The spiritual peaks of the aristocratic intelligentsia of the past contain higher psychic traits, and in some respects they are nearer to the future than the bourgeois-democratic intelligentsia of the capitalist age, with their spiritual poverty and anti-idealist spirit. Plato, Goethe, or Fichte are more men of the future than Bentham, Zola, or Spencer. In Russian progressive literature, the Enlightenment materialism of the "idealists of the earth" has turned into a deadening positive-realist template, from which all practical idealist content has long since run out of steam. "Positivism," which is protected by our traditionally progressive journalism from metaphysical incursions, is the most colorless liberalism in philosophy, with all the signs of liberal half-heartedness. And only a new word can satisfy the spiritual thirst of the best people of our time.

The same nineteenth century created in its depths an opposition to bourgeois society. And now the opposition has become infected with bourgeoisness, I insist on this, although my words will sound like a terrible heresy and paradox.

The oppressed and downtrodden position of the opposition social group, the aggravated nature of the social struggle aimed at achieving a minimum of human existence, all this narrowed the spiritual horizons of the individual who was waging a struggle against bourgeois society, and left a peculiar imprint on his ideology. In such an epoch there could be no man as an end in himself, there was only a piece of man, a man turned into a means. Marxism arose in such a historical situation that it could not develop in itself the idealistic anti-bourgeois content that should be inherent in it, which in its embryonic form is present in it to a greater degree than in other trends. The ideology of Marxism stopped at a very low stage of development, its philosophical worldview is not original. The ideologists of the oppressed producers of the mid-nineteenth century could not, and should not, by the task that fell to their lot, direct their gaze into the spiritual distance, they had before them a more urgent work, which fatally shielded from them the evil aims of mankind. I would formulate the greatest, unfading merit of Marxism as follows: Marxism was the first to establish that only a material social organization can be the basis for the ideal development of human life, that human goals are realized only under the material condition of economic domination over nature; In fact, it is he who builds "dwellings for people". And so, under the conditions of the historical moment, all theoretical and practical work was spent on the development of material resources, socio-economic prerequisites; By a psychologically understandable illusion, the means were taken for ends, the very ends of human life were understood too materially. Marxism turned out to be poor in spiritual and cultural content, the ideal tasks of philosophy, morality, and art were not sufficiently realized by it, and in its struggle with the social bourgeoisness of the century it could not yet rise above its spiritual bourgeoisness. Marxism, which is a philosophical world view, joined the materialism of the Enlightenment epoch, in particular the German Enlightenment philosophy, from the depths of which Marx and Engels emerged. They said a new word and a great word only in the field of social and economic affairs, outside this sphere they added almost nothing to the critical work of the bourgeoisie in the period of its revolutionary struggle against medieval society and the theological world outlook. The dialectical character of their materialism, borrowed from Hegel's idealism, does not change the essence of the matter: in their views on the world and life they are materialists and hedonists, and their spiritual outlook is limited. Idealists in their social task – they fight against all idealism and are in the grip of that historical misunderstanding on which I have tried to throw some light. Historically, Marxism has become hostile to philosophical idealism and metaphysics, to artistic idealism and romanticism, to absolute morality, to any religion which it confuses with the old theology and churchliness. The "students" had a huge practical work to do, and in addition, they popularized and defended the socio-economic teaching of the teacher from enemies, but so far they have not added anything spiritually valuable to it. And 50 years have passed, and during this time a lot of water has flowed away, we live under different socio-historical conditions, life and thought have moved forward and set new tasks.

In the socio-political revolutionary movement of the nineteenth century there is one feature which leaves a sharply anti-bourgeois imprint on its fighters, and that is that socio-political romanticism which is accompanied by martyrdom. The whole stock of human idealism is directed in this direction and creates beautiful heroic images. The human personality is crippled, the formula of its life is narrowed, but idealism still exists, albeit one-sided. We deeply revere this idealism, but such martyrdom has no future, it is eliminated by modern social development; The path along which idealism was directed is gradually closing and disappearing the most striking manifestation of the anti-bourgeois spirit. Producers become citizens of this world, certain elementary conditions for a developed human life are created, their struggle becomes less acute and the formula of their life can expand, the human personality becomes not only a means, but also an end in itself.

The victory of the oppressed weakens the acute character of the struggle, this is understandable and there is nothing to regret, but it cannot and must not lead to such a shredding that nothing will be seen behind the five-kopeck improvements. All-consuming sobriety kills the poetry of the past, and compensation is needed for the spiritual losses that accompany material victory.

