The role of the Slavic world in the unity of the nightingale humanity. Solovyov Vladimir Sergeevich "Three forces

the date November 9, 2017

Cherepovets, 2017

From the beginning of history three root forces have controlled human development. The first seeks to subjugate humanity in all spheres and at all levels of his life one supreme principle , in its exclusive unity, seeks to mix and merge all the diversity of private forms, to suppress the independence of the individual, the freedom of personal life. One master and a dead mass of slaves - this is the last realization of this power. If it were to receive exclusive predominance, then humanity would petrify in a dead monotony and immobility. But along with this force the other, the exact opposite ; she is seeks break the stronghold of dead unity, give freedom everywhere private forms of life, freedom of a person and his activities; under its influence, individual elements of humanity become the starting points of life, operate exclusively from myself and for myself , the general loses the meaning of real essential being, turns into something abstract, empty, into a formal law, and finally, it completely loses all meaning. Universal selfishness and anarchy , the multiplicity of individual units without any internal connection - this is the extreme expression of this force. If it had received an exclusive predominance, then humanity would have disintegrated into its constituent elements, the vital connection would have been broken, and history would have ended in a war of all against all, in the self-destruction of mankind. Both of these forces have a negative, exclusive character: the first excludes the free multiplicity of particular forms and personal elements, free movement, progress, the second has an equally negative attitude towards unity, towards the general supreme principle of life, breaks the solidarity of the whole. If only these two forces controlled the history of mankind, then there would be nothing in it but enmity and struggle, there would be no positive content; as a result, history would be only a mechanical movement, determined by two opposing forces and going along their diagonal. Both of these forces do not have inner integrity and life, and therefore they cannot give it to humanity either. But humanity is not a dead body, and history is not a mechanical movement, and therefore it is necessary the presence of a third force which gives a positive content to the first two, frees them from their exclusivity, reconciles the unity of the highest principle with the free multiplicity of particular forms and elements, thus creating the integrity of the universal human organism and gives him an inner quiet life. Indeed, we always find in history the joint action of these three forces, and the difference between these and other historical epochs and cultures lies only in the predominance of one or another force striving for its implementation, although the full implementation for the first two forces, precisely because of their exclusivity , is physically impossible.

I understand Muslim East, Western civilization and the Slavic world.

Concerning Muslim East , then there is no doubt that he is under the predominant influence of the first force - force of exclusive unity. Everything is subordinate one principle of religion. Absolute power in God corresponds to absolute impotence in man. In the Muslim world all spheres and degrees of human life are subject to one overwhelming power of religion.

The overwhelming power of the exclusive religious principle does not allow any independent life and development. If personal consciousness is unconditionally subordinated to one religious principle, extremely meager and exclusive, if a person considers himself only an indifferent tool in the hands of a blind, acting deity according to the senseless arbitrariness, then it is clear that neither a great politician, nor a great scientist or philosopher can come out of such a person. , not a brilliant artist, but only a crazy fanatic will come out, which are the essence of the best representatives of Islam.

I mean Muslim dervishes or saints. In any religion, holiness consists in achieving the most complete union with the deity through likening oneself to the deity. But it is characteristic in what this connection is supposed and how it is achieved. For the Moslem dervish, it comes down to a complete stifling of personal consciousness and feeling, since his exclusive deity does not tolerate another self next to him. The goal is reached when a person is brought into a state of unconsciousness and anesthesia, for which purely mechanical means are used. Thus, the connection with the deity for a person is tantamount here to the destruction of his personal existence, Islam in its extreme consistent expression is only a caricature of Buddhism.

The Muslim East is dominated by the first of the three forces, which suppresses all vital elements and is hostile to all development.

The exact opposite character is, as is well known, Western civilization ; here we see rapid and continuous development, free play of forces, independence and exceptional self-affirmation all particular forms and individual elements - signs that undoubtedly show that this civilization is under the dominant influence of the second of the three historical principles.

The excessive development of individualism in the modern West leads directly to its opposite - to general depersonalization and vulgarization. The extreme tension of personal consciousness, not finding an appropriate object for itself, passes into empty and petty egoism / which equalizes everyone. Old Europe, in the rich development of its forces, produced a great variety of forms, many original, bizarre phenomena; she had holy monks who, out of Christian love for their neighbor, burned thousands of people; there were noble knights who fought all their lives for ladies they never saw, there were philosophers who made gold and died of hunger, there were scholastic scholars who talked about theology like mathematicians, and about mathematics like theologians. The only greatness that still retains its strength in the West is the greatness of capital.

And if the Muslim East, as we have seen, completely destroys man and affirms only an inhuman god, then Western civilization strives primarily for the exclusive affirmation of a godless man. , that is, man, taken in his apparent superficial separateness and reality, and in this false position recognized both as the only deity and as an insignificant atom - like a deity for himself.

Western civilization has worked out particular forms and external material of life, but it has not given the inner content of life itself to mankind.

This conclusion can only be avoided recognizing above man and external nature another, unconditional, divine world, infinitely more real, rich and living than this world of ghostly superficial phenomena , and such a recognition is all the more natural because man himself, by his eternal origin, belongs to that higher world, and a vague memory of him is preserved in one way or another by everyone who has not yet completely lost human dignity.

third force which should give human development its unconditional content, can only be a revelation of the higher divine world ,and those people, that people, through which this power has to manifest itself, should only be an intermediary between humanity and that world, a free, conscious instrument of the latter. Such a people should not have any special limited task, it is not called upon to work on the forms and elements of human existence, but only to communicate a living soul, to give life and integrity to the torn and dead humanity through its connection with the eternal divine principle. Such a people does not need any special advantages, any special forces and external talents, because it does not act from itself, does not realize its own. From the people - carrier of the third divine power only freedom from all limitation and one-sidedness is required rise above narrow special interests, it is required that he does not assert himself with exceptional energy in any particular lower sphere of activity and knowledge, what is required is indifference to all this life with its petty interests, complete faith in the positive reality of the higher world and a submissive attitude towards it. And these properties undoubtedly belong to the tribal character of the Slavs. , especially the national character of the Russian people. But even historical conditions do not allow us to look for another bearer of a third force outside the Slavs and its main representative of the Russian people, for all other historical peoples are under the predominant power of one or the other of the first two exceptional forces: the Eastern peoples are under the rule of the first, the Western ones are under the control of a second force. Only the Slavs, and in particular Russia, remained free from these two lower potencies and, consequently, can become the historical conductor of the third. Meanwhile the first two forces completed the circle of their manifestation and led the peoples subject to them to spiritual death and decay .

Great outward events usually precede great awakenings in the social consciousness.

We who have the misfortune of belonging to the Russian intelligentsia, which, instead of the image and likeness of God, still continues to wear the image and likeness of an ape—we must finally see our miserable position, we must try to restore the Russian national character in ourselves, stop creating for ourselves idol from any narrow, insignificant idea, should become more indifferent to the limited interests of this life, freely and reasonably believe in another, higher reality. Of course, this belief does not depend on one desire, but one cannot also think that it is pure chance or falls directly from the sky. This faith is the necessary result of an internal spiritual process - a process of decisive liberation from that worldly rubbish that fills our heart, and from that supposedly scientific school rubbish that fills our head. For the denial of the lower content is thereby the affirmation of the higher, and by banishing false gods and idols from our soul, we thereby introduce the true Divinity into it.

