Mysterious Thinker

Published in the Moscow Weekly on December 5. 1908 (H. F. Fedorov) Recently a voluminous volume of works by N. F. Fedorov appeared in print, containing various articles of a philosophical nature. 1 The name of Fedorov, known during his lifetime only to a close circle of people who knew and loved him, appears in print only now, after his death, which followed in 1903 at the age of 78. The most original mind and the most original person speaks to you from these pages, varied in topics, but imbued with unity of thought. You are immediately overcome by an extraordinary feeling of respect and some horror before genuine and unostentatious greatness in our advertising and vain age. In Fedorov’s literary destinies, everything is extraordinary and exceptional: both this proud and at the same time humble reluctance to publish in his own name during his lifetime, and this posthumous publication of chaotic papers and notes, on the distant outskirts of devoted friends who spared neither time nor labor for the publication, moreover, according to the thought of the deceased, “not for sale.” One of them, V.A. Kozhevnikov, to explain and develop the difficult-to-digest and paradoxical thoughts of his friend, wrote an entire study, the first volume of which, published in the pages of the Russian Archive, recently appeared in Moscow, according to the rule of N. F. Fedorov, also “not for sale.” 2 V. A. Kozhevnikov, already in the first part of this work, applied his outstanding and multifaceted scientific, philosophical and literary erudition to the development and clarification of the views of N. F. Fedorov, merging himself with him, so that it is impossible for an outsider at times to distinguish where Fedorov ends and Kozhevnikov begins. A wonderful monument to friendly loyalty and love! The book by V. A. Kozhevnikov serves as the key to understanding the works of Fedorov himself, for I have not met a more unliterary, whimsical, sophisticated, unsystematic writer, and reading his authentic works can be available either as a literary “obedience” for those who have already broken their teeth enough on sophisticated works, or it becomes possible only after it is publicly available (of course, to the extent that such plots can be made publicly available at all) presentation by V. A. Kozhevnikov. And yet, this reading is fully rewarded with sudden insights, inspired thoughts, like sparks, igniting on these clumsy and awkward pages. Even one who does not share a single thought of N. F. Fedorov will have to admit that he is dealing with a native, original, completely independent thinker, and the one in whose soul there are consonances for the teachings of N. F. Fedorov will recognize him as a great thinker, as his publishers recognize him. In any case, one cannot but agree that in Fedorov’s book, and even more so in its author, this Moscow Socrates, we have one of the most original phenomena of Russian life of modern times. V. A. Kozhevnikov begins his book with the following words: “An amazing, rare, exceptional person has passed away! It is unnecessary to remind people who knew him at all about the sublime mind of N. F. Fedorov, about his varied, extensive knowledge, about his conscientiousness as a worker and about his ideal moral purity: without that, they will all unanimously say: he was a sage and a righteous man! - and those closest to him will add: he was one of those few righteous people who hold the world together!” This judgment of a person who is so thoughtful and cautious in his assessments of people, who, moreover, knew N.F. closely for 28 years (cf. also the introductory essays by V.A. Kozhevnikov and N.P. Peterson to volume I of Fedorov’s works), finds strong confirmation in the judgment of none other than L.N. Tolstoy, which can be read in Fet’s letter attached to Kozhevnikov’s book (to him Fet himself joins). Here we read: “He (L.N. Tolstoy) said: I am proud that I live at the same time as such a person. You must have a lot of spiritual capital to deserve such reviews, because I don’t know a person who knows you who would not express himself about you in a similar way. If I didn’t consider this awkward, I would boldly include myself among such people.” L.N. Tolstoy himself in a letter to Ivan. M. Ivakinu asks: “give him (N.F.) my love.” 3 Finally, V.S. Solovyov writes to N.F. Fedorov: “For my part, I can recognize you as my teacher and spiritual father,” “dear teacher and comforter.” These reviews alone are enough to draw attention to whoever they are referring to. And if he remained a stranger to widespread fame during his lifetime, then, according to the testimony of V. A. Kozhevnikov, “the reason for this was partly the amazing modesty of the deceased, not only his complete lack of vanity, but even the fear of praise and fame... Just as in material terms this poor man renounced all property and, with the most meager means (on reaching the age of 70, after 35 years of service, he had a pension of 17 rubles 51 k. per month), he gave everything he had to the first person in need or who asked, so he also did not know the feeling of copyright ownership. That