease of the entire European society, consisting in the impoverishment of ideals, in the exclusive subordination to base, selfish interests. “All morality has come down to the fact that the poor must acquire by all means, and the possessed must preserve and increase their property; the flag that is raised at the market to open trading became the banner of the new society. Man has de facto become property; life has become a constant struggle over money. Since 1830, the political question has become exclusively a philistine question and the centuries-old struggle is expressed by the passions and drives of the ruling state. Life was reduced to a stock exchange game, everything turned into money changers and markets, magazine editorial offices, election meetings, cameras. The English are so accustomed to putting everything into shop nomenclature that they call their old Anglican church the Old Shop. All parties and shades little by little divided into two main camps in the bourgeois world: on the one hand, the bourgeois owners who stubbornly refuse to give up their monopolies, on the other, the propertyless bourgeois who want to wrest their property out of their hands, but do not have the power, i.e. on the one hand there is stinginess, on the other there is envy. Since there is no real moral principle in all this, then the place of a person in one direction or another is determined by the external conditions of the state, social position. One wave of opposition after another achieves victory, i.e. property or place, and naturally moves from the side of envy to the side of stinginess.” “His gospel is short: “make money, multiply your income like the sand of the sea, use and abuse your monetary and moral capital without going broke, and you will achieve longevity well-fed and honorably, marry your children and leave behind a good memory.” “This is the general atmosphere of European life. It is heavier and more unbearable where the modern Western state is most developed, where it is truer to its origins, where it is richer, more educated, i.e. more industrial. And that’s why somewhere in Italy or even Spain it’s not as unbearably suffocating to live as in England and France... And that’s why mountainous, poor Switzerland is the only piece of Europe to which you can retire in peace.” 128 Herzen points in other places to the low level of education of the average European, to the decline of art, which does not tolerate “vulgarity,” to the dominance of “erased dozen” people and the decline of personality, and to other symptoms of philistinism, which nevertheless constitutes “the ideal to which Europe is rapidly rising from all points of the bottom.” 129 For me, the whole greatness of Herzen as a writer and a person is more clearly recognized than in the intrepid courage with which he expressed this denunciation of civilization, not blinded by its brilliance, but bribed by its great historical past and modern successes, not stopped by all the inevitable disappointments. This denunciation, and this is its moral significance, is not made by some principled rabble-rouser or narrow-party person, but by one of the most enlightened and internally free people, and is not done out of whim or superstition, not from obscurantism, it is done in the name of a higher moral principle, before which European and every other civilization must respectfully bow. After all, while blaming Europe, Herzen loved and valued its civilization, and did not know any other besides it; His denunciations therefore deserve a more thoughtful and less stereotyped attitude than what we have seen so far from Herzen’s many admirers. This opportunity did not present itself to Herzen, perhaps because in his ideas about philistinism he was still not sufficiently freed from the influence of one-sided economism, although in general he saw much further than it. A radical economic reform will undoubtedly eliminate the great, warring untruth of our present life; it is therefore, in any case, a moral reform, but a reform of a negative nature. 131 It reforms the outer man, his social life, but is not yet necessarily a reform of the inner man; uniform satiety is not a specific antidote against spiritual philistinism. Indeed, what is philistinism? Everyone knows from direct experience that two principles are constantly fighting in a person, of which one draws him to the activity of the spirit, to spiritual work (whatever it consists of), and the other strives to paralyze this activity, drown out the highest needs of the spirit, make existence carnal, meager and base. This second principle is true philistinism; the philistine sits in every person, always ready to lay his deadening hand on him as soon as his spiritual energy weakens. The struggle with oneself (as a special case, including the struggle with the outside world) consists of moral life, which therefore has as its condition this fundamental dualism of our existence, the struggle of two souls that live in one body not only in Faust, but in every person. From the same direct experience, I know that at different times of life one or another principle overcomes; The power of philistinism either increases or weakens. What is observed in the life of an individual is repeated in the life of human societies in different eras of history. There are eras of moral upsurge and moral decline or stagnation. Consciousness and conscience begin to be replaced by routine and sensuality, and the united philistinism vindictively persecutes those who seek to awaken the public conscience. The philistinism of the freest and most democratic republic of Greece executed Socrates because he wanted to be and was a gadfly, stinging the Athenian people like a lazy horse; and the Jewish philistinism staged Golgotha ​​because they heard the preaching of the liberation of the inner spiritual man from the philistine. The satanic beginning of the world, the “prince of this world” is precisely the personified philistinism, spiritual decline, flabbiness, routine, enslavement of the flesh; demonic - is the lot of too few natures; It is not for nothing that the ironic trait of Ivan Fedorovich Karamazov appears in the image of a tradesman. The peculiarity of the progressive development of human societies and the human personality in them is that, as one of its necessary conditions, it presupposes the progress of material well-being, in the language of political economy, the growth of national wealth. There is a mutual conditionality between material and spiritual civilization, but - in a strange way - at the same time there is also an undoubted antagonism. Material civilization is both wings and fetters for the spirit, for if thanks to it the strength of a spiritual person grows, the philistine element also receives extraordinary power. To maintain a balance between a spiritual person and a philistine, much greater energy is required on the part of the former, because the philistine’s strength increases terribly. With the growth of wealth, the world “becomes more and more Martha, who is busy about many things, and the modest Mary with her “one need” is involuntarily forgotten.” It would be long and unnecessary here to list the main conditions that increasingly subordinate man to things, and to characterize the peculiar fetishism of modern civilization, its “Americanism.” There is no doubt that this civilization, which in its highest manifestations has undoubtedly achieved unprecedented success, creates a terrible mechanism for the entire individual, capturing individual life with its gears, teeth, flywheels and practically proclaiming the principle: not the Sabbath for man, but man for the Sabbath. The antagonism between material and spiritual civilization is ineradicable, and the philistine will always keep the free flight of the human spirit. This struggle is being waged with varying success in favor of one or the other. It is impossible not to admit, together with Herzen, that the dizzying material progress of the 19th century to a certain extent upset the balance not in favor of the spiritual person, and European-American civilization reveals a certain inclination towards philistinism. What is the counterbalance to spiritual philistinism? Of course, any spiritual life, both mental and aesthetic, and any spiritual relevance can be a denial of philistinism, therefore the development and successes of spiritual civilization paralyze the power of philistinism; but his most decisive and only implacable enemy is religion, the true basis of a spiritual man, forming the center of his spiritual self-collection and requiring him to serve “in spirit and truth.” True and sincere religiosity (which we, of course, do not associate here with any specific form of belief), 132 - this, in my opinion, is truly the opposite pole of philistinism. But let's return to Herzen. What did Herzen oppose to the European philistinism, which offended him so deeply, and why did he consider Russia called upon to implement the ideas of the West? The answer is striking in its inconsistency, its inconsistency with the question, and this again reveals the entire limitations of Herzen’s worldview: because in Russia, by hook or by crook, the land community has been preserved and the recognition of everyone’s right to land (rather problematic). Thus, a huge moral problem, a world question in the full sense of the word, the question of the possibility of a real, that is, not philistine, civilization is humiliated, vulgarized by such a childishly naive and philistine materialistic answer. There is something truly tragic in this fatal discrepancy between question and answer, scope and blow... Herzen again and with all his strength hits his head against the boundaries of his positive worldview, which is too narrow for his needs. And Wagner unexpectedly answers the question asked by Faust. Herzen is Prometheus, chained, or rather, chained to himself, to the barren rock of positivism, and each of his mental flights, vague attractions to transcendental spheres will only make him more aware of the chains of common sense, through which Herzen wanted to solve all questions of existence. Herzen's philosophy is lower than his personality; a mental philistine, a reasoner of common sense, strangles Prometheus, constantly scorched by that inner fire that was stolen by him from heaven. This discrepancy between the worldview and the spiritual needs of the individual, who, however, cannot overcome it from the inside, is Herzen’s spiritual drama. Where does Herzen point the path, where does he lead, if not with his opinions, then with his quests, his struggles and mental wounds, falls and disappointments? To what is a radical negation of positivism and a spiritual victory over it - to an idealistic and religious worldview, to the recognition that beyond the world of phenomena there is a region of truly existing being, an ideal world, the kingdom of absolute Truth, Goodness and Beauty; in the desire for it, in the religious “contact with other worlds” (as Dostoevsky liked to put it) is the life of the spirit, and this living connection with the ideal world gives strength, support and consolation in the struggle of life in the name of this ideal beginning. With the all-conquering power of inner experience, the importance of religion on Russian soil was shown by Dostoevsky, with the power of logical argumentation based on the philosophy of idealism, by V. S. Solovyov. It can therefore be said that Herzen, albeit in a roundabout way, more negative than positive, leads