I. The Basic Principles of Civilization

Part 1

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matt. 6:33). By its nature, modern European civilization is officially recognized as Christian, the teaching of Jesus Christ is proclaimed the highest moral truth, the basic law of the spiritual development of man; The Gospel religion is ascribed primary importance in the organization of personal, family and social life. In a word, the outward ostentatious side of the matter leads us to assume that we are governed mainly by the clearly understood and vividly perceived Gospel commandments of love and truth, that in our activity we are guided primarily by religious and moral motives; But reality is far from corresponding to such an expectation.

Take, for example, the word "greatness"; Say it in any congregation. Ask those present what meaning they connect with this concept, to whom, in their opinion, it can be most applicable. You will be told much about the resounding glory of the conqueror of nations, about the brilliance of the genius of the poet, about the laurels of a virtuoso, about the pomp and power of the monarch, and they will hardly remember the moral strength and beauty of the heroes of the spirit, the martyrs of holy ideas: the apostles of love, the brothers and sisters of mercy, the self-sacrificing heralds of truth. You will be named Caesar, Napoleon; perhaps they will remember Shakespeare, Bismarck, Salvini, and, probably, they will forget Epictetus, Socrates, Simon Peter, the Apostle Paul.

Its adherents even categorically assert that the religion of Jesus Christ has already outlived its time, has said its last word, that the Gospel morality was suitable only for the simple-minded fishermen of Galilee, and that the modern enlightened European needs other guiding principles. These principles can and are given to him by science alone. Science, they say, has kindled a beacon, before the brilliant brilliance of which the light of religion is dimmed and must be completely darkened. Religious light was often darkened by a cloud of superstition, flared up with the sinister flame of fanaticism, and was the cause of a fierce fratricidal war. It is enough to recall the nights of St. Bartholomew, the dragonades, the tortures and the fires of the Inquisition to bless the science that liberated mankind from such horrors. What is the answer to this? In the first place, in a critical evaluation of any religion in general, and of Christian religion in particular, from the point of view of their loftiness and significance, one must always distinguish the basic religious idea from the present reality, and not confuse what is with what ought to be. People, in their narrow-mindedness and fanaticism, can distort and humiliate the highest idea, clothe it in an ugly form; But this does not mean that the idea is base, ugly in itself. The idea of pure freedom is of course innocent of the insane crimes of anarchism; so Christianity cannot be blamed for the gloomy deeds of Loyol and Torquemad. Rowe, in his interesting book The Manifest Truths of Christianity, says: "There was often great superstition among believers who belonged to the Church; The Church sanctified works which were expressly forbidden to her by her Founder; she, - it's terrible to say! She even drew her sword, which He clearly commanded her to sheath. All this is certain, but it makes it all the more surprising that the Church found in her Founder an eternal principle for her regeneration. In the person and teaching of Jesus Christ there is a certain deep meaning, which was, so to speak, higher than the real (present) Christianity of all ages. A simple depiction of the personality of the Founder of the Christian Church in the very form in which he was depicted by the Evangelists, without an admixture of false outlines, which were added to His image by human stupidity or evil will, has always been and will always be the cause of the renewal of church life. This is a characteristic and exclusive feature of Christianity." Religious wars, mass massacres of heretics, and the fires of the Inquisition are not natural offspring of the religion of the Saviour; it is a crude, criminal perversion of it, a grave insult, a mockery of the all-forgiving love of the Son of God, Crucified for peace. Christianity, as a religion imbued with the spirit of evangelical meekness, love and mercy, organically hates any violence, especially violence in the name of God, who, in the words of the Evangelist John, is Love Itself. When James and John, ardent and zealous beyond reason, offended by the Samaritans' disrespect for their Master, said: "Lord, wilt we say that fire should come down from heaven and destroy them, as Elijah did?" Jesus Christ turned to them, rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy souls, but to save." And they went to another village. In the parable of the tares we read: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; And while the people were asleep, his enemy came, and sowed tares among the wheat, and departed. When the greenery sprang up and the fruit appeared, then the tares also appeared. And when the servants of the householder came, they said to him, "Lord! Did you not sow good seed in your field? whence then are the tares on it? And he said to them, The enemy of man has done this. And the slaves said, "Do you want us to go and choose them?" But he said, 'No,' lest when you pick up the tares, you pluck up the wheat with them, let both grow together until the harvest" (Matt. 13:24-30). After the quoted passages of the Gospel, I think it is superfluous to explain that the Christian religion as such should not be condemned for those crimes and follies that are committed by its false, self-styled friends, hardened fanatics. Dull thoughtlessness and sullen malice can throw a gloomy veil of fanaticism and superstition over the bright face of the Saviour, but His Divine beauty will not lose its brilliance in the least; It is necessary to carefully remove the inappropriate veil, to cleanse the face of alluvial soot and dust, but in no way to eradicate the very image that enchants the hearts of the best people with heavenly goodness, meekness and purity. Weigh impartially the role of the evangelical religion in the history of the past nineteen centuries, and you will be amazed at how much it has done for humanity. What an indelible mark it has left on our entire civilization, on our morals, customs, legislation, science, and art. How much it has changed morally for the better, how it has ennobled humanity; How much warmth of heart she brought into life! Millions of people have drawn from it the strength to live in the name of good and truth; On the altar they brought their best feelings and thoughts to her, and in serving her they found the highest consolation. Is it possible that now its life-giving power has dried up, the spring that quenched the spiritual thirst of hundreds of successive generations has suddenly dried up, and the place of the Gospel will be taken by an encyclopedia of sciences? Is science able to replace religion as a guide for man in the bright distance of the future? This is a serious matter; It is criminal to solve it with a light heart: a mistake can lead to a sad disaster.