is why this tireless, original writer resolutely did not recognize any copyright and if he agreed to the printed expression of his thoughts, it was only anonymously, or even more willingly under someone else’s name, giving away his spiritual property to the first person who wanted it” (Kozhevnikov, 1). N. F. served first as a teacher in district schools, then as an assistant librarian of the Chertkovsky Library, then as an official on duty at the Reading Room of the Rumyantsev Museum and, finally, at the library of the Moscow Archive of Foreign Affairs. Among those involved, he was known as an extraordinary bibliographer, ready to help anyone in need. “He was quite pleased with his position near books and people of literary and intellectual work; he did not want any changes or improvements; he stubbornly refused promotions and ranks, sometimes surprising his superiors; he rejected the salary increases offered to him, asking to transfer them to the share of one of his family colleagues” (Kozhevnikov, 3). An ascetic in life, who amazed those who knew her with his unpretentiousness, although at the same time a principled opponent of asceticism, he amazed with his simply fire-breathing vitality. “Who of those who visited the Reading Room in the 70s and 80s, and later in the so-called “Catalog”, writes Kozhevnikov, “does not remember the tall, wizened, slightly bent, but full of energy figure of this old man dressed in shabby rags, in whose eyes the fire of chaste youth sparkled...” He invested his life in every activity, and above all in his favorite library work and energy and dedication, “voluntariness”, overcommitment, and knew how to excite them in others. To present, at least in the most general and brief terms, in a short note the teachings of N.F. is completely impossible. Here, at every step, thought makes such unusual, sharp movements, such sharp turns, and at the same time is so unique in content that it would be necessary to say a lot separately on each point. This task was performed by V. A. Kozhevnikov in his book about Fedorov, and we refer the inquisitive reader to it. Here we do not mean to present this teaching, but only to interest it, to outline its topic for the thinking and thoughtful reader. Therefore, we will completely pass over in silence the most interesting ideas of N. F. Fedorov about the Orthodox Church, of which he was a zealous and convinced son, about the museum and the university, about education, his original concept of autocracy and criticism of constitutionalism (somewhat Slavophile), his political and economic views with sharp criticism of urban industrialism and industrial capitalism. Versatility is a distinctive feature of N.F.’s teaching: the theologian and philosopher, historian and economist, statesman and natural scientist will find food for themselves here. How great was the bibliographic awareness and erudition of our polyhistor, the topics of his thoughts were just as diverse. N.F. considers the main sin of philosophy and science to be its isolation from the “common cause,” the recognition of knowledge as an independent, self-sufficient task, an end in itself, and this separation of thought from action, externally expressed in the separation of the learned class into a closed corporate environment and its opposition to the unscientific class, led philosophy to subjectivism, illusionism, and the dualistic division of the human spirit into theoretical and practical reason. N.F.’s thoughts on the history of ancient and modern philosophy, from Socrates to Nietzsche, sparkle with originality and insight (cf. Kozhevnikov, op. cit., Chapter IV, 2, 3). His antipathy is especially great towards Kant, who legitimized the division into practical and pure reason, and towards Nietzsche, in whom he saw the last word in the development of the philosophy of class isolation, fragmentation, and thought without action. “Everyone must be a knower and everything must be an object of knowledge, not separated from action, for without the second there cannot be the first. The totality of cognizing rational beings, relating to the integrity (totality) of everything cognizable, will lead the world or nature to self-awareness and self-government through rational beings, who, fully armed with knowledge and united volitional and moral energy, will receive strength and power, the limits of which are currently impossible to even predict. With such a formulation of the question about the tasks of wisdom, the subject of the first reason, theoretical, would no longer be the thought of thought, but the thought of deeds and the project of a universal cause, while practical reason would become its executor; the third mind, as the creation of similarities, would be an introduction to the second, creating samples (“models”) of what should be recreated.” There is one universal, comprehensive theme for philosophy - about human kinship and non-kinship. “Despite its negative, not fully and vaguely conscious attitude towards kinship and non-kinship, philosophy is, however, nothing more than the science of kinship and non-kinship, presented in a form inaccessible to