p Definite views of society, of its motive forces and the laws of its development had already appeared in ancient times. They emerged together with philosophy which initially was the only science not just studying the general forms of being, but mainly explaining specific social and natural phenomena. Once they had emerged, sociological views did not remain intact, but were constantly changing, especially as society passed from one stage of development to another. For all the diversity oi pre-Marxian sociological views, they were all idealist in character. The essence of social life, its changes and development were deduced from some spiritual origindivine reason, the absolute idea, the development of science, religion or public opinion, etc. Thus, many philosophers in Ancient Greece held that social life was guided by the gods, who directly intervened in it and determined the destiny of individuals and nations. In the Middle Ages, theologians and philosophers deduced the essence of social life from the divine nature. For example, according to Thomas Aquinas, freedom, slavery, class distinctions and state power were all of divine origin. He held that God had created man free, but had sent him slavery as a punishment for his sins. Besides, according to Thomas Aquinas, God created “dirty people"—peasants, townsmen and artisans to do the “dirty” work of societyTAs far as state power is concerned, Thomas Aquinas 290 held that it is a unifying principle in the state, interrelated with the latter as God is with the Universe, or the soul with the body. The 18 thcentury French materialists Helvetius and Holbach explained the changes within the state and in people’s living conditions by the changes in public opinion. Hegel deduced the essence and laws of development from the development of the absolute idea. Ludwig Feuerbach related society’s transition from one stage of development to another to the change of religions.

p While revealing the idealism of pre-Marxian sociological views, we must not presume that there was nothing rational or scientific about them. Some pre-Marxian philosophers and sociologists also suggested certain correct ideas, that were materialistic in essence. No matter what brilliant conjectures they represented, however, these propositions could not play a major role in the sociological theories developed by these thinkers, which were basically idealistic.

p Thus, for example, the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, while opposing Pythagorean views on the intervention of the gods into human social life, put forward the idea of the importance of material needs for society’s development. Democritus believed that “the need itself served as mistress in all matters”. At the same time, he considered production as the outcome of free creativityT

p The  ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras assigned an important place in social life to the development of material culture. He demonstrated 291 that, with the development of culture, in particular with the mastering of fire and the emergence of crafts, people began to live in organised communities, such as towns. At the same time Protagoras remarked that, for the people to pass to this new form of social life, they should learn to determine what is just and what is unjust. He claimed that only the gods imparted that ability to human beings.

p The 18th-century French enlightener Charles Montesquieu expressed the profound idea that law depends on the mode of production. “The laws,” he pointed out, “are very closely connected with the way different nations procure their subsistence.”  [291•1  At the same time, he deduced the content of laws from the form of government, i.e. from a political factor that, according to his theory, played a decisive role.

p A number of rational ideas on the origin of private property, classes and the state were expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Private property, he asserted, emerges due to the fact that people, with their inherent capacity for selfimprovement, devise new instruments of labour and start cultivating the land. Advanced instruments allow cultivation to be improved and, in the long run, they cause the emergence of private property, which, in turn, brings about the division of society into the rich and the poor and causes conflicts between them. The 292 intensifying class struggle, according to Rousseau, determines the need for the formation of a state to guard private property and consolidate the domination of the rich. Rousseau succeeded in providing a general, rather realistic, description of the social processes that caused the emergence of classes and the state, but he failed to maintain a consistently materialistic approach and follow this principle throughout. Ultimately he departed from the materialistic approach to the question of the origin of the state, and took an idealistic stand, claiming that it was the rich who invented the state and deceived the poor as to the necessity of establishing state power. According to Rousseau’s interpretation, the state is, therefore, the outcome of people’s conscious creativity.

p The proposition put forward by the 18th-century French materialists (Helvetius, Holbach and others) to the effect that man, with all his desires, views and feelings was a product of education and the environment in which he lived, was in general a materialistic and correct point of dew. “People...,” Helvetius wrote on this score, “are born either with no disposition, or with dispositions to all opposite vices and virtues. They are, therefore, just a product of their education.”  [292•1 

p But alongside this proposition, the French materialists developed the idea of the dependence of the social milieu on legislation and the political structure, which are formed under the influence of 293 public opinion. “Experience,” Helvetius wrote, “proves that the character and spirit of peoples change together with the form of their government and that different forms of government impart to one and the same nation a high or low, a constant or unstable, a courageous or timid character.”  [293•1  Social life and its development were thus, in the final analysis, determined neither by material factors nor by economic relations, but by legislation, politics and public opinion.

