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p The materialists of the eighteenth century were firmly convinced that they had succeeded in dealing the death-blow to idealism. They regarded it as an obsolete and completely forsaken theory. But a reaction against materialism began already at the end of that century, and in the first half of the nineteenth century materialism itself fell into the position of a system which all considered obsolete and buried, once for all. Idealism not only came to life again, but underwent an unprecedented and truly brilliant development. There were, of course, appropriate social reasons for this: but we will not touch on them here, and will only consider whether the idealism of the nineteenth century had any advantages over the materialism of the previous epoch and, if it had, in what these advantages consisted.

p French materialism displayed an astonishing and today scarcely credible feebleness every time it came upon questions of evolution in nature or in history. Let us take, for example, the origin of man. Although the idea of the gradual evolution of this species did not seem “contradictory” to the materialists, nevertheless they thought such a “guess” to be most improbable. The authors of the Systeme de la Nature (see Part I, ch. 6) say that if anyone were to revolt against such a piece of conjecture, if anyone were to object "that Nature acts with the help of a certain sum of general and invariable laws”, and added in doing so that "man, the quadruped, the fish, the insect, the plant, etc., exist from the beginning of time and remain eternally unaltered" they "would not object to this”. They would only remark that such a view also does not contradict the truths they set forth. "Man cannot possibly know everything: he cannot know his origin"—that is all that in the end the authors of the Systeme de la Nature say about this important question.

p Helvetius seems to be more inclined to the idea of the gradual evolution of man. "Matter is eternal, but its forms are variable," 544 he remarks, recalling that even now human natures change under the influence of climate.  [544•*  He even considered that generally speaking all animal species were variable. But this sound idea was formulated by him very strangely. It followed, in his view, that the causes of " dissimilarity" between the different species of animals and vegetables lie either in the qualities of their very “embryos”, or in the differences of their environment, the differences of their “upbringing”.  [544•** 

p Thus heredity excludes mutability, and vice versa. If we adopt the theory of mutability, we must as a consequence presuppose that from any given “embryo” there can arise, in appropriate circumstances, any animal or vegetable: from the embryo of an oak, for example, a bull or a giraffe. Naturally such a “conjecture” could not throw any light on the question of the origin of species, and Helvetius himself, having once made it in passing, never returned to it again.

p Just as badly were the French materialists able to explain phenomena of social evolution. The various systems of “legislation” were represented by them solely as the product of the conscious creative activity of “legislators”; the various religious systems as the product of the cunning of priests, etc.

p This impotence of French materialism in face of questions of evolution in nature and in history made its philosophical content very poor. In its view of nature, that content was reduced to combating the one-sided conception of matter held by the dualists.  In its view of man it was confined to an endless repetition of, and some variations upon, Locke’s principle that there are no innate ideas. However valuable such repetition was in combating out-of-date moral and political theories, it could not have serious scientific value unless the materialists had succeeded in applying their conception to the explanation of the spiritual evolution of mankind. We have already said earlier that some very remarkable attempts were made in this direction by the French materialists (i.e., to be precise, by Helvetius), but that they ended in failure (and if they had succeeded, French materialism would have proved very strong in questions of evolution). The materialists, in their view of history, took up a purely idealistic standpoint—that opinions govern the world. Only at times, only very rarely, did materialism break into their historical reflections, in the shape of remarks that some stray atom, finding its way into the head of the “legislator” and causing in it a disturbance of the functions of the brain, might alter the course of 545 history for entire ages. Such materialism was essentially fatalism, and left no room for the foreseeing of events, i.e., for the conscious historical activity of thinking individuals.

p It is not surprising, therefore, that to capable and talented people who had not been drawn into the struggle of social forces in which materialism had been a terrible theoretical weapon of the extreme Left party this doctrine seemed dry, gloomy, melancholy. That was, for example, how Goethe spoke of it.^^380^^ In order that this reproach should cease to be deserved, materialism had to leave its dry and abstract mode of thought, and attempt to understand and explain "real life"—the complex and variegated chain of concrete phenomena—from its own point of view. But in its then form it was incapable of solving that great problem, and the latter was taken possession of by idealist philosophy.

p The main and final link in the development of that philosophy was the system of Hegel: therefore we shall refer principally to that system in our exposition.

p Hegel called metaphysical the point of view of those thinkersirrespective of whether they were idealists or materialists—who, failing to understand the development of phenomena, willy-nilly represent them to themselves and others as petrified, disconnected, incapable of passing one into another. To this point of view he opposed dialectics, which studies phenomena precisely in their development and, consequently, in their interconnection.

p According to Hegel, dialectics is the principle of all life. Frequently one meets people who, having expressed some abstract proposition, willingly recognise that perhaps they are mistaken, and that perhaps the exactly opposite point of view is correct. These are well-bred people, saturated to their finger tips with “tolerance”: live and let live, they say to their intellect. Dialectics has nothing in common with the sceptical tolerance of men of the world, but it, too, knows how to reconcile directly opposite abstract propositions. Man is mortal, we say, regarding death as something rooted in external circumstances and quite alien to the nature of living man. It follows that a man has two qualities: first of being alive, and secondly of also being mortal. But upon closer investigation it turns out that life itself bears in itself the germ of death, and that in general any phenomenon is contradictory, in the sense that it develops out of itself the elements which, sooner or later, will put an end to its existence and will transform it into its own opposite. Everything flows, everything changes; and there is no force capable of holding back this constant flux, or arresting this eternal movement. There is no force capable of resisting the dialectics of phenomena. Goethe personifies dialectics in the shape of a spirit^^381^^ :

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p In Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm ,
Wall’ich auf und ab ,
Webe hin und her!
Geburt und Grab ,
Ein ewiges Meer ,
Ein wechselnd Weben ,
Ein gluhend Leben ,
So schaff’ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit
Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.   [546•* 

p At a particular moment a moving body is at a particular spot, but at the same time it is outside it as well because, if it were only in that spot, it would, at least for that moment, become motionless.  Every motion is a dialectical process, a living contradiction, and as there is not a single phenomenon of nature in explaining which we do not have in the long run to appeal to motion, we have to agree with Hegel, who said that dialectics is the soul of any scientific cognition. And this applies not only to cognition of nature. What for example is the meaning of the old saw: summum jus, summa injuria? Does it mean that we act most justly when, having paid our tribute to law, we at the same time give its due to lawlessness? No, that is the interpretation only of "surface thinking, the mind of fools”. The saw means that every abstract justice, carried to its logical conclusion, is transformed into injustice, i.e., into its own opposite. Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice serves as a brilliant illustration of this. Take a look at economic phenomena. What is the logical conclusion of "free competition"? Every capitalist strives to beat his competitors and to remain sole master of the market. And, of course, cases are frequent when some Rothschild or Vanderbilt succeeds in happily fulfilling this ambition. But this shows that free competition leads to monopoly, that is to the negation of competition,’ i.e., to its own opposite. Or look at the conclusion to which the so-called labour principle of property , extolled by our Narodnik literature, leads. Only that belongs to me which has been created by my labour. Nothing can be more just than that. And it is no less just that I use the thing I have created at 547 my own free discretion: I use it myself or I exchange it for something else, which for some reason I need more. It is equally just, then, that I make use of the thing I have secured by exchange—again at my free discretion—as I find best and most pleasant and advantageous. Let us now suppose that I have sold the product of my own labour for money, and have used the money to hire a labourer, i.e., I have bought somebody else’s labour-power. Having taken advantage of this labour-power of another, I turn out to be the owner of value which is considerably higher than the value I spent on its purchase. This, on the one hand, is very just, because it has already been recognised, after all, that I can use what I have secured by exchange as is best and most advantageous for myself: and, on the other hand, it is very unjust, because I am exploiting the labour of another and thereby negating the principle which lay at the foundation of my conception of justice. The property acquired by my personal labour bears me the property created by the labour of another. Summum jus, summa injuria. And such injuria springs up by the very nature of things in the economy of almost any well-to-do handicraftsman, almost every prosperous peasant.  [547•* 

p And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite.

p We have said that the idealist German philosophy regarded all phenomena from the point of view of their evolution, and that this is what is meant by regarding then dialectic ally. It must be remarked that the metaphysicians know how to distort the very doctrine of evolution itself. They affirm that neither in nature nor in history are there any leaps. When they speak of the origin of some phenomenon or social institution, they represent matters as though this phenomenon or institution was once upon a time very tiny, quite unnoticeable, and then gradually grew up. When it is a question of destroying this or that phenomenon and institution, they presuppose, on the contrary, its gradual diminution, 548 continuing up to the point when the phenomenon becomes quite unnoticeable on account of its microscopic dimensions. Evolution conceived of in this way explains absolutely nothing; it presupposes the existence of the phenomena which it has to explain, and reckons only with the quantitative changes which take place in them. The supremacy of metaphysical thought was once so powerful in natural science that many naturalists could not imagine evolution otherwise than just in the form of such a gradual increase or diminution of the magnitude of the phenomenon being investigated. Although from the time of Harvey it was already recognised that "everything living develops out of the egg” , no exact conception was finked, evidently, with such development from the egg, and the discovery of spermatozoa immediately provided the basis for the appearance of theory according to which in the seminal cell there already existed a ready-made, completely developed but microscopical little animal, so that all its “development” amounted to growth.  Some wise sages, including many famous European evolutionary sociologists, still regard the “evolution”, say, of political institutions, precisely in this way: history makes no leaps: va piano (go softly)....

