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p These words alone show clearly what savage and absurd lies were spread by the philistines of pure art and allegedly philosophical criticism who assured the reading public that our enlighteners were prepared to sacrifice the head and the heart to the stomach, mankind’s spiritual interests to its material advantage. The enlighteners said that by helping to spread rational ideas in society, art would bring people intellectual benefit, and then bring them material advantage also. In their eyes material advantage was the simple but inevitable result of people’s intellectual development; their talk about it meant only that it is more difficult to “diddle” a clever man than a fool, and that when the majority acquires rational ideas it will easily cast off the yoke of the pike whose hold is secure only until the perch awake. In order to hasten the longed-for awakening of the perch, the enlighteners were prepared to renounce the use of pots and pans altogether and live on nothing but locusts (even without the wild honey); yet they were accused of valuing nothing but the pots and pans which were said to be more precious to them than the greatest works of human genius. This was the work either of completely naive people or of the pike themselves for whom the awakening of the perch was most disadvantageous. The pike is a cunning fish, it defends disinterestedness most resolutely of all just when it is about to gobble up the gaping perch.^^76^^

_p When we hear or read about attacks on temlentiousness in art. we invariably recall the knight Bertram! de Born who, as 231 we know, knew how to wield not only his sword, but also his “lyre”. This splendid knight, who said that a man was only worth the number of blows he had received and dealt, composed a remarkably poetic poem in which he extolled spring and the delights of warfare. “Oh, I do love the warm springtime,” he said there, "when leaves and flowers open; I love to hear the chirping of the birds, and their merry singing in the bushes.” No less does the splendid knight love it when "people and cattle flee before galloping warriors”, and not food, drink, or sleep—nothing attracts him like "the sight of corpses pierced through with weapons”. He finds that "a slain man is always better than a living one’".

p All this is most poetic, is it not?

p But we sometimes wonder what impression this poetry must have made on the “villeins” who fled in terror with their flocks before the galloping warriors. It is highly likely that because they were so “coarse” they saw nothing good about it. It is highly likely that it seemed somewhat tendentious to them. Finally, it is highly likely that some of them in their turn composed poetic ditties in which they expressed their sorrow at the devastation wrought by the martial feats of the knights and said that a living man is always better than a slain one. If such ditties were in fact composed, the knights probably considered them very tendentious and fumed with rage at the coarse people who had no desire to appear in the form of corpses pierced through with weapons and, as a result of their total aesthetic backwardness, found that their cattle made a far more pleasant impression when it was grazing peacefully in the fields than when it was fleeing in horror from galloping knights. Everything is relative, everything depends on one’s point of view, even though this is not to the liking of Mr. N.-on.

p Our enlighteners did not scorn poetry at all, but they preferred poetry of action to all other. Their hearts had ceased almost entirely to respond to the voice of the poets of peaceful contemplation who only a short while ago had held sway over the minds of their contemporaries; they needed the muse of struggle, "the muse -of vengeance and sorrow" who sings

p Unbridled, savage and uncouth
Hostility to all that’s foul,
And an immeasurable faith
In unremitting, selfless toil.^^77^^

_p They were ready to listen enrapt to this muse’s melodies, and yet they were accused of being hard-hearted, callous, selfish and earthbound. Thus history is written!

p But let us return to Chernyshevsky.

p If art cannot be an end in itself, if its main purpose is to pro- 232 mote the intellectual development of society, it is obvious that it must fade into the background when it is possible to spread rational ideas in society by a quicker method. The enlightener is not hostile to art, but nor does he have an absolute passion for it. He does not have an absolute passion for anything but his great and sole aim: the spreading of rational ideas in society. This is very clear from the following comment by Chernyshevsky on Lessing, for whom he always felt the most admiring affection and whom he himself resembled in many respects.

p “No matter to what branches of intellectual activity his own inclinations drew him, he spoke and wrote only about that to which the intellectual life of his people aspired or was ready to aspire. All that which could not be of immediate importance to the nation, no matter how interesting it was to him personally, was neither the subject of his writing nor of his conversations—If there was anyone gifted by nature for philosophy in Germany before Kant, that person was, without a doubt, Lessing—Yet he hardly wrote a single word about philosophy as such.... The fact is that it was not yet time for pure philosophy to become the living focus of German intellectual life, and Lessing kept silent about philosophy; the minds of his contemporaries were ready to respond to poetry, but were not yet ready for philosophy, so Lessing wrote dramas and discussed poetry—For natures such as Lessing there is a service dearer than the service of their favourite science—it is that of serving the development of their people. And if a Laocoon or a Hamburgische Dramaturgic is of more use to the nation than a system of metaphysics or an ontological theory, such a man keeps silent about metaphysics, fondly analysing literary questions, although from the absolute scientific viewpoint Virgil’s Aeneid and Voltaire’s Semiramis are trivial and almost empty subjects for a mind that is capable of contemplating the basic laws of human life."

p At the beginning of his literary activity Chernyshevsky found that the progressive strata in society were interested most of all in literature, therefore he embarked upon a study of the aesthetic relation of art to reality. Later our social life gave pride of place to economic questions; so then he too turned from aesthetics to political economy. As in the former, so in the latter case, the course of his studies was determined entirely by the course of his readers’ intellectual development, which resulted from the course of development of our social life.

p In the preface to his dissertation Chernyshevsky says: "Respect for real life, mistrust of a priori hypotheses, even though they tickle one’s fancy, such is the character of the trend that now predominates in science. The author is of the opinion that our aesthetic convictions, if it is still worthwhile discussing aesthetics, should be brought into line with this."

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p Many people, including Pisarev, saw these words as an allusion to the conviction that the science of aesthetics should be totally destroyed. We have shown how mistaken this opinion was. In fact the words "if it is still worthwhile discussing aesthetics" simply indicated Chernyshevsky’s doubt as to the questions with which he should address the reading public at that particular moment. This doubt will be perfectly understandable if we remember that his dissertation came out in April 1855, i.e., at the very beginning of the reign of Emperor Alexander, which gave rise to great expectations in our society.

In his relations with his readers Chernyshevsky shows only that “secretiveness” which is always found in a teacher who loves his subject. The teacher tries to give the pupil a taste for the subject. But he does not, of course, confine the content of his talk to these subjects alone. He seeks to include in it everything that can help to broaden his pupil’s intellectual horizons and that does not go beyond the level of his development. Chernyshevsky always acted thus, following the example of the selfsame Lessing. In his review of his own dissertation he says: "Aesthetics may be of some interest for the mind because the solution of its problems depends upon the solution of other, more interesting problems. We hope that everyone who is familiar with good works on the science will agree with this.” And he expresses regret that "Mr. Chernyshevsky deals too i’leetingly with the points at which aesthetics comes into contact with the general system of concepts of nature and life”. In his words, "this is a grave defect and it is the reason why the inner meaning of the theory accepted by the author may seem obscure to many, and why the ideas he develops may seem to be the author’s own, to which he cannot have the slightest claim”. It is easy to see from whence this defect arises, however: "the system of concepts" with which Chernyshevsky’s aesthetic views were closely connected could have seemed a dangerous philosophical innovation to an academic university board at that time. He was therefore obliged to confine himself to hints at it (in) his dissertation. In the Sovremennik Chernyshevsky was able to express himself somewhat more freely. He took advantage of this opportunity in order to be somewhat more explicit about the connection of his aesthetics with the general system of his philosophical views under ’ the guise of reviewing "Mr. Chernyshevsky’s" work.