the majority, that is, an unrelated form, abstract, speculative, devoid of feeling, in the form of “pure thinking”, and not in a project of practical action.” “Philosophy is a universal science; it wants to embrace all knowledge; but, even though it embraces everything, it does not contain in itself anything that could go beyond the limits of the concept of kinship and its opposite. Kinship and non-kinship are the most complete, most concrete concepts; one can only distract from them, depersonalize them, one can, so to speak, turn them into ghosts, into shadows, into ideas; it is impossible to replenish them. In kinship there is fullness of life, feeling, reason, action, reconciliation of religion with science, art, morality; in unrelatedness - lifelessness, separation, discord and all its boundless consequences; in one word: what is related is identical with the immortal, and what is not related is with the mortal. God, as the Triune, is the perfect example of kinship.” The idea of ​​kinship as a model and project of universal kinship, the organization of all mankind, is one of the central religious and social ideas of N.F. In egoism, a person lives for himself, turning away from others; in altruism, a person brings his own personality to others, which is more valuable to God than the whole world, and only kinship is the unity of all “I” in the complete “we”. “One must live not only for oneself and not for others only, but with everyone (brotherhood) and for everyone (fatherland); because to live not with everyone, but only for others, that is, for some, even if many, would mean, doing good to some, to cause evil to others. One must live with all those living, because it is impossible to do more, and anything less is immoral.” This connection of humanity in a universal kinship, in which everyone recognizes themselves as brothers, feeling themselves as sons, is expressed in the name “son of man,” so often applied to himself by the Savior. 4 “Man, universal man, all man, superman—all these concepts are only a fruitless distortion of the only life-giving and fruitful concept of the son of man.” Based on this concept, N.F. gives a strong, sometimes compelling critique of the basic concepts of modern, neo-pagan humanism, materialist socialism (see Kozhevnikov, Chapter 4) and progress. “Progress is self-exaltation... consists in the consciousness of superiority, firstly, of an entire generation (living) over their predecessors (dead) and, secondly, of the younger over the elders; the very same excellence - a source of pride for the younger generation - will consist in an increase in knowledge, in the improvement, elevation of a thinking being; even the development of moral convictions will be the subject of exaltation of the younger generation over the older... The triumph of the younger generation over the older is an essential feature of progress. Biologically, progress consists in the absorption of the elder by the younger, in the displacement of fathers by sons; psychologically, it is the replacement of love for fathers with soulless exaltation over them, contempt for them. Sociologically, progress is expressed in achieving the greatest measure of freedom available to man... sociology is the science not of communication, but of disunity or enslavement... Progress, as the denial of the fatherland and brotherhood, is a complete moral decline, the denial of morality itself.” What is the common cause to which humanity is called if it accepts as the basis of its relations a kindred plurality, the norm and ideal of which is given in the main dogma of Christianity - the Holy Trinity, and the destiny of which we have in the Church? This matter is the struggle and victory of human consciousness over unconscious nature, “regulation of nature.” The cause of poverty and limitation lies not in the conditions of distribution, where socialism often seeks them, but in slavery to nature and its blind elements, which is expressed most directly in the reign of death. “The problem of humanity is solved not by the question of wealth and poverty, but by the question of life and death, the question “why does the living die?” The task of humanity is to convert the unfree world, where everything is determined by physical necessity, unconscious and involuntary causality, into a conscious and free world, which we can now imagine only mentally, but which we must actually, actively and realistically realize, because it is not only an ideal, but also a project in which the highest demands of knowledge and moral feeling, truth, beauty, goodness or goodness and universal happiness and bliss converge, reconcile and unite.” “Natural poverty is the cause of enmity between people and increasing suffering, and the outcome can only be a change in people’s relationship to nature.” Here we come to the very central point of Fedorov’s “project”. Kindred humanity, the “sons of men,” who grieve over their dead fathers, must inevitably set their task in victory over nature to be the resurrection of the dead. “Intelligent beings, truly (in the fullness of knowledge and power) possessing the present, receive power