p German idealist philosophy decisively revolted against such a misshapen conception of evolution. Hegel bitingly ridiculed it, and demonstrated irrefutably that both in nature and in human society leaps constituted just as essential a stage of evolution as gradual quantitative changes. "Changes in being,” he says, "consist not only in the fact that one quantity passes into another quantity, but also that quality passes into quantity, and vice versa. Each transition of the latter kind represents an interruption in gradualness (ein Abbrechen des Allmahlichen), and gives the phenomenon a new aspect, qualitatively distinct from the previous one. Thus, water when it is cooled grows hard, not gradually ... but all at once; having already been cooled to freezing-point, it can still remain a liquid only if it preserves a state of rest, and then the slightest impulse is sufficient for it suddenly to become hard.... In the world of moral phenomena... there take place the same changes of quantitative into qualitative, and differences in qualities there also are founded upon quantitative differences. Thus, a little less, a little more constitutes that limit beyond which frivolity ceases and there appears something quite different, crime.... Thus also, states—other conditions being equal—acquire a different qualitative character merely in consequence of differences in their size. Particular laws and a particular constitution acquire quite a different significance with the extension of the territory of a state and of the numbers of its citizens."  [548•* 

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p Modern naturalists know very well how frequently changes of quantity lead to changes of quality. Why does one part of the solar spectrum produce in us the sensation of a red colour, another, of green, etc.? Physics replies that everything is due here to the number of oscillations of the particles of the ether. It is known that this number changes for every colour of the spectrum, rising from red to violet. Nor is this all. The intensity of heat in the spectrum increases in proportion to the approach to the external border of the red band, and reaches its highest point a little distance from it, on leaving the spectrum. It follows that in the spectrum there are rays of a special kind which do not give light but only heat. Physics says, here too, that the qualities of the rays change in consequence of changes in the number of oscillations of the particles of the ether.

p But even this is not all. The sun’s rays have a certain chemical effect, as is shown for example by the fading of material in the sun. What distinguishes the violet and the so-called ultra-violet rays, which arouse in us no sensation of light, is their greatest chemical strength. The difference in the chemical action of the various rays is explained once again only by quantitative differences in the oscillations of the particles of the ether: quantity passes into quality.

p Chemistry confirms the same thing. Ozone has different qualities from ordinary oxygen. Whence comes this difference? In the molecule of ozone there is a different number of atoms from that contained in the molecule of ordinary oxygen. Let us take three hydrocarbon compounds: CH4 (marsh gas), C2Hg (dimethyl) and CsHg (methyl-ethyl). All of these are composed according to the formula: n atoms of carbon and 2n+2 atoms of hydrogen. If n is equal to 1, you get marsh gas; if n is equal to 2, you get dimethyl; if n is equal to 3, methyl-ethyl appears. In this way entire series are formed, the importance of which any chemist will tell you; and all these series unanimously confirm the principle of the old dialectical idealists that quantity passes into quality.

p Now we have learned the principal distinguishing features of dialectical thought, but the reader feels himself unsatisfied. But where is the famous triad, he asks, the triad which is, as is well known, the whole essence of Hegelian dialectics? Your pardon, reader, we do not mention the triad for the simple reason that it does not at all play in Hegel’s work the part which is attributed to it by people who have not the least idea of the philosophy of that thinker, and who have studied it, for example, from the"text-book of criminal law " of Mr. Spasovich.  [549•*  Filled with sacred simplicity, 550 these light-hearted people are convinced that the whole argumentation of the German idealist was reduced to references to the triad; that whatever theoretical difficulties the old man came up against, he left others to rack their poor “unenlightened” brains over them while he, with a tranquil smile, immediately built up a syllogism: all phenomena occur according to a triad, I am faced with a phenomenon, consequently I shall turn to the triad.  [550•*  This is simply lunatic nonsense , as one of the characters of Karonin puts it, or unnaturally idle talk , if you prefer the expression of Shchedrin. Not once in the eighteen volumes of Hegel’s works does the “triad” play the part of an argument, and anyone in the least familiar with his philosophical doctrine understands that it could not play such a part. With Hegel the triad has the same significance as it had previously with Fichte, whose philosophy is essentially different from the Hegelian. Obviously only gross ignorance can consider the principal distinguishing feature of one philosophical system to be that which applies to at least two quite different systems.

p We are sorry that the “triad” has diverted us from our exposition: but, having mentioned it, we should reach a conclusion. So let us examine what kind of a bird it is.

p Every phenomenon, developing to its conclusion, becomes transformed into its opposite; but as the new phenomenon, being opposite to the first, also is transformed in its turn into its own opposite, the third phase of development bears a formal resemblance to the first. For the time being, let us leave aside the 551 question of the extent to which such a course of development corresponds to reality: let us admit for the sake of argument that those were wrong who thought that it does so correspond completely. But in any case it is clear that the “triad” only follows from one of Hegel’s principles: it does not in the least serve him as a main principle itself. This is a very essential difference, because if the triad had figured as a main principle, the people who attribute such an important part to it could really seek protection under its “authority”, but as it plays no such part, the only people who can hide behind it are maybe those who, as the saying has it, have heard a bell, but where they cannot tell.

p Naturally the situation would not change one iota if, without hiding behind the “triad”, dialecticians ’at the least danger" sought protection "behind the authority" of the principle that every phenomenon is transformed into its own opposite. But they never behaved in that way either, and they did not do so because the principle mentioned does not at all exhaust their views on the evolution of phenomena. They say in addition, for example, that in the process of evolution quantity passes into quality, and quality into quantity. Consequently they have to reckon both with the qualitative and the quantitative sides of the process; and this presupposes an attentive attitude to its real course in actual fact; and this means in its turn that they do not content themselves with abstract conclusions from abstract principles—or , at any rate, must not be satisfied with such conclusions, if they wish to remain true to their outlook upon the world.

p “On every page of his works Hegel constantly and tirelessly pointed out that philosophy is identical with the totality of empirics , that philosophy requires nothing so insistently as going deeply into the empirical sciences.... Material facts without thought have only a relative importance, thought without material facts is a mere chimera.... Philosophy is that consciousness at which the empirical sciences arrive relative to themselves. It cannot be anything else."

p That is the view of the task of the thinking investigator which Lassalle drew from the doctrine of Hegelian philosophy  [551•* : philosophers must be specialists in those sciences which they wish to help to reach “self-consciousness”. It seems a very far cry from the special study of a subject to thoughtless chatter in honour of the “triad”. And let them not tell us that Lassalle was not a “real” Hegelian, that he belonged to the “Left” and sharply reproached the “Right” with merely engaging in abstract constructions of thought. The man tells you plainly that he borrowed his view directly from Hegel.

552

p But perhaps you will want to rule out the evidence of the author of the System of Acquired Rights , just as in court the evidence of relatives is ruled out. We shall not argue and contradict; we shall call as a witness a quite extraneous person, the author of the Sketches of the Gogol Period. We ask for attention: the witness will speak long and, as usual, wisely.

p “We follow Hegel as little as we follow Descartes or Aristotle. Hegel now belongs to past history; the present has its own philosophy and clearly sees the flaws in the Hegelian system. It must be admitted, however, that the principles advanced by Hegel were indeed very near to the truth, and this thinker brought out some aspects of the truth with truly astonishing power. Of these truths, the discovery of some stands to Hegel’s personal credit; others do not belong exclusively to his system, they belong to German philosophy as a whole from the time of Kant and Fichte; but nobody before Hegel had formulated them so clearly and had expressed them with such power as they were in his system.

p “First of all we shall point to the most fruitful principle underlying all progress which so sharply and brilliantly distinguishes German philosophy in general, and the Hegelian system in particular, from the hypocritical and craven views that predominated at that time (the beginning of the nineteenth century) among the French and the English: ’Truth is the supreme goal of thought; seek truth, for in truth lies good; whatever truth may be, it is better than falsehood; the first duty of the thinker is not to retreat from any results; he must be prepared to sacrifice his most cherished opinions to truth. Error is the source of all ruin; truth is the supreme good and the source of all other good.’ To be able to appraise the extreme importance of this demand, common to German philosophy as a whole since the time of Kant, but expressed with exceptional vigour by Hegel, one must remember what strange and narrow restrictions the thinkers of the other schools of that period imposed upon truth. They began to philosophise, only in order ’to justify their cherished convictions’, i.e., they sought not truth, but support for their prejudices. Each took from truth only what pleased him and rejected every truth that was unpleasant to him, bluntly admitting that a pleasing error suited him much better than impartial truth. The German philosophers (especially Hegel) called this practice of seeking not truth but confirmation of pleasing prejudices ’subjective thinking’ (Saints above! Is this, perhaps, why our subjective thinkers called Hegel a scholastic? —Author), philosophising for personal pleasure, and not for the vital need of truth. Hegel fiercely denounced the idle and pernicious pastime.” (Listen well! ) "As a necessary precaution against inclinations to digress from truth in order to pander to personal desires and prejudices, Hegel advanced his 553 celebrated ‘dialectical method of thinking’. The essence of this method lies in that the thinker must not rest content with any positive deduction, but must find out whether the object he is thinking about contains qualities and forces the opposite of those which the object had presented to him at first sight. Thus, the thinker was obliged to examine the object from all sides, and truth appeared to him only as a consequence of a conflict between all possible opposite opinions. Gradually, as a result of this method, the former one-sided conceptions of an object were supplanted by a full and all-sided investigation, and a living conception was obtained of all the real qualities of an object. To explain reality became the paramount duty of philosophical thought. As a result, extraordinary attention was paid to reality, which had been formerly ignored and unceremoniously distorted in order to pander to personal, one-sided prejudices.” (De te fabula narratur! ) "Thus, conscientious, tireless search for truth took the place of the former arbitrary interpretations. In reality, however, everything depends upon circumstances, upon the conditions of place and time, and therefore, Hegel found that the former general phrases by which good and evil were judged without an examination of the circumstances and causes that give rise to a given phenomenon, that these general, abstract aphorisms were unsatisfactory. Every object, every phenomenon has its own significance, and it must be judged according to the circumstances, the environment, in which it exists. This rule was expressed by the formula: ’There is no abstract truth; truth is concrete’, i.e., a definite judgement can be pronounced only about a definite fact, after examining all the circumstances on which it depends."  [553•* 

