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p If human nature is invariable, and if, knowing its main qualities, we can deduce from them mathematically accurate principles in the sphere of morality and social science, it will not be difficult to invent a social order which would fully correspond to the requirements of human nature, and just for that very reason, would be an ideal social order. The materialists of the eighteenth century were already very willing to engage in research on the subject of a perfect system of laws (legislation parfaite ). These researches represent the Utopian element in the literature of the Enlightenment.  [514•* 

p The Utopian Socialists of the first half of the nineteenth century devoted themselves to such researches with all their heart.

p The Utopian Socialists of this age fully shared the anthropological views of the French materialists. Just like the materialists, they considered man to be the product of social environment around him,  [514•**  and just like the materialists they fell into a vicious circle, explaining the variable qualities of the environment of man by the unchanging qualities of human nature.

515

p All the numerous Utopias of the first half of the present century represent nothing else than attempts to invent a perfect legislation, taking human nature as the supreme criterion. Thus, Fourier takes as his point of departure the analysis of human passions; thus, Robert Owen in his Outline of the Rational System of Society starts from the "first principles of human nature” , and asserts that "rational government" must first of all "ascertain what human nature is”; thus, the Saint-Simonists declare that their philosophy is founded on a new conception of human nature (sur une nouvelle conception de la nature humaine)  [515•* ; thus, the Fourierists say that the social organisation invented by their teacher represents a number of irrefutable deductions from the immutable laws of human nature.  [515•** 

p Naturally, the view of human nature as the supreme criterion did not prevent the various socialist schools from differing very considerably in defining the qualities of that nature. Thus, in the opinion of the Saint-Simonists, "the plans of Owen contradict to such an extent the inclinations of human nature that the sort of popularity which they, apparently, enjoy at the present time" (this was written in 1825) "seems at first glance to be inexplicable".  [515•***  In Fourier’s polemical pamphlet, Pieges et charlatanisme des deux sectes Saint-Simon et Owen, qui promettent I’ association et le progres , we can find a number of harsh statements that the Saint-Simonists’ teaching also contradicts all the inclinations of human nature. Now, as at the time of Condorcet, it appeared that to agree in the definition of human nature was much more difficult than to define a geometrical figure.

p To the extent that the Utopian Socialists of the nineteenth century adhered to the view-point of human nature , to that extent they only repeated the mistakes of the thinkers of the eighteenth century—an error which was common, however, to all social 516 science contemporary with them.  [516•*  But we can see in them an energetic effort to break out of the narrow confines of an abstract conception, and to take their stand upon solid ground. SaintSimon’s works are especially distinguished for this.

p While the writers of the French Enlightenment very frequently regarded the history of humanity as a series of more or less happy, but chance occurrences,  [516•**  Saint-Simon seeks in history primarily conformity to law. The science of human society can and must become just as exact as natural science. We must study the facts of the past life of mankind in order to discover in them the laws of its progress.  Only he is capable of foreseeing the future who has understood the past.  Expressing the task of social science in this way, Saint-Simon in particular turned to the study of the history of Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. The novelty and scope of his views can be seen from the fact that his pupil Thierry could practically effect a revolution in the study of French history. Saint-Simon was of the opinion that Guizot also borrowed his views from himself. Leaving this question of theoretical property undecided, we shall note that Saint-Simon was able to trace the mainsprings of the internal development of European societies further than his contemporary specialists in history. Thus, if both Thierry and Mignet, and likewise Guizot, pointed to property relations as the foundation of any social order, Saint- 517 Simon, who most vividly and for the first time threw light on the history of these relations in modern Europe, went further and asked himself: why is it that precisely these, and no other relations, play such an important part? The answer is to be sought, in his opinion, in the requirements of industrial development. "Up to the fifteenth century lay authority was in the hands of the nobility, and this was useful because the nobles were then the most capable industralists. They directed agricultural works, and agricultural works were then the only kind of important industrial occupation."  [517•*  To the question of why the needs of industry have such a decisive importance in the history of mankind, Saint-Simon replied that it was because the object of social organisation is production (le but de 1’organisation sociale s’est la production). He attributed great significance to production, identifying the useful with the productive (1’utile—c’est la production). He categorically declared that "la politique ... c’est la science de la production".

p It would seem that the logical development of these views should have brought Saint-Simon to the conclusion that the laws of production are those very laws by which in the last analysis social development is determined, and the study of which must be the task of the thinker striving to foresee the future. At times he, as it were, approaches this idea, but that only at times.

p For production the implements of labour are necessary. These implements are not provided by nature ready-made, they are invented by man. The invention or even the simple use of a particular implement presupposes in the producer a certain degree of intellectual development. The development of “industry” is, therefore, the unquestionable result of the intellectual development of mankind. It seems as though opinion, “enlightenment” (lumieres) here also reign unchallenged over the world. And the more apparent the important role of industry becomes, the more is confirmed, seemingly, this view of the philosophers of the eighteenth century. Saint-Simon holds it even more consistently than the French writers of the Enlightenment, as he considers the question of the origin of ideas in sensations to be settled, and has less grounds for meditation on the influence of environment on man. The development of knowledge is for him the fundamental factor of historical advance.  [517•**  He tries to discover the laws of that 518 development; thus he establishes the law of three stages—theological, metaphysical and positive—which later on Auguste Comte very successfully gave out to be his own “discovery”.  [518•*  But these laws, too, Saint-Simon explains in the long run by the qualities of human nature. "Society consists of individuals” , he says. "Therefore the development of social reason can be only the reproduction of the development of the individual reason on a larger scale. " Starting from this fundamental principle, he considers his “laws” of social development finally ascertained and proved whenever he succeeds in discovering a successful analogy in the development of the individual confirming them. He holds, for example, that the role of authority in social life will in time be reduced to zero.  [518•**  The gradual but incessant diminution of this role is one of the laws of development of humanity. How then does he prove this law? The main argument in its favour is reference to the individual development of man. In the elementary school the child is obliged unconditionally to obey his elders; in the secondary and higher school, the element of obedience gradually falls into the background, in order finally to yield its place to independent action in maturity. No matter how anyone may regard the history of “authority”, everyone will nowadays agree that here, as everywhere, comparison is not proof. The embryological development of any particular individual (ontogenesis ) presents many analogies with the history of the species to which this individual belongs: ontogenesis supplies many important indications about phylogenesis.  But what should we now say of a biologist who would attempt to assert that the ultimate explanation of phylogenesis must be sought in 519 ontogenesis? Modern biology acts in the exactly opposite way: it explains the embryological history of the individual by the history of the species.