over the past, the power to recreate what was, and at the same time determine the future in all possible perfection. What is required, therefore, is a paradise that is not extra-worldly, the Kingdom of God is not otherworldly, but thisworldly; What is required is a transformation of this-worldly, earthly reality, spreading to all the heavenly worlds and bringing us closer to the otherworldly world unknown to us... The Kingdom of God, in this fullness comprehended, in fulfillment of the will of God, guided by God, carried out by Him through us, is the product of all good forces, all the good abilities of people in their totality, the result of the completeness of knowledge, depth and purity of feeling, the power of good will" (Kozhevnikov, 279–280). “The resurrection of Christ requires a general resurrection... Christianity is a general matter of resurrection, and not just a thought, and it cannot be replaced by any other matter.” “The preaching of life, immortality and resurrection - this is the essence of the preaching of the Savior, He calls the Heavenly Father “God of the Fathers,” i.e. dead, but at the same time “not dead, but alive” (Mark 12:26-27), that is, having to come to life, to be resurrected, for “God did not create death” and does not want a single person to perish (John 6:39), wants “to all be saved and to come into the understanding of truth” (2 Tim. 2:4). The commandment of God is eternal life (John 12:50); Accordingly, “the promise of the Savior is also eternal life” (1 John 2:25). That is why he says about himself: “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).” The duty of love to the fathers, the duty of resurrection, becomes the “common cause” of the sons of men, and the resurrection becomes immanent from transcendent. If the sons of men do not do this work of theirs, “The work of salvation can be accomplished by Divine power alone! Salvation not only can, but will happen without the participation of people, unless they unite in a common cause, but this salvation will only be for a select few; in relation to others it will be an expression of anger; and therefore all our care, all our attention must be directed to not angering the Lord, to ensuring that, according to His desire, everyone can come to the understanding of truth... After all, according to the Gospel itself, the end of the world will come only if the unification does not take place, if the preaching of the Gospel turns out to be unsuccessful; famine and disease are only the beginning of the end!.. If the unification in a common cause takes place, then there will be no end, because in this case the end of the world process taking place in us and outside of us will be the transformation of the blind course of the earth and all worlds into one controlled by the collective mind of all revived, resurrected generations.” Not a single idea of ​​N. F. is exposed to such a danger of misinterpretation, distortion, and vulgarization as this dizzyingly bold “project” of his. There is a particularly great danger of interpreting N. F.’s religious idea in the spirit of modern scientific positivists à la Mechnikov and turning the religious ideal into an unbearable vulgarity, leaving those already circulating far behind. N.F. was right in making his ideas “esoteric” to such an extent and alienating the printing press. I cannot refrain from making judgments about the “project” of N. F., F. M. Dostoevsky and V. S. Solovyov, which are contained in the letters attached by V. A. Kozhevnikov. In these letters we have literary and historical monuments of the utmost importance, shedding light on the most intimate and secret aspirations and thoughts of both of our thinkers. To F. M. Dostoevsky, a short sketch of N. F.’s ideas (anonymously) was made by N. P. Peterson. F. M. Dostoevsky's answer is marked March 24, 1878 (St. Petersburg). Here is what F. M. Dostoevsky writes here, by the way: “First of all, the question is: who is this thinker whose thoughts you conveyed? If you can, please provide his real name. He interested me too much... Then I will say that, in essence, I completely agree with these thoughts. I read them as if they were my own. Today I read them (anonymously) to V. S. Solovyov, our young philosopher, who now gives lectures on religion - lectures attended by almost a thousand people. I deliberately waited for him to read to him your presentation of the thinker’s ideas, since I found many similarities in his views. This gave us a wonderful two hours. He deeply sympathizes with the thinker and wanted to read almost the same thing in the next lecture. 