554

p And so, on the one hand, we are told that the distinguishing feature of Hegel’s philosophy was its most careful investigation of reality, the most conscientious attitude to any particular subject, the study of the latter in its living environment, with all those circumstances of time and place which condition or accompany its existence. The evidence of N. G. Chernyshevsky is identical in this case with the evidence of F. Lassalle. And on the other hand we are assured that this philosophy was empty scholasticism, the whole secret of which consisted in the sophistical use of the “triad”. In this case the evidence of Mr. Mikhailovsky is in complete agreement with the evidence of Mr. V. V., and of a whole legion of other modern Russian writers. How is this divergence of witnesses to be explained? Explain it any way you please: but remember that Lassalle and the author of the Sketches of the Gogol Period did know the philosophy they were talking about, while Messrs. Mikhailovsky, V. V., and their brethren have quite certainly not given themselves the trouble of studying even a single work of Hegel.

p And notice that in characterising dialectical thought the author of the Sketches did not say one word about the triad. How is it that he did not notice that same elephant, which Mr. Mikhailovsky and company so stubbornly and so ceremoniously bring out on view to every loafer? Once again please remember that the author of the Sketches of the Gogol Period knew the philosophy of Hegel, while Mr. Mikhailovsky and Co. have not the least conception of it.

p Perhaps the reader may be pleased to recall certain other judgements on Hegel passed by the author of the Sketches of the Gogol Period. Perhaps he will point out to us the famous article: "Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices Against Communal Ownership of Land"? This article does speak about the triad and, to all appearances, the latter is put forward as the main hobby-horse of the German idealist. But it is only in appearance. Discussing the history of property, the writer asserts that in the third and highest phase of its development it will return to its point of departure, i.e., that private property in the land and the means of production will yield place to social property. Such a return, he says, is a general law which manifests itself in every process of development. The author’s argument is in this case, in fact, nothing else than a reference to the triad. And in this lies 555 its essential defect. It is abstract : the development of property is examined without relating it to concrete historical conditions— and therefore the author’s arguments are ingenious, brilliant, but not convincing. They only astound, surprise, but do not convince. But is Hegel responsible for this defect in the argument of the author of the "Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices"? Do you really think his argument would have been abstract had he considered the subject just in the way in which, according to his own words, Hegel advised all subjects to be considered, i.e., keeping to the ground of reality, weighing all concrete conditions, all circumstances of time and place? It would seem that that would not be the case; it would seem that then there would not have been just that defect we have mentioned in the article. But what, in that event, gave rise to the defect? The fact that the author of the article "Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices Against Communal Ownership of Land”, in controverting the abstract arguments of his opponents, forgot the good advice of Hegel, and proved unfaithful to the method of that very thinker to whom he referred. We are sorry that in his polemical excitement he made such a mistake. But, once again, is Hegel to blame because in this particular case the author of " Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices" proved unable to make use of his method? Since when is it that philosophical systems are judged, not by their internal content, but by the mistakes which people referring to them may happen to make?

p And once again, however insistently the author of the article I have mentioned refers to the triad, even there he does not put it forward as the main hobby-horse of the dialectical method. Even there he makes it, not the foundation but, at most, an unquestionable consequence. The foundation and the main distinguishing feature of dialectics is brought out by him in the following words: "Eternal change of forms, eternal rejection of a form brought into being by a particular content or striving, in consequence of an intensification of that striving, the higher development of that same content...—whoever has understood this great, eternal, ubiquitous law, whoever has learnt how to apply it to every phenomenon—ah, how calmly he calls into play the chance which affrights others,” etc.^^384^^

p “Eternal change of forms, eternal rejection of a form brought into being by a particular content" ... dialectical thinkers really do look on such a change, such a "rejection of forms" as a great, eternal, ubiquitous law. At the present time this conviction is not shared only by the representatives of some branches of social science who have not the courage to look truth straight in the eyes, and attempt to defend, albeit with the help of error, the prejudices they hold dear. All the more highly must we value the 556 services of the great German idealists who, from the very beginning of the present century, constantly spoke of the eternal change of forms, of their eternal rejection in consequence of the intensification of the content which brought those forms into being.

p Earlier we left unexamined "for the time being " the question of whether it is a fact that every phenomenon is transformed, as the German dialectical idealists thought, into its own opposite. Now, we hope, the reader will agree with us that, strictly speaking, this question need not be examined at all. When you apply the dialectical method to the study of phenomena, you need to remember that forms change eternally in consequence of the "higher development of their content". You will have to trace this process of rejection of forms in all its fullness, if you wish to exhaust the subject. But whether the new form is the opposite of the old you will find from experience, and it is not at all important to know this beforehand. True, it is just on the basis of the historical experience of mankind that every lawyer knowing his business will tell you that every legal institution sooner or later is transformed into its own opposite. Today it promotes the satisfaction of certain social needs; today it is valuable and necessary precisely in view of these needs. Then it begins to satisfy those needs worse and worse. Finally it is transformed into an obstacle to their satisfaction. From something necessary it becomes something harmful—and then it is distroyed. Take whatever you like—the history of literature or the history of species—wherever there is development, you will see similar dialectics. But nevertheless, if someone wanted to penetrate the essence of the dialectical process and were to begin, of all things, with testing the idea of the oppositeness of the phenomena which constitute a series in each particular process of development, he would be approaching the problem from the wrong end.

p In selecting the view-point for such a test, there would always turn out to be very much that was arbitrary.  The question must be regarded from its objective side, or in other words one must make clear to oneself what is the inevitable change of forms involved in the development of the particular content? This is the same idea, only expressed in other words. But in testing it in practice there is no place for arbitrary choice, because the point of view of the investigator is determined by the very character of the forms and content themselves.

p In the words of Engels, Hegel’s merit consists in the fact that he was the first to regard all phenomena from the point of view of their development, from the point of view of their origin and destruction. "Whether he was the first to do it is debatable,” says Mr. Mikhailovsky, "but at all events he was not the last, and 557 the present-day theories of development—the evolutionism of Spencer, Darwinism, the ideas of development in psychology, physics, geology, etc.—have nothing in common with Hegelianism.”  [557•* 

p If modern natural science confirms at every step the idea expressed with such genius by Hegel, that quantity passes into quality, can we say that it had nothing in common with Hegelianism? True, Hegel was not the “last” of those who spoke of such a transition, but this was just for the very same reason that Darwin was not the “last” of those who spoke of the variability of species and Newton was not the “last” of the Newtonists. What would you have? Such is the course of development of the human intellect! Express a correct idea , and you will certainly not be the “last” of those who defend it; talk some nonsense, and although people have a great failing for it, you still risk finding yourself to be its “last” defender and champion. Thus, in our modest opinion, Mr. Mikhailovsky runs a considerable risk of proving to be the “last” supporter of the " subjective method in sociology”. Speaking frankly, we see no reason to regret such a course of development of the intellect.

p We suggest that Mr. Mikhailovsky—who finds “debatable” everything in the world, and much else—should refute our following proposition: that wherever the idea of evolution appears "in psychology, physics, geology, etc.” it always has very much "in common with Hegelianism”, i.e., in every up-to-date study of evolution there are invariably repeated some of the general propositions of Hegel. We say some, and not all, because many modern evolutionists, lacking the adequate philosophical education, understand “evolution” abstractly and one-sidedly.  An example are the gentry, already mentioned earlier, who assure us that neither nature nor history makes any leaps. Such people would gain a very great deal from acquaintance with Hegel’s logic.  Let Mr. Mikhailovsky refute us: but only let him not forget that we cannot be refuted by knowing Hegel only from the "text-book of criminal law" by Mr. Spasovich and from Lewes’ Biographical History of Philosophy. He must take the trouble to study Hegel himself.