p The appeal to human nature gave a very peculiar, appearance to all the “laws” of social development formulated both by SaintSimon himself and by his followers.

p It led them into the vicious circle. The history of mankind is explained by its nature. But what is the key to the understanding of the nature of man? History.  Obviously, if we move in this circle, we cannot understand either the nature of man or his history. We can make only some individual, more or less profound, observations concerning this or that sphere of social phenomena. Saint-Simon made some very subtle observations, sometimes truly instinct with genius: but his main object—that of discovering a firm scientific foundation for “politics”—remained unattained.

p “The supreme law of progress of human reason,” says SaintSimon, "subordinates all to itself, rules over everything: men for it are only tools. And although this force [i.e., this law! arises from ourselves (derive de nous), we can just as little set ourselves free from its influence or subordinate it to ourselves as we could at our whim change the working of the force which obliges the earth to revolve around the sun.... All we can do is consciously to submit to this law (our true Providence) realising the direction which it prescribes for us, instead of obeying it blindly. Let us remark in passing that it is just in this that will consist the grand step forward which the philosophical intelligence of our age is destined to accomplish."  [519•* 

p And so humanity is absolutely subordinated to the law of its own intellectual development; it could not escape the influence of that law, should it even desire to do so. Let us examine this statement more closely, and take as an example the law of the three stages. Mankind moved from theological thought to metaphysical, from metaphysical to positive. This law acted with the force of the laws of mechanics.

p This may very well be so, but the question arises, how are we to understand the idea that mankind could not alter the workings of this law should it even desire to do so? Does this mean that it could not have avoided metaphysics if it had even realised the advantages of positive thinking while still at the end of the theological period? Evidently no; and if the answer is no, then it is no less evident that there is some lack of clarity in Saint-Simon’s view of the conformity of intellectual development to law. Wherein lies this unclarity and how does it come about?

520

p It lies in the very contrasting of the law with the desire to alter its action. Once such a desire has made its appearance among mankind, it becomes itself a fact in the history of mankind’s intellectual development, and the law must embrace this fact, not come into conflict with it. So long as we admit the possibility of such a conflict, we have not yet made clear to ourselves the conception of law itself, and we shall inevitably fall into one of two extremes: either we shall abandon the standpoint of conformity to law and will be taking up the view-point of what is desirable, or we shall completely let the desirable—or more truly what was desired by the people of the given epoch—fall out of our field of vision, and thereby shall be attributing to law some mystical shade of significance, transforming it into a kind of Fate. “Law” in the writings of Saint-Simon and of the Utopians generally, to the extent that they speak of conformity to law, is just such a Fate. We may remark in passing that when the Russian " subjective sociologists" rise up in defence of “personality”, “ideals” and other excellent things, they are warring precisely with the utopian, unclear, incomplete and therefore worthless doctrine of the "natural course of things”. Our sociologists appear never even to have heard what constitutes the modern scientific conception of the laws underlying the historical development of society.

p Whence arose the Utopian lack of clarity in the conception of conformity to law? It arose from the radical defect, which we have already pointed out, in the view of the development of humanity which the Utopians held—and, as we know already, not they alone. The history of humanity was explained by the nature of man. Once that nature was fixed, there were also fixed the laws of historical development, all history was given an sich , as Hegel would have said. Man can just as little interfere in the course of his development as he can cease being man. The law of development makes its appearance in the form of Providence.

p This is historical fatalism resulting from a doctrine which considers the successes of knowledge—and consequently the conscious activity of man—to be the mainspring of historical progress.

p But let us go further.

p If the key to the understanding of history is provided by the study of the nature of man, what is important to me is not so much the study of the facts of history as the correct understanding of human nature. Once I have acquired the right view of the latter, I lose almost all interest in social life as it is , and concentrate all my attention on social life as it ought to be in keeping with the nature of man. Fatalism in history does not in the least interfere with a Utopian attitude to reality in practice. On the contrary, it promotes such an attitude, by breaking off the thread of scientific 521 investigation. Fatalism in general marches frequently hand in hand with the most extreme subjectivism. Fatalism very commonly proclaims its own state of mind to be an inevitable law of history. It is just of the fatalists that one can say, in the words of the poet:

p Was sie den Geist der Geschichte nennen, 1st nur der Herren signer Geist.  [521•* 

p The Saint-Simonists asserted that the share of the social product which falls to the exploiters of another’s labour, gradually diminishes. Such a diminution was in their eyes the most important law governing the economic development of humanity. As a proof they referred to the gradual decline in the level of interest and land rent. If in this case they had kept to the methods of strict scientific investigation, they would have discovered the economic causes of the phenomenon to which they pointed, and for this they would have had attentively to study production, reproduction and distribution of products. Had they done this they would have seen, perhaps, that the decline in the level of interest or even of land rent, if it really takes place, does not by any means prove of itself that there is a decline in the share of the property owners. Then their economic “law” would, of course, have found quite a different formulation. But they were not interested in this. Confidence in the omnipotence of the mysterious laws arising out of the nature of man directed their intellectual activity into quite a different sphere. A tendency which has predominated in history up to now can only grow stronger in the future, said they: the constant diminution in the share of the exploiters will necessarily end in its complete disappearance, i.e., in the disappearance of the class of exploiters itself. Foreseeing this, we must already today invent new forms of social organisation in which there will no longer be any place for exploiters. It is evident from other qualities of human nature that these forms must be such and such.... The plan of social reorganisation was prepared very rapidly: the extremely important scientific conception of the conformity of social phenomena to law gave birth to a couple of Utopian recipes.... Such recipes were considered by the Utopians of that day to be the most important problem with which a thinker was faced. This or that principle of political economy was not important in itself. It acquired importance in view of the practical conclusions which followed from it. J.B. Say argued with Ricardo about what determined the exchange value of commodities. Very possibly this is an important question from the point of view of specialists. But 522 even more important is it to know what ought to determine value, and the specialists, unfortunately, do not attempt to think about this. Let us think for the specialists. Human nature clearly gives us tacts. Once we begin to listen to its voice, we see with astonishment that the argument so important in the eyes of the specialists is, in reality, not very important. We can agree with Say, because from his theses there follow conclusions fully in harmony with the requirements of human nature. We can agree with Ricardo too, because his views likewise, being correctly interpreted and supplemented, can only reinforce those requirements. It was in this way that Utopian thought unceremoniously interfered in those scientific discussions the meaning of which remained obscure for it. It was in this way that cultivated men, richly gifted by nature, for example Enfantin, resolved the controversial questions of the political economy of their day.

