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p The idealist aestheticians regarded the so-called sublime as an “element” of the beautiful. Chernyshevsky argues that the sublime is not a form of the beautiful and that the ideas of the sublime and the beautiful are quite different, "there is no inner connection, no inner contradiction" between them. He gives his own definition of the sublime, which, he believes, embraces and explains all the phenomena belonging to this sphere: "a man regards as sublime that which is far bigger than the objects or far stronger than the phenomena with which it is compared by man”.

p Chernyshevsky arrives at his definition of the sublime by the following line of argument: "The prevailing system of aesthetics says that the sublime is the manifestation of the absolute or the preponderance of the idea over form.” But these two definitions are entirely different in meaning, because the preponderance of the idea over form does not produce the concept of the sublime, but the concept of the nebulous and the vague, and the concept of the ugly. Thus the only definition of the sublime in the proper sense of the word which remains is that according to which the sublime is the manifestation of the absolute. But this too does not stand up to criticism. If we examine what takes place within us during contemplation of the sublime, we see that it is the object itself and not the mood which it arouses that we perceive as the sublime: the sea is majestic, a mountain is majestic, a person is majestic. Of course, contemplation of the sublime may lead to different thoughts that strengthen the impression felt by us, but the object that we are contemplating is sublime quite independently of whether such thoughts appear or not. "And therefore even if we agree that contemplation of the 246 sublime always leads to the idea of the infinite, the cause of the impression made upon us by the sublime, which engenders such a thought but is not engendered by it, must lie not in the thought, but in something else.” In fact, however, contemplation of the sublime does not always lead us to the idea of the infinite. Mont Blanc or Kazbek are majestic mountains, but no one will say that they are infinitely great; a thunderstorm is a very majestic phenomenon, but there is nothing in common between a thunderstorm and infinity; love or passion may be extremely majestic, but it too cannot arouse the idea of the infinite. Some objects and phenomena seem sublime to us simply because they are bigger than others. "Mont Blanc and Kazbek are majestic mountains because they are much bigger than the ordinary hills and mounds that we are accustomed to see.... The smooth surface of the sea is much wider than that of the ponds and small lakes that wayfarers constantly meet; sea waves are much higher than the waves of these lakes, therefore a storm at sea is a sublime phenomenon even if it does not threaten anyone.... Love is much stronger than our petty calculations and motives; anger, jealousy, all passion in general is much stronger than them, therefore passion is a sublime phenomenon.... Much bigger, much stronger—that is the distinguishing feature of the sublime."

p In embarking on his criticism of the prevailing definitions of the sublime, Chernyshevsky regrets that he cannot show the true significance of the absolute in the sphere of metaphysical concepts in his dissertation. He has good reason to regret this. To show the significance of the absolute would have meant for him to refute the basis of absolute idealism, and having refuted the basis of absolute idealism and won the reader over to his own materialist point of view, he would have found it easy to make him acknowledge the invalidity of idealist definitions of the sublime and also of other aesthetic concepts. We shall complete that which our author left unsaid.

_p Absolute idealism regards the absolute idea as the essence of the world process. The aestheticians of Hegel’s school appealed to the absolute idea as the last instance on which all concepts (i.e., including aesthetic concepts) depend and in which all the contradictions that confuse us are resolved.  [246•*  Feuerbach showed, as we already know, that the absolute idea is the process of thought seen as the essence of the world process. He dethroned the absolute idea. But together with the mighty queen all her numerous vassals fell too. All the separate ideas and concepts that had acquired their highest meaning from the absolute idea would be seen to lack content, as it were, and therefore require 247 radical revision. Take the concept of the sublime, for example. As long as the absolute idea was regarded as the basis of all that exists, the idealist aestheticians surprised no one by saying that the sublime was the manifestation of the absolute. But when the absolute turned out to be the essence of our own thought process, this definition lost all meaning. A thunderstorm is a sublime natural phenomenon; but how can our own thought be manifested in it? It is clear, then, that the concept of the sublime needs to be revised. It was the awareness of this need that made itself felt in Chernyshevsky’s attempt to find a new definition for this concept.

p The same with the concept of the tragic.