p In saying that the present-day teachings of the evolutionists always have very much "in common with Hegelianism”, we are not asserting that the present evolutionists have borrowed their views from Hegel. Quite the reverse. Very often they have just as mistaken a view of him as Mr. Mikhailovsky has. And if nevertheless their theories, even partially and just at those points where they turn out to be correct, become a new illustration of 558 “Hegelianism”, this circumstance only brings out in higher relief the astonishing power of thought of the German idealist: people who never read him, by the sheer force of facts and the evident sense of “reality”, are obliged to speak as he spoke. One could not think of a greater triumph for a philosopher: readers ignore him, but life confirms his views.

p Up to this day it is still difficult to say to what extent the views of the German idealists directly influenced German natural science in the direction mentioned, although it is unquestionable that in the first half of the present century even the naturalists in Germany studied philosophy during their university course, and although such men learned in the biological sciences as Haeckel speak with respect nowadays of the evolutionary theories of some nature-philosophers. But the philosophy of nature was the weak point of German idealism. Its strength lay in its theories dealing with the various sides of historical development. As for those theories, let Mr. Mikhailovsky remember—if he ever knew—that it was just from the school of Hegel that there emerged all that brilliant constellation of thinkers and investigators who gave quite a new aspect to the study of religion, aesthetics, law, political economy, history, philosophy and so forth. In all these “disciplines”, during a certain most fruitful period, there was not a single outstanding worker who was not indebted to Hegel for his development and for his fresh views on his own branch of knowledge. Does Mr. Mikhailovsky think that this, too, is " debatable"? If he does, let him just try.

p Speaking of Hegel, Mr. Mikhailovsky tries "to do it in such a way as to be understood by people uninitiated in the mysteries of the ’philosophical nightcap of Yegor Fyodorovich’ as Belinsky disrespectfully put it when he raised the banner of revolt against Hegel"^^385^^ . He takes "for this purpose" two examples from Engels’ book Anti-Diihring (but why not from Hegel himself? That would be much more becoming to a writer "initiated into the mysteries”, etc.).

p “A grain of oats falls in favourable conditions: it strikes root and thereby, as such , as a grain, is negated. In its place there arises a stalk, which is the negation of the grain; the plant develops and bears fruit, i.e., new grains of oats, and when these grains ripen, the stalk perishes: it was the negation of the grain, and now it is negated itself. And thereafter the same process of ’negation’ and ’negation of negation’ is repeated an endless number" (sic! ) "of times. At the basis of this process lies contradiction: the grain of oats is a grain and at the same time not a grain, as it is always in a state of actual or potential development.” Mr. Mikhailovsky naturally finds this “debatable”. And this is how this attractive possibility passes with him into reality.

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p “The first stage, the stage of the grain, is the thesis, or proposition; the second, up to the formation of new grains, is the antithesis, or contradiction; the third is the synthesis or reconciliation" (Mr. Mikhailovsky has decided to write in a popular style, and therefore leaves no Greek words without explanation or translation) "and all together they constitute a triad or trichotomy. And such is the fate of all that is alive: it arises, it develops and provides the origin of its repetition, after which it dies. A vast number of individual expressions of this process immediately rise up in the memory of the reader, of course, and Hegel’s law proves justified in the whole organic world (for the present we go no further). If however we regard our example a little more closely, we shall see the extreme superficiality and arbitrariness of our generalisation. We took a grain, a stalk and once more a grain or, more exactly, a group of grains. But before bearing fruit, a plant flowers. When we speak of oats or some other grain of economic importance, we can have in view a grain that has been sown, the straw and a grain that has been harvested: but to consider that the life of the plant has been exhausted by these three stages is quite unfounded. In the life of a plant the point of flowering is accompanied by an extreme and peculiar straining of forces, and as the flower does not arise direct from the grain, we arrive, even keeping to Hegel’s terminology, not at a trichotomy but at least at a tetrachotomy, a division into four: the stalk negates the grain, the flower negates the stalk, the fruit negates the flower. The omission of the moment of flowering is of considerable importance also in the following respect. In the days of Hegel, perhaps, it was permissible to take the grain for the point of departure in the life of the plant, and from the business point of view it may be permissible to do so even today: the business year does begin with the sowing of the grain. But the life of the plant does not begin with the grain. We now know very well that the grain is something very complex in its structure, and itself represents the product of development of the cell, and that the cells requisite for reproduction are formed precisely at the moment of flowering. Thus in the example taken from vegetable life not only has the point of departure been taken arbitrarily and incorrectly, but the whole process has been artificially and once again arbitrarily squeezed into the framework of a trichotomy."  [559•*  And the conclusion is: "It is about time we ceased to believe that oats grow according to Hegel.”^^386^^

p Everything flows, everything changes! In our day, i.e., when the writer of these lines, as a student, studied the natural sciences, oats grew "according to Hegel”, while now "we know very well" 560 that all that is nonsense: now "nous avons change tout cela”. But really, do we quite “know” what “we” are talking about?

p Mr. Mikhailovsky sets forth the example of a grain of oats, which he has borrowed from Engels, quite otherwise than as it is set forth by Engels himself. Engels says: "The grain as such ceases to exist, it is negated, and in its place appears the plant which has arisen from it, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal life-process of this plant? It grows, flowers, is fertilised and finally once more produces grains of oats,  [560•*  and as soon as these have ripened the stalk dies, is in its turn negated. As a result of this negation of the negation we have once again the original grain of barley, but not as a single unit, but ten-, twenty-, or thirtyfold."  [560•**  For Engels the negation of the grain was the entire plant , in the cycle of life of which are included, incidentally, both flowering and fertilisation.  Mr. Mikhailovsky “negates” the word plant by putting in its place the word stalk.  The stalk, as is known, constitutes only part of a plant, and naturally is negated by its other parts: omnis determinatio est negatio. But that is the very reason why Mr. Mikhailovsky “negates” the expression used by Engels, replacing it by his own: the stalk negates the grain, he shouts, the flower negates the stalk, the fruit negates the flower: there’s a tetrachotomy at least! Quite so, Mr. Mikhailosky: but all that only goes to prove that in your argument with Engels you do not stop even at ... how shall I put it more mildly ... at the “moment” ... of altering the words of your opponent. This method is somewhat ... “subjective”.

p Once the “moment” of substitution has done its work, the hateful triad falls apart like a house of cards. You have left out the moment of flowering—the Russian “sociologist” reproaches the German Socialist—and "the omission of the moment of flowering is of considerable importance”. The reader has seen that the "moment of flowering" has been omitted not by Engels, but by Mr. Mikhailovsky in setting forth the views of Engels; he knows also that “omissions” of that kind in literature are given considerable, though quite negative, importance. Mr. Mikhailovsky here, too, had recourse to a somewhat unattractive “moment”. But what could he do? The “triad” is so hateful, victory is so pleasant, and "people quite uninitiated in the mysteries" of a certain “nightcap” are so gullible!

p We all are innocent from birth,
To virtue a great price we pin: 561
But meet such people on this earth
That truly, we can’t help but sin...^^388^^

p The flower is an organ of the plant and, as such, as little negates the plant as the head of Mr. Mikhailovsky negates Mr. Mikhailovsky. But the “fruit” or, to be more exact, the fertilised ovum, is really the negation of the given organism being the point of departure of the development of a new life. Engels accordingly considers the cycle of life of a plant from the beginning of its development out of the fertilised ovum to its reproduction of a fertilised ovum. Mr. Mikhailovsky with the learned air of a connoisseur remarks: "The life of a plant does not begin with the grain. We now know very well, etc.": briefly, we now know that the seed is fertilised during the flowering. Engels, of course, knows this just as well as Mr. Mikhailovsky. But what does this prove? If Mr. Mikhailovsky prefers, we shall replace the grain by the fertilised seed , but it will not alter the essence of the life-cycle of the plant, and will not refute the “triad”. The oats will still be growing "according to Hegel".

p By the way, supposing we admit for a moment that the " moment of flowering" overthrows all the arguments of the Hegelians. How will Mr. Mikhailovsky have us deal with non-flowering plants? Is he really going to leave them in the grip of the triad? That would be wrong, because the triad would in that event have a vast number of subjects.

p But we put this question really only in order to make clearer Mr. Mikhailovsky’s idea. We ourselves still remain convinced that you can’t save yourself from the triad even with "the flower”. And are we alone in thinking so? Here is what, for example, the botanical specialist Ph. Van Tieghem says: "Whatever be the form of the plant, and to whatever group it may belong thanks to that form, its body always originates in another body which existed before it and from which it separated. In its turn, at a given moment, it separates from its mass particular parts, which become the point of departure, the germs, of as many new bodies, and so forth. In a word it reproduces itself in the same way as it is born: by dissociation."  [561•*  Just look at that! A scholar of repute, a member of the Institute, a professor at the Museum of Natural History, and talks like a veritable Hegelian: it begins, he says, with dissociation and finishes up with it again. And not a word about the "moment of flowering"! We ourselves understand how very vexing this must be for Mr. Mikhailovsky; but there’s nothing to be done—truth, as we know, is more important than Plato.