List of sources used

1. Solovyov V. S. The meaning of love: Selected works. M.: Sovremennik, 1991. - 525 p. pp.28-40.

2. https://anchiktigra.livejournal.com/1975624.html

3. http://www.vehi.net/soloviev/trisily.html

From the beginning of history, three root forces have controlled human development, the First strives to subdue humanity in all spheres and at all stages of its life one supreme principle, in its exclusive unity, seeks to mix and merge all the variety of private forms, to suppress the independence of the person, the freedom of personal life neither. One master and a dead mass of slaves - this is the last realization of this power. If it were to receive exclusive predominance, then humanity would be petrified in dead monotony and immobility. But along with this force, another, directly opposite, acts; it seeks to break the stronghold of a dead unity, to give everywhere freedom for private forms of life, freedom for the individual and his activities; under her influence individual elements of humanity become the starting points of life, exist exclusively from and for themselves, the general loses the meaning of real existence.venous being, turns into something abstract, empty, into a formal law, and end, and completely loses all meaning. Universal selfishness and anarchy, multiple the existence of separate units without any internal connection - this is the extreme expression of this force. If it received exclusive predominance, then humanity would disintegrateto its constituent elements, the life connection would be broken and the story would end the war of all against all, the self-destruction of mankind. Both of these forces have a negative, exclusive character: the first excludes the free multiplicity of particular forms and personal elements, free movement, progress, the second has an equally negative attitude towards unity, towards the general supreme principle of life, breaks the solidarity of the whole. If only these two forces controlled the history of mankind, then there would be nothing in it but enmity and struggle, there would be no positive content; as a result, history would be only a mechanical movement, determined by two opposing forces and going along their diagonal. Internal-both of these forces do not have integrity and life, and therefore they cannot give itand humanity. But humanity is not a dead body, and history is not a mechanical movement, and therefore the presence of a third force is necessary, which gives a positive content to the first two, frees them from their exclusivity, reconciles the unity of the higher principle with the free multiplicity of particular forms and elements, thus creating the integrity of the universal human organism and giving it inner quiet life. And indeed, we always find in history the joint action of these three forces, and the difference between these and other historical epochs and cultures lies only in the predominance of one or another force striving for its realization, although full implementation for the first two forces , precisely because of their exclusivity, is physically impossible.

Leaving aside ancient times and limiting ourselves to modern humanity, we see the coexistence of three historical worlds, three cultures that differ sharply from each other - I mean the Muslim East, Western civilization and the Slavic world: everything that is outside of them has no common world significance, does not have a direct impact on the history of mankind. What is the relation of these three cultures to the three fundamental forces of historical development?

As for the Muslim East, there is no doubt that it is under the predominant influence of the first force - the force of exclusive unity. Everything there is subordinated to the single principle of religion, and, moreover, this religion itself is of an extremely exclusive character, denying any plurality of forms, any individual freedom. The deity in Islam is an absolute despot who, according to his will, created the world and people, who are only blind tools in his hands; the only law of being for God is His arbitrariness, and for man it is blind irresistible fate. Absolute power in God corresponds to absolute impotence in man. The Muslim religion, first of all, suppresses the person, binds personal activity, as a result of this, of course, all manifestations and various forms of this activity are delayed, not isolated, killed in the bud. Therefore, in the Muslim world, all spheres and degrees of human life are in a state of fusion, confusion, are deprived of independence relative to each other, and all together are subject to one overwhelming power of religion. In the sphere of social Islam does not know the difference between the church / state and the actual society or zemstvo. The entire social body of Islam is a continuous indifferent mass, above which rises one despot, uniting both spiritual and secular supreme power. The only code of laws that defines all ecclesiastical, political and social relations is Alkoran; representatives of the clergy are at the same time judges; however, there is no clergy in the proper sense, just as there is no special civil power, but a mixture of both prevails. A similar confusion prevails in the theoretical or mental realm: in the Muslim world / in fact, neither positive science, nor philosophy, nor real theology exists at all, but there is only some kind of mixture of meager dogmas of the Koran, from passages some philosophical concepts taken from the Greeks, and some empirical information. In general, the entire mental sphere in Islam has not been distinguished, has not been isolated from practical life, knowledge here has only a utilitarian character, and there is no independent theoretical interest. As for art, for artistic creativity, it is just as deprived of any independence and extremely poorly developed, despite the rich fantasy of the Eastern peoples: the oppression of a one-sided religious principle prevented this fantasy from being expressed in objective ideal images. Sculpture and painting, as you know, are expressly prohibited by the Koran and do not exist at all in the Muslim world. Poetry here did not go further than that immediate form that exists wherever there is a person, that is, lyrics. As for the music, the character of exclusive monism was especially clearly reflected in it; the richness of the sounds of European music is completely incomprehensible to an Oriental person: the very idea of ​​musical harmony does not exist for him, he sees in it only disagreement and arbitrariness, his own music (if you can only call it music) consists solely in the monotonous repetition of some and the same notes. Thus, both in the sphere of social relations and in the sphere of the mental, as well as in the sphere of creativity, the overwhelming power of the exclusive religion hyosic beginning does not allow any independent life and development. If a person new consciousness is unconditionally subordinated to one religious principle, an extremely meager and exceptional, if a person considers himself only an indifferent tool in the hands ofblind, according to the senseless arbitrariness of the acting deity, it is clear that fromsuch a person cannot become either a great politician, or a great scientist orphilosopher, not a brilliant artist, but only a crazy fanatic will come out, what areand the essence of the best representatives of Islam.

That the Muslim East is dominated by the first of the three powerscrushing all vital elements and hostile to any development, this is proofbesides the given characteristic features, the simple fact thatfor twelve centuries the Muslim world has not taken a single step on the path internal development; it is impossible to indicate here a single sign of a consistent organic progress. Islam has remained unchanged in the state in which what was it like the first caliphs, but could not retain the former strength, because according to the law well, life, not going forward, it thereby went backward, and therefore it is not surprising that the contemporary Muslim world presents a picture of such a miserable decline.

As is well known, Western civilization exhibits a directly opposite character; here we see a rapid and continuous development, a free play of forces, an independent validity and exclusive self-affirmation of all particular forms and individual elements - signs that undoubtedly show that this civilization is under the dominant influence of the second of the three historical principles. Already the most religious ozny principle that formed the basis of Western civilization, although it represented only one-sided and, therefore, a distorted form of Christianity, was still the same incomparably richer and more capable of development than Islam. But this principle also the early days of Western history is not an exclusive force that suppresses all others: willy-nilly, he must reckon with principles alien to him. For next to the representative of religious unity - the Roman church - stands the world of the German barbarians, who accepted Catholicism, but was far from imbued with it,retaining the beginning not only different from the Catholic, but also directly hostile to it - the new is the beginning of unconditional individual freedom, the supreme significance of the individual. This initial dualism of the Germano-Roman world served as the basis for the new out isolations. For every particular element in the West, having more than one principle, which would completely subordinate him to himself, and two opposite and hostile among themselves, thereby obtaining freedom for himself: the existence of another principle freed him from the exclusive power of the first, and vice versa.

Every field of activity, every form of life in the West, isolated inhaving separated from all others, it strives in this separateness to obtain an absolute value, to exclude all the others, to become one with everything, and instead of incessantlyfalse law of finite being, comes in its isolation to impotence and insignificance, capturing an alien area, loses strength in its own. So,the Western church, separating from the state, but appropriating in this separatesti the state significance, which itself has become an ecclesiastical state, ends upthat loses all power over the state and over society. In the same way, the state a society separated both from the church and from the people, and in its exclusive centralization having appropriated to itself an absolute value, in the end loses all independence, turns into an indifferent form of society, into an executive instrument of popular voting, and the people themselves or the zemstvo, which has risen against both the church and the state, as soon as he defeats them, in his revolutionary movement he cannot keepunity, breaks up into hostile classes, and then must necessarily disintegrategraze on hostile personalities. The social organism of the West, dividedfirst on private organisms, hostile to each other, must in the endbe divided into the last elements, into the atoms of society, that is, individuals, andcorporate egoism, caste egoism must turn into personal egoism. The principle of this the last disintegration was first clearly expressed in the great revolutionary movement the last century, which, therefore, can be considered the beginning of a complete revelation of the force that drove all Western development, the Revolution transferred the supreme power to the people in the sense of a simple sum of individuals, whose entire unity is reduced only to an accidental agreement of desires and interests, an agreement that can and not to be. Having destroyed those traditional ties, those ideal beginnings that in the old Europe made each individual only an element of the highest social group dividing humanity, united people - breaking these ties, the revolutionary the movement left each person to himself and at the same time destroyed his organic difference from others. In old Europe this distinction, and therefore not The primacy of individuals was determined by belonging to one or another social group. ne and the place occupied in it. With the destruction of these groups in their formermeaning, organic inequality also disappeared, only the lowest natural inequality remained.inequality of personal power. Out of the free manifestation of these forces, new forms of life in place of the destroyed world. But no positive The grounds for such new creativity were not given by the revolutionary movement. It is easy to see, in fact, that the principle of freedom in itself has only negativemeaning. I can live and act freely, that is, without encountering any free obstacles or restrictions, but this, obviously, does not in the least determine the the positive goal of my activity, the content of my life. Life in old Europehuman received its ideal content from Catholicism, on the one hand,and from knightly feudalism - on the other. This ideal content gave the old Ev-rope its relative unity and high heroic power, although it already concealed in itself the beginning of that dualism, which had to lead necessarily to the subsequent general decay. The revolution finally rejected the old ideals, which was,Perhaps it is necessary, but due to its negative nature, it could not give new ones.It liberated the individual elements, gave them absolute meaning, but deprivedtheir activities needed soil and food; so we see that the excessivedevelopment of individualism in the modern West leads directly to its opposite mu - to general depersonalization and vulgarization. Extreme tension of personal knowledge, not finding an appropriate object for itself, passes into an empty and pettyselfishness / which equalizes everyone. Old Europe in the rich development of its forcesbrought forth a great variety of forms, many original, bizarre phenomena; she had holy monks that, out of Christian love for one's neighbor, you burned people by the thousands; there were noble knights who fought all their lives for ladies whom they neverdid not see, there were philosophers who made gold and died of hunger, there were scholastic scientists who talked about theology like mathematicians, and about mathematics like gods. words. Only these originalities, these wild grandeurs, make the Western world interesting. nym for the thinker and attractive for the artist. All its positive contentlonging in the past, but now, as you know, the only greatness that still preserves its strength in the West, there is the greatness of capital; the only significant difference and the equality between people that still exists there is the inequality of the rich man and the proletarian, but even this is threatened by a great danger from revolutionary socialism. Socialism has the task of transforming the economic relations of society by introducingEat greater uniformity in the distribution of material wealth. It's hardly possibleto doubt that socialism in the West is assured of an early success in the sense of the victory and domination of the working class. But the real goal will not be achieved. For howfollowing the victory of the third estate (bourgeoisie), a hostile quarter came forwardthis, and the forthcoming victory of this latter will probably cause the fifth, that is, but-proletariat, etc. Against the socio-economic disease of the West, as againstcancer, any operations will only be palliatives. Anyway it was funny would see in socialism some great revelation, which should renew humanity. If we really assume even the full implementation of the socialist task, when all mankind will equally use the material the blessings and conveniences of civilized life, with the greater force will be beforehim the same question about the positive content of this life, about the real goal of human activity, and to this question socialism, like all Western development, does not give an answer.