p The tragic is the most important form of the sublime. In disagreeing with the idealists on the meaning of the latter, Chernyshevsky was, of course, bound to disagree with them also on the interpretation of the tragic. In order to find out the precise cause of his disagreement with the idealists here, one must recall certain of Hegel’s historical views. According to Hegel, Socrates was the representative of a new principle in the social and intellectual life of Athens; herein lies his fame and his historical merit. But in acting as the representative of this new principle Socrates clashed with the laws that existed at that time in Athens. He violated them and perished as a victim of this violation. And such is the fate of historical heroes in general: bold innovators, they violate the established legal order; in this sense they are criminals. The established legal order of things punishes them with death. But their death atones for that which was criminal in their activity, and the principles which they represented triumph after their death. This view of the historical activity of heroes contains two fundamentally different elements. The first element is to be found in the reference to the clash between innovators and the established legal order, which is very frequently repeated in history. The second lies in the attempt to justify the also frequently recurring fact of the death of innovators. These two elements correspond to the dual nature of absolute idealism. As a dialectical philosophical system absolute idealism examined phenomena in their development, in their emergence and destruction. The process of the development of historical phenomena takes place by means of human activity. The struggle of the old with the new is the struggle of people of opposite trends. This struggle sometimes claims many innocent victims. This is an indisputable historical fact. Hegel points it out and explains its inevitability. But Hegel’s idealism is not only a dialectical system; it also claims to be a system of absolute truth. It promises to take us into the world of the absolute. And in the world of the absolute there is no injustice. Therefore Hegel’s absolute idealism assures us that in actual fact people never perish 248 innocently; that since their actions—the actions of individuals—inevitably bear the stamp of limitation, they are just, on the one hand, and unjust, on the other. And this injustice is the cause of their death. Thus, the "absolute idea”, the "world spirit”, is relieved of all responsibility for the suffering which accompanies the advance of mankind. Regarded in such a way history becomes a kind of theodicy.

_p The doctrine of the tragic based on Hegel’s philosophy will become quite clear to the reader if we say that according to it Socrates’ fate is one of the finest examples of the tragic. By his death the wise Athenian atoned for the inevitable oue-sidedness of his own cause. His death was a necessary atoning sacrifice. Without such a sacrifice our moral feeling would have remained unsatisfied. But, you must agree, this moral feeling is very strange for it demands the death of all those who struggle more energetically and successfully than the rest against social stagnation. An unprejudiced person could not have such a feeling. It was invented, “constructed”, by philosophers. This did not escape the notice of Chernyshevsky, of course, who said quite rightly that the idea of seeing guilt in every man who perished was a far-fetched and cruel idea. It grew out of the Ancient Greek idea of fate, according to him. But "every educated man understands how ridiculous it is to regard the world through the eyes of Greeks of the period of Herodotus; everybody understands perfectly nowadays that the suffering and death of great men are not inevitable; that not every man who dies does so for his crimes, that not every criminal perishes, that not every crime is punished by the court of public opinion, and so on. Therefore it must be said that the tragic does not always arouse the idea of necessity in our minds, and that the impact which tragedy makes on a person and its essence are by no means based on the idea of necessity".

p How does Chernyshevsky himself understand the tragic?

p After all that has been said it is easy for us to foresee what view of the tragic we shall find in The Aesthetic Relation of Art to Reality. Chernyshevsky says: "The tragic is a man’s suffering or death. That is quite enough to fill us with horror and compassion, even though this suffering or death is not the manifestation of ’an infinitely mighty and irresistible force’. Whether a man’s suffering and death are due to chance or necessity makes no difference. Suffering and death are horrible in themselves. We are told: ’purely accidental death is absurd in a tragedy’; this may be so in tragedies written by authors, but not in real life. In poetry the author considers it his bounden duty to ’make the denouement develop out of the plot’; in life the denouement is often quite accidental and a tragic fate may be quite accidental without ceasing to be tragic. We agree that the fate of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, which proceeds inevitably from their posi- 249 tion and their actions, is tragic. But is not the fate of Gustavus Adolphus, who perished quite accidentally in the battle of Liitzen, on the path of triumph and victory, also tragic?"

