p You yourself feel that here is something "not quite right" again and find it necessary "to eliminate possible misunderstandings”. How do you eliminate them?

p “/« our experience" you write, "the inorganic world is not a chaos of elements, but a series of definite space-time groups; in our cognition, the inorganic world is even transformed into an orderly system, united by relationships in continuous conformity to law. But ’in experience’ and ’in cognition’ means in somebody’s experiences; unity and order, continuity and conformity to law belong precisely to experiences as the organised complexes of 274 elements; when regarded separately from this organised state, regarded ’an sich’, the inorganic world is indeed a chaos of elements, a> complete or almost complete indeterminateness. This is by no means metaphysics, it is simply the expression of the fact that the inorganic world is not life, and of that fundamental monistic idea that the inorganic world is distinguished from living nature, not by its material (those same ’elements’ that are the elements of experience), but by its unorganised state."  [274•* 

p Not only does this “utterance” not eliminate any misunderstandings; it does the exact opposite: it has produced some that werenot there before. In referring to the "fundamental monistic idea”, you revert to the distinguishing of two forms of being which, following the example of Mach and Avenarius, cost you so much effort to criticise. You distinguish being "an sich" from being in our cognition, or, to put it another way, experienced by somebody, i.e., in “experience”. But if this distinction is correct, then your theory, in accordance with your own definitions, is met-empirical, i.e._r metaphysical. You yourself sense this and therefore you declare, without the least vestige of proof, "this is by no means metaphysics”. No, dear Sir, in the light of your doctrine of experience— and on this doctrine is founded the whole of “empiric-criticism”, the whole of Machism, and the whole of “empiriomonism”—as well as in the light of your criticism of the “thing-in-itself”, this is the pure unmistakable metaphysics. But you could not avoid becoming a “metaphysician” here, since you got yourself entangled in hopeless contradictions by remaining under the spell of your doctrine of experience. What can be said of a “philosophy” which only acquires some hope of salvation from absurdity when it repudiates its own basis?

p But you also feel that, in acknowledging a distinction between being "in experience" and being "an sich”, your “philosophy” is cutting its own throat. Therefore, you resort to what might be described as a terminological trick. You distinguish the world "in experience" not from the world in itself, but from the world "an sich" and fence in this latter world with quotation marks. If "this or that" individual points out that here you are citing beingin-itself, which you yourself declared to be "cognitively useless”, you will reply that although you did use the old term signifying a "cognitively useless" concept, you gave it an entirely new meaning by placing it in quotation marks. Very smart! It was no accident that in my first letter I likened you to cunning monk Gorenflot.

p By divesting being-in-itself of its Russian dress and investing it in a German costume, and putting a screen of quotation marks 275 round it, you wished to forestall objections from "this or that" inopportunely shrewd individual; this is revealed in the note you made somewhat later, to be exact, on page 159.  [275•*  You “recall” there that you by no means used the expression "an sich" in’a metaphysical sense. And you prove this in the following way: "For certain physiological processes of other people, we substitute the ’immediate complexes’—consciousness; criticism of psychological experience compels us to extend the domain of this substitution, and we regard all physiological life as the ’reflection’ of immediate, organised complexes. But the inorganic processes are not distinct in principle from the physiological, which are only their organised combination. Being in one continuous series with the physiological processes, the inorganic processes must also, obviously, be regarded as ’reflection’. But of what?—of immediate unorganised complexes. We are as yet unable to carry out this substitution concretely in our consciousness. What of it! We are often unable to do this in relation to animals as well (the experiences of the amoeba) and even in relation to other people (’incomprehension’ of their psychology). But in place of concrete substitution, we can formulate the relationships of these cases (’life an sich’—immediate, organised complexes, ’ environment an sich’—unorganised complexes)."

The significance of this new reservation of yours will be fully disclosed only when we come to determine the use-value of your theory of “substitution” which, as we have seen, is one of the foundations of your claim to originality in the field of philosophy. However, it may already be said that this reservation is " cognitively useless”. Think it out for yourself, Mr. Bogdanov. What significance can your formulation of the “relationships” of the “cases” you have indicated have here? Let us assume that this formulation: "life an sich" is immediate, organised complexes, "environment an sich" is the unorganised, is quite correct. What, then? After all, the question is not how "life an sich" relates to "environment an sich”, but how "life an sich" and "environment an sich" relate to life and environment "in our experience”, in our “cognition”. Absolutely no reply can be found to this question in your new reservation. Therefore, neither that reservation nor the artful device of changing the clothes of being-in-itself from a Russian dress to a German costume will prevent shrewd " individuals" from exercising their right to declare that, if momentarily you evade the irreconcilable contradictions inherent in your “philosophy”, it is only by admitting the "cognitively useless" 276 distinction between being-in-itself and being-in-experience.  [276•*  Like your tutor Mach, out of the most elementary logical necessity, you burn that which you invite us to adore, and adore that which you invite us to burn.