True, they talk a lot about the fact that in place of the ideal content of the old lifeneither based on faith, a new one is given, based on knowledge, on science; and whilethese speeches do not go beyond generalities, one might think that it is about something inlike, but one has only to look closer, what kind of knowledge, what kind of science, andthe great very soon turns into the ridiculous. In the field of knowledge, the Western world has comprehended[the same fate as in the field of public life: the absolutism of theology was replacedabsolutism of philosophy, which in turn must give way to absolutismempirical positive science, that is, one that has as its subject e principles and causes, but only phenomena and their general laws. But general laws areonly general facts, and, according to one of the representatives of empiricism, the highestperfection for positive science can only consist in havingthe ability to reduce all phenomena to one general law or general fact, for example, to the fact of universal gravitation, which is no longer reducible to anything else, but can only be ascertained by science. But for the human mind, theoretical in- The interest lies not in knowing the fact as such, not in stating its existence.existence, but in its explanation, that is, in the knowledge of its causes, and from this knowledgeand refuses modern science. I ask: why such and such a phenomenon occurs,and I receive in response from science that this is only a special case of another, more generala common phenomenon, of which science can only say that it exists. Obviously,that the answer has nothing to do with the question, and that modern science offers our minds rocks instead of bread. It is no less obvious that such a science cannot havedirect relation to any living questions, to any higher goals of humanhuman activity, and the claim to provide ideal content for life would befrom the side of such science only amusing. If the true task of science is I to know not this simple statement of general facts or laws, but their actual If another explanation is given, it must be said that at the present time science does not exist at all, yet what now bears this name represents in fact only the formless and indifferent material of the future true science; and it is clear that buildsolid beginnings necessary for this material to turn into a slender scientific building, cannot be deduced from this material itself, as a plan for building ki cannot be derived from the bricks that are used for it. These builders positive principles must be obtained from a higher kind of knowledge, from that knowledge that has absolute principles and causes as its subject, therefore, true the construction of science is possible only in its close internal union with theology and physiology.losophy as the highest members of one mental organism, which only in this wholeness can receive power over life. But such a synthesis is completelycontradicts the general spirit of Western development: that exclusive negative force,which divided and secluded various spheres of life and knowledge, cannot by itselfput them together again. The best proof of this is those unsuccessful attempts at synthesis that we meet in the West. Thus, for example, the metaphysical systems of Schopenhauer and Hartmann (for all their significance in other respects) are they themselves are so powerless in the field of the supreme principles of knowledge and life that they must to follow these principles - to Buddhism.

If, therefore, the ideal content for life is not able to provide thebelt science, the same must be said about contemporary art. Forin order to create eternal truly artistic images, it is necessary, first of all, believe in a higher reality of an ideal world. And how can give eternal ideals for life is such an art that does not want to know anything but this very life in its everyday superficial reality, strives to be only its exact reproduction? Of course, such a reproduction is even impossible, and artificialstvo, refusing idealization, turns into a caricature.

Both in the sphere of public life and in the sphere of knowledge and creativity, the second historicalthe scientific power that governs the development of Western civilization, being granteditself, irresistibly leads in the end to a general decomposition into lower constituent elements, to the loss of any universal content, all unconditionalthe root of life. And if the Muslim East, as we have seen, completely destroys man and affirms only an inhuman god, then Western civilizationstrives first of all for the exclusive affirmation of the godless mancentury, that is, man, taken in his apparent superficial separateness and action reality and in this false position recognized together and as the only a deity and as an insignificant atom - as a deity for itself, subjectively, and as an insignificant ny atom - objectively, in relation to the external world, of which it is a separate a particle in infinite space and a transient phenomenon in infinite time. It is clear that everything that such a person can produce will be fractional, private, ordetermined by internal unity and unconditional content, limited by onesuperficiality, never reaching the real center. Separate personal in-Teres, a random fact, a small detail - atomism in life, atomism in science, atomism in art is the last word of Western civilization. She worked out private forms and external material of life, but the internal content of life itselfdid not give to mankind; by isolating individual elements, she brought them to the extremefines of development, which is only possible in their separateness; but without internal organization they are deprived of a living spirit, and all this wealth is dead capital. And if the history of mankind should not end in this negativeresult, this insignificance, if a new historical force must emerge, then the task of this force will no longer be to work out individual elements life and knowledge, to create new cultural forms, and in order to revive, spiritualize to destroy the hostile elements, dead in their hostility, by the highest conciliatory leadersscrap, to give them a general unconditional content and thereby free them from the needexclusive self-affirmation and mutual denial.

But where can this unconditional content of life and knowledge come from?If man had it in himself, he could neither lose it nor seek it.It must be outside of him as a particular, relative being. But it cannotto be in the external world, for this world represents only the lower stages of that development, at the top of which man himself is, and if he cannot findunconditional principles in oneself, then even less in the lower nature; and the one who exceptthis visible reality of itself and the external world does not recognize any other, must renounce all ideal content of life, all trueknowledge and creativity. In this case, only the lower animal remains for man.life; but happiness in this lower life depends on blind chance, and even if it is achieved, it always turns out to be an illusion, and since, on the other hand, the striving to the highest and, with the consciousness of its unsatisfactoriness, nevertheless remains, but serves only source of the greatest suffering, the natural conclusion is thatlife is a game that is not worth the candle, and perfect insignificance appears as a desirable end both for the individual and for all mankind. This conclusion can only be avoided by recognizing above man and external nature another, a clever, divine world, infinitely more real, rich and alive, not if this world of ghostly superficial phenomena, and such a recognition of those natural not that man himself, by his eternal origin, belongs to that higher worldand a vague recollection of him is preserved in one way or another by everyone who has not yet all lost their human dignity.