p Enfantin wrote a number of studies in political economy which cannot be considered a serious contribution to science, but which nevertheless cannot be ignored, as is done up to the present day by the historians of political economy and socialism. The economic works of Enfantin have their significance as an interesting phase in the history of the development of socialist thought. But his attitude to the arguments of the economists may be well illustrated by the following example.

p It is known that Malthus stubbornly and, by the way, very unsuccessfully contested Ricardo’s theory of rent. Enfantin believed that truth was, in fact, on the side of the first, and not of the second. But he did not even contest Ricardo’s theory: he did not consider this necessary. In his opinion all "discussions on the nature of rent and as to the actual relative rise or fall of the part taken by the property owners from the labourer ought to be reduced to one question: what is the nature of those relations which ought in the interests of society to exist between the producer who has withdrawn from affairs" (that was the name given by Enfantin to the landowners) "and the active producer" (i.e., the farmer)? "When these relations become known, it will be sufficient to ascertain the means which will lead to the establishment of such relations; in doing so it will be necessary to take into account also the present condition of society, but nevertheless any other question" (apart from that set forth above) "would be secondary, and would only impede those combinations which must promote the use of the above-mentioned means."  [522•* 

p The principal task of political economy, which Enfantin would prefer to call "the philosophical history of industry” , consists in 523 pointing out both the mutual relations of various strata of producers and the relationships of the whole class of producers with the other classes of society. These indications must be founded on the study of the historical development of the industrial class, and such a study must be founded on "the new conception of the human race”, i.e., in other words, of human nature.  [523•* 

p Malthus’ challenge to Ricardo’s theory of rent was closely bound up with his challenge to the very well-known—as people now say—labour theory of value. Paying little attention to the substance of the controversy, Enfantin hastened to resolve it by a Utopian addition (or, as people in Russia say nowadays, amendment) to Ricardo’s theory of rent: "If we understand this theory aright,” he says, "we ought, it seems to me, to add to it that ... the labourers pay (i.e., pay in the form of rent) some people for the leisure which those enjoy, and for the right to make use of the means of production."

p By labourers Enfantin meant here also, and even principally, the capitalist farmers. What he said of their relations with the landowners is quite true. But his “amendment” is nothing more than a sharper expression of a phenomenon with which Ricardo himself was well acquainted. Moreover, this sharp expression (Adam Smith sometimes speaks even more sharply) not only did not solve the question either of value or of rent, but completely removed it from Enfantin’s field of view. But for him these questions did not in fact exist. He was interested solely in the future organisation of society. It was important for him to convince the reader that private property on the means of production ought not to exist. Enfantin says plainly that, but for practical questions of this kind, all the learned disputes concerning value would be simply disputes about words. This, so to speak, is the subjective method in political economy.

p The Utopians never directly recommended this “method”. But that they were very partial to it is shown, among other ways, by the fact that Enfantin reproached Malthus (!) with excessive objectivity.  Objectivity was, in his opinion, the principal fault of that writer. Whoever knows the works of Malthus is aware that it is precisely objectivity (so characteristic, for example, of Ricardo) that was always foreign to the author of the Essay on the Principle of Population. We do not know whether Enfantin read Malthus himself (everything obliges us to think that, for example, the views of Ricardo were known to him only from the extracts which the French economists made from his writings); but even if he did read them, he could hardly have assessed them at their true value, 524 he would hardly have been able to show that real life was in contradiction to Malthus. Preoccupied with considerations about what ought to be, Enfantin had neither the time nor the desire attentively to study what really existed. "You are right,” he was ready to say to the first sycophant he met. "In present-day social life matters proceed just as you describe them, but you are excessively objective; glance at the question from the humane point of view, and you will see that our social life must be rebuilt on new foundations."

p Utopian dilettantism was forced to make theoretical concessions to any more or less learned defender of the bourgeois order. In order to allay the consciousness rising within him of his own impotence, the Utopian consoled himself by reproaching his opponents with objectivity: let us admit you are more learned than I, but I am kinder. The Utopian did not refute the learned defenders of the bourgeoisie; he only made “footnotes” and “amendments” to their theories. A similar, quite Utopian attitude to social science meets the eye of the attentive reader on every page of the works of our “subjective” sociologists. We shall have occasion yet to speak a good deal of such an attitude. Let us meanwhile quote two vivid examples.

p In 1871 there appeared the dissertation by the late N. Sieber: "Ricardo’s Theory of Value and Capital, in the Light of Later Elucidations”. In his foreword the author benevolently, but only in passing, referred to the article of Mr. Y. Zhukovsky: "The school of Adam Smith and Positivism in Economic Science" (this article appeared in the Sovremennik^^366^^ of 1864). On the subject of this passing reference Mr. Mikhailovsky remarks: "It is pleasant for me to recall that in my article ’On the Literary Activity of Y. G. Zhukovsky’ I paid a great and just tribute to the services rendered by our economist. I pointed out that Mr. Zhukovsky had long ago expressed the thought that it was necessary to return to the sources of political economy, which provide all the data for a correct solution of the main problems of science, data which have been quite distorted by the modern text-book political economy. But I then indicated also that the honour of priority in this idea, which later on proved so fruitful in the powerful hands of Karl Marx, belonged in Russian literature not to Mr. Zhukovsky, but to another writer, the author of the articles ‘Economic Activity and Legislation’ (Sovremennik, 1859), ‘Capital and Labour’ (1860), the Comments on Mill, etc.^^367^^ In addition to priority in time, the difference between this writer and Mr. Zhukovsky can be expressed most vividly in the following way. If, for example, Mr. Zhukovsky circumstantially and in a strictly scientific fashion, even somewhat pedantically, proves that labour is the measure of value and that every value is produced by labour, the author 525 of the above-mentioned articles, without losing sight of the theoretical aspect of the question, lays principal stress on the logical and practical conclusion from it: being produced and measured by labour, every value must belong to labour."  [525•*  One does not have to be greatly versed in political economy to know that the "author of the Comments on Mill " entirely failed to understand the theory of value which later received such brilliant development "in the powerful hands of Marx”. And every person who knows the history of socialism understands why that author, in spite of Mr. Mikhailovsky’s assurances, did in fact "lose sight of the theoretical aspect of the question" and wandered off into meditations about the basis on which products ought to be exchanged in a well-regulated society. The author of the Comments on Mill regarded economic questions from the standpoint of a Utopian.  This was quite natural at the time. But it is very strange that Mr. Mikhailovsky was unable to divest himself of this point of view in the 70s (and did not do so even later, otherwise the would have corrected his mistake in the latest edition of his works) when it was easy to acquire a more correct view of things, even from popular works. Mr. Mikhailovsky did not understand what "the author of the Comments on Mill " wrote about value. This took place because he, too, "lost sight of the theoretical aspect of the question" and wandered off into the "logical and practical conclusion from it” , i.e., the consideration that "every value must belong to labour”. We know already that their passion for practical conclusions always had a harmful effect on the theoretical reasoning of the Utopians. And how old is the " conclusion" which turned Mr. Mikhailovsky from the true path is shown by the circumstance that it was being drawn from Ricardo’s theory of value by the English Utopians even of the 1820s. But, as a Utopian, Mr. Mikhailovsky is not interested even in the history of Utopias.