p Let us once again suppose that "the moment of flowering" overthrows the triad. In that case, "keeping to Hegel’s 562 terminology, we arrive not at a trichotomy but at least at a tetrachotomy, a division into four”. "Hegel’s terminology" reminds us of his Encyclopaedia. We open its first part, and learn from it that there are many cases when trichotomy passes into tetrachotomy, and that generally speaking trichotomy, as a matter of fact, is supreme only in the sphere of the spirit.  [562•*  So it turns out that oats grow "according to Hegel”, as Van Tieghem assures us, and Hegel thinks about oats according to Mr. Mikhailovsky , as is evidenced by the Enzyklopddie der philosophischen Wisscnschaften im Grundrisse. Marvel upon marvel! "She to him, and he to me, and I to the barman Peter...."^^389^^

p Another example borrowed by Mr. Mikhailovsky from Engels, to enlighten the “uninitiated”, deals with the teachings of Rousseau.^^390^^

p “According to Rousseau, people in their natural state and savagery were equal with the equality of animals. But man is distinguished by his perfectibility, and this process of perfection began with the appearance of inequality: thereafter every further step of civilisation was contradictory: they were ’steps seemingly towards the perfection of the individual man, but in reality towards the decay of the race.... Metallurgy and agriculture were the two arts the discovery of which produced this great revolution. For the poet it is gold and silver, but for the philosopher iron and corn, which have civilised men and ruined the human race.’ Inequality continues to develop and, reaching its apogee, turns, in the eastern despotisms, once again into the universal equality of universal insignificance, i.e., returns to its point of departure: and thereafter the further process in the same way brings one to the equality of the social contract."

p That is how Mr. Mikhailovsky sets out the example given by Engels. As is quite obvious, he finds this, too, “debatable”.

p “One could make some remark about Engels’ exposition; but is it important for us only to know what precisely Engels values in Rousseau’s work (Discours sur I’origine et les fondements de I’inegalite parmi les hommes ). He does not touch upon the question of whether Rousseau rightly or wrongly understands the course of history, he is interested only in the fact that Rousseau ’thinks dialectically’: he sees contradiction in the very content of progress, and disposes his exposition in such a way as to make it adaptable to the Hegelian formula of negation and negation of the negation. And in reality this can be done, even though Rousseau did not know the Hegelian dialectical formula."

p This is only the first outpost attack on “Hegelianism” in the person of Engels. Then follows the attack sur toute la ligne.

563

p “Rousseau, without knowing Hegel, thought dialectically according to Hegel. Why Rousseau and not Voltaire, or not the first man in the street? Because all people, by their very nature, think dialectically. Yet it is precisely Rousseau who is selected, a man who stands out among his contemporaries not only by his gifts—in this respect many were not inferior to him—but by his very mental make-up and by the character of his perception of the world. Such an exceptional phenomenon, you might think, ought not to be taken as a test for a general rule. But we pick as we choose. Rousseau is interesting and important, first of all, because he was the first to demonstrate sufficiently clearly the contradictory character of civilisation, and contradiction is the essential condition of the dialectical process. We must however remark that the contradiction discerned by Rousseau has nothing in common with contradiction in the Hegelian sense of the word. The contradiction of Hegel lies in the fact that everything, being in a constant process of motion and change (and precisely by the consistent triple path), is at every given unit of time ’it’ and at the same time ’not-it’.  If we leave aside the obligatory three stages of development, contradiction is here simply, as it were, the lining of changes, motion, development. Rousseau also speaks of the process of change. But it is by no means in the very fact of change that he sees contradiction. A considerable part of his argument, both in the Discours and in his other works, can be summarised in the following way: intellectual progress has been accompanied by moral retrogression. Evidently dialectical thinking has absolutely nothing to do with it: there is no ’negation of the negation’ here, but only an indication of the simultaneous existence of good and evil in the particular group of phenomena. All the resemblance to the dialectical process is reduced to the single word ’contradiction’. -This, however, is only one side of the case. In addition, Engels sees an obvious trichotomy in Rousseau’s argument: after primitive equality follows its negation—inequality, then follows the negation of the negation— the equality of all in the eastern despotisms, in face of the power of the khan, sultan, shah. ’Here we have the extreme measure of inequality, the final point which completes the circle and meets the point from which we set out.’ But history does not stop at this, it develops new inequalities, and so forth. The words we have quoted are the actual words of Rousseau, and it is they which are particularly dear to Engels, as obvious evidence that Rousseau thinks according to Hegel."  [563•* 

564

p Rousseau "stood out among his contemporaries”. That is true. What made him stand out? The fact that he thought dialectic ally , whereas his contemporaries were almost without exception metaphysicians.  His view of the origin of inequality is precisely a dialectical view , although Mr. Mikhailovsky denies it.

p In the words of Mr. Mikhailovsky, Rousseau only pointed out that intellectual progress was accompanied in the history of civilisation by moral retrogression. No, Rousseau did not only point this out. According to him, intellectual progress was the cause of moral retrogression. It would be possible to realise this even without reading the works of Rousseau: it would be sufficient to recall, on the basis of the previous extract, what part he ascribed in his work to the working of metals and agriculture, which produced the great revolution that destroyed primitive equality. But whoever has read Rousseau himself has not, of course, forgotten the following passage in his Discours sur Vorieine de I’inegalite. "II me reste a considerer et a rapprocher les differents hasards qui ont pu perfectionner la raison humaine en deteriorant 1’espece, rendre un etre mechant en le rendant sociable....” “(It remains for me to consider and to bring together the different hazards which have been able to perfect human reason by worsening the human species, making this animal wicked by making him sociable....”)

p This passage is particularly remarkable because it illustrates very well Rousseau’s view on the capactiy of the human race for progress. This peculiarity was spoken of a great deal by his “contemporaries” as well. But with them it was a mysterious force which, out of its own inner essence, brought about the successes of reason. According to Rousseau, this capacity "never could develop of its own accord". For its development it required constant impulses from outside. This is one of the most important specific features of the dialectical view of intellectual progress, compared with the metaphysical view. We shall have to refer to it again later. At present what is important is that the passage just quoted expresses with utmost clarity the opinion of Rousseau as to the causal connection between moral retrogression and intellectual progress.  [564•*  And this is very important for ascertaining the view of this writer on the course of civilisation. Mr. Mikhailovsky makes it appear that Rousseau simply pointed out a “contradiction”, and maybe shed some generous tears about it. In reality Rousseau 565 considered this contradiction to be the mainspring of the historical development of civilisation. The founder of civil society, and consequently the grave-digger of primitive equality, was the man who first fenced off a piece of land and said: "It belongs to me.” In other words, the foundation of civil society is property, which arouses so many disputes among men, evokes in them so much greed, so spoils their morality. But the origin of property presupposed a certain development of "technique and knowledge " (de 1’industrie et del lumieres). Thus primitive relations perished precisely thanks to this development; but at the time when this development led to the triumph of private property, primitive relations between men, on their part, were already in such a state that their further existence had become impossible.  [565•*  If we judge of Rousseau by the way in which Mr. Mikhailovsky depicts the “contradiction” he pointed out, we might think that the famous Genevese was nothing more than a lachrymose "subjective sociologist”, who at best was capable of inventing a highly moral " formula of progress" for the curing of human ills. In reality Rousseau most of all hated just that kind of “formula”, and stamped it underfoot whenever he had the opportunity.

p Civil society arose on the ruins of primitive relations, which had proved incapable of further existence. These relations contained within themselves the embryo of their own negation. In demonstrating this proposition, Rousseau as it were was illustrating in anticipation the thought of Hegel, that every phenomenon destroys itself, becomes transformed into its own opposite. Rousseau’s reflection on despotism may be considered a further illustration of this idea.

p Now judge for yourself how much understanding of Hegel and Rousseau Mr. Mikhailovsky displays when he says: "Evidently dialectical thinking has absolutely nothing to do with it"—and when he naively imagines that Engels arbitrarily registered Rousseau in the dialectical department only on the grounds that Rousseau used the expressions “contradiction”, “cycle”, "return to the point from which we set out”, etc.

p But why did Engels quote Rousseau, and not anyone else? "Why Rousseau and not Voltaire, or not the first man in the street? Because all people, by their very nature, think dialectically...."

p You’re mistaken, Mr. Mikhailovsky: far from all. You for one would never be taken by Engels for a dialectician. It would be sufficient for him to read your article: "Karl Marx Before the Judgement of Mr. Y. Zhukovsky”,^^391^^ for him to put you down without hesitation among the incorrigible metaphysicians.