And so, the third force, which is supposed to give human development its unconditional content, can only be a revelation of the higher divine world, and those people, the people through which this force has to manifest itself, should only be a mediator between humanity and that world, a free, conscious tool the last one. Such a people should not have any special limited task, it is not called to work on the forms and elements of human existence, but only communicate a living soul, give life and integrity to a torn and dead manhumanity through its connection with the eternal divine principle. Such people are notneeds no special advantages, no special powers and external talents, for he does not act from himself, does not carry out his own. From the people the bearer of the third divine power requires only freedom from any limitation and one-sidedness, elevation above narrow special interests, requiresso that he does not assert himself with exceptional energy in some particular lowerour field of activity and knowledge requires indifference to all this life with itspetty interests, total faith in the positive reality of the higher world ra and a submissive attitude towards him. And these properties undoubtedly belong to the tribes character of the Slavs, in particular the national character of the Russiankind. But historical conditions do not allow us to look for another bearer of the third forces outside the Slavs and its main representative - the Russian people, for all other historical peoples are under the predominant power of one or the other of the first two exceptional forces: the Eastern peoples - under the rule of the first, the Western - under the rule of the second force. Only the Slavs, and in particular Russia, remained free from these two lower potencies and, consequently, can become the historical conductor of the third. Meanwhile, the first two forces completed the circle of their manifestation and led the peoples subject to them to spiritual death and decay. So, I repeat, either this is the end of history, or the inevitable discovery of a third all-power force, the only carrier of which can only be the Slavs and the Russian people.

The external image of the slave in which our people find themselves, the miserable position of Russia in economic and other respects, not only cannot serve as an objection to her vocation, but rather confirms it. For that higher power that the Russian people must lead into humanity is a power not of this world, and external wealth and order have no meaning in relation to it. The great historical vocation of Russia, from which only its immediate tasks derive significance, is a religious vocation in the highest sense of the word. When the will and mind of people enter into real communication with the eternally and truly existing, then only all the particular forms and elements of life and knowledge will receive their positive meaning and price - all of them will be necessary organs or mediations of one living whole. Their contradiction and enmity, based on the exclusive self-affirmation of each, will necessarily disappear as soon as all together freely submit to one common principle and focus.

When the hour will come for Russia to discover its historical vocation, no one can say, but everything shows that this hour is close, even though there is almost no real consciousness of its highest task in Russian society. But great outward events usually precede great awakenings of the social consciousness. So, even the Crimean War, which was completely fruitless politically, however, strongly influenced the consciousness of our society. The negative result of this war corresponded to the negative character of the consciousness awakened by it. It must be hoped that the impending great struggle will serve as a powerful impetus for the awakening of the positive consciousness of the Russian people. Until then, we, having the misfortune of belonging to the Russian intelligentsia, which, instead of the image and likeness of God, still continues to wear the image and likeness of a monkey, we must finally see our miserable position, we must try to restore in ourselves the Russian folk character, stop creating an idol for yourself. any narrow, insignificant idea, must become more indifferent to the limited interests of this life, freely and reasonably believe in another, higher reality. Of course, this belief does not depend on a single desire, but one cannot also think that it is a pure accident or falls directly from the sky. This faith is the necessary result of an internal spiritual process - a process of decisive liberation from that worldly rubbish that fills our heart, and from that supposedly scientific school rubbish that fills our head. For the denial of the lower content is thereby the affirmation of the higher, and by banishing false gods and idols from our soul, we thereby introduce the true Divinity into it.

1877.

[Vl.S.Soloviev]|[Library "Milestones"]
© 2004, Vekhi Library

First publication on the Internet

Solovyov Vladimir Sergeevich(1853-1900, Moscow) - the largest Russian. religious philosopher, poet, publicist. Philosophy is a synthesis of the ideas of Western European and Eastern thought. The greatest influence was Plato; less influenced by him. classical idealism (Ch. O. Schelling).

Sermons delivering the material world from the destructive effects of time and space, transforming it into a "cosmos of beauty" and with the theory of the "God-human process" as the salvation of mankind.

Looking for harmony between space and social themes.

Philosophical and historical-religious interests of Solovyov in those developed by him in his works: on the split in Russian. people and society; Polish national church; primitive paganism; heb. prophets; Talmud; Muhammad and his religious doctrine; mediumship and H.P. Blavatsky

"Three Forces"

From the beginning of history, three fundamental forces have controlled human development. The first strives to subordinate humanity in all spheres and at all stages of its life to one supreme principle, in its exclusive unity it strives to mix and merge all the diversity of particular forms, to suppress the independence of the individual, the freedom of personal life. One master and a dead mass of slaves - this is the last realization of this power. If it were to receive exclusive predominance, then humanity would be petrified in dead monotony and immobility. But along with this force, another, directly opposite, acts; it seeks to break the stronghold of a dead unity, to give freedom everywhere to particular forms of life, freedom to the person and his activity; under its influence, individual elements of humanity become the starting points of life, act exclusively from themselves and for themselves, the general loses the meaning of real essential being, turns into something abstract, empty, into a formal law, and finally completely loses all meaning. Universal egoism and anarchy, the multiplicity of separate units without any internal connection - this is the extreme expression of this force. If it were to gain exclusive predominance, then humanity would disintegrate into its constituent elements, the vital connection would be severed, and history would end in a war of all against all, in the self-destruction of humanity. Both of these forces have a negative, exclusive character: the first excludes the free multiplicity of particular forms and personal elements, free movement, progress, the second has an equally negative attitude towards unity, towards the general supreme principle of life, breaks the solidarity of the whole. If only these two forces controlled the history of mankind, then there would be nothing in it but enmity and struggle, there would be no positive content; as a result, history would be only a mechanical movement, determined by two opposing forces and going along their diagonal. Both of these forces do not have inner integrity and life, and therefore they cannot give it to humanity either. But humanity is not a dead body, and history is not a mechanical movement, and therefore the presence of a third force is necessary, which gives a positive content to the first two, frees them from their exclusivity, reconciles the unity of the highest principle with the free multiplicity of particular forms and elements, thus creating , the integrity of the universal human organism and gives it an inner quiet life. Indeed, we always find in history the joint action of these three forces, and the difference between these and other historical epochs and cultures lies only in the predominance of one or another force striving for its realization, although full realization for the first two forces, namely due to their exclusivity, it is physically impossible.

There are three historical worlds, three cultures that differ sharply from each other. This is the Muslim East, Western civilization and the Slavic world. What is the relation of these three cultures to the three fundamental forces of historical development?

Muslim East. He is under the predominant influence of the first force, the force of exclusive unity. Everything there is subordinated to the single principle of religion, and religion itself denies any plurality of forms, individual freedom. The deity in Islam is an absolute despot who created the world and people at will, who are only blind tools in his hands; the only law of being for God is his arbitrariness, and for man it is blind irresistible fate. Absolute power in God corresponds to absolute impotence in man. The Muslim religion suppresses the person, binds personal activity, forms of this activity. Therefore, in the Muslim world, all spheres of public life are united, mixed, deprived of independence, subject to one power of religion. In the social sphere, Islam has no distinction between church and state. The only code of laws, ecclesiastical, political, social, is Alkoran; representatives of the clergy are judges (however, there is no clergy, and there is no special civil authority, but a mixture of both prevails). In the Muslim world, there is no science, no philosophy, no theology at all, but there is only some mixture of the meager dogmas of the Koran. In general, all mental activity is inseparable from practical life. In art, the picture is the same. Painting is forbidden, poetry has not gone beyond lyricism, the character of monism is reflected in music and consists in the monotonous repetition of the same notes. If personal consciousness is subordinated to one religious principle, then neither a great politician, a great scientist / philosopher, nor a brilliant artist can come out of such a person, but only a crazy fanatic will come out. In any religion, holiness is the achievement of the most complete union with the deity through likening oneself to him. This combination amounts to a complete stifling of personal consciousness and feeling, since its exclusive deity does not tolerate another I next to you. The goal is reached when a person is brought into a state of unconsciousness and anesthesia, for which purely mechanical means are used. Those. union with a deity is tantamount to the destruction of personal existence, Islam is only a caricature of Buddhism.

The Muslim East is dominated by the first of the three forces, which suppresses all vital elements and is hostile to all development, this is proved by the fact that for twelve centuries the Muslim world has not taken a single step in internal development.

The exact opposite character Western civilization, it is under the dominant influence of the second historical beginning. This is a rapid and continuous development, freedom, independence of private forms and individual elements. The religious principle from the earliest times of Western history is not exclusive, overwhelming all others. Next to the religious unity - the Roman Church - stands the world of the German barbarians, who adopted Catholicism, but was not imbued with it and retained the hostile principle of individual freedom, the supreme significance of the individual. This original dualism of the Germano-Roman world was the basis for new divisions. Therefore, each element in the West has not one beginning, but two opposite and hostile to each other, which excluded the power of the first or second.