Just as above our heads, in the boundless expanse of air, new worlds arise and light up in place of extinguished, obsolete suns, so in the innermost recesses of the human heart, in place of obsolete, realized goals, new ideals are clarified and born.

At the dawn of cultural life, a person's attention is completely captured by the external, physical world. Suppressed by a mass of impressions received from without, the philosophical genius of peoples, like a child at the beginning of mental activity, at first is vaguely aware of its personality, does not distinguish itself from the surrounding nature. The inquisitiveness of the mind is aimed exclusively at solving the riddle of the existence of the universe. All Greek philosophy, from Thales to Socrates, solves the question of the essence of the world. What does everything consist of, what did everything come into being, what is everything resolved into in the end? - this is the main subject of the ancient worldview. Water, air, fire, and all infinite matter are in turn recognized as the unchanging essence in changing phenomena. And only after considering this question comprehensively, philosophy sets itself a new, more difficult task, shifts its attention to man. "Philosophical thought," says Bauer, "turns to the inner world and begins to study the miracles that occur in the sphere of spiritual life, only when its eye has already had time to look closely at the eternally identical flow of the heavenly bodies and at the constantly changing phenomena of the physical world around us." It fell to Socrates to open a new era in the history of human thought. Socrates was the first to detach philosophy from physical nature and open to it the spiritual realm. Before Socrates, they taught: "Know the external world around you"; Socrates began to teach: "Know thyself." This was a tremendous step forward, but a complete elucidation of the problem could not be expected at once. Evolution takes place gradually; everything comes in its time, and even philosophical genius does not make leaps. Delving into himself, Socrates could notice only one side of the spiritual nature of man - knowledge. He did not yet suspect the complex, hidden life of the heart, assuming that people are evil and deceitful out of ignorance. "Whoever truly knows the beautiful, will act accordingly," says Socrates. We wish it were so, but the bitterness of experience constantly convinces us that there is a long way between the knowledge of virtue and a life in accordance with it. To reach the intended peak, the traveler, in addition to knowledge of the terrain, needs a strong desire to overcome all the difficulties of the path and a healthy body hardened in walking. It is the same on the path to the heights of virtue. It is not enough to have lofty thoughts, to clearly understand the meaning of good; we also need a well-educated will, which would bring our ideals into reality and realize them. For Socrates, virtue appeared to be something external to man; he thought that virtue, like arithmetic, like reading, writing, could be learned. Due to the novelty of the question he first put forward, Socrates was unable to suddenly understand that virtue is the fruit of long inner work, the result of a stubborn struggle with coarse innate instincts. It took centuries for mankind to understand this, and then through the mouth of the Apostle it was proclaimed: "According to the inner man I find pleasure in the law of God; but in my members I see another law, which is contrary to the law of my mind" (Romans 7:22-23). Depending on the fact that the attention of antiquity was riveted mainly on the external world, that the high significance of the individual had not yet been recognized, and the supreme ideals of ancient cultured peoples in relation to man were of an external nature. The most striking exponents of the culture of antiquity were Greece and Rome, the so-called world of antiquity, and we see that a vast area of diverse spiritual interests almost does not exist for this world: questions about the dignity of man, about the rights of the individual, about the brotherhood of peoples and many other similar things, if by chance, are touched upon, they are always casual and never brought to the fore. The ultimate goal of the aspirations of the ancient world was the cult of physical beauty and brute muscular strength. The Greek aesthetician gave his strength to the first, the proud ruler of the world, the Roman, served the second. The Greek revered the beauty of the body, revered and worshipped it alone. Greek mythology is full of outrageous, scandalous adventures of the deities of Olympus, but it will give a long series of images that enchant with the perfection of plastic forms. The genius of the Greek, amazing in its versatile brilliance, was most clearly expressed in sculpture. The chisel of Phidias, Praxiteles, Polycleitus and others reaches the culminating point of beauty, remaining an eternal, unattainable model for posterity. You can't go any further. The Roman was not an artist, he looked at art as an embellishment of everyday life. Strong, powerful - he put strength above beauty. The most remote peoples bowed before its power, and Rome grew, grew rich, and was adorned at the expense of conquered countries. Rome is the capital of the world; Its greatness, strength - this is the ideal that the ancient Roman lived and sacrificed everything. But both these ideals - the perfection of bodily beauty, and the triumph of brute, muscular strength - were finally achieved. The Acropolis shone with an unprecedented, wondrous beauty; the word of Rome was the law for the remote outskirts of the earth. In the name of what did the ancient world now live? There was no new idea that would imperiously seize society; And the old one has outlived its time. Without an inspiring ideal, even if it is of a low standard, a person cannot live, the people's valor perishes, society disintegrates. Nor could the ancient, Greco-Roman world continue to exist. The time came when the shattered foundations of Rome collapsed and the Roman Empire ceased to exist. She