p Philosophy, as a system of man’s views of the world, as a world outlook, has not been always in existence. It emerged at a certain stage in the development of society, when human thought had attained a high level and there were favourable social conditions for it to emerge. In the initial stages of society’s existence and development, man’s productive forces were extremely underdeveloped, while man himself was totally dependent on nature and the elements. Since man was unaware of the real causes of various phenomena, he was naturally inclined to animate them and consider them to be wrought by supernatural forces and creatures. This is how belief in the existence of God, religion and religious views emerged.

p Thus, a religious world outlook engendered by the savage’s impotence vis-a-vis nature and his fear of the mysterious elements affecting his life was the first, initial form of a general view of the world.

p When society was divided into classes-slaves and slave-owners-religious views came to be engendered by still another cause, namely, the dependence of man on spontaneous social forces 32 that were just as harmful to him as were nature’s elemental forces. Besides, for the slave-owners religion in slave-owning society becomes a moral means for justifying and perpetuating the exploitation of slaves. The emergence of classes led to the emergence of the class struggle, which was inevitably reflected in people’s spiritual life and in the struggle of different world outlooks corresponding to the different positions of classes and other social groups in society. In slave-owning society, mental work separated from manual labour and became the monopoly of slaveowners. The ideological or philosophical struggle was therefore waged mainly between separate groups of slave-owners occupying different places in society, such as progressive artisan and merchant strata of the slave-owning class and conservative aristocratic groups of tribal origin. The artisan and merchant section of slave-owners sought to develop the productive forces and trade, and to bring about democratic reforms within the slave-owning state. The aristocratic strata, on the other hand, opposed such reforms. The struggle waged by the progressive social groups against the reactionary aristocracy led to the emergence and development of a materialist world outlook opposed to the latter group’s religious views of the world.

While opposing materialism, representatives of the reactionary section of slave-owners began to develop idealistic conceptions to substantiate religion and to combat the materialist view of various phenomena. This was how idealism took shape. 33 It was a reaction to the emerging materialist world outlook. Once having taken shape, idealism and materialism began to wage a constant, unremitting struggle. The entire subsequent history of philosophy is nothing but the struggle between the two trends in philosophy-materialism and idealism.