Each sphere of activity, form of life is isolated, tends to exclude all the others, to become the only one, and ultimately, in isolation, comes to impotence and insignificance. Thus, the church, separated from the state, but having appropriated state significance, ends up losing power both over the state and over society. Just like the state. It is separated from the church and the people, has assumed absolute significance for itself, and as a result is deprived of any independence, turns into an indifferent form of society, while the people themselves, having rebelled against the church and the state in the revolution, cannot maintain unity and breaks up into hostile classes. The Western organism, having first divided itself into hostile private organisms, must finally break up into the atoms of society, i.e. individuals, and corporate, caste selfishness must turn into a personal one. It was on this principle that the revolutionary movement took place, which transferred power to the people (the unity of which is connected only with the community of desires and interests, which may not exist). This revolutionary movement has destroyed the distinction of persons from others. In old Europe, this difference and inequality was in the form of belonging to a social group. The principle of freedom in itself has only a negative meaning. In old Europe, the ideal content of life was in Catholicism and knightly feudalism. This gave relative unity and high heroic power. The revolution rejected the old ideals, but could not produce new ones. Individualism has developed excessively, which has led to a general depersonalization and vulgarization, to a transition to empty and petty egoism, which equalizes everyone. The only greatness is the greatness of capital; the only difference and inequality between people is the inequality of the rich man and the proletarian. Against the socio-economic disease of the West, as against cancer, all operations will only be palliatives.

Some believe that in place of an ideal content based on faith, a new content based on knowledge, on science, is given. At present, science does not exist at all, because it simply states general facts. Therefore, the true construction of science is possible only together with theology and philosophy, which contradicts the general spirit of Western development (separation and solitude of various spheres of life and knowledge).

The same can be said about modern art, which does not want to know anything but the most everyday life, strives to be only its exact reproduction.

In the social sphere and in the sphere of knowledge and creativity, the second historical force leads to a general decomposition into lower constituent elements. And if the Muslim East destroys man and affirms only an inhuman god, then the West strives for the exclusive affirmation of a godless man. Everything that such a person does is fractional, private, without unity. BUTThomism in life, atomism in science, atomism in art—this is the last word of Western civilization. It isolated individual elements, brought them to an extreme degree of development, but without internal unity they are dead capital. And if the history of mankind should not end in this negativeresult, this insignificance, if a new historical force must emerge, then the task of this force will no longer be to work out individual elements of life and knowledge, to create new cultural forms, but to revive, spiritualize hostile, dead in their enmity elements the highest reconciliatory principle, to give them a common unconditional content and thereby free them from the need for exclusive self-affirmation and mutual negation.

The third force can only be a revelation of a higher divine world and the people through which this power is manifested must only be an intermediary between humanity and that world, a free, conscious instrument of the latter. Such a people should not have a special task, to work on the forms and elements of human existence, but only to give life and integrity to dead humanity through its union with the eternal divine principle. Such a people does not need special advantages, special forces, because it does not act on its own, does not carry out its own. He should have only freedom from narrow-mindedness and one-sidedness, indifference to all this life with its petty interests, faith in a higher world and obedience to it. And these properties belong to the tribal character of the Slavs, especially the Russian people. And there is no other bearer of the third force, for the rest of the peoples are under the rule of the first two forces. Only the Slavs are free from these two lower forces and can become the conductor of the third. Solovyov: either this is the end of history, or the inevitable discovery of a third force, the only carrier of which can only be the Slavs and the Russian people.

And just the miserable position of Russia in economic and other respects confirms this vocation. The Russian people must bring into humanity a higher power, which is not of this world, and external wealth and order have no meaning.

When the hour will come for Russia to discover its historical vocation, no one can say, but everything shows that this hour is close, even though Russian society has no awareness of its highest task. But great outward events usually precede great awakenings of the social consciousness. Solovyov hoped that the Russian-Turkish war would push the Russian people to awareness. In the meantime, we must stop creating an idol for ourselves, become more indifferent to the limited interests of this life, and reasonably believe in a higher reality.

This faith is the necessary result of an inner spiritual process - a process of resolute liberation from that worldly rubbish that fills our heart, and from that supposedly scientific school rubbish that fills our head. For the denial of the lower content is thereby the affirmation of the higher, and by banishing false gods and idols from our soul, we thereby introduce the true Divinity into it.