fell, had to fall, because the ideals that inspired her were temporary, and when their power was exhausted, she had nothing to live on. For the revival of a decrepit organism, it was necessary to breathe new strength into it. It was necessary to find new beginnings for the spiritual life of mankind. On the ruins of the ancient world, a new civilization could have been born and blossomed, but for this a new idea was needed, and we see that new ideals are the basis of the nascent civilization. The ancient world sought bodily beauty; he worshipped physical strength; People of the new epoch are seeking spiritual beauty, bowing down before moral power. Now the center of gravity from the outside is transferred inside the person. The spirit of man is recognized as the source of social, political, and all historical life. The elevation of the human heart, moral perfection, and the spiritual growth of the individual become the main task of society; Everything else is of secondary importance. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you, shall come unto you of their own accord," says the Gospel. By the "Kingdom of God" is meant a perfect life on earth, a life based not on the rule of violence and crude egoism, but on the principles of universal love, complete justice, and the recognition of all the legitimate rights of the individual. The onset of this "Kingdom" is conditioned by the moral regeneration of man, the renewal of his entire inner being. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee," said Jesus Christ to Nicodemus, "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). In another place Jesus Christ said: "The kingdom of God will not come in a visible way, and they will not say, Behold, it is here, or, behold, it is there. For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21). This is the new ideal; The ideal is not temporary, but eternal. The ideals of ancient Greece and Rome could have been outgrown, which is why the ancient world fell. The new ideal indicated by Christianity has no limits; it cannot be achieved. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48) – this is the Savior's testament to people. This covenant is the pledge of the infinite future of our civilization. The new culture in the very spirit of the Christian, in his inexhaustible ability to improve, will always find the source of its further renewal and development. The almost two-thousand-year history of Christianity is now unfolding before our eyes; Our gaze is now able to embrace and measure the inner, consistent process of its development, the degree of its powerful influence on the conscience and life of mankind, and we see that Christianity has not yet expressed the entire content of its thought, has not yet said its last word. In order to realize the Kingdom of God on earth, mankind still has a long and persistent work ahead of it on itself, on the improvement and moral education of the heart. The Gospel has awakened many good feelings, touched in the heart of man strings unknown to himself, extracted from them the sounds of enchanting beauty and irresistible power, but these sounds have not yet merged into a mighty chord, into a hymn of triumphant love and truth. If science wants to replace religion, it must assume its obligations and, demanding preference for itself, is compelled to give mankind more powerful means, to show the quicker way to the realization of the ultimate goals in life than religion does. And science self-confidently admits that it is capable of this. It solemnly proclaims that only knowledge can lead humanity to a better future. "If we want to make known the conditions on which the success of modern civilization depends," says Buckle, "we must look for them in the history of the accumulation and spread of intellectual knowledge. Physical phenomena and moral principles, of course, produce a considerable disorder in the general course of affairs at times, but in the course of time they come into order and equilibrium, and thus leave intellectual laws free to act independently of these inferior, secondary agents." Such a decisive assertion is based on the opinion that the great development taking place in our civilization is mainly an intellectual movement, and that the moral progress of society is directly dependent on the growth of knowledge. But to reason in this way means not to know the heart of man, not to understand what science is called to do and what it can give. The field of science is vast; infinite, if you like; its tasks are great. She has done so much and will do so much for mankind that her very name should be sacred to thinking people; - But the motive force of cultural progress is still not intellect and education, it alone does not improve morals. Science expands the mental horizon of man, develops his intellectual powers, increases our power over nature, but it cannot revive man spiritually, elevate him morally without the assistance of religion. Leaving the path of long arguments, remember at least the French Panamanists: senators, members of parliament, editors of influential newspapers - all people of extensive knowledge, great abilities, and in general a gang of swindlers. Regrettable, but natural. The heart of man is agitated by the same passions, whether it be the heart of an advanced thinker or the last day-laborer. A simple Galilean illiterate fisherman can morally be higher than a dozen philosophers, luminaries of science. Compare, for example, the moral character of Bacon of Verulam, the father of the experienced spider, with the Negro slave depicted in Uncle Tom's Cabin, and you will see that education can change the forms of evil, make them more refined, but destroy evil, ennoble morals - this is not given to education. It is not for science to lead people through the renewal of the heart to the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. "Jesus desired to go up to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face; and they went and entered into the village of the Samaritans, to prepare for him; but there they did not receive Him" (Luke 9:51-53) ^