to... Dostoevsky and Solovyov. See the description of upbringing in “The Past and Thoughts.” Collection op. g. VI, pp. 57–9. “I read the Gospel a lot and with love, in Slavonic and in Luther’s translation. I read without any guidance, I did not understand everything, but I felt sincere and deep respect for what I was reading. In my early youth I was often carried away by Voltairianism, I loved irony and mockery, but I don’t remember ever picking up the gospel with a cold feeling, it carried me through my whole life; at all ages, under different events, I returned to reading the gospel, and each time its content brought peace and meekness to the soul” (Collected works, vol. VI, 59). See the extremely interesting “Response to a Russian Lady” in “The Bell” of April 15, 1859. Reprinted in a collection of selected articles from The Bell. 1887. Page 132. Wed. The final pages of the article “On the Social Ideal” are about this. I tried to reveal all the inconsistencies of the positive theory of progress in the article “The Main Problems of the Theory of Progress,” where, in order to avoid repetition, I refer the reader. Wed. article “Ivan Karamazov as a philosophical type.” From that shore. Collection cit., V, 109–10. Collection cit., vol. IX, 328–9. Collection p. 14., V, 124–5. Elsewhere, Herzen says: “the word humanity is disgusting; it does not express anything definite, but only adds some kind of piebald demigod to the vagueness of all other concepts” (Works. IX, 321–2). Collection cit., IX, 324–6. Here again the error noted above is repeated. Our actions are determined and, in a certain sense, predestined both in the case if some kind of worldly, providential thought is expressed in the historical process, and in the case if there is no such thought, and history represents a chaotic chain of causes and effects. To prove his thought, Herzen should not deny any particular form of determinism, but determinism in general, in other words, prove the metaphysical thesis of free will. This particular error is not of great interest to us here; it only serves as confirmation of what we said about Herzen’s weakness as a systematic philosopher. Collection cit., V, 90–1. A year before his death (1869), Herzen spoke to a tired doctor about socialism: “You are free to consider socialism a religion, - But how can that be? Maybe someday he will grow out of the surplice, there are even promising beginnings, but this is not a done deal; the great revolution had no less than his makings, but grew old in its civil liturgies and political processions. All the same idolaters and iconoclasts; only the icons are different”... (Collected works, vol. XI, 281). The posthumous “Letters to an Old Comrade,” written in the same year of 1869, stand in sharp contrast to Herzen’s general views. The views developed here in our modern language can be defined as “Berschneinian”. Collection works., IX, 296 notes. Collection cit., VIII, 228–9, 246–8. Herzen dealt little with ethical issues, although in this area one can often find Nietzschean judgments in him; here, for example: “a free person will create his own morality,” etc. (From that shore. Collected works, vol. V, 157–8). This is how Herzen himself defines nihilism: “nihilism is logic without structure, it is science without dogmas, it is unconditional submission to experience and the resigned acceptance of all consequences, whatever they may be, if they follow from observation, are required by reason. Nihilism does not turn something into nothing, but reveals that nothing taken for something is an optical illusion, and that all truth, no matter how much it contradicts fantastic ideas, is healthier than them and in any case is obligatory.” (Collected works, X, 435). In the correspondence on this matter between Herzen and Turgenev (published by Drahomanov), all the advantages of common sense are on Turgenev’s side, but all the advantages of man are on Herzen’s side. Formally, Turgenev is the winner, but this is a Pyrrhic victory. However, Turgenev sometimes had Herzen’s mood, such a mood was dictated by his famous prose poem “Russian Language”. Herzen, in his picturesque language, perfectly characterized this complete admiration for the West: our relationship to the West until now has been very similar to the relationship of a village boy to a city fair. The boy's eyes widen, he is surprised by everything, envies everything, wants everything: from a sbiten and a gingerbread horse with a golden spot on his mane to a disgusting German cap and a vile harmonica that replaced the balalaika. And what fun, what a crowd, what diversity: the swings are spinning, the peddlers are shouting, and wine exhibitions, taverns... and the boy almost with hatred remembers the poor huts of his village, the silence of its meadows and the boredom of the dark, noisy forest" (“Russian Germans and German Russians.” Collection of articles from Kolokol. p. 184). For Solovyov’s attitude to Slavophilism, see the following article. Western arabesques, collection. cit., VIII, 366–7, 370–1. Beginnings and Endings, collection. cit., X, 368 and passim. Of course, I do not want to say by this that it is actually realized in this way only and that there is no moral principle at all in Western socialism. In general, no matter how much I stipulated my disagreement with the extremes of Herzen’s views, all of them were entirely attributed to me, and I became known as... a Slavophile (about Slavophilism and Westernism, see the next article). Wed. article “On the Economic Ideal.” As I already had to point out, the best representatives of our intelligentsia, despite their atheism, are deeply religious (with their religion of progress) and thus removed from spiritual philistinism. This trait was noted by Dostoevsky.