5 But here is a positive and firm question, which back in December I decided to ask you: in the thinker’s presentation, the most essential thing, without a doubt, is the duty of resurrection of previously living ancestors, a duty that, if fulfilled, would stop childbearing, and what is indicated in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse by the first resurrection would occur. But, however, in your presentation it is not at all indicated: how do you understand this resurrection of your ancestors and in what form do you imagine it and believe in it? That is, do you understand it mentally, allegorically, as, for example, Renan, who understands it with clarified human consciousness at the end of the life of mankind to the degree that it will be completely clear to the minds of those future people how much such and such, for example, an ancestor influenced humanity, how he influenced it, and so on. to such an extent that the role of every previously living person will become clear, his deeds will be guessed (by science, by the power of analogy), and to such a degree that we, of course, are aware of the extent to which all these formerly former ones influenced us, thereby each reincarnated in us; and therefore, in those final people, who have recognized everything and are harmonious, with whom humanity will end - or: Your thinker directly and literally imagines, as he hints to religion, that the resurrection will be real, personal, that the abyss separating us from the souls of our ancestors will be filled up, overcome by an already defeated death, and they will rise not only in our consciousness, not allegorically, but really, personally, really, in bodies (but, of course, not in the present bodies, for the mere fact that immortality will come, marriage and the birth of children will cease, testifies that the bodies in the first resurrection, appointed to be on earth, will be other bodies, not the present ones, i.e., such, perhaps, as the body of Christ after His resurrection before His ascension, at Pentecost)? The answer to this question is necessary, otherwise everything will be unclear. I warn you that we here, that is, Solovyov and I, at least believe in a real, literal, personal resurrection and that it will be on earth...” I feel an involuntary thrill when reading this letter now, 30 years after it was written. It was as if the dead lips of the one who had left us opened and he definitely finished saying what was hinted at in various places in his works. Nevertheless, the letter still lacks final clarity; It would be very important to have in your hands the manuscript sent to him, to which his letter is a response, in order to fully understand its contents. Are we talking about the resurrection or the resurrection, and is Dostoevsky here confusing his chiliastic hopes about the first resurrection and the thousand-year kingdom, followed by a general and final, “transcendental” resurrection, with the “project” of a general and final “immanent” resurrection, which should replace and eliminate the transcendent? (For N.F.’s own comments on this letter, see Philosophy of the Common Cause, 485–488.) However, such doubts and bewilderments, which were still appropriate in relation to Dostoevsky, are completely unacceptable in relation to Solovyov, who, in personal communication with N. F. Fedorov, without a doubt, perfectly understood what the wayward thinker wanted, where he was going and what he meant (this is confirmed by the personal memories of V. A. Kozhevnikov). And this is what we read in V. S. Solovyov’s letter to N. F-ch (dates back to the beginning of the 60s, the originals are kept by V. A. Kozhevnikov). “I read your manuscript with greed and delight of spirit, devoting the whole night and part of the morning to this reading, and the next two days, Saturday and Sunday, I thought a lot about what I read. I accept your “project” unconditionally and without any talk: we need to talk not about the project itself, but about some of its theoretical foundations or assumptions, as well as its first practical steps towards its implementation... since the advent of Christianity, your “project” is the first movement forward of the human spirit along the path of Christ. I, for my part, can only recognize you as my teacher and spiritual father. But your goal is not to make proselytes and found a sect, but to save all humanity through a common cause, and for this, first of all, it is necessary for your project to become generally recognized. What means can lead to this - that’s what I would mainly like to talk about with you when we meet.” In another letter (undated) V.S. Solovyov makes some comments on the issue of resurrection: “The work of resurrection, not only as a process, but also by its very purpose, is something conditional. The simple, physical resurrection of the dead cannot in itself be the goal. To resurrect people in their state in which they strive to devour each other - to resurrect humanity to the level of cannibalism would be both impossible and completely undesirable. 