Vl.S.Soloviev

three forces

From the beginning of history, three root forces have controlled human development. The first strives to subordinate humanity in all spheres and at all stages of its life to one supreme principle, in its exclusive unity it strives to mix and merge all the diversity of particular forms, to suppress the independence of the individual, the freedom of personal life. One master and a dead mass of slaves - this is the last realization of this power. If it were to receive exclusive predominance, then humanity would be petrified in dead monotony and immobility. But along with this force, another, directly opposite, acts; it strives to break the stronghold of a dead unity, to give freedom everywhere to particular forms of life, freedom to the person and his activity; under its influence, individual elements of humanity become the starting points of life, act exclusively from themselves and for themselves, the general loses the meaning of real essential being, turns into something abstract, empty, into a formal law, and finally completely loses all meaning. Universal egoism and anarchy, the multiplicity of individual units without any internal connection - this is the extreme expression of this force. If it were to gain exclusive predominance, then humanity would disintegrate into its constituent elements, the vital connection would be severed, and history would end in a war of all against all, in the self-destruction of mankind. Both of these forces have a negative, exclusive character: the first excludes the free multiplicity of particular forms and personal elements, free movement, progress, the second has an equally negative attitude towards unity, towards the general supreme principle of life, breaks the solidarity of the whole. If only these two forces controlled the history of mankind, then there would be nothing in it but enmity and struggle, there would be no positive content; as a result, history would be only a mechanical movement, determined by two opposing forces and going along their diagonal. Both of these forces do not have inner integrity and life, and therefore they cannot give it to humanity either. But humanity is not a dead body, and history is not a mechanical movement, and therefore the presence of a third force is necessary, which gives a positive content to the first two, frees them from their exclusivity, reconciles the unity of the highest principle with the free multiplicity of particular forms and elements, thus creating , the integrity of the universal human organism and gives it an inner quiet life. Indeed, we always find in history the joint action of these three forces, and the difference between these and other historical epochs and cultures lies only in the predominance of one or another force striving for its implementation, although the full implementation for the first two forces, precisely because of their exclusivity , is physically impossible. Leaving aside ancient times and limiting ourselves to modern humanity, we see the coexistence of three historical worlds, three cultures that differ sharply from each other - I mean the Muslim East, Western civilization and the Slavic world: everything that is outside of them has no common world values, does not directly affect the history of mankind. What is the relation of these three cultures to the three fundamental forces of historical development? As far as the Muslim East is concerned, there is no doubt that it is under the predominant influence of the first force - the force of exclusive unity. Everything there is subordinated to the single principle of religion, and, moreover, this religion itself is of an extremely exclusive character, denying any plurality of forms, any individual freedom. The deity in Islam is an absolute despot who, according to his will, created the world and people, who are only blind tools in his hands; the only law of being for God is His arbitrariness, and for man it is blind irresistible rock. Absolute power in God corresponds to absolute impotence in man. The Muslim religion, first of all, suppresses the person, binds personal activity, as a result of this, of course, all manifestations and various forms of this activity are delayed, not isolated, killed in the bud. Therefore, in the Muslim world, all spheres and degrees of human life are in a state of fusion, confusion, are deprived of independence relative to each other, and all together are subject to one overwhelming power of religion. In the social sphere, Islam does not know the difference between the church / state and the society itself or the Zemstvo. The entire social body of Islam is a continuous indifferent mass, above which rises one despot, uniting both spiritual and secular supreme power. The only code of laws that governs all ecclesiastical, political, and social relations is the Alcoran; representatives of the clergy are at the same time judges; however, there is no clergy in the proper sense, just as there is no special civil power, but a mixture of both prevails. A similar confusion prevails in the theoretical or mental realm: in the Muslim world, in fact, there is no positive science, no philosophy, no real theology at all, but only some mixture of meager dogmas of the Koran, of fragments of some philosophical concepts taken from the Greeks, and some empirical information. In general, the entire mental sphere in Islam did not differ, did not separate itself from practical life, knowledge here has only a utilitarian character, while there is no independent theoretical interest. As for art, for artistic creativity, it is just as deprived of any independence and extremely poorly developed, despite the rich fantasy of the Eastern peoples: the oppression of a one-sided religious principle prevented this fantasy from being expressed in objective ideal images. Sculpture and painting, as you know, are expressly prohibited by the Koran and do not exist at all in the Muslim world. Poetry here did not go further than that immediate form that exists wherever there is a person, that is, lyrics. As for the music, the character of exceptional monism was especially clearly reflected in it; the richness of the sounds of European music is completely incomprehensible to an Eastern person: the very idea of ​​musical harmony does not exist for him, he sees in it only disagreement and arbitrariness, his own music (if you can only call it music) consists solely in the monotonous repetition of the same notes . Thus, both in the sphere of social relations and in the intellectual sphere, as well as in the sphere of creativity, the overwhelming power of the exclusive religious principle does not allow any independent life and development. If personal consciousness is unconditionally subordinated to one religious principle, extremely meager and exclusive, if a person considers himself only an indifferent tool in the hands of a blind, acting deity according to the senseless arbitrariness, then it is clear that neither a great politician, nor a great scientist or philosopher can come out of such a person. , not a brilliant artist, but only a crazy fanatic will come out, which are the essence of the best representatives of Islam. That the Moslem East is dominated by the first of the three forces, which suppresses all vital elements and is hostile to all development, this is proved, besides the characteristics given above, by the simple fact that for twelve centuries the Moslem world has not taken a single step on the path of internal development; no sign of consistent organic progress can be pointed out here. Islam remained unchanged in the state in which it was under the first caliphs, but could not retain its former strength, because according to the law of life, not going forward, it thereby went backward, and therefore it is not surprising that the modern Muslim world presents a picture of such a miserable decline. As is well known, Western civilization exhibits a directly opposite character; here we see rapid and uninterrupted development, the free play of forces, the independence and exclusive self-affirmation of all particular forms and individual elements - signs that undoubtedly show that this civilization is under the dominant influence of the second of the three historical principles. Even the religious principle itself, which formed the basis of Western civilization, although it represented only a one-sided and, therefore, distorted form of Christianity, was nevertheless incomparably richer and more capable of development than Islam. But this principle, from the very first times of Western history, has not been an exclusive force that suppresses all others: willy-nilly, it must reckon with principles alien to it. For next to the representative of religious unity - the Roman Church - stands the world of the German barbarians, who adopted Catholicism, but is far from imbued with it, retaining a principle not only different from the Catholic, but also directly hostile to it - the principle of unconditional individual freedom, the supreme significance of personality. This initial dualism of the Germano-Roman world served as the basis for new divisions. For each particular element in the West, having before it not one principle that would completely subordinate it to itself, but two opposite and hostile to each other, thereby received freedom for itself: the existence of another principle freed it from the exclusive power of the first and vice versa. Each sphere of activity, each form of life in the West, separating itself from all others, strives in this separateness to acquire absolute significance, to exclude all others, to become one with everything, and instead, according to the immutable law of finite being, comes in its isolation to impotence. and insignificance, capturing an alien area, loses strength in its own. Thus, the Western Church, having separated from the state, but appropriating to itself in this separateness the state significance, having itself become an ecclesiastical state, ends up losing all power both over the state and over society. In the same way, the state, separated both from the church and from the people, and having appropriated absolute significance to itself in its exclusive centralization, in the end loses all independence, turns into an indifferent form of society, into an executive instrument of the popular vote, and the people themselves or the zemstvo, having risen up and against the church and against the state, as soon as he defeats them, in his revolutionary movement he cannot maintain his unity, he breaks up into hostile classes and then must necessarily break up into hostile personalities. The social organism of the West, having first been divided into private organisms, hostile to one another, must finally break up into its last elements, into the atoms of society, that is, individuals, and corporate egoism, caste egoism, must pass into personal egoism. The principle of this last disintegration was first clearly expressed in the great revolutionary movement of the last century, which, therefore, can be considered the beginning of the full revelation of the force that moved all Western development. The Revolution transferred the supreme power to the people in the sense of a simple sum of individuals, the whole unity of which comes down only to an accidental agreement of desires and interests, an agreement that may not exist. Having destroyed those traditional ties, those ideal principles which in old Europe made each individual person only an element of the highest social group and, dividing humanity, united people, breaking these ties, the revolutionary movement left each person to himself and at the same time destroyed his organic distinction from others. In old Europe, this difference and, consequently, the inequality of persons was determined by belonging to one or another social group and the place occupied in it. With the destruction of these groups in their former meaning, organic inequality also disappeared, only the lowest natural inequality of personal forces remained. From the free manifestation of these forces, new forms of life were to be created in place of the destroyed world. But no positive grounds for such new creativity were given by the revolutionary movement. It is easy to see, in fact, that the principle of freedom in itself has only a negative meaning. I can live and act freely, that is, without encountering any arbitrary obstacles or constraints, but this, obviously, does not in the least determine the positive goal of my activity, the content of my life. In old Europe, human life received its ideal content from Catholicism, on the one hand, and from knightly feudalism, on the other. This ideal content gave old Europe its relative unity and high heroic strength, although it already concealed in itself the beginning of that dualism, which was bound to lead to the subsequent disintegration. The revolution finally rejected the old ideals, which, of course, was necessary, but due to its negative character, it could not give new ones. It liberated the individual elements, gave them absolute significance, but deprived their activity of the necessary soil and food; therefore, we see that the excessive development of individualism in the modern West leads directly to its opposite - to general depersonalization and vulgarization. The extreme tension of personal consciousness, not finding an appropriate object for itself, passes into empty and petty egoism / which equalizes everyone. Old Europe, in the rich development of its forces, produced a great variety of forms, many original, bizarre phenomena; she had holy monks who, out of Christian love for their neighbor, burned thousands of people; there were noble knights who fought all their lives for ladies they never saw, there were philosophers who made gold and died of hunger, there were scholastic scholars who talked about theology like mathematicians, and about mathematics like theologians. Only these originalities, these wild grandeurs, make the Western world interesting for the thinker and attractive for the artist. All its positive content is in the past, but now, as you know, the only greatness that still retains its strength in the West is the greatness of capital; the only essential difference and inequality between people that still exists there is the inequality of the rich man and the proletarian, but this too is threatened by a great danger from revolutionary socialism. Socialism has the task of transforming the economic relations of society by introducing greater uniformity in the distribution of material wealth. There can hardly be any doubt that socialism in the West is assured of an early success in the sense of the victory and domination of the working class. But the real goal will not be achieved. For just as the victory of the third estate (the bourgeoisie) was followed by a hostile fourth estate, so the forthcoming victory of this latter will probably call forth the fifth, that is, the new proletariat, etc. Against the socio-economic disease of the West, as against cancer, all sorts of operations will only be palliatives. In any case, it would be