p Animism is the first expression we know of man’s consciousness that there is a causal connection between natural phenomena. It explains natural phenomena with the aid of myths. But although 581 such explanations satisfy the curiosity of primitive man, they do not at all increase his power over nature.

p Let us take an example. A Fijian falls ill and lies down on the ground, shouting loudly to persuade his soul to return to his body. Of course, the arguments which he addresses to his soul exert no influence at all on the pathological processes taking place in his body. In order to acquire the possibility of influencing these processes in the desired way, man had first to observe organic life from the standpoint of science. To observe natural phenomena from the standpoint of science means to explain them, not by the action of this or that spiritual being, but by the laws of nature itself. Man succeeds in increasing his power over nature only to the extent that he notices the law-governed connection between phenomena. A scientific view of a particular field of natural phenomena completely excludes an animist view of nature. As one historian of Greece correctly remarked, he who knows the true cause of the apparent motion of the sun round the earth will not tell the story of Helios who every morning mounts his fiery chariot to climb the steep celestial path, and in the evening descends into the west to rest. This means that in explaining the cause of the sun’s apparent motion round the earth he would take as his starting point not the subject, but the object, and would address himself not to spirit, but to nature.

p This is exactly how the Greek thinkers of the Ionian school acted.^^280^^ He who taught that the beginning of all things was water or air, obviously started from the object and not from the subject. In exactly the same way, when Heraclitus said that the cosmos was not created by any gods or men, "but it was forever, it is and always will be eternal fire, regularly flaring up and regularly dying away”, even with the greatest will in the world it was impossible to impose on him an animist view of the world as the product of the activity of a spirit or spirits. Recalling E. Zeller’s definition of the task facing philosophy, we can say that to the thinkers of the Ionian school the ultimate basis of cognition stemmed from the ultimate basis of being. This is true to such an extent that, for example, Diogenes of Apollonia, who maintained that all things are varieties of air, believed that this primary matter possesses reason and "knows much".

The scientific view of natural phenomena has such enormous advantages over the animist view that Greek philosophy had perforce to proceed in its further development from the object instead of the subject, that is to say, to be materialist and not idealist. Yet we know that, at least from the time of Socrates, Greek philosophy quite definitely took the path of idealism. And in our days, idealism has become the dominant philosophy. Nowadays the specialists in philosophy—especially the assistant-professors— 582 do not even think it necessary to argue with the materialists. They are convinced that to criticise materialism is as superfluous as knocking at an open door. The classical country of this majestic contempt for materialism was and, of course, remains Germany, with its innumerable teachers of philosophy who are described very aptly by Schopenhauer.  [582•*  And since the vast majority of our Russian intelligentsia are trailing along behind those German teachers of philosophy (for our intelligentsia has an interest in philosophy) it is not surprising that here in Russia the philosophical people  [582•**  (as Joseph Priestley once called them) have become accustomed to look down on us, the impenitent materialists. This is the explanation of a fact our readers are well aware of, that so many attempts have been made in Russia to provide the teaching of Marx and Engels with a new philosophical basis. All these attempts were dictated by the desire to reconcile the materialist explanation of history with one or other of the brands of the idealist theory of cognition. These attempts were foredoomed to failure, because eclecticism had always been as barren as the virgin who had devoted herself to God. Apart from this, the writers had neither knowledge nor philosophical talent. It is not worth while discussing them, although their writings deserve mention as being very typical of the period.