p Another example. Mr. V. V., in 1882, explained in the following way the appearance of his book, The Destinies of Capitalism in Russia :

p “The collection now offered to the reader consists of articles printed earlier in various journals. In publishing them as a separate book, we have brought them only into external unity, disposed the material in a somewhat different fashion and eliminated repetitions" (far from all: very many of them remained in Mr. V. V.’s book.—G.P.). "Their content has remained the same; few new facts and arguments have been adduced; and if nevertheless we venture for a second time to present our work to the attention of 526 the reader, we do so with one sole aim—by attacking his world outlook with all the weapons at our command, to force the intelligentsia to turn its attention to the question raised" (an impressive picture: "With all the weapons at his command”, Mr V. V. attacks the world outlook of the reader, and the terrified intelligentsia capitulates, turns its attention, etc.—G.P.) "and to challenge our learned and professional publicists of capitalism and Narodism to study the law of the economic development of Russia—the foundation of all the other expressions of the life of the country. Without the knowledge of this law, systematic and successful social activity is impossible, while the conceptions of the immediate future of Russia which prevail amongst us can scarcely be called a law" (conceptions ... can be called law? !— G.P.) "and are hardly capable of providing a firm foundation for a practical world outlook" (Preface, p. 1).

p In 1893 the same Mr. V. V., who had had time to become a “professional”, though, alas! still not a “learned” publicist of Narodism, turned out to be very remote from the idea that the law of economic development constitutes "the foundation of all the other expressions of the life of the country”. Now "with all the weapons" he attacks the "world outlook" of people who hold such a “view”; now he considers that in this "view, the historical process, instead of being the creation of man, is transformed into a creative force, and man into its obedient tool"  [526•* ; now he considers social relations to be "the creation of the spiritual world of man”,  [526•**  and views with extreme suspicion the theory of the conformity to law of social phenomena, setting up against it "the scientific philosophy of history of Professor of History N. I. Kareyev" (hear, O tongues, and be stilled, since the Professor himself is with us! ).  [526•*** ~^^368^^

p What a change, with God’s help! What brought it about? Why, this. In 1882, Mr. V. V. was looking for the "law of the economic development of Russia”, imagining that that law would be only the scientific expression of his own “ideals”.  He was even convinced that he had discovered such a “law”—namely, the “law” that Russian capitalism was stillborn. But after this he did not live eleven whole years in vain. He was obliged to admit, even though not aloud, that stillborn capitalism was developing more and more. It turned out that the development of capitalism had become all but the most unquestionable "law of the economic development of Russia”. And lo, Mr. V. V. hastened to turn his "philosophy of history" inside out: he who had sought for a “law” began to say 527 that such a search is quite an idle waste of time. The Russian Utopian is not averse to relying on a “law”; but he immediately renounces it, as Peter did Jesus, if only the “law” is at variance with that “ideal” which he has to support, not only for fear, but for conscience’ satfe. However Mr. V. V. even now has not parted company with the “law” for ever. "The natural striving to systematise its views ought to bring the Russian intelligentsia to the elaboration of an independent scheme of evolution of economic relations, appropriate to the requirements and the conditions of development of this country; and this task will be undoubtedly performed in the very near future" (Our Trends , p.114). In “elaborating” its "independent scheme”, the Russian intelligentsia will evidently devote itself to the same occupation as Mr. V. V. when, in his Destinies of Capitalism, he was looking for a “law”. When the scheme is discovered—and Mr. V. V. takes his Bible oath that it will be discovered in the immediate future—our author will just as solemnly make his peace with the principle of conformity to law, as the father in the New Testament made his peace with his prodigal son. Amusing people! It is obvious that, even at the time when Mr. V. V. was still looking for a “law”, he did not clearly realise what meaning this word could have when applied to social phenomena. He regarded “law” as the Utopians of the 20s regarded it. Only this can explain the fact that he was hoping to discover the law of development of one country— Russia. But why does he attribute his modes of thought to the Russian Marxists? He is mistaken if he thinks that, in their understanding of the conformity of social phenomena to law, they have gone no further than the Utopians did. And that he does think this, is shown by all his arguments against it. And he is not alone in thinking this: the "Professor of History" Mr. Kareyev himself thinks this; and so do all the opponents of “Marxism”. First of all they attribute to Marxists a Utopian view of the conformity to law of social phenomena, and then strike down this view with more or less doubtful success. A real case of tilting at windmills!

p By the way, about the learned "Professor of History”. Here are the expressions in which he recommends the subjective view of the historical development of humanity: "If in the philosophy of history we are interested in the question of progress, this very fact dictates the selection of the essential content of knowledge, its facts and their grouping. But facts cannot be either invented or placed in invented relations" (consequently there must be nothing arbitrary either in the selection or in the grouping? Consequently the grouping must entirely correspond to objective reality? Yes! Just listen! —G.P.) "and the presentation of the course of history from a certain point of view will remain objective, in the sense of the truth of the presentation. Here subjectivism of another kind 528 appears on the scene: creative synthesis may bring into existence an entire ideal world of norms, a world of what ought to be, a world of the true and just, with which actual history, i.e., the objective representation of its course, grouped in a certain way from the standpoint of essential changes in the life of humanity, will be compared. On the basis of this comparison there arises an assessment of the historical process which, however, must also not be arbitrary. It must be proved that the grouped facts, as we have them, really do have the significance which we attribute to them, having taken up a definite point of view and adopted a definite criterion for their evaluation."