ridiculous to see in socialism some kind of great revelation that is supposed to renew humanity. If we really assume even the full realization of the socialist task, when all mankind will equally enjoy the material benefits and conveniences of civilized life, the same question about the positive content of this life, about the real goal of human activity, will be faced with all the more force, and this question socialism, like all Western development, does not provide an answer. True, they talk a lot about the fact that in place of the ideal content of the old life, based on faith, a new one is given, based on z_n_a_n_i_i, on science; and as long as these speeches do not go beyond generalities, one might think that the matter is about something great, but one has only to look closer at what kind of knowledge, what kind of science, and the great very soon turns into the ridiculous. In the field of knowledge, the Western world has suffered [the same fate as in the field of social life: the absolutism of theology has been replaced by the absolutism of philosophy, which in turn must give way to the absolutism of empirical positive science, that is, one that has as its subject matter not beginnings and causes, but only phenomena and their general laws. But general laws are only general facts, and, according to one of the representatives of empiricism, the highest perfection for positive science can only consist in being able to reduce all phenomena to one general law or general fact, for example, to the fact of universal gravitation, which can no longer be reduced to anything else, but can only be ascertained by science. But for the human mind, theoretical interest lies not in the knowledge of a fact as such, not in ascertaining its existence, but in its explanation, that is, in the knowledge of its causes, and modern science refuses this knowledge. I ask: why does such and such a phenomenon take place, and I receive an answer from science that this is only a special case of another, more general phenomenon, of which science can only say that it exists. It is obvious that the answer has nothing to do with the question and that modern science offers our minds rocks instead of bread. It is no less obvious that such a science cannot be directly related to any living questions, to any higher goals of human activity, and the claim to provide an ideal content for life would only be amusing on the part of such a science. If, however, the real task of science is not to recognize this simple statement of general facts or laws, but their actual explanation, then we must say that at the present time science does not exist at all, yet what now bears this name is in fact only a formless and indifferent material of the future true science; and it is clear that the constructive principles necessary for this material to turn into a harmonious scientific building cannot be derived from this material itself, just as the plan of the building cannot be derived from the bricks that are used for it. These building principles must be obtained from the highest kind of knowledge, from that knowledge that has absolute principles and causes as its subject, therefore, the true construction of science is possible only in its close internal union with theology and philosophy as the highest members of one mental organism, which only in this wholeness of his can receive power over life. But such a synthesis is completely contrary to the general spirit of Western development: that excluding negative force that divided and secluded the various spheres of life and knowledge cannot by itself unite them again. The best proof of this is the unsuccessful attempts at synthesis that we encounter in the West. Thus, for example, the metaphysical systems of Schopenhauer and Hartmann (for all their significance in other respects) are themselves so powerless in the field of the supreme principles of knowledge and life that they must turn to Buddhism for these principles. If, therefore, modern science is not able to provide an ideal content for life, then the same must be said about modern art. In order to create eternal truly artistic images, it is necessary first of all to believe in the higher reality of the ideal world. And how can such an art give eternal ideals for life, which does not want to know anything but this very life in its everyday superficial reality, strives to be only its exact reproduction? Of course, such a reproduction is even impossible, and art, refusing to idealize, passes into caricature. And in the sphere of social life and in the sphere of knowledge and creativity, the second historical force that controls the development of Western civilization, being left to itself, irresistibly leads in the end to a general decomposition into lower constituent elements, to the loss of any universal content, all unconditional principles of being. And if the Muslim East, as we have seen, completely destroys man and affirms only an inhuman god, then Western civilization strives primarily for the exclusive affirmation of a godless man, that is, a man taken in his seeming superficial separateness and reality and in this false position recognized together and as the only deity and as an insignificant atom - as a deity for itself, subjectively, and as an insignificant atom - objectively, in relation to the external world, of which it is a separate particle in infinite space and a transient phenomenon in infinite time. It is clear that everything that such a person can produce will be fractional, partial, devoid of internal unity and unconditional content, limited to one surface, never reaching the real focus. A single personal interest, an accidental fact, a small detail - atomism in life, atomism in science, atomism in art - this is the last word of Western civilization. It worked out the particular forms and external material of life, but it did not give the inner content of life itself to humanity; by isolating individual elements, it has brought them to the extreme degree of development that is possible in their individuality; but without internal organic unity they are devoid of a living spirit, and all this wealth is dead capital. And if the history of mankind must not end with this negative result, this insignificance, if a new historical force must emerge, then the task of this force will no longer be to develop individual elements of life and knowledge, to create new cultural forms, but to revive to spiritualize the hostile, dead in their hostility elements with the highest conciliatory principle, to give them a common unconditional content and thereby free them from the need for exclusive self-affirmation and mutual negation. But where can this unconditional content of life and knowledge come from? If man had it in himself, he could neither lose it nor seek it. It must be outside of him as a particular, relative being. But it cannot exist in the external world either, for this world represents only the lower stages of that development, at the top of which man himself is, and if he cannot find unconditional principles in himself, then even less so in the lower nature; and he who, apart from this visible reality of himself and the external world, does not recognize any other, must renounce all ideal content of life, from all true knowledge and creativity. In such a case, only the lower animal life remains for man; but happiness in this lower life depends on blind chance, and even if it is achieved, it always turns out to be an illusion, and since, on the other hand, the striving for the higher, and with the consciousness of its unsatisfactoriness, still remains, but serves only as a source of the greatest suffering, then natural the conclusion is that life is a game that is not worth the candle, and perfect insignificance is presented as a desirable end both for the individual and for the whole of humanity. This conclusion can only be avoided by recognizing above man and external nature another, unconditional, divine world, infinitely more real, rich and living than this world of ghostly superficial phenomena, and such a recognition is all the more natural because man himself, by his eternal principle, belongs to that world. to the higher world, and a vague memory of it is preserved in one way or another by everyone who has not yet completely lost human dignity. And so, the third force, which is supposed to give human development its unconditional content, can only be a revelation of the higher divine world, and those people, the people through which this force has to manifest itself, should only be an intermediary between humanity and that world, a free, conscious instrument of the latter. . Such a people should not have any special limited task, it is not called upon to work on the forms and elements of human existence, but only to communicate a living soul, to give life and integrity to a torn and dead humanity through its union with the eternal divine principle. Such a people does not need any special advantages, any special forces and external talents, because it does not act from itself, does not realize its own. From the people - the bearer of the third divine power, only freedom from all limitation and one-sidedness, elevation above narrow special interests is required, it is required that it does not assert itself with exceptional energy in any private lower sphere of activity and knowledge, indifference to all this life is required. with its petty interests, a total faith in the positive reality of the higher world and a submissive attitude towards it. And these properties undoubtedly belong to the tribal character of the Slavs, and especially to the national character of the Russian people. But even historical conditions do not allow us to look for another bearer of a third force outside the Slavs and its main representative of the Russian people, for all other historical peoples are under the predominant power of one or the other of the first two exceptional forces: the Eastern peoples are under the rule of the first, the Western ones are under the control of a second force. Only the Slavs, and in particular Russia, remained free from these two lower potencies and, consequently, can become the historical conductor of the third. Meanwhile, the first two forces completed the circle of their manifestation and led the peoples subject to them to spiritual death and decay. So, I repeat, either this is the end of history, or the inevitable discovery of a third all-powerful force, the only carrier of which can only be the Slavs and the Russian people. The external image of the slave in which our people find themselves, the miserable position of Russia in economic and other respects, not only cannot serve as an objection to her vocation, but rather confirms it. For that higher power that the Russian people must lead into humanity is a power not of this world, and external wealth and order have no meaning in relation to it. The great historical vocation of Russia, from which only its immediate tasks derive significance, is a religious vocation in the highest sense of the word. When the will and mind of people enter into real communication with the eternally and truly existing, then only all the particular forms and elements of life and knowledge will receive their positive value and price - they will all be necessary organs or mediations of one living whole. Their contradiction and enmity, based on the exclusive self-affirmation of each, will necessarily disappear as soon as all together freely submit to one common principle and focus. When the hour will come for Russia to discover its historical vocation, no one can say, but everything shows that this hour is close, even though there is almost no real consciousness of its highest task in Russian society. But great outward events usually precede great awakenings of the social consciousness. Thus, even the Crimean War, which was completely fruitless politically, however, strongly influenced the consciousness of our society. The negative result of this war corresponded to the negative character of the consciousness awakened by it. It must be hoped that the great struggle that is being prepared will serve as a powerful impetus for the awakening of the positive consciousness of the Russian people. Until then, we, having the misfortune of belonging to the Russian intelligentsia, which, instead of the image and likeness of God, still continues to wear the image and likeness of a monkey, we must finally see our miserable position, we must try to restore in ourselves the Russian national character. , stop creating an idol for yourself. any narrow, insignificant idea, must become more indifferent to the limited interests of this life, freely and reasonably believe in another, higher reality. Of course, this belief does not depend on a single desire, but one cannot also think that it is a pure accident or falls directly from the sky. This faith is the necessary result of an inner spiritual process - a process of decisive liberation from that worldly rubbish that fills our heart, and from that supposedly scientific school rubbish that fills our head. For the denial of the lower content is thereby the affirmation of the higher, and by banishing false gods and idols from our soul, we thereby introduce the true Divinity into it. 1877. Printing this speech in the form in which it was read in a public meeting of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, I consider it necessary to note that a more detailed development of the same topic will be given by me in the historical prolegomena to the essay "On the Principles of Integral Knowledge", of which the first part now in print, (Hereinafter the author's footnotes. The work mentioned was published under the title "Philosophical foundations of integral knowledge." - Approx. ed.) There was not a single original idea in medieval Arabic philosophy: it only chewed on Aristotle. In any case, this philosophy turned out to be an empty flower and left no trace in the East. The rich Persian poetry does not belong to the Muslim world: part of it is rooted in the most ancient Iranian epic, while the other part not only remained alien to the influence of Islam, but even imbued with protest against it. I mean Muslim dervishes or saints. In any religion, holiness consists in achieving the most complete union with the deity through likening oneself to the deity. But it is characteristic in what this connection is supposed and how it is achieved. For the Moslem dervish, it comes down to the complete stifling of personal consciousness and feeling, since his exclusive deity does not tolerate another self next to him. The goal is reached when a person is brought into a state of unconsciousness and anesthesia, for which purely mechanical means are used. Thus, the connection with the deity for a person is tantamount here to the destruction of his personal existence, Islam in its extreme consistent expression is only a caricature of Buddhism. This refers to the Russian-Turkish war. The hopes of the Slavophile camp (to which Solovyov gravitated in those years) for the liberation of the Balkan Slavs were associated with her.