p Eventually Chernyshevsky defines the tragic as that which is terrible in human life. He thinks that this is the fullest definition of the tragic. "It is true,” he adds, "that most works of art give us the right to add: ’the terrible that afflicts man is more or less inevitable’; but. firstly, there is some doubt as to how right art is in presenting the terrible as nearly always inevitable, when in fact it is not inevitable at all in most cases, but purely accidental; secondly, I think that it is very often only due to the habit of searching in every work of art fur a ’ necessary chain of events’, for a ’necessary development of the action from the essence of the action itself that we find, and even then with great difficulty, ’necessity in the course of events’ even where it does not exist at all, as, for example, in most of Shakespeare’s tragedies.” Thus, the tragic is that which is terrible in human life and it would be wrong to regard this as the result of "the necessary course of events”. Such is Chernyshevsky’s idea. Is it right? Before answering this question it is worth asking oneself why our author thinks there is no necessity in most of Shakespeare’s “tragedies”? And what sort of necessity can one speak of here? Obviously only psychological necessity. What do we understand by these words? That the thoughts, feelings and actions of any given character, in our case the hero of the drama in question, proceed necessarily from his character and his position. But can one say that Shakespeare’s dramas lack this necessity? Certainly not! Quite the reverse! It is the main distinguishing feature of Shakespeare’s dramatic works. Then how are we to understand Chernyshevsky’s words? Evidently they can be understood only as meaning that he refuses to acknowledge as inevitable and necessary all the evil and all the human sufferingthat are reflected in Shakespeare. Chernyshevsky’s social point of view was that of conventional optimism, so to say. He believed that people would be very happy if they organised their social relations properly. This is a very understandable, very estimable and, given certain psychological conditions, quite inevitable optimism. But actually it bears no direct relation to the question of the tragic. Shakespeare portrayed not that which could have been, but that which was; he took man’s psychological nature not in the form which it would assume in the future, but in the one with which he was familiar from observing his contemporaries. And the psychological nature of his contemporaries was not a chance, but a necessary phenomenon. And what is chance if not necessity that evades our understanding? Of course, we cannot see necessity in the form of Greek fate.  But then it can be seen quite differently. Nowadays it is hardly likely that any- 250 one would try to attribute, for example, the downfall of the Gracchi to the will of “fate”, the forces of “chance”, etc. Everyone or nearly everyone would agree that it was prepared by the course of development of Roman social life. But if this course of development was necessary, it is obvious that the famous popular tribunes .also perished by virtue of "a necessary chain of events”. This does not mean that we should be indifferent to the downfall of such people. We can wish them success with all our heart. But this does not prevent us from understanding that their victory is possible only if this and that social condition is present and impossible in the absence of such conditions. In general counterpoising the desirable with the necessary does not stand up to -criticism and is merely an individual case of the dualism which was condemned, inter alia, also by Feuerbach, Chernyshevsky’s teacher, the dualism that severs the connection between the subject and the object. Any monist philosophy, and Chernyshevsky’s philosophy had good reason to declare itself as such, is obliged to strive to explain the desirable by the necessary, to under-stand the emergence of any given desires in any given social person as a lav-governed and therefore necessary process. Chernyshevsky—and for that matter Fouerbach himself—acknowledged that his philosophy was under this obligation, in so far as the task to which we refer was seen by him in its general abstract formulation. But neither Feuerbach nor Chernyshevsky understood that this task inevitably confronts anyone who wishes to understand the history of mankind in general and the history of ideology in particular. This explains why the view of the tragic set out in ’Chernyshevsky’s dissertation is unsatisfactory. Hegel, who regarded Socrates’ fate as a dramatic episode in the history of the internal development of Athenian society, had a deeper understanding of the tragic than Chernyshevsky, who evidently regarded this fate simply as a terrible accident and nothing more. Chernyshevsky could only have equalled Hegel in his understanding of the tragic, if he, like the great German idealist, had adopted the viewpoint of development, which is, unfortunately, almost entirely absent in his dissertation. The weak point of Hegel’s view of the fate of Socrates is his desire to convince us that the deatli of the wise Athenian was necessary in order to reconcile .someone to something and to satisfy the requirements of a higher justice, which Socrates had allegedly violated to some extent. But this desire of Hegel’s has nothing in common with his dialectics. It was inspired by the metaphysical element which was •characteristic of his philosophy and which gave it such a strong imprint of conservatism. The task of Feuerbach and his followers who criticised Hegel’s philosophy was to fight mercilessly against this metaphysical element, the abolition of which would make it the algebra of progress. By consistently adhering to the view- 251 point of development, Chernyshevsky would have succeeded, on the one hand, in understanding Socrates’ tragic position as a result of the crisis in the domestic life of Athens, and on the other, in not only discovering the weak point of Hegel’s theory of the tragic, the idea of the death of the hero as an essential condition of the “reconciliation” with which we are already familiar, but also in showing where it actually came from. i.e.. in other words, in applying the instrument of dialectics to the examination of Hegel’s philosophy itself. But neither Chernyshevsky himself, nor his teacher Feuerbach, were able to do this. A dialectical critique of Hegelian philosophy was provided only by Marx and Engels.

In his view of the comic our author differed litlle from the "prevailing aesthetic system”. This is explained by the simple fact that he was able to remove all trace of idealism from the definition accepted by the idealists, "the comic is the preponderance of the image over the idea”, without any great dialectical effort. He says that the comic is "inner emptiness and insignificance which lays claim to content and real importance”. And he adds that idealist aestheticians have excessively restricted the concept of the comic by contrasting it only with the concept of the sublime: "comic pettiness and comic stupidity or obtuseness are, of course. the opposite of the sublime; but comic monstrosity, comic ugliness are the opposite of the beautiful, not of the sublime".