p Shchedrin^^369^^ writes of a "venerable Moscow historian" who, boasting of his objectivity, used to say: "It’s all the same to me whether Yaroslav beat Izyaslav or Izyaslav beat Yaroslav.” Mr. Kareyev, having created for himself an "entire ideal world of norms, a world of what ought to be, a world of the true and just”, has nothing to do with objectivity of that kind. He sympathises, shall we say, with Yaroslav, and although he will not allow himself to represent his defeat as though it were his victory “(facts cannot be invented”), nevertheless he reserves the precious right of shedding a tear or two about the sad fate of Yaroslav, and cannot refrain from a curse addressed to his conqueror Izyaslav. It is difficult to raise any objection to that kind of “subjectivism”. But in vain does Mr. Kareyev represent it in such a colourless and therefore harmless plight. To present it in this way means not to understand its true nature, and to drown it in a stream of sentimental phraseology. In reality, the distinguishing feature of “subjective” thinkers consists in the fact that for them the "world of what ought to be, the world of the true and just" stands outside any connection with the objective course of historical development: on the one side is "what ought to be”, on the other side is “reality”, and these two spheres are separated by an entire abyss—that abyss which among the dualists separates the material world from the spiritual world^^370^^ . The task of social science in the nineteenth century has been, among other things, to build a bridge across this evidently bottomless abyss. So long as we do not build this bridge, we shall of necessity close our eyes to reality and concentrate all our attention on "what ought to be " (as the Saint-Sirnonists did, for example): which naturally will only have the effect of delaying the translation into life of this "what ought to be” , since it renders more difficult the forming of an accurate opinion of it.

p We already know that the historians of the Restoration, in contradistinction to the writers of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, regarded the political institutions of any country as the result of its civil conditions. This new view became so widespread and developed that in its application to practical 529 questions it reached strange extremes which to us nowadays are almost incomprehensible. Thus, J. B. Say asserted that political questions should not interest an economist, because the national economy can develop equally well even under diametrically opposite political systems. Saint-Simon notes and applauds this idea of Say’s, although in fact he does give it a somewhat more profound content. With very few exceptions, all the Utopians of the nineteenth century share this view of “politics”.

p Theoretically the view is mistaken in two respects. In the first place, the people who held it forgot that in the life of society, as everywhere where it is a case of a process and not of some isolated phenomenon, a consequence becomes, in its turn, a cause, and a cause proves to be a consequence. In short, they abandoned here, at quite the wrong moment, that very point of view of interaction to which in other cases, also at very much the wrong moment, they limited their analysis. Secondly, if political relations are the consequences of social relations, it is incomprehensible how consequences which differ to the extreme (political institutions of a diametrically opposite character) can be brought about by one and the same cause—the same state of “wealth”. Evidently the very conception of the causal relationship between the political institutions of a country and its economic condition was still extremely vague; and in fact it would not be difficult to show how vague it was with all the Utopians.

p In practice this vagueness brought about a double consequence. On the one hand the Utopians, who spoke so much about the organisation of labour , were ready occasionally to repeat the old watchword or the eighteenth century—"laissez faire, laissez passer”. Thus, Saint-Simon, who saw in the organisation of industry the greatest task of the nineteenth century, wrote: "Findustrie a besom d’etre gouvernee le moins possible.” “(Industry has need of being governed as little as possible.”)  [529•*  On the other hand the Utopians—again with some exceptions falling in the later periodwere quite indifferent to current politics, to the political questions of the day.

p The political system is a consequence, not a cause. A consequence always remains a consequence, never becoming in its turn a cause. Hence followed the almost direct conclusion that “politics” cannot serve as a means of realising social and economic “ideals”. We can therefore understand the psychology of the Utopian who 530 turned away from politics. But what did they think would help them realise their plans of social transformation? What was it they pinned their practical hopes on? Everything and nothing. Everything—m the sense that they awaited help indifferently from the most opposed quarters. Nothing—in the sense that all their hopes were quite unfounded.

p The Utopians imagined that they were extremely practical people. They hated “doctrinaires”,^^371^^ and unhesitatingly sacrificed their most high-sounding principles to their own idecs fixes. They were neither Liberals, nor Conservatives, nor Monarchists, nor Republicans. They were quite ready to march indifferently with the Liberals and with the Conservatives, with the Monarchists and with the Republicans, if only they could carry out their " practical"— their view, extremely practical—plans. Of the old Utopians Fourier was particularly noteworthy in this respect. Like Gogol’s Kostanjoglo, he tried to use every piece of rubbish for the good cause. Now he allured money-lenders with the prospect of the vast interest which their capital would bring them in the future society; now he appealed to the lovers of melons and artichokes, drawing for them a seductive picture of the excellent melons and artichokes of the future; now the assured Louis Philippe that the princesses of the House of Orleans, at whom at the time other princes of the blood were turning up their noses, would have no peace from suitors under the new social order. He snatched at every straw. But, alas! neither the money-lenders, nor the lovers of melons and artichokes, nor the "Citizen King”, as they say, pricked up an ear: they did not pay the slightest attention to what, it might have seemed, were the most convincing arguments of Fourier. His practicality turned out to be doomed beforehand to failure, and to be a hopeless chase after a lucky coincidence.

p The chase of the lucky coincidence was the constant occupation of the writers of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century as well. It was just in hope of such a coincidence that they sought by every means, fair and foul, to enter into friendly relations with more or less enlightened “legislators” and aristocrats of their age. Usually it is thought that once a man has said to himself that opinion governs the world, he no longer has any reason to despair of the future: la raison finira pas avoir raison. But this is not so. When and in what way will reason triumph? The writers of the Enlightenment held that in the life of society everything depends, in the long run, on the “legislator”. Therefore they went on their search for legislators. But the same writers knew very well that the character and views of man depend on his upbringing, and that generally speaking their upbringing did not predispose the " legislators" to the absorption of enlightened doctrines. Therefore they could not but realise that little hope could be placed in the 531 legislators. There remained only to trust to a lucky coincidence. Imagine that you have an enormous box in which there are very many black balls and two or three white ones. You take out ball after ball. In each individual case you have incomparably fewer chances of taking out a white ball than a black. But, if you repeat the operation a sufficient number of times, you will finally take out a white ball. The same applies to the “legislators”. In each individual case it is incomparably more probable that the legislator will be against the “philosophers”: but in the end there must appear, after all, a legislator who would be in agreement with the philosophers. This one will do everything that reason dictates. Thus, literally thus , did Helvetius argue.  [531•*  The subjective idealist view of history “(opinions govern the world”), which seems to provide such a wide field for man’s freedom of action, in reality represents him as the plaything of accident. That is why this view in its essence is very hopeless.

p Thus, for example, we know nothing more hopeless than the views of the Utopians of the end of the nineteenth century, i.e., the Russian Narodniks and subjective sociologists. Each of them has his ready-made plan for saving the Russian village commune, and with it the peasantry generally: each of them has his "formula of progress”. But, alas, life moves on, without paying attention to their formulae, which have nothing left but to find their own path, also independently of real life, into the sphere of abstractions, fantasies and logical mischances. Let us, for example, listen to the Achilles of the subjective school, Mr. Mikhailovsky.