566

p On dialectical thinking Engels says: "Men thought dialectically long before they knew what dialectics was, just as they spoke prose long before the term prose existed. The law of negation of the negation, which is unconsciously operative in nature and history, and, until it has been recognised, also in our heads, was only first clearly formulated by Hegel."  [566•*  As the reader sees, this refers to unconscious dialectical thinking, from which it is still a very long way to its conscious form. When we say that "extremes meet” , we without noticing it express a dialectical view of things; when we move we, again without suspecting it, are engaged in applied dialectics (we already said earlier that motion is the application of contradiction). But neither motion nor dialectical aphorisms are sufficient to save us from metaphysics in the sphere of systematical thought. On the contrary. The history of thought shows that for a long time metaphysics grew more and more strong—and necessarily had to grow strong—at the expense of primitive and naive dialectics: "The analysis of nature into its individual parts, the grouping of different natural processes and objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms—these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of nature that have been made during the last four hundred years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, outside their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constants, not as essentially variables; in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the last century."

p Thus writes Engels, from whom we also learn that "the newer philosophy, on the other hand, although in it also dialectics had brilliant exponents (e.g., Descartes and Spinoza), had, especially through English influence, become more and more rigidly fixed in the so-called metaphysical mode of reasoning, by which also the French of the eighteenth century were almost wholly dominated, at all events in their special philosophical work. Outside philosophy in the restricted sense, the French nevertheless produced masterpieces of dialectic. We need only call to mind Diderot’s Le Neveu de Rameau and Rousseau’s Discours sur I’origine et les fondements de I’inegalite parmi les hommes.’  [566•** 

p It would seem clear why Engels speaks of Rousseau, and not of Voltaire and not of the first man in the street. We dare not think 567 that Mr. Mikhailovsky has not read that same book of Engels which he quotes, and from which he draws the “examples” which he examines. And if Mr. Mikhailovsky still pesters Engels with his "first man in the street”, it remains to suppose merely that our author, here too, has recourse to the “moment” of substitution with which we are already familiar, the “moment” ... of purposeful distortion of the words of his opponent. The exploitation of such a “moment” might seem to him all the more convenient because Engels’ book has not been translated into Russian, and does not exist for readers who don’t know German.^^394^^ Here "we pick as we choose”. Here again there is a new temptation, and once again "we can’t help but sin ".

p Oh is it true, each god some pleasure feels
When ’tis our honour tumbles, head over heels?   [567•* 

p But let us take a rest from Mr. Mikhailovsky, and return to the German idealists, an und fur sich.

p We have said that the philosophy of nature was the weak point of these thinkers, whose main services are to be sought in various branches of the philosophy of history. Now we shall add that it could not be otherwise at that time. Philosophy, which called itself the science of sciences, always had in it much "worldly content” , i.e., it always occupied itself with many purely scientific questions. But at different times its "worldly content" was different.

p Thus to confine ourselves here to examples from the history of modern philosophy, in the seventeenth century the philosophers mainly occupied themselves with questions of mathematics and the natural sciences. The philosophy of the eighteenth century utilised for its purposes the scientific discoveries and theories of the preceding epoch, but itself, if it studied the natural sciences, did so perhaps only in the person of Kant. In France it was social questions which then came to the foreground. The same questions continued mainly to preoccupy, although from a different aspect, the philosophers of the nineteenth century. Schelling, for example, said flatly that he thought the solution of a certain historical problem to be the most important task of transcendental philosophy. What this problem was, we shall soon see.

p If everything flows and everything changes; if every phenomenon negates itself; if there is no such useful institution as will not ultimately become harmful, changing in this way into^its own opposite, it follows that it is stupid to seek for "perfect 568 legislation" and that it is impossible to invent a structure of society which would be the best for all ages and peoples: everything is good in its right place and at the right time. Dialectical thinking excluded all Utopias.

p It was all the more bound to exclude them because "human nature” , that allegedly constant criterion which, as we have seen, was invariably used both by the writers of the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and the Utopian Socialists of the first half of the the nineteenth century, experienced the common fate of all phenomena: it was itself recognised to be variable.

p With this there disappeared that naively idealist view of history which was also maintained in equal measure both by the writers of the Enlightenment and the Utopians, and which is expressed in the words: reason, opinions govern the world. Of course, said Hegel, reason governs history, but in the same sense as it governs the motion of the celestial bodies, i.e., in the sense of conformity to law. The motion of the celestial bodies conforms to law, but they naturally have no conception of that conformity. The same applies to the historical progress of humanity. In it, without any doubt, there are particular laws at work; but this does not mean that men are conscious of them, and that therefore human reason, our knowledge, our “philosophy” are the principal factors in historical progress. The owl of Minerva begins to fly only at night. When philosophy begins tracing its grey patterns on a grey background, when men begin to study their own social order, you may say with certainty that that order has outlived its day and is preparing to yield place to a new order, the true character of which will again become clear to mankind only after it has played its historical part: Minerva’s owl will once again fly out only at night.^^395^^ It is hardly necessary to say that the periodical aerial travels of the bird of wisdom are very useful, and are even quite essential. But they explain absolutely nothing; they themselves require explanation and, probably, can be explained, because they too conform to law.

p The recognition of conformity to law in the flights of Minerva’s owl was the foundation of quite a new view of the histroy of mankind’s intellectual development. The metaphysicians of all ages, all peoples and all tendencies, once they had acquired a certain philosophical system, considered it to be the truth and all other systems to be unquestionably false. They knew only the abstract oppositeness of abstract conceptions—truth and error. Therefore the history of thought was for them only a chaotic tangle of partly sad, partly ridiculous mistakes, whose wild dance continued right up to that blessed moment when, at last, the true system of philosophy was invented. That was how J. B. Say, that most confirmed metaphysician of all metaphysicians, regarded the 569 history of his branch of knowledge. He recommended not to study it, because there was nothing in it except errors. The dialectical idealists looked otherwise at things. Philosophy is the intellectual expression of its own age , they said: every philosophy is true for its own age, and mistaken for any other.

p But if reason governs the world only in the sense of the conformity of phenomena to law; if it is not ideas, not knowledge, not “enlightenment” that direct men in their, so to speak, social housekeeping and in their historical progress, where then is human freedom? Where is the sphere in which man "judges and chooses" without amusing himself, like a child, with some trifling toy, without serving as a plaything in the hands of some external force, even though maybe it is not blind?

p The old but eternally new question of freedom and necessity rose up before the idealists of the nineteenth century, just as it had arisen before the metaphysicians of the preceding century, and as it arose before absolutely all the philosophers who had concerned themselves with questions of the relationship of being and thought. Like a sphinx it said to each such thinker: unravel me, or I shall devour your system!

p The question of freedom and necessity was precisely that problem the solution of which in its application to history Schelling considered to be the greatest task of transcendental philosophy. Did the latter solve it? How did that philosophy decide it?

p And note: for Schelling, as for Hegel, this question presented difficulties in its application precisely to history.  From the purely unthropological point of view it could already be considered solved.

p An explanation is necessary here, and in giving it we shall ask the reader to pay it particular attention, in view of the tremendous importance of the subject.

p The magnetic needle turns to the north. This arises from the action of a particular form of matter, which itself is subordinated to certain laws: the laws of the material world. But for the needle the motions of that matter are unnoticed: it has not the least conception of them. It imagines that it is turning to the north quite independently of any external cause, simply because it finds it pleasant so to turn. Material necessity presents itself to the needle in the shape of its own free spiritual activity.^^396^^

p By this example Leibniz tried to explain his view of freedom of will. By a similar example Spinoza explains his own quite identical view.^^397^^

p A certain external cause has communicated to a stone a certain quantity of motion. The motion continues, of course, for a certain time even after the cause has ceased to act. This, its continuation, is necessary according to the laws of the material world. But imagine that the stone can think, that it is conscious of its own 570 motion which gives it pleasure, but does not know its causes, and does not even know that there was any external reason at all for that motion. How in that event will the stone conceive of its own motion? Inevitably as the result of its own desire, its own free choice. It will say to itself: I am moving because I want to move. "The same is true of that human freedom of which all men are so proud. Its essence amounts to the fact that men are conscious of their inclinations but do not know the external causes which give rise to those inclinations. Thus a child imagines that it is free to desire that milk which constitutes its sustenance...."

p Many even present-day readers will find such an explanation "crudely materialistic” , and they will be surprised that Leibniz, an idealist of the purest water, could give it. They will say in addition that in any case comparison is not proof, and that even less of a proof is the fantastic comparison of man with a magnetic needle or a stone. To this we shall observe that the comparison will cease to be fantastic as soon as we recall the phenomena which take place every day in the human head. The materialists of the eighteenth century were already pointing out the circumstance that to every willed movement in the brain there corresponds a certain motion of the brain fibres. What is a fantasy in respect of the magnetic needle or the stone becomes an unquestionable fact in relation to the brain: a movement of matter, taking place according to the fatal laws of necessity, is in fact accompanied in the brain by what is called the free operation of thought. And as for the surprise, quite natural at first sight, on account of the materialist argument of the idealist Leibniz, we must remember that, as has already been pointed out, all the consistent idealists were monists, i.e., in their outlook upon the world there was no place at all for that impassable abyss which separates matter from spirit in the view of the dualists.  In the opinion of the dualist, a given aggregation of matter can prove capable of thought only in the event of a particle of spirit entering into it: matter and spirit, in the eyes of the dualist, are two quite independent substances which have nothing in common between them. The comparison made by Leibniz will seem wild to him, for the simple reason that the magnetic needle has no soul. But imagine that you are dealing with a man who argues in this way: the needle is really something quite material. But what is matter itself? I believe it owes its existence to the spirit, and not in the sense that it has been created by the spirit , but in the sense that it itself is the spirit , only existing in another shape. That shape does not correspond to the true nature of the spirit: it is even directly opposed to that nature; but this does not prevent it from being a form of existence of the spirit—because, by its very nature, the spirit must change into its own 571 opposite. You may be surprised by this argument as well, but you will agree at all events that the man who finds it convincing, the man who sees in matter only the "other existence of the spirit” , will not be repelled by explanations which attribute to matter the functions of the spirit, or which make those functions intimately dependent upon the laws of matter. Such a man may accept a materialist explanation of spiritual phenomena and at the same time give it (whether by far-fetched reasoning or otherwise, is a different question) a strictly idealist sense. And that was how the German idealists acted.