p The French historians of the Restoration (Guizot, Thierry and Mignet) went somewhat further than the 18th-century French materialists in comprehending the essence of social life. They established that political institutions are determined by social relations, which depend on the property status. “It would be wiser,” Guizot wrote, for example, “to begin with the study of society, in order to learn and understand its political institutions. Before becoming a cause, institutions are a consequence; society creates them before it begins to change under their influence; and instead of judging the condition of a people from the system or the forms of its government, we must first of all investigate the condition of the people, in order to judge what should be and what could be its government.”  [293•2  And he continued: “In order to understand political institutions, we must study the various strata existing in society and 294 their mutual relationships. In order to understand these various strata, we must know the nature and the relations of landed property.” Having expressed the idea of the dependence of political institutions on social relations, and that of the latter on the property relations, the French historians could not, however, reveal the actual reasons behind the “property relations”. A reference to human nature as a factor influencing the property relations explained nothing, but merely proved that they failed to go beyond the ideas put forward by the Enlighteners, who tried to link all social problems to “human nature".  [294•1 

p The Utopian socialists (Owen, Saint-Simon and Fourier) made definite strides towards revealing the driving forces behind social progress. Though similar to the 18th-century French materialists and historians of the Restoration, the Utopians based their social views on the supposed existence of man’s unchanging and true nature, but they did not confine themselves to asserting that property relations are the basis of the social system, as the French historians had done at the beginning of the 19th century. They tried to explain why these relations played such an important part. Saint-Simon, in particular, saw the needs of production and industry as the reason behind the major role of property relations in the development of society. He explained the transfer 295 of property from the feudal lords into the hands of the bourgeoisie and the political changes accompanying this process in France by the needs of industrial development. Saint-Simon was right in singling out production as a determining factor in social life, but he referred the development of industry to changes in the public consciousness and considered it the result solely of the mental improvement of mankind. Thus, here again, consciousness, as the spirit, represented the ultimate cause of society’s existence and development.

p Finally, the Russian revolutionary democrats Belinsky and Chernyshevsky pointed to the people’s “material conditions of existence" and their material requirements as factors playing the major part in human life. But they also acknowledged the decisive role of science and education in historical progress.

p Thus, all pre-Marxian philosophers, both idealjsts and materialists, proceeded, in the final analysis, from the spirit in trvino to explain the essence of _social life and the motive forces of Tiistorv. i.e. they were, in fact, idealists.

p How can one account for this? Why was idealism so predominant in the sociological views of pre-Marxian philosophers and sociologists?

p Interactions between material substances in nature are effected without the interference of any conscious creature and it is here that, in Engels’ words, “nothing of all that happens—whether in the innumerable apparent accidents observable upon the surface, or in the ultimate results which 296 confirm the regularity inherent in these accidents —happens as a consciously desired aim.”  [296•1 

p It is people-creatures possessing consciousness who set definite aims and try to fulfil them-who act in society. There, wrote Engels, “nothing happens without a conscious purpose, without an intended aim.”  [296•2 

p It is this very circumstance that confused the pre-Marxian materialist philosophers and made them abandon the materialist basic principle in explaining natural phenomena, in favour of an idealistic approach to the phenomena ot social life. This is what determined the fact that they (the pre-Marxian materialists) considered the ideal driving forces in society to be the ultimate causes of events and did not seek more deep-seated motive forces which determined these driving forces. Furthermore, due to this very exaggeration of the role of the spirit in social lite-the activities of the masses escaped the attention of the preMarxian sociologists, and it was great personalities, enlightened monarchs and law-makers who were regarded as the creators of history.

p Pre-Marxian materialists, while proceeding from ideological motives in explaining social phenomena and their causes spurring people to historical activity, failed to unveil the reasons behind these motives. As a result, they abandoned their materialist principles in favour of idealist views. 297 Hegel tried to correct the mistake of the materialists in defining the ultimate causes of historical development. He stated that the historical activities of people depended neither on their will nor wish, but were guided by the “world spirit" which assumed the form of historical necessity implicit in individual events. Though people act in the pursuit of their aims, Hegel pointed out, they effect something which is beyond their intentions and objectives and which they themselves do not realise. The realisation of what is beyond people’s immediate goals or consciousness, becomes the historical mission of particular nations which, being themselves pawns in the hands of the “world spirit”, are called upon to implement relevant ideas determining this or that stage of historical development, and represent, in effect, the development stages of the “world spirit”. For example, according to Hegel, the history of ancient Greece was nothing but an elaboration of “forms of beautiful individuality”, or the realisation of the concept of a “work of art" as such.  [297•1 

While showing the 18th-century materialists’ narrow understanding of the ultimate causes of peoples’ historical activity, and being correct in that the direct motivations of historical personalities were not the ultimate causes of historical events, and that here are other driving forces behind them, Hegel, nevertheless, failed to provide a scientifically backed solution to this problem. He 298 looked for the ultimate causes of historical development not in history itself but outside, not in the material sphere of social life but in the spirit, in the logical laws of development of the absolute idea existing somewhere outside and independently of human society and history.