p “The labour question in Europe is a revolutionary question since it requires the transfer of the conditions" (? ) "of labour into the hands of the labourer, the expropriation of the present owners. The labour question in Russia is a conservative question, since here all that is needed is preserving the conditions of labour in the hands of the labourer, guaranteeing to the present owners the property they possess. Quite close to St. Petersburg itself ... in, a district dotted with factories, works, parks, country cottages, there are villages the inhabitants of which live on their own land, burn their own timber, eat their own bread, wear coats and sheepskins made by their own labour out of the wool of their own sheep. Give them a firm guarantee that this property of theirs will remain their own, and the Russian labour question is solved. And for the sake of such a purpose everything else can be given up, if we properly understand the significance of a stable guarantee. It will be said: but we cannot for ever remain with wooden ploughs 532 and three-field economy, with antediluvian methods of making coats and sheepskins. We cannot. There are two ways out of lliis difficulty. One, approved by the practical point of view, is very simple and convenient: raise the tariffs, dissolve the village commune, and that probably will be enough—industry like that of Great Britain will grow up like a mushroom. But it will devour the labourer and expropriate him. There is another way, of course much more difficult: but the simple solution of a question is not necessarily the correct solution. The other way consists in developing those relations between labour and property which already exist, although in an extremely crude and primitive form. Obviously this end cannot be achieved without broad intervention by the state, the first act of which should be the legislative consolidation of the village commune."  [532•* 

p Through the wide world For the free heart There are two paths still. Weigh your proud strength, Bend your firm mind, Choose which you will! = ^^372^^

p We suspect that all the arguments of our author have a strong aroma of melons and artichokes; and our sense of smell hardly deceives us. What was Fourier’s mistake in his dealings with melons and artichokes? It was that he fell into "subjective sociology”. The objective sociologist would ask himself: is there any probability that the lovers of melons and artichokes will be attracted by the picture I have drawn? He would then ask himself: are the lovers of melons and artichokes in a position to alter existing social relations and the present course of their development? It is most probable that he would have given himself a negative reply to each of these questions, and therefore would not have wasted his time on conversation with the "melon and artichoke lovers”. But that is how an objective sociologist would have acted, i.e., a man who founded all his calculations upon the given course of social development in conformity to law. The subjective sociologist, on the other hand, discards conformity to law in the name of the “desirable”, and therefore there remains no other way put for him but to trust in chance. As the old Russian saying has it, in a tight corner you can shoot with a stick too: that is the only consoling reflection upon which a good subjective sociologist can rely.

p In a tight corner you can shoot with a stick too. But a stick has two ends, and we do not know which end it shoots from. Our Narodniks and, if I may use the expression, subjectivists have 533 already tried a vast number of sticks (even the argument as to the convenience of collecting arrears of taxes in the village-commune system of landholding has sometimes appeared in the role of a magic stick). In the vast majority of cases the sticks proved quite incapable of playing the part of guns, and when by chance they did fire, the bullets hit the Narodniks and subjectivists themselves. Let us recall the Peasant Bank.^^373^^ What hopes were placed upon it, in the sense of reinforcing our social "foundations ’! How the Narodniks rejoiced when it was opened! And what happened? The stick fired precisely at those who were rejoicing. Now they themselves admit that the Peasant Bank—a very valuable institution in any case—only undermines the “foundations”; and this admission is equivalent to a confession that those who rejoiced were—at least for some time—also engaged in idle chatter.^^374^^

p “But then the Bank undermines the foundations only because its statutes and its practice do not completely correspond to our idea. If our idea had been completely applied, the results would have been quite different...."

p “In the first place, they would not have been quite different at all: the Bank in any case would have facilitated the development of money economy, and money economy would inexorably have undermined the ’foundations’. And secondly, when we hear these endless ’ifs’, it seems all the time to us, for some reason, that there is a man with a barrow shouting under our windows: ’Here are melons, melons, and good artichokes!’"

p It was already in the 20s of the present century that the French Utopians were incessantly pointing out the “conservative” character of the reforms they had invented. Saint-Simon openly tried to frighten both the government and what we nowadays call society with a popular insurrection, which was meant to present itself to the imaginations of the “conservatives” in the shape of the terrible movement of the sansculottes, still vividly remembered by all. But of course nothing came of this frightening, and if history really provides us with any lessons, one of the most instructive is that which attests the complete unpracticality of all the plans of all the would-be practical Utopians.

p When the Utopians, pointing to the conservative character of their plans, tried to incline the government to put them into effect, they usually, to confirm their idea, presented a survey of the historical development of their country over a more or less prolonged epoch—a survey from which it followed that on these or those particular occasions “mistakes” were made, which had given a quite new and extremely undesirable aspect to all social relations. The government had only to realise and correct these “mistakes” immediately to establish on earth something almost resembling paradise.

534

p Thus, Saint-Simon assured the Bourbons that before the revolution the main distinguishing feature of the internal development of France was an alliance between the monarchy and the industrialists. This alliance was equally advantageous for both sides. During the revolution the government, through a misunderstanding , came out against the legitimate demands of the industrialists, and the industrialists, through just as sad a misunderstanding , revolted against the monarchy. Hence all the evils of the age that followed. But now that the root of the evil had been laid bare things could be put straight very easily, as the industrialists had only to make their peace on certain conditions with the government. It is this that would be the most reasonable, conservative way out of the numerous difficulties of both sides. It is unnecessary to add now that neither the Bourbons nor the industrialists followed the sage advice of Saint-Simon.

p “Instead of firmly keeping to our age-old traditions; instead of developing the principle of the intimate connection between the means of production and the direct producer, which we inherited; instead of taking advantage of the acquisitions of West European science and applying them for the development of forms of industry, founded on the possession by the peasantry of the implements of production; instead of increasing the productivity of its labour by concentrating the means of production in its hands; instead of taking advantage, not of the form of production, but of its very organisation as it appears in Western Europe ... instead of all this, we have taken a quite opposite path. We not only have not prevented the development of the capitalist forms of production, in spite of the fact that they are founded on the expropriation of the peasantry, but on the contrary have tried with all our strength to promote the complete break-up of all our economic life, a break-up which led to the famine of 1891."  [534•*  Thus laments Mr. N.—on, recommending “society” to correct this mistake by solving an "extremely difficult" but not “impossible” problem: "to develop the productive forces of the population in such a form that not an insignificant minority, but the entire people could take advantage of them."  [534•**  Everything depends upon correcting the “mistake”.