Part 2

However, perhaps science is strong in creating a bright future for mankind by other means? By clarifying the laws by which the universe exists, by discovering the means of influencing the forces laid down in matter, science gives us enormous power over nature. There was a time when man trembled before every formidable phenomenon of nature; now he is its master.

If the people of the ancient world, contemplating the future, could imagine what science is doing now, they would decide that the golden age of which their poets have always dreamed has arrived. But with all these conquests of the mind, the promised land still runs before us like a mirage. The profound ignorance of the masses of the people, the excessive toil, the abject misery, side by side with idleness and extravagance, are no less painfully felt in the age of electricity and steam than in the age of brutal barbarism. "Almshouses and prisons are as common companions of scientific progress," says Henry George, "as are luxurious palaces and splendid shops. In the noisy capitals, on the streets flooded with asphalt and illuminated by electric suns, we, as everywhere, meet exhausted, gloomy, angry faces. Among the greatest accumulation of wealth, people die of hunger and sickly children suck the withered breasts of their mothers. Everywhere the thirst for profit and the worship of wealth indicate the power of the fear of want. The tragedy of the Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus has not lost its burning to this day." "What does it profit the Prometheus man that he has procured fire from heaven and made it his servant, that the spirits of earth and air obey him," asks the eminent learned Huxley, "if the kite of hope will forever tear at his entrails and keep him on the brink of utter destruction?" "I am not afraid to express the opinion," he says, "that if there is no hope of a great improvement in the condition of the greater part of the human family; If it be true that the growth of knowledge, which results in the acquisition of greater power over nature, and the riches conferred by power, will in no way alter the intensity of want and its spread, with all the physical and moral degeneration that accompanies it among the masses of the people, I would gladly welcome the approach of some obliging comet which, washing away all this history, would put a desirable end to it." "This union of poverty with progress," remarked Henry George, "is the great mystery of our time. This is the central fact from which arise those industrial, social, and political difficulties which confuse the world, and which statesmen, philanthropists, and educators struggle with in vain. From it rise those clouds which obscure the future of the most progressive and independent nations. This is the riddle that the sphinx of fate has posed to our civilization and not to solve it means to perish. As long as all the growth of wealth, which is called material progress, is spent only on the formation of great fortunes, on the increase of luxury, and on the increasing contrast between the House of Plenty and the House of Need, so long can progress not be considered real and lasting." The reaction must come. It is necessary to renew the driving forces of civilization, to introduce new factors besides knowledge. Science, which promised to independently recreate on earth the kingdom of supreme truth and equality, must be declared bankrupt on this side. Instead of uniting under the command of heaven to fight against the common enemy - the kingdom of darkness and untruth, people with the banner of science in their hands fight for booty. The main motto of life became: "Who can eat whom, gnaws at him." As it is said in the Bible about Ishmael: "Hands of one against all, and of all against one" (Gen. 16:12). Every man for himself and for himself, that is, universal enmity, mutual distrust, irritation, anger, and nowhere is there peace, justice, pity, and love. The enemy falls, so much the better: in the fight the human race improves. Mercy is a crime, because it sacrifices the strong to the weak, and the rich in spirit and body to the lazy and frail, the world is moved, says science, and the world is dominated by the harsh, inexorable law of the struggle for existence. The logical consequence of such a view of life, of the factors of civilization, is Nietzscheanism. Nietzsche is an original, brilliant German thinker, a man of great, versatile talents. He is a critic, a poet, a philologist and, finally, a philosopher. The main theme of his literary philosophical activity is a fierce, open struggle against Christianity. Nietzsche thinks that the evils of modern life, all the calamities of our civilization, stem from the fact that we have submitted to the Gospel demands of love, meekness, and mercy. In his opinion, mankind will only have a brilliant prospect when it is freed from the moral fetters imposed on it by Jesus Christ. Give man full freedom, says Nietzsche; free him from the empty phantoms of conscience and passions, and you will be amazed at the power of the powers he has manifested. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of weak people will perish, will be crushed in the struggle, but on the other hand, the victor, drunk on their sweat and blood, will climb up the corpses, as if on steps, and lay the foundation for a new breed of creatures. It will no longer be just a "man", but a "Uebermensch", a "superman". The philosophy of the beggars is the consummation of Darwin's theory. According to Darwin, the entire long ladder of living beings, starting from the lowest organism and ending with the highest - man, is an uninterrupted chain of transition from one species to another. By means of the struggle for existence, since there are always more mouths than food, organisms are constantly improving: only the strongest specimens, the most adapted to the struggle, survive, and the rest are exterminated or themselves die out for lack of food. Any accidental advantage of the laws of heredity is assigned to the organism. Over the centuries, so many distinctive features have been accumulated in one or another species of animals that a new, more perfect type is formed. The same story repeats itself with him. The natural selection of those who are better adapted to the struggle for life and the law of heredity do not interrupt their work for a moment. In perfecting itself in this way, the organic world has at last worked out the type of man. Such a theory (even if we leave aside the question of the validity or falsity of its main propositions) is unproven. The beggars took the trouble to finish it, to put an end to the i's. If man, by a long chain of extinct species, is connected directly with the ape, descended from it, and the ape, in turn, from other lower organisms, then why do we stop at man? Not now, not tomorrow, not in a hundred years, but someday there must appear a creature even more adapted to life, even more perfect than man. To lead mankind along this path, where in the end the titans and demigods are seen, is such a great task, Nietzsche thinks, for the sake of which one should not be embarrassed by the requirements of religion, morality, conscience, and duty. The more evil is committed, the more strength and energy will be manifested, the sooner the "superman" will appear... "Be firm," Nietzsche bequeathed to his disciples, "do not succumb to pity, compassion, love, crush the weak, climb higher on their corpses; you are children of the highest breed; Your ideal is "superman". Terrible theory! It is not the best who triumph, but the strongest and most predatory. Goodness, love and truth must part and give way to violence, shamelessness and vice. Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, Herod the Great, Nero, Caesar Borgia - these are the exponents of the ideas of Nietzscheanism. Where is the happiness promised by science to all members of the human family, where is the triumph of the higher principles of truth? Where is universal altruism? Why does science with material progress not bring about an improvement in morals; Why doesn't evil uproot it? Alas, this is not her business. The causes of evil are of a moral nature, and science is powerless against moral evil. It can crush a rock, flatten a block of metal, but it is not given to it to soften a hard, callous heart. All her high-profile inventions, the glory of our century, are petty in their inner purpose, insignificant in the purposes they serve. Their service role is reduced to the promotion of exclusively material progress: the increase of man's power over the forces of nature, the accumulation of wealth and the external comforts of life. The apostles and philosophers, preaching the brotherhood of nations and proclaiming the rights of man, successfully fulfilled their high mission even without telegraph and telephone wires; the millions of wires that have covered the entire globe of the earth in our days serve mainly the stock exchange rogues and newspaper chatter about the political game of the moral Lilliputians. Science, for example, invented gunpowder, and the peace-loving Chinese, separated by his wall from the rest of the world, used