individuation with social control. He resents on the one hand the ideas of the moral subjectivists or individualists who regard each individual as self-determining and independent of society; on the other hand he thinks that man is more than a social animal which exists only for the sake of the group.1 According to Soloviev, the human individual is a potentiality for realizing unlimited possibilities. He is a unique form of infinite content. The potentialities of man, dividing him off from other animals, are three peculiar psychic characteristics, the religious, the sense of pity and the sense of shame. These are the premises upon which Soloviev's whole system of ethics and of sociology is built.'

Society is nothing else but an objectively-realizing content of the individual. According to its actual purpose society is not an outer boundary of the individual but is his completion, and in relation to the multiplicity of individual units society is not an arithmetical summing-up or a mechanical aggregate. It is an indivisible unit of life, which in part is already realized and is preserved through enduring social traditions, and in part is being realized in the present by means of social activities, and which finally proceeds through a better knowledge of the social ideal towards its future complete realization.3

In the process of historical evolution, too, these three principal remaining characteristics of the socio-individual life -the religious, the political and the prophetic-correspond to three successive stages in human consciousness and in the social structure, namely: "(1) The tribal which belongs to the past and which is preserved in the family, having changed only its outer form, (2) the national-gov

ernmental order, which dominates at present, and, (3) the universal association of man as the ideal of the future." "

Thus society is a supplemented or widened individual, and the individual is a condensed or concentrated society. The moral historical problem consists not in creating socioindividual solidarity (for it is potentially present) but in raising it into consciousness, in transforming it from an involuntary into a voluntary entity, so that everyone may understand, accept and do the common task as his own. From the beginning man appears to be a socio-individual being, and all of history is but a continuous deepening, elevating and widening of the two-sided socio-individual life. Out of these two indivisible and correlated terms the individual is the moving, the dynamic force and society is the indirectly controlling, static basis of history. There is no necessary antagonism between the individual and society; there is but conflict, arising in individual initiative, between new and previous stages of socio-individual evolution."

The primitive group-the clan-contains in germ all the elements, religious, altruistic and artistic, which are necessary to the realization of individual human dignity. The clan developed into the tribe, the ethnic nation into civilized society. But in every stage the right of control by the group is conditioned and relative, man continuing to develop his primary ethical characteristics towards individual dignity.3

Each human society can assure its survival and raise its dignity only by conforming to its moral norm. The moral norm or law is the sanctioning by reason of those impulses

1 Works, vol. vii, p. 215.

Condensed from ibid., pp. 215-17.

Cf. Works, vol. vii, pp. 480-81.

which proceed from the three peculiar psychic characteristics of man.1

Accordingly the crucial matter lies not in the outward preservation of institutions, be these of one kind or another, good or bad, but "in a systematic effort to improve social relations and institutions internally, subjecting them to the one moral ideal of voluntary conformity for the general good ".2

3

Progress in its moral or historical sense consists in "an organic and indivisible unification of the highly individuated man with social control ", i. e., progress is the identification of man individualized and man socialized. It is a continuous and better execution of duties which grow out of the past but which continue to serve as a new force to move on towards the perfect goal.*

Organization in its general meaning is a coördination of many means and implements of a lower order for the purpose of reaching one general goal of a higher order." "

The moral organization of humanity is an indivisible triune task. Its absolute purpose is determined by the church as organized piety, collectively receiving divine influence; her formal means and implements are given by a purely human voluntary beginning of just pity or sympathy, collectively organized in the state; and only the final substratum or material of the divinely human organism is found in the province of the economic life, being controlled by the principle of restraint."

These are the general features of the theory of society which is the basis of Soloviev's Neo-Slavophilism.1

To recapitulate, Soloviev starts with the premise that there are three primary psychic characteristics peculiar to the human species. They are the sense of piety, the sense of pity and the sense of shame, answering to the three logically possible stages of high, level and low. Because of these psychic peculiarities man is more than a social animal. He is a socio-individual being. His progress through the various historical stages, from the primitive ethnic group to civilized society, consists in the concurrent development and unification of his individual interests and aspirations with those of the group. His highest development is as a member of a Christian brotherhood, the Catholic Church, which represents organized piety. The state protecting society is organized pity, and finally, humanity's economic maintenance is secured by organized restraint, the third peculiar psychic characteristic of man.

1 It is also the sociological aspect of his system of ethics: "The justification of the good," which is the subject of vol. vii of his works. Most of our quotations are taken from this volume. We call Soloviev a Neo-Slavophil not because he called himself so, for he did not, but because of the organic connections of his conclusion with the Slavophil School.

CHAPTER III

THE SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF THE WESTERNISTS

(CHAÄDAEV, BELINSKY, HERZEN, BAKUNIN, GRANOVSKY AND CHERNISHEVSKY)

THE Slavophils, who had turned away from the culture of Western Europe, emphasizing national and racial solidarity and exclusiveness, found themselves opposed by a class of thinkers who placed individual and humanitarian interests in the forefront, and who believed that Russia had much to learn from the West before it was to become a civilized nation. These thinkers were generally called

"Westernists ".1

There appear to be three relatively distinct trends of thought that may be studied under the caption of Westernism. They are: (1) The theocratic trend of the thirties with Chaädaev as its representative intellect and theorizer; (2) the humanitarian trend of the forties with Belinsky as its leading exponent; (3) the populist philosophy of the sixties for which Herzen and others paved the way in the previous decade, but which is most closely associated with the name of Chernishevsky.

All these currents of thought were accelerated by Western ideas the first had the impetus of Jesuit philosophy; the second of German idealism and French rationalism; and the last of German materialism and French positivism.

1 Some English authors prefer to transliterate the term as "Occidentalists."