p It is interesting that Mr. N.—on imagines himself to be ever so foreign to any Utopias. Every minute he makes references to people to whom we owe the scientific criticism of Utopian so- cialism.^^375^^ Everything depends on the country’s economy, he repeats in season and out of season, echoing these people, and 535 all the evil springs from this: "Therefore the means to eliminate the evil, once it has been discovered, must consist likewise in altering the very conditions of production.” To explain this he once again quotes one of the critics of Utopian socialism: "These means are not to be invented by deduction from fundamental principles, but are to be discovered in the stubborn facts of the existing system of production."  [535•* 

p But in what, then, consist those "stubborn facts of the existing system of production" which will move society to solve, or at least to understand, the problem presented to it by Mr. N.—on? This remains a mystery not only to the reader but, of course, to the author himself as well. By his “problem” he has very convincingly demonstrated that in his historical views he remains a full-blooded Utopian, in spite of his quotations from the works of quite nonutopian writers.  [535•** 

p Can it be said that the plans of Fourier contradicted the " stubborn facts" of production in his times? No, not only did they not contradict them, but they were entirely founded upon those facts, even in their defects. But this did not prevent Fourier from being a Utopian, because, once having founded his plan "by deduction" on the material conditions of the production of his age, he failed to adapt its realisation to those same conditions, and therefore with complete futility pestered with his "great task" those social strata and classes which, in virtue of those same material conditions, could not have cither the inclination to set about its solution or the possibility of solving it. Mr. N.—on sins in this way just as much as Fourier or the Rodbertus whom he loves so little: most of all he reminds one precisely of Rodbertus, because Mr. N.—on’s reference to age-old traditions is just in the spirit of that conservative writer.

536

p For the better instruction of “society”, Mr. N.—on points to the terrifying example of Western Europe. By such observations our Utopians have long attempted to give themselves the aspect of positive people, who don’t get carried away by fantasies but know how to take advantage of the "lessons of history”. However this method, too, is not at all new. The French Utopians were already attempting to terrify their contemporaries and make them listen to reason by the example of England , where "a vast distance separates the employer from the workman" and where there hangs over the latter the yoke of a special kind of despotism. "Other countries which follow England along the path of industrial development,” said the Producteur,^^376^^ "must ^understand that they ought to search for the means to prevent such a system arising on their own soil."  [536•*  The only real obstacle to the appearance of English methods in other countries could be the Saint-Simonists’ "organisation of labour and labourers".  [536•**  With the development of the labour movement in France it was Germany that became the principal theatre of day-dreams about avoiding capitalism. Germany, in the person of her Utopians, long and stubbornly set herself up against "Western Europe" (den westlichen Landern). In the Western countries, said the German Utopians, the bearer of the idea of a new organisation of society is the working class, with us it is the educated classes (what is called in Russia the intelligentsia). It was precisely the German “intelligentsia” which was thought to be called upon to avert from Germany the cup of capitalism.  [536•***  Capitalism was so terrifying to 537 the German Utopians that, for the sake of avoiding it, they were ready in the last resort to put up with complete stagnation. The triumph of a constitutional system, they argued, would lead to the supremacy of the money aristocracy. Therefore let there rather be no constitutional system.  [537•*  Germany did not avoid capitalism. Now it is the Russian Utopians who talk about avoiding it. Thus do Utopian ideas journey from west to east, everywhere appearing as the heralds of the victory of that same capitalism against which they are revolting and struggling. But the further they penetrate into the east the more their historical significance changes. The French Utopians were in their day bold innovators of genius; the 538 Germans proved much lower than they; and the Russians are now capable only of frightening Western people by their antediluvian appearance.

p It is interesting that even the writers of the French Enlightenment had the idea of avoiding capitalism. Thus, Holbach was very upset by the fact that the triumph of the constitutional order in England led to the complete supremacy of I’interet sordide des marchands. He was very saddened by the circumstance that the English were tirelessly looking for new markets—this chase of markets distracted them from philosophy. Holbach also condemned the inequality of property existing in England. Like Helvetius, he would have liked to prepare the way for the triumph of reason and equality, and not of mercantile interests. But neither Holbach nor Helvetius, nor any other of the writers of the Enlightenment could put forwad anything against the then course of events except panegyrics of reason and moral instructions addressed to the "people of Albion”. In this respect they were just as impotent as our own present-day Russian Utopians.

p One more remark, and we shall have finished with the Utopians. The point of view of "human nature " brought forth in the first half of the nineteenth century that abuse of biological analogies which, even up to the present day, makes itself very strongly felt in Western sociological—and particularly in Russian quasisociological—literature.

p If the cause of all historical social progress is to be sought in the nature of man, and if, as Saint-Simon himself justly remarks, society consists of individuals, then the nature of the individual has to provide the key to the explanation of history.The nature of the individual is the subject of physiology in the broad sense of the word, i.e., of a science which also covers psychological phenomena. That is why physiology, in the eyes of Saint-Simon and his followers, was the basis of sociology, which they called social physics. In the Opinions philosophiques, litteraires et industrielles published during Saint-Simon’s lifetime and with his active participation, there was printed an extremely interesting but unfortunately unfinished article of an anonymous Doctor of Medicine , entitled: "De la physiologic appliquee a I’amelioration des Institutions sociales.” The author considered the science of society to be a component part of “general physiology” which, enriched by the observations and experiments of "special physiology " of the individual, "devotes itself to considerations of a higher order”. Individuals are for it "only organs of the social body”, the functions of which it studies "just as special physiology studies the functions of individuals". General physiology studies (the author writes: “expresses”) the laws of social existence, to which the written laws should conform. Later on the bourgeois sociologists, 539 as for example Spencer, made use of the doctrine of the social organism to draw the most conservative conclusions. But the Doctor of Medicine whom we quote was first of all a reformer.  He studied "the social body" with the object of social reconstruction , since only "social physiology" and the “hygiene” closely bound up with it provided "the positive foundations on which it is possible to build the system of social organisation required by the present state of the civilised world”. But evidently social physiology and hygiene did not provide much food for the reforming fantasy of the author because in the end he found himself obliged to turn to the doctors, i.e., to persons dealing with individual organisms, asking them to give to society, "in the form of a hygienic prescription” , a "system of social organisation".