6 This means that the goal is not a simple resurrection of the personnel of humanity, but its restoration in its proper form, 7 precisely in such a state in which all its parts and individual units do not exclude or replace, but, on the contrary, preserve and complement each other. Of course, you completely agree with this; this is your own thought. But this is what, it seems to me, follows from this: if the proper form of humanity (as it will be in the resurrection of the dead and in the life of the next century) is still only desired, and not actual, then it is in no way possible to reason about real humanity in the image of what should be, because if the proper humanity (in which God is everything in everyone) completely creates the will of the Father, so that here God himself acts directly and inseparably in human actions, so there is no need for any special actions God, then it is not at all the same in natural humanity, which does not at all do the will of the Father and is in no way a direct expression and form of the Divine; since our actions do not correspond to the will of God, this will receives for us its own special action, which appears to us as something external. If humanity covered the Divine with its activity, then God really would not be visible behind people; but now this is not the case, we do not cover God, and therefore the Divine action (grace) peeps out from behind our reality and, moreover, in even more alien (miraculous) forms, the less we ourselves correspond to our God. If an adult son is so internally in solidarity with his beloved father that in all his actions he directly does his will, without needing any external instructions, then for a child, of necessity, the father’s will is, to a certain extent, an external force and incomprehensible wisdom, from which he requires instructions and guidance. We are all still children and need the guidance of an external religion. Consequently, in positive religion and church we do not cover God, and therefore the Divine action (grace) of the Kingdom of God, but also the real (practical) way and the real means to this goal. Therefore, our work should be of a religious, not scientific nature, and should be based on the believing masses, and not on the reasoning of our intellectuals.” Extensive excerpts from V.S. Solovyov’s letter that we made testify to the strong impression made on him by Fedorov’s ideas, “the first forward movement of the human spirit along the path of Christ.” With such an assessment of these ideas, it is natural to look for traces of their influence in the works of the philosopher himself, and we, indeed, find them. To the greatest extent, as V. A. Kozhevnikov establishes (pp. 277–278), this was reflected in Solovyov’s famous abstract at the Moscow Psychological Society in 1891, “On the decline of the medieval worldview.” If you re-read this abstract after Fedorov’s works, you get the definite impression that the main content of this abstract is Fedorov’s ideas expressed unspoken, with great evasiveness, caution, and with hints that are incomprehensible to the uninitiated. And Fedorov himself recognizes them as his own, but severely reproaches Solovyov for his evasive, ambiguous formulation, for their reticence (see Fedorov, I, 479–490). By the common Christian cause, as Fedorov declares here, Solovyov “means precisely the resurrection of the human race,” but he “not only does not express himself clearly and openly anywhere, but tried so hard to hide his thought that in the debate that followed the abstract, neither the common cause nor the resurrection was even mentioned.” “October 19, 1891,” Fedorov therefore concludes, “could have become the greatest day, the day when Christianity as a common pan-fatherly cause would have begun,” if Solovyov had not been afraid “most of all of being funny” (497-498). We, for our part, believe that, in addition to considerations of external and internal historical and religious tact, and perhaps even tactics, which are fully justified by pedagogical considerations, Solovyov, despite all the fundamental similarity and even dependence on Fedorov in recognizing the final tasks, was very different from him in understanding their immediacy and the means of approaching them. In Fedorov, in another place we encounter polemics with F. M. Dostoevsky (about his letter known to us) and V. S. Solovyov, and he notes there: “Dostoevsky, speaking about the duty of resurrection... probably believed that the fulfillment of this duty was possible only in the most distant future, no earlier than approximately 25,000 years later, i.e., in the same way as Solovyov thought about it; and that Soloviev thought so, we know for sure” (440). From this evidence we can indirectly judge, by the way, Solovyov’s eschatology in the 80s and 90s, when it was significantly and to a certain extent fundamentally different from that expressed in “Three Conversations”, where the feeling of an imminent end, like a deus ex machina, ending a failed history, with this passivity of expectation, differs significantly from the cheerful, relevant eschatology of the previous period. Returning to the relationship between Solovyov and Fedorov, we will also add that in addition to the above-mentioned abstract, when re-reading Solovyov’s works after Fedorov’s works or along with them, many of Solovyov’s ambiguities and omissions receive new light. For me, for the first time, only after becoming acquainted with Fedorov’s ideas, it became clear what it means, for example, or at least what the main idea of ​​Solovyov’s aesthetics - about the ultimate tasks of art - means (in the articles of 1889–90 “Beauty in Nature” and “The General Meaning of Art,” Collected Works, vol. VI). Art has the following task