p The spiritual activity of man is subjected to the laws of material necessity. But this in no way destroys human freedom. The laws of material necessity themselves are nothing else than the laws of action of the spirit. Freedom presupposes necessity, necessity passes entirely into freedom , and therefore man’s freedom in reality is incomparably wider than the dualists suppose when, trying to delimit free activity and necessary activity, they thereby tear away from the realm of freedom all that region (even in their opinion, a very wide region) which they set apart for necessity.

p That was how the dialectical idealists argued. As the reader sees, they held firmly to the "magnetic needle" of Leibniz: only that needle was completely transformed, or so to speak spiritualised, in their hands.

p But the transformation of the needle did not yet solve all the difficulties involved in the question of the relationship between freedom and necessity. Let us suppose that the individual is quite free in spite of his subordination to the laws of necessity, or moreover just because of that subordination. But in society, and consequently in history too, we are dealing not with a single individual but with a whole mass of individuals. The question arises, is not the freedom of each infringed by the freedom of the rest? I have the intention of doing this and that—for example, of realising truth and justice in social relations. This intention has been freely adopted by myself, and no less free will be those actions of mine with the help of which I shall try to put it into effect. But my neighbours hinder me in pursuing my aim. They have revolted against my intention, just as freely as I adopted it. And just as free are their actions directed against me. How shall I overcome the obstacles which they create? Naturally, I shall argue with them, try to persuade them, and maybe even appeal to them or frighten them. But how can I know whether this will lead to anything? The French writers of the Enlightenment used to say: la raison finira par avoir raison. But in order that my reason should triumph, I require that my neighbours should recognise it to be their reason as well. And what grounds have I for hoping that this will take place? To the extent that their activity is free—and it is 572 quite free—to the extent that, by paths unknown to me, material necessity has passed into freedom—and, by supposition, it has completely passed into freedom—to that extent the acts of my fellow-citizens evade any foretelling. I might hope to foresee them only on the condition that I could examine them as I examine all other phenomena of the world surrounding me, i.e., as the necessary consequences of definite causes which are already known, or may become known, to me. In other words, my freedom would not be an empty phrase only if consciousness of it could be accompanied by understanding the reasons which give rise to the free acts of my neighbours, i.e., if I could examine them from the aspect of their necessity.  Exactly the same can my neighbours say about my own acts. But what does this mean? This means that the possibility of the free ( conscious) historical activity of any particular person is reduced to zero, if at the very foundation of free human actions there does not lie necessity which is accessible to the understanding of the doer.

p We saw earlier that metaphysical French materialism led, in point of fact, to fatalism.  For in effect, if the fate of an entire people depends on one stray atom, then all we can do is to sit back, because we are absolutely incapable and never will be capable, either of foreseeing such tricks on the part of individual atoms or of preventing them.

p Now we see that idealism can lead to exactly the same fatalism. If there is nothing of necessity in the acts of my fellow-citizens, or if they are inaccessible to my understanding from the angle of their necessity, then all I can do is to rely on beneficent Providence: my wisest plans, my most generous desires, will be broken against the quite unforeseen actions of millions of other men. In that event, as Lucretius has it, out of every thing any thing may come.

p And it is interesting that the more idealism attempted to underline the aspect of freedom in theory, the more it would be obliged to reduce it to nothingness in the sphere of practical activity , where idealism would not have the strength to grapple with chance, armed with all the powers of freedom.

p The dialectical idealists understood it perfectly well. In their practical philosophy necessity was the truest and only reliable guarantee of freedom. Even moral duty cannot reassure me as to the results of my actions, Schelling said, if the results depend only on freedom. "In freedom there must be necessity."^^398^^

p But of what necessity, then, can there be any question in this case? I am hardly likely to derive much satisfaction from constant repetition of the thought that certain willed movements necessarily correspond to certain movements of the substance of the brain. No practical calculations can be founded on such an abstract proposition, and there is no further prospect of progress 573 in this direction, because the head of my neighbour is not a glass beehive, and his cerebral fibres are not bees; and I could not observe their motions even if I knew with certainty—and we are still a long way from that situation—that after such and such a movement of such and such a nervous fibre there will follow such and such an intention in the soul of my fellow-citizen. Consequently we have to approach the study of the necessity of human actions from some other angle.

p This is all the more necessary because the owl of Minerva flies out, as we know, only in the evening, i.e., the social relations between men do not represent the result of their conscious activity. Men consciously follow their private and personal ends. Each of them consciously strives, let us suppose, to round off his own property; yet out of the sum-total of their individual actions there arise certain social results which perhaps they did not at all desire, and certainly did not foresee. Wealthy Roman citizens bought up the lands of poor farmers. Each of them knew, of course, that thanks to his efforts such and such Tullies and Juliuses were becoming landless proletarians. But who among them foresaw that the great estates would destroy the republic, and with it Italy itself? Who among them realised, or could realise, the historical consequences of his acquisitiveness? None of them could, and none of them did. Yet these were the consequences—thanks to the great estates, both the republic and Italy perished.

p Out of the conscious and free acts of individual men there necessarily follow consequences, unexpected for them and unforeseen by them, which affect the whole of society, i.e., which influence the sum-total of mutual relationships of the same men. From the realm of freedom we thus pass into the realm of necessity.

p If the social consequences of the individual acts of men, arrived at unconsciously for themselves, lead to the alteration of the social system—which takes place always, though far from with equal speed—then new individual aims arise before men. Their free conscious activity necessarily takes a new form. From the realm of necessity we again pass into the realm of freedom.

p Every necessary process is a process taking place in conformity to law. Changes in social relations which are unforeseen by men, but which of necessity appear as a result of their actions, evidently take place according to definite laws. Theoretical philosophy has to discover them.

p The same evidently applies to changes introduced into the aims of life, into the free activity of men, by the changed social relations. In other words, the passing of necessity into freedom also takes place according to definite laws, which can and must be discovered by theoretical philosophy.

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p And once theoretical philosophy has performed this task, it will provide quite new and unshakable foundation for practical philosophy. Once I know the laws of social and historical progress, I can influence the latter according to mv aims, without being concerned either by the tricks of stray atoms or by the consideration that my fellow-countrymen, as beings gifted with free will, are every moment getting ready for me whole piles of the most astonishing surprises. Naturally, I shall not be in a condition to go bail for every individual fellow-countryman, especially if he belongs to the "intellectual class”; but in broad outline I shall know the direction of the forces of society, and it will remain for me only to rely on their resultant to achieve my ends.

p And so if I could arrive, for example, at the blissful conviction that in Russia, unlike other countries, it is the "foundations of society" that will triumph, this will only be to the extent that I succeed in understanding the actions of the glorious “Russ” as actions which are in conformity to law, and in examining them from the standpoint of necessity and not from the standpoint of freedom. World history is progress in the consciousness of freedom , says Hegel, progress which we must understand in its necessity.^^399^^

p Further, however well we may have studied "the nature of man”, we shall still be very far from understanding those social results which follow from the actions of individual men. Let us suppose that we have admitted, just as the economists of the old school did, that striving for profit is the chief distinguishing feature of human nature. Shall we be in a position to anticipate the forms which that striving will take? Given definite social relations, known to us—yes; but these given, definite, known social relations will themselves change under the pressure of "human nature”, under the influence of the acquisitive activity of our fellow-citizens. In what direction will they change? This will be just as little known to us as that new direction which the striving for profit itself will take, in the new and changed social relations. We shall find ourselves in quite the same situation if, together with the German "Katheder Sozialisten”, we begin asserting that the nature of man is not exhausted by the mere striving for profit, but that he also has a "social sense" ( Gemeinsinn). This will be a new song to an old tune. In order to emerge from ignorance, covered up by more or less learned terminology, we have to pass on from the study of the nature of man to the study of .the nature of social relations; we have to understand those relations as essential process conforming to law. And this brings us back to the question: what underlies, what determines, the nature of social relations’?

p We saw that neither the materialists of last century nor the 575 Utopian Socialists gave a satisfactory reply to this question. Did the dialectical idealists succeed in answering it?

p No, they too did not succeed, and they did not succeed precisely because they were idealists.  In order to grasp their view, let us recall the argument referred to earlier about what depends on what—the constitution on manners, or manners on the constitution. Hegel rightly remarked on this discussion that the question had been put here quite wrongly, as in reality, although the manners of a particular people undoubtedly influence its constitution, and its constitution its manners, nevertheless both of them represent the result of some “third” or special force, which creates both the manners influencing the constitution and the constitution influencing manners. But what, according to Hegel, is this special force, this ultimate foundation on which stand both the nature of men and the nature of social relations? This force is “Notion” or, what is the same thing, the “Idea”, the realisation of which is the whole history of the particular people concerned. Every people puts into effect its own particular idea , and every particular idea of each individual people represents a stage in the development of the Absolute Idea. History thus turns out to be, as it were, applied logic: to explain a particular historical epoch means showing to what stage of the logical development of the Absolute Idea it corresponds. But what, then, is this "Absolute Idea"? Nothing else than the personification of our own logical process. Here is what a man says of it who himself passed through a thorough grounding in the school of idealism, and himself was passionately devoted to it, but noticed very soon wherein lies the radical defect of this tendency in philosophy^^400^^ :

p “If from real apples, pears, strawberries and almonds I form the general idea ’Fruit’; if I go further and imagine that my ... abstract idea ’Fruit’, derived from real fruit, is an entity existing outside me, is indeed the true essence of the pear, apple, etc.; then, in the language of speculative philosophy , I am declaring that ’Fruit’ is the substance of the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. I am saying, therefore, that to be a pear is not essential to the pear, that to be an apple is not essential to the apple; that what is essential to these things is ... the essence that I have abstracted from them and then foisted on to them, the essence of my idea—’Fruit’. I therefore declare apples, pears, almonds, etc., to be mere forms of existence, modi, of ‘Fruit’. My finite understanding, supported by my senses, does, of course, distinguish an apple from a pear and a pear from an almond; but my speculative reason declares these sensuous differences unessential, indifferent. It sees in the apple the same as in the pear, and in the pear the same as in the almond, namely ’Fruit’.  Particular 576 real fruits are no more than semblances whose true essence is ‘the Substance’—‘Fruit’.