Delivered at a public meeting of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature before a select few audience, Solovyov's speech strengthened his fame as a first-class lecturer, which he showed himself to be in 1874 when defending his master's thesis, and aroused the keen interest of Russian society. The tense expectation of the war with the Ottoman Empire, which was destined to become the culmination of the Eastern Crisis of 1875-1878, affected both the content of the speech and the perception of it by readers and listeners. It was in the clash of two worlds, Christian and Muslim, that many of Solovyov's contemporaries saw the meaning of the events that had taken place.

The twenty-four-year-old orator elegantly connected the topic of the day (the Russo-Turkish war began in April 1877) with the old Slavophile predictions that Russia would play a major role in the liberation of the Balkan Slavs. Attention is drawn to the young Solovyov's firm rejection of the ideas of revolutionary socialism and his faith in the historical vocation of Russia, the Russian people and the Slavic world. In classical Slavophilism, the ideas of messianism, so obvious in Solovyov, were absent. " Three Forces" made the name of Vladimir Solovyov widely known and prepared a brilliant reception, which a year later met with "Readings on God-Mankind".

Of the responses to Solovyov's speech, one should single out A. V. Stankevich's note "Three Impotences" (Bulletin of Europe. 1877. No. 4. p. 877-891). The brother of Nikolai Stankevich, well-known in the annals of Russian culture and himself an influential Western publicist, A. V. Stankevich spoke harshly about the "mystical exclusivity" of the young philosopher, which contradicts the "nature of the Slavs", noted his dependence on I. V. Kireevsky and A. S. Khomyakov, condemned the ability to "surrender to the power of dreams." Stankevich is sure that "the man of the West is not godless... religion and the church remain in the West the refuge of the soul of man." His main conclusion: "But in order to believe in their future, neither the Slavs nor Russia have any need to believe in the death and decay of other peoples. Why should they, following the instructions of the author, save the imaginary dead when they themselves can share life with the living?".

Stankevich's argument undoubtedly had an impact on Vl. Solovyov, who, generally speaking, is not inclined to listen to critical remarks. Solovyov's further ideological evolution led him away from the uncompromising nature of The Three Forces in the direction indicated by one of the representatives of the "people of the forties". Solovyov followed the development of the Eastern Question unremittingly until the end of his life.

Quotes from the book Vladimir Solovyov - Three forces. Abstract:

I understand Muslim East, Western civilization and the Slavic world.

Concerning Muslim East , then there is no doubt that he is under the predominant influence of the first force - force of exclusive unity. Everything is subordinate one principle of religion. Absolute power in God corresponds to absolute impotence in man. In the Muslim world all spheres and degrees of human lifesubject to the one overwhelming power of religion.

The overwhelming power of the exclusive religious principle does not allow any independent life and development. If personal consciousness is unconditionally subordinated to one religious principle, extremely meager and exclusive, if a person considers himself only an indifferent tool in the hands of a blind, acting deity according to the senseless arbitrariness, then it is clear that neither a great politician, nor a great scientist or philosopher can come out of such a person. , not a brilliant artist, but only a crazy fanatic will come out, which are the essence of the best representatives of Islam.

I mean Muslim dervishes or saints. In any religion, holiness consists in achieving the most complete union with the deity through likening oneself to the deity. But it is characteristic in what this connection is supposed and how it is achieved. For the Moslem dervish, it comes down to the complete stifling of personal consciousness and feeling, since his exclusive deity does not tolerate another self next to him. The goal is reached when a person is brought into a state of unconsciousness and anesthesia, for which purely mechanical means are used. Thus, the connection with the deity for a person is tantamount here to the destruction of his personal existence, Islam in its extreme consistent expression is only a caricature of Buddhism.

The Muslim East is dominated by the first of the three forces, which suppresses all vital elements and is hostile to all development.

The exact opposite character is, as is well known, Western civilization ; here we see rapid and continuous development, free play of forces, independence and exceptional self-affirmation all particular forms and individual elements - signs that undoubtedly show that this civilization is under the dominant influence of the second of the three historical principles.

The excessive development of individualism in the modern West leads directly to its opposite - to general depersonalization and vulgarization. The extreme tension of personal consciousness, not finding an appropriate object for itself, passes into empty and petty egoism / which equalizes everyone. Old Europe, in the rich development of its forces, produced a great variety of forms, many original, bizarre phenomena; she had holy monks who, out of Christian love for their neighbor, burned thousands of people; there were noble knights who fought all their lives for ladies they never saw, there were philosophers who made gold and died of hunger, there were scholastic scholars who talked about theology like mathematicians, and about mathematics like theologians. The only greatness that still retains its strength in the West is the greatness of capital.

And if the Muslim East, as we have seen, completely destroys man and affirms only an inhuman god, then Western civilization strives primarily for the exclusive affirmation of a godless man., that is, man, taken in his apparent superficial separateness and reality, and in this false position recognized both as the only deity and as an insignificant atom - like a deity for himself.

Western civilization has worked out particular forms and external material of life, but it has not given the inner content of life itself to mankind.

This conclusion can only be avoided recognizing above man and external nature another, unconditional, divine world, infinitely more real, rich and living than this world of ghostly superficial phenomena, and such a recognition is all the more natural because man himself, by his eternal origin, belongs to that higher world, and a vague memory of him is preserved in one way or another by everyone who has not yet completely lost human dignity.

third force which should give human development its unconditional content, can only be a revelation of the higher divine world ,and those people, that people, through which this power has to manifest itself, should only be an intermediary between humanity and that world, a free, conscious instrument of the latter. Such a people should not have any special limited task, it is not called upon to work on the forms and elements of human existence, but only to communicate a living soul, to give life and integrity to the torn and dead humanity through its connection with the eternal divine principle. Such a people does not need any special advantages, any special forces and external talents, because it does not act from itself, does not realize its own. From the people - carrier of the third divine power only freedom from all limitation and one-sidedness is required rise above narrow special interests, it is required that he does not assert himself with exceptional energy in any particular lower sphere of activity and knowledge, what is required is indifference to all this life with its petty interests, complete faith in the positive reality of the higher world and a submissive attitude towards it. And these properties undoubtedly belong to the tribal character of the Slavs. , especially the national character of the Russian people. But even historical conditions do not allow us to look for another bearer of a third force outside the Slavs and its main representative of the Russian people, for all other historical peoples are under the predominant power of one or the other of the first two exceptional forces: the Eastern peoples are under the rule of the first, the Western ones are under the control of a second force. Only the Slavs, and in particular Russia, remained free from these two lower potencies and, consequently, can become the historical conductor of the third. Meanwhile the first two forces completed the circle of their manifestation and led the peoples subject to them to spiritual death and decay.

Great outward events usually precede great awakenings in the social consciousness.

We who have the misfortune of belonging to the Russian intelligentsia, which, instead of the image and likeness of God, still continues to wear the image and likeness of an ape—we must finally see our miserable position, we must try to restore the Russian national character in ourselves, stop creating for ourselves idol from any narrow, insignificant idea, should become more indifferent to the limited interests of this life, freely and reasonably believe in another, higher reality. Of course, this belief does not depend on a single desire, but one cannot also think that it is a pure accident or falls directly from the sky. This faith is the necessary result of an inner spiritual process - a process of decisive liberation from that worldly rubbish that fills our heart, and from that supposedly scientific school rubbish that fills our head. For the denial of the lower content is thereby the affirmation of the higher, and by banishing false gods and idols from our soul, we thereby introduce the true Divinity into it.