here: “Perfect art in its final task must embody the absolute ideal not only in the imagination, but in reality - it must spiritualize, transubstantiate our real life. If they say that such a task goes beyond the limits of art, then the question is: who set these limits? Of course, this future development of aesthetic creativity depends on the general course of history; for art in general is the realm of the embodiment of ideas, and not their initial origin and growth.” Dostoevsky’s words “beauty will save the world,” taken as the epigraph of the first of these articles, are interpreted in the sense of a creative and transformative impact on the world, and, it seems to me, it is not difficult to recognize here Fedorov’s idea of ​​“regulation of nature” expressed in the language of aesthetics with the “duty of resurrection” as the moral center. One could also give examples of Solovyov’s dependence on Fedorov (for example, in judgments about the attitude towards nature regarding hunger, about superhumanity in articles about Nietzsche and Lermontov, etc.), which weakens and, perhaps, even ceases by the end of the 90s, when, according to the testimony of V. A. Kozhevnikov, their personal relations deteriorated. In any case, both of them, each in their own way, defend the ideal of activity in Christianity and fight against the passivity of ascetic metaphysics, and with Fedorov this sometimes turned into denial or underestimation of the importance of personal asceticism. Christianity calls us to an active relationship with nature and indicates its highest moral goal. “In a teaching that calls everyone to freedom (“you, brothers, are called to freedom,” Gal. 5:13, “know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” John 8:32) and everyone to the true mind (“that all may come to the mind of truth”), the active participation of humanity in the cause of its salvation cannot be subject to the slightest doubt. It is not necessary out of physical necessity, for it could have been accomplished by divine power alone; it is necessary as an expression of the greatest wisdom and the highest morality, as an expression of the fullness of the love and goodness of God our Father towards people.” “The transformation of a world still imperfect (only potentially destined for perfection) into perfect by God through us, without in the least diminishing the Creator, immeasurably elevates creation by fulfilling the will of the Heavenly Father on earth and in heaven (in other worlds), by fulfilling the commandment of the Only Begotten Son to become like Him by the deeds that He did, by the deeds of salvation and the return of life. Will not the implementation by man of the Christian plan of universal salvation be the realization of the fullness of love both for God and for neighbors, for the Heavenly Father and for earthly fathers and brothers? And the world, transformed by such love, will not become an expression of the very God of love and harmony, the Triune God?” Misunderstanding of the active covenants of Christianity, according to Fedorov, led to the materialism of the 19th century, which is “a direct consequence of the separation of the heavenly from the earthly, that is, a complete distortion of Christianity, the covenant of which lies precisely in the union of the heavenly with the earthly, the divine with the human” (Fedorov, I, 32). “The world is not given for the sake of looking at it, and the worldview is not the goal of man. Man has always considered it possible to act on the world, to change it according to his desires.” According to Fedorov, God did not create the best, complete world, but only the potentially best, which can become the best, but with the participation of human labor. “God educates a person through his own experience. He is a King, but a King who does everything not only for man, but also through man. That is why there is no (yet) purposiveness in nature, that it must be introduced by man himself, and this is what the highest purposiveness consists of.” Nothing is free, everything is labor - this is the highest principle, and we must replace what we have received freely with labor, pay off the debt, and this is the great moral basis for the idea of ​​regulating nature. “We have nothing of our own that we have produced, but everything is free, or rather, debt. Our life is not ours at all; it is detachable, alienable, mortal. We received it from our fathers, who owe the same debt to their parents, etc. Birth is only the transfer of a debt, and not the payment of it. From our parents, as well as from our ancestors in general, we received not only life, but also the means to live, consisting in those methods of work in which almost everything belongs to our predecessor and only very little, and only in exceptional cases, to us.” “We live not only at the expense of others, at the expense of a nature unrelated to us, - we also live at the expense of our own kind, even those closest to us, replacing, displacing them, and such an existence makes us <not only> unworthy, but also criminal. An essential, distinctive feature of a person is two feelings: the feeling