it for centuries for amusement, making fireworks out of it [1]; and the militant European, who from the height of his culture so despises the backward Chinese, has added guns, cannons, and grenades to gunpowder, spends billions on their manufacture, and, through the inventions of Schwartz, Chapso, Berdan, Mauser, Lebed, Martini, Armstrong, Nordenfelt, Hotchkiss, Maxim, Krupne, and others, to whom the legion is also named, exterminates millions of his brothers. If we compare the amount of gunpowder, dynamite, and pyroxylin expended in sieges and bombardments to destroy peaceful human dwellings with the amount of the same explosives used to improve the means of communication for the peaceful rapprochement of peoples: to dig tunnels, to widen narrow mountain passes, to remove dangerous underwater rocks, stones, and reefs, then, from the point of view of the moral development of mankind, what a sad certificate that cultured Europe will have to issue! Scientific enlightenment alone will only give training of the mind, and if a person is a predatory person by nature, then education only sharpens his teeth, sharpens his claws. The mind serves to prepare and cultivate the soil conquered by other forces. Reason is the executive power, and the legislative power, the guiding power, belongs to the heart. The Gospel of nineteenth centuries ago declared: "Out of the heart proceed evil and good thoughts." The Divine Knower of the Heart, Christ the Saviour, was the first to point out to the world that the only source of social life is the spirit of man, and that the more perfect it is, the more perfect will be everything created by it. If you want the life around you to change, says Christianity, change yourself, educate your heart. Brotherly, loving life, the Kingdom of God on earth are possible; only they must be sought not somewhere around, not in something external, but within oneself, in one's heart. The heart is not the sphere of influence of science, but the realm of religion. It is impossible to breathe strength into the moral nature of man by external mechanical means. Science cannot force a person to change his will. By fear or compulsion it is possible to force him to renounce a bad action, but not from an evil will, which is an internal movement, not subject to external force. The moral renewal of man is conditioned by voluntary submission to a force that has such an attraction that binds the conscience, deeply agitates the feelings and inclinations, calls into action all that is good in them, and makes it possible to triumph over the inferior. Only the religion of the Gospel can be such a force for humanity. The Gospel, speaking to us about God as Perfect Love and Absolute Truth, about His attitude to the world and about our duties to it, fills our soul with reverent worship of the Supreme Being, awakens in us the desire to become worthy of His love, evokes obedience to His commandments as an immutable moral law. Christianity, and it alone, in the name of the Supreme Holiness, which is God Himself, tirelessly urges man to go forward and forward in moral growth. Hence the general conclusion is as follows. The highest universal ideal of all mankind is the ideal indicated by the Gospel: the Kingdom of God. The path to its realization is the moral renewal of the entire spiritual nature of man, the development of a Christian worldview, the education of the will in the spirit of evangelical love and truth. Religion is the driving force on this path. Such a conclusion can in no way be considered humiliating to science, and it has no reason to dispute it. Science has its own special field of activity, also very respectable, each success in which is in its own way also a great blessing for humanity. These two spheres - both the sphere of influence of religion and the sphere of influence of science - with a proper understanding of the matter do not at all contradict each other: they complement each other. And if there are clashes between representatives of religion and representatives of science, this is due to a sad misunderstanding: the inability to understand the boundaries of one's competence, the desire to invade other people's borders. There is a medieval story about two knights who fought to the death in a duel, accusing each other of an obvious lie, as it seemed to them. They argued about the color of the shield: one said that the shield was white; another claimed that the shield was blue. The argument flared up and ended in a duel, and both were right. The shield was painted in different colors on both sides: one blue, the other white.