p This view of "social physics " was later on chewed over—or, if you prefer, developed—by Auguste Comte in his various works. Here is what he said about social science still in his youth, when he was writing in the Saint-Simonist Producteur: "Social phenomena, being human phenomena, should without doubt be classed among physiological phenomena. But although social physics must find its point of departure in, and be in constant connection with, individual physiology, it nevertheless should be examined and developed as quite a separate science: for various generations of men progressively influence one another. If we maintain the purely physiological point of view, we cannot properly study that influence: yet its evaluation should occupy the principal place in social physics."  [539•* 

p Now you can see what hopeless contradictions confront those who regard society from this point of view.

p In the first place, since "social physics" has individual physiology as its "point of departure”, it is built on a purely materialist foundation: in physiology there is no place for an idealist view of an object. But the same social physics was principally to concern itself with evaluating the progressive influence of one generation on another. One generation influences the next, passing on to it both the knowledge which it inherited from previous generations, and the knowledge which it acquired itself. "Social physics" therefore examines the development of the human species from the point of view of the development of knowledge and of " enlightenment" (lumieres). This is already the purely idealist point of view of the eighteenth century: opinions govern the world. Having "closely connected”, on Comte’s advice, this idealist point of view with the purely materialist point of view of individual 540 physiology, we turn out to be dualists of the purest water, and nothing is easier than to trace the harmful influence of this dualism on the sociological views even of the same Comte. But this is not all. The thinkers of the eighteenth century noticed that in the development of knowledge there is a certain conformity to law. Comte firmly maintained such a conformity, putting into the foreground the so-called law of three stages: theological, metaphysical and positive.

p But why does the development of knowledge pass precisely through these stages? Such is the nature of the human mind, replies Comte: "By its nature (par sa nature), the human mind passes wherever it acts through three different theoretical conditions."  [540•*  Excellent; but to study that “nature” we shall have to turn to individual physiology, and individual physiology does not give us an adequate explanation; and we have again to refer to previous “generations”—and the “generations” again send us back to “nature”. This is called a science, but there is no trace of science in it: there is only an endless movement round a vicious circle.

p Our own allegedly original, “subjective” sociologists fully share the view-point of the French Utopian of the 20s.

p “While I was still under the influence of Nozhin,” Mr. Mikhailovsky tells us about himself, "and partly under his guidance, I interested myself in the question of the boundaries between biology and sociology, and the possibility of bringing them together.... I cannot sufficiently highly assess the advantage I gained from communion with the ideas of Nozhin: but nevertheless there was much in them that was accidental, partly because they were still only developing in Nozhin himself, partly because of his limited knowledge in the sphere of the natural sciences. I received from Nozhin really only an impulse in a certain direction, but it was a strong, decisive and beneficent impulse. Without thinking of any special study of biology, I nevertheless read a great deal on Nozhin’s suggestion and, as it were, by his testament. This new trend in my reading threw an original and most absorbing light on that considerable—though disorderly, and to some extent simply useless—material, both of facts and ideas, which I had stored up previously."  [540•** 

p Nozhin has been described by Mr. Mikhailovsky in his sketches On This and That , under the name of Bukhartsev. Bukhartsev "dreamed of reforming the social sciences with the help of natural science, and had already worked out an extensive plan for that purpose”. The methods of this reforming activity can be seen from 541 the following. Bukhartsev undertakes to translate into Russian from the Latin an extensive treatise on zoology, and accompanies the translation with his own footnotes, in which he proposes "to include the results of all his independent work”, while to these footnotes he adds new footnotes of a “sociological” character. Mr. Mikhailovsky obligingly acquaints the reader with one such footnote to a footnote: "Generally speaking, I cannot in my supplements to Van der Hoeven proceed too far in theoretical discussions and conclusions regarding the application of all these purely anatomical questions in solving social and economic questions. Therefore I again only draw the attention of the reader to the fact that my whole anatomical and embryological theory has as its main object the discovery of the laws of the physiology of society, and therefore all my later works will, of course, be founded on the scientific data set forth by me in this book."  [541•* 

p Anatomical and embryological theory "has as its main object the discovery of the laws of the physiology of society"! This is very awkwardly put, but nevertheless is very characteristic of the Utopian sociologists. He constructs an anatomical theory, with the help of which he intends to write out a number of "hygienic prescriptions" for the society surrounding him. It is to these prescriptions that his social “physiology” is reduced. The social “physiology” of Bukhartsev is, strictly speaking, not “physiology” but the “hygiene” with which we are already acquainted: not a science of what is, but a science of what ought to be, on the basis ... of the "anatomical and embryological theory" of that same Bukhartsev.

p Although Bukhartsev has been copied from Nozhin, he, nevertheless, represents to a certain extent the product of the artistic and creative work of Mr. Mikhailovsky (that is, if we can speak of artistic work in relation to the sketches quoted). Consequently even his awkward footnote, perhaps, never existed in reality. In that event it is all the more characteristic of Mr. Mikhailovsky, who speaks of it with great respect.

p “I chanced nevertheless to come across the direct reflection in literature of the ideas of my unforgettable friend and teacher,” says Tyomkin, in whose name the story is told. Mr. Mikhailovsky reflected, and still reflects, the ideas of Bukhartsev-Nozhin.

p Mr. Mikhailovsky has his own "formula of progress”. This formula declares: "Progress is the gradual approach to the integrity of the individual, to the fullest possible and most manifold division of labour between institutions and the least possible division of labour between people. Anything retarding this movement is immoral, unjust, harmful and unreasonable. Only that is moral, 542 just, reasonable and useful which diminishes the heterogeneity of society, thereby increasing the heterogeneity of its individual members."  [542•* 

p What can be the scientific significance of this formula? Does it explain the historical progress of society? Does it tell how that progress took place, and why it took place in one particular way and not in another? Not in the least: and its "main object" is not that at all. It does not speak of how history advanced, but of how it ought to have advanced to earn the approval of Mr. Mikhailovsky. This is a "hygienic prescription" invented by a Utopian on the basis of "exact investigations of the laws of organic development”. It is just what the Saint-Simonist Doctor was looking for.

p ..."We have said that the exclusive use in sociology of the objective method would be equivalent, if it were possible, to adding up arshins and poods  [542•** : whence, by the way, it follows, not that the objective method must be completely eliminated from this sphere of research, but that the supreme control must be exercised by the subjective method."  [542•*** 

“This sphere of research" is precisely the “physiology” of the desired society , the sphere of Utopia. Naturally the use of the "subjective method" in it very much facilitates the work of the “investigator”.  But this use is based not at all on any “laws”, but on the "enchantment of charming fantasy"^^379^^ ; whoever once has given way to it, will never revolt even against the use in one and the same “sphere”—true, on different levels—of both methods, subjective and objective, even though such a confusion of methods really does mean "adding up arshins and poods".  [542•****