of mortality and the shame of birth. One can guess that all the blood must have rushed to the person’s face when he learned about his beginning, and how he must have turned pale when he saw the end of his fellow, half-blooded one!.. Animal-like birth is a punishment; but to those who reflect on the process of birth, something even more terrible is revealed - death." "The content of the debt is always the same; its content is always life in one form or another of its manifestation, in whole or in parts, in totality or in its individual aspects, material or spiritual... and therefore the repayment of debt can only be a restoration of life, a resurrection.” This can only be achieved by liberation from the universal slavery of humanity to the elements of nature, by its regulation, which should be the “universal burden of the human race.” It follows from this that “immortality and resurrection, which completes the fullness of knowledge and the fullness of man’s moral and rational power over nature, is labor that turns what is free into one’s own, a purifying duty.” “This duty is the only one common to all people, just as death is common to all people. All the duties imposed on us by the doctrine of the Triune God are expressed in one commandment, the commandment about the duty of resurrection. In contrast to Islam, we can say: “there is no other God but the Triune” and “His resurrection is a commandment!” In the previous lines, I pursued only one goal - by citing some of the thoughts of N. F. Fedorov, to make one feel the importance and seriousness of his ideas and sentiments and thereby encourage a more serious acquaintance with him. The latter is not easy and will require patience and perseverance. Fedorov, who did not publish during his lifetime, is protected from exchange for feuilleton graphomania and everyday frivolity, and is now protected by the hieroglyph of his style and the publication “not for sale,” according to the behest of the thinker, piously observed by his friends and admirers. But even with a more careful reading of it, it is unlikely that it will be easy to find someone who shares all his ideas, who will not stop stumbling before his most daring and final conclusions and aspirations, about which, perhaps, it is appropriate to recall the words of Hamlet: “the rest is silence” (the rest is silence!). But it is unlikely that after this reading he will not feel inspired, fertilized, enriched. And the prophetic, mysterious and terrible, but at the same time great and electrifying, that he reads there will force him to look into the very depths of his soul, and of Mother Nature, of God’s world. And, perhaps, even without feeling like a student in everything and to the end, he, too, however, will call the deceased righteous man, following Solovyov, not only a “teacher”, but also - which is much more - a comforter! "Philosophy of the common cause." Articles, thoughts and letters of Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov, published under the editorship of V. A. Kozhevnikov and N. P. Petersop. Volume. I. Page 731. Verny, 1907. Not for sale. Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov. Experience in presenting his teachings based on published and unpublished works, correspondence and personal conversations of V. A. Kozhevnikov. Part I. With the attachment of letters from F. M. Dostoevsky, V. S. Solovyov, A. A. Shenshin (Feta) and L. N. Tolstoy about N. F. Fedorov and his teaching. Moscow, 1908. In the notebook of L.N. Tolstoy in the 80s in Moscow, under the impression of personal acquaintance with N.F. Fedorov, the following was entered; “Nikolai Fedorovich is a saint. Closet, “Execute? that goes without saying.” Doesn't want a salary. No linen, no bed.” (P. Biryukov. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, vol. II, p. 404, Moscow, 1908) Of course, this philosophical interpretation takes little account of the data of philological and historical research regarding the expression “son: human”, which, however, has also still not led to an indisputable conclusion. (For the history of this controversy, see A. Schweizer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede. See also: Dalman, Worte Jesu.) From this indication, however, which is not clear enough (precisely in establishing the degree of similarity between the worldviews of V.S. Solovyov and N.F. Fedorov in that era), we can conclude that the beginning of their rapprochement and N.F.’s influence on Solovyov dates back to a very early time in Solovyov’s life, towards the end of the 70s, when “Readings on God-manhood” were compiled and read. In “Letters of V.S. Solovyov” (issue 1), hitherto published, we find mention of N.F. in letters to N.N. Strakhov from Moscow, around 1881: it talks about meetings with “Fedorov, who completely charmed me, so that I even think that his strange ideas are not far from the truth” (p. 12). On the side, in the hand of N. F. Fedorov, there is a note: “Resurrect cannibalism, that is, resurrect death! This is absurd!” On the side, in the hand of N. F. Fedorov, there is a note: “It’s impossible to understand who you are writing against!”