The dispute between the representatives of science and religion is explained by a similar misunderstanding. Both science and religion deal with one and the same subject: with the huge world organism as a whole, and, in particular, with man, who in the boundless universe is, as it were, a special, separated, closed world in himself. Responding to the needs of our mind and heart, science and religion illuminate the mystery of the world from two different angles. Science determines the eternal, immutable laws according to which the life of the universe proceeds; discovers and subordinates to the human mind more and more new forces of nature, establishes the degree of external, physical dependence of man on his environment; In short, science sets itself the goal of giving the fullest possible answer to the question: how does the world live? Religion has a different task; It answers the question: how can a person live in the world? What relationship should he have to the world and to the One Who is above the world? The lawyer asked Jesus Christ: "Teacher! With the same question, every Christian turns to the religion established by the Saviour, firmly believing that he will not only find the answer he needs in the teaching of the Gospel, but will also acquire in a close, living prayerful union with God the moral strength necessary for the eternal meaning to be hidden in each individual action, feeling, and word. giving the right to live.

Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke says: "To what shall I liken the Kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and put into three measures of flour, until everything was soured" (13: 20-21). Speaking in the spirit of this parable, it should be added that the religion of Christ is necessary to mankind, like leaven to flour, and until people are all imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, Christianity cannot be replaced by anything. To this, it may be objected that there are a considerable number of people with higher motives of behavior and a life as pure as crystal, who nevertheless quite openly express their disbelief in religious teachings, fundamentally denying their influence on their lives and behavior. A typical representative of these can be the famous French scientist Littré, "this saint who does not believe in God", as he was aptly described by another French writer - Caro. How, it will be asked, are these facts to be reconciled with our conception of religion as the centre of all the vital forces which move and reconstruct the modern social world? The explanation is very simple. The Christian religion, in the nineteen centuries of its existence, has left a strong and indelible mark on a long series of generations, on their laws and institutions, on their intellectual and moral education, on their way of thinking in general. A large part of the ideas first proclaimed to the world by Christianity have now become common property, and the opponents of Christianity owe everything they are justly proud of entirely to the Gospel, although they do not admit it. But let the clouds cover the sun, the daylight that surrounds us is still not original, but only the result of a luminary hidden from us. When the clouds dissipate, then the sky will brighten, shine in all its glory, the sun will pour streams of warmth and light, and a clear, jubilant day will come. But when will all this be? No one can give an answer.

To the question when this hour will come, the Great Teacher exhorts people to work with all their strength for its speedy arrival. And there can be no other answer. No one can tell people when the day and hour of the Kingdom of God will come, because the coming of this hour does not depend on anyone else but on themselves. "The answer is the same," says a well-known thinker, "as the answer of that sage who, to the question of a passer-by: "How far is it to the city?" answered: "Go." How can we know how far we are from the goal towards which humanity is approaching, when we do not know how humanity will move towards this goal, on which it depends whether to go or not to go, to stop, to moderate its movement or to intensify it? All we can know is what we, the human beings, must do and must not do in order for this kingdom of God to come; And we all know this. The Gospel speaks clearly. And we should stop doing what we shouldn't do; only everyone begins to do what we must do; only for each of us to live with all the light that is in us, so that the promised Kingdom of God, to which the heart of every person is drawn, may immediately come." The attainment of the Kingdom of God is a divine-human deed, a consequence of man's acceptance, assimilation of God's truth, proclaimed to people by Jesus Christ. The closer a person comes to God in his heart, the closer the Kingdom of God will become to a person. The coming of the Kingdom of God, insofar as it depends on man, is therefore conditioned by the Christian education of the will, its education in the spirit of the Gospel love and truth. Kolb. Cultural History, pp. 77-78: "The Chinese were familiar with gunpowder, but never had firearms." Peshel. "Ethnology", p. 372: "the Chinese knew gunpowder before the Europeans, they used it only for fireworks" ^

II. Christian Education of the Will