p “By this method one attains no particular wealth of definition. The mineralogist whose whole science consisted in the statement that all minerals are really ’Mineral’ would be a mineralogist only in his imagination....

p “Having reduced the different real fruits to the one fruit of abstraction—’Fruit’, speculation must, in order to attain some appearance of real content, try somehow to find its way back from ’Fruit’, from ’Substance’, to the different profane real fruits, the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. It is as hard to produce real fruits from the abstract idea ’Fruit’ as it is easy to produce this abstract idea from real fruits. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at the opposite of an abstraction without relinquishing the abstraction.

p “The speculative philosopher therefore relinquishes the abstraction ’Fruit’, but in a speculative, mystical fashion.... Thus he rises above his abstraction only in appearance. He argues like this:

p “If apples, pears, almonds and strawberries are really nothing but Substance, Fruit , the question arises: Why does Fruit manifest itself to me sometimes as an apple, sometimes as a pear, sometimes as an almond? Why this appearance of diversity which so strikingly contradicts my speculative conception of Unity, ’Substance’, ’Fruit’?

p “This, answers the speculative philosopher, is because ’Fruit’ is not dead, undifferentiated, motionless, but living, selfdifferentiating, moving. The diversity of profane fruits is significant not only to my sensuous understanding, but also to ’Fruit’ itself and to speculative reasoning. The different profane fruits are different manifestations of the life of the one ’Fruit’.... In the apple, ’Fruit’ gives itself an apple-like existence, in the pear, a pear-like existence.... ’Fruit’ presents itself as a pear, ’Fruit’ presents itself as an apple, ’Friut’ presents itself as an almond, and the differences which distinguish apples, pears and almonds from one another are the selfdifferentiations of ’Fruit’ making the particular fruits subordinate members of the life-process of ‘Fruit’."  [576•* 

p All this is very biting, but at the same time undoubtedly just. By personifying our own process of thought in the shape of an Absolute Idea and by seeking in this Idea the explanation of all phenomena, idealism thereby led itself into a blind alley, out of which it could emerge only by abandoning the “Idea”, i.e., by saying good-bye to idealism. Here, for 577 example: do the following words of Schelling explain to you to any extent the nature of magnetism? "Magnetism is a general act of animation, the embedding of Unity into Multitude, Concept into Diversity. That same invasion of the subjective into the objective, which in the ideal ... is self-consciousness, is here expressed in being."^^401^^ These words don’t explain anything at all, do they? Just as unsatisfactory are similar explanations in the sphere of history.  Why did Greece fall? Because the idea which constituted the principle of Greek life, the centre of the Greek spirit (the Idea of the Beautiful ), could be only a very shortlived phase in the development of the world spirit.^^402^^ Replies of this kind only repeat the question in a positive and, moreover, a pompous form, as it were on stilts. Hegel, who gave the explanation of the fall of Greece which has just been quoted, seems himself to have felt this, and hastens to supplement his idealist explanation by a reference to the economic reality of ancient Greece. He says: "Lacedaemon fell mainly on account of inequality of property. " And he acts in this way not only where Greece is concerned. This, one may say, is his invariable approach in the philosophy of history: first a few vague references to the qualities of the Absolute Idea, and then much more extensive and, of course, much more convincing indications of the character and development of the property relations of the people to whom he is referring. Strictly speaking, in explanations of this latter kind there’s really nothing at all idealist left and, in having recourse to them, Hegel—who used to say that "idealism proves to be the truth of materialism"—was signing a certificate about the poverty of idealism, tacitly admitting as it were that in essence matters stand in exactly the opposite way, and that materialism proves to be the truth of idealism.

p However, the materialism which Hegel here approached was a quite undeveloped, embryonic materialism, and immediately passed once more into idealism as soon as he found it necessary to explain whence came these or those particular property relations. True, here also it would happen that Hegel frequently expressed quite materialist views. But as a rule he regarded property relations as the realisation of conceptions of Right which developed by their own internal force.

p And so what have we learned about the dialectical idealists?

p They abandoned the standpoint of human nature and, thanks to this, got rid of the Utopian view of social phenomena: they began to examine social life as a necessary process, with its own laws. But in a roundabout fashion, by personifying the process of our logical reason (i.e., one of the sides of human nature ), they returned to the same unsatisfactory point of view, and therefore the true nature of social relations remained incomprehensible for them.

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p Now once again a little digression into the sphere of our own domestic, Russian philosophy.

p Mr. Mikhailovsky has heard from Mr. Filippov, who in his turn has heard from the American writer Frazer, that all the philosophy of Hegel amounts to "galvanic mysticism". What we have said already of the aims which the idealist German plilosophy set before itself will be enough to show the reader how nonsensical is Frazer’s opinion. Messrs. Filippov and Mikhailovsky themselves feel that their American has gone too far: "It is sufficient to recall the successive course and influence (on Hegel) of preceding metaphysics, beginning with the ancients, with Heraclitus...” says Mr. Mikhailovsky, adding immediately, however: "Nevertheless the remarks of Frazer are in the highest degree interesting, and undoubtedly contain a certain element of truth.” We must admit, although we cannot but recognise.... Shchedrin long ago held up this “formula” to ridicule. But what would you have his former contributor, Mr. Mikhailovsky,^^403^^ do, when he has undertaken to interpret to the “uninitiated” a philosopher whom he knows only by hearsay? Willy-nilly you will go on repeating, with the learned air of a scholar, phrases which say nothing....

p Let us however recall the "successive course" of development of German idealism. "The experiments in galvanism produce an impression on all the thinking people of Europe, including the then young German philosopher Hegel,” says Mr. Mikhailovsky. "Hegel creates a colossal metaphysical system, thundering throughout the world, so that there’s no getting away from it even on the banks of the River Moskva.” ... The case is represented here as though Hegel had become infected with "galvanic mysticism" direct from the physicists. But Hegel’s system represents only the further development of the views of Schelling: clearly the infection must have previously influenced the latter. So it did, reassuringly replies Mr. Mikhailovsky, or Mr. Filippov, of Frazer: "Schelling, and particularly some doctors who had been his pupils, carried the teaching of polarity to the last extreme.” Very good. But the predecessor of Schelling was as is known, Fichte. How did the galvanic infectibn affect him? Mr. Mikhailovsky says nothing about this: probably he thinks that it had no influence at all. And he is quite right if he really does think so; in order to be convinced of this, it is sufficient to read one of the first philosophical works of Fichte, Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre , Leipzig, 1794. In this work no microscope will discover the influence of “galvanism”; yet there, too, appears that same notorious “triad” which, in the opinion of Mr. Mikhailovsky, constitues the main distinguishing feature of the Hegelian philosophy, and the genealogy of which Frazer, allegedly with "a certain element of truth”, traces from the "experiments of Galvani and Volta".... We 579 must admit that all this is very strange, although we cannot but recognise that nevertheless Hegel, etc., etc.

p The reader knows already what were Schelling’s views on magnetism. The defect of German idealism lay not at all in its being founded allegedly on an excessive and unjustified captivation (in a mystical form) by the scientific discoveries of its age, but, on the contrary, in its attempt to explain all the phenomena of nature and history with the help of the process of thought which it had personified.

In conclusion, one comforting piece of news. Mr. Mikhailovsky has discovered that "metaphysics and capitalism are most intimately connected; that, to use the language of economic materialism, metaphysics is an essential component part of the ’superstructure’ over the capitalist form of production, although at the same time capital swallows up and adapts to itself all the technical advances of science, founded on experiment and observation, which is hostile to metaphysics”. Mr. Mikhailovsky promises to discuss "this curious contradiction" some other time. Mr. Mikhailovsky’s examination will be “curious” indeed! Just think: what he calls metaphysics underwent a brilliant development both in ancient Greece and in Germany of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. Up to now it was thought that ancient Greece was not a capitalist country at all, and in Germany, at the time indicated, capitalism had only just begun to develop. Mr. Mikhailovsky’s research will demonstrate that from the point of view of "subjective sociology " this is quite untrue, and that precisely ancient Greece and Germany in the days of Fichte and Hegel were classical countries of capitalism. You see now why this is important. Let our author, then, hasten to publish his remarkable discovery. Sing, my dear, don’t be shy!