Bernstein's book appears. The spread of "Bernsteinism" is an important symptom. For all his theoretical weakness and a certain dose of practical philistinism, Bernstein has said much that is true, and he is right in his call for self-criticism, in his overthrow of the theory of the necessity of social catastrophe (Zusammenbruchstheorie and Verelendungstheorie), and in pointing out the one-sided character of the German social movement. But the moderate and careful "Bernsteinism" which belittles the spirit of the movement and denies the value of its ideal aim, the "Bernsteinism" which abolishes the romanticism and idealism of the past and does not propose any new romanticism or idealism, is bourgeois, it does not yet have the spirit of a new society and a new man. I have already pointed out the bourgeoisness of orthodox Marxism, while Bernsteinism, naked and undisguised, is perhaps even more bourgeois, and it especially stimulates an idealist appeal, testifies to the need to introduce a new idealist stream into the social movement. When Bernstein proposes to concentrate on the means of struggle and utters the imprudent phrase "the end is nothing to me," he is partially, in a very narrow sphere, right, but from a general, philosophical point of view, profoundly wrong. We recognize material means, great and small, only in the name of ideal ends, always great; We must be imbued with these goals, imbued to such an extent that our life is not full only of the means of struggle, we must understand the very means of struggle more difficultly, and thus ennoble our souls. It seems to me that the moment is coming when the historical misunderstanding must disappear and practical idealism must enter into alliance with theoretical idealism in order to jointly fight against social and cultural bourgeoisness and prepare the soul of man for the future society. After this historical orientation, I proceed to consider the question of the struggle for an idealist world outlook in essence.

The theoretical struggle for idealism must begin with a criticism of hedonism, or, in more ennobled terminology, eudaimonism, which is accepted on faith by the majority of progressive and intelligent people of our time. The modern social movement builds "dwellings for people," it "no longer builds bell towers, and there are no churches either." In the struggle of social forces, which is the very essence of the epoch we are living through, we are inspired by the social ideal. Social development and the social struggle through which it is realized lead to a new form of society, and from our sociological point of view, the new form of society is first of all a new form of production. Everyone will probably agree that the new form of production is not in itself an ideal, it is still far from an ideal. I will say more, not only any form of production, but also any form of society can only be a means and cannot be an end, it can be spoken of as an end only conditionally, only as a slogan in the socio-political struggle. If you persistently demand an account for the struggle for a new society, if you put the question of an ideal which sanctions everything and no longer needs any higher sanction, then the most you will achieve is the following: the goal of every struggle, of every social organization of life, is the happiness of men. Marxism, through the mouth of its founder, pronounced a just judgment on Bentham as an archphilistine who took the English shopkeeper for the type of a normal person, but Marxism itself does not go beyond ordinary hedonism or eudemonism, this is the most that the average Marxist can be forced to agree on. However, here a correction will probably be made, and a very significant correction, we will be told that the goal of every struggle in life is the happiness of a harmoniously developed personality. And what is a harmoniously developed personality, this final instance? Personality developed in mental, moral and aesthetic respects. And this means that not all happiness (I am not even talking about pleasure) is the ideal goal of the social struggle of progressive humanity, but only some higher happiness that presupposes the highest functions of the human spirit. And once sublime happiness and base happiness are recognized, since there are qualities in the human soul that cannot be decomposed, then hedonism falls into a hopeless circle, it must recognize some supreme criterion of good and evil, which pronounces judgment on happiness itself. The utilitarian D. S. Mill said that it is better to be dissatisfied with Socrates than with a satisfied pig. Why is it better? On the basis of utilitarianism and hedonism, it is impossible to exalt a discontented Socrates at the expense of a contented pig, for this it is necessary to recognize something higher, more sacred than any contentment of this world. Carlyle had every reason to call utilitarianism a swine's philosophy.

Psychology (scientific, not metaphysical) has long ago destroyed this illusion that man strives only for pleasure, or, to put it more simply, for happiness, that this is the only goal of life. This could be safely asserted in the eighteenth century by Helvétius, but in our time it is only out of ignorance to assert such a position with aplomb. Happiness is a consequence of man's moral life, but never an end; A certain degree of contentment is a condition of a developed life, but again it is not the goal. Morality is an independent quality, an indestructible quality, and this is primarily a psychological fact that can be denied only by sophistry, by violence against the very essence of human nature. I return to the ultimate instance of progressive hedonism, the human personality developed in all respects. In order for this principle not to be completely meaningless, we must postulate as its content mental, moral, and aesthetic development. But mental development is an approach to truth, moral to good, aesthetic to beauty. Filling the life of the human person with the highest content, we inevitably run into the ideas of truth, goodness and beauty, which turn out to be higher than any happiness and contentment, since only they make happiness sublime, worthy of a man, and not a pig. Here hedonism clearly leads to suicide. Let us, however, reproduce the further arguments of hedonists, utilitarians, and evolutionists in ethics. Truth, goodness, and beauty, we are told, are only social utilities in the human struggle for life. Marxism will especially insist that all so-called "ideology" is only social utility. Illusionism is the Marxist point of view on spiritual goods. Here begins the same hopeless circle, and I would ask the reader to pay special attention to this. We are told that philosophy, morality, art, in the word "ideology," exist for life, that they are valuable only as utilities in the social life of people, and in a given epoch as utilities in solving the "social question" of our days. The solution of the "social question" should put people's lives in order. And what is life itself for, the life for which everything is for? Life for life, answers the highest wisdom of our age. This answer is too true, and therefore it does not say anything yet; Life is only the totality of all life processes. But the life for which everything is and which is for itself is not the digestion of food, for this is not why we build "dwellings for people." And I say: everything is for life, but for a sublime life, for a life of truth, goodness and beauty, and by this I recognize the existence of the highest goal of life and its highest meaning. The question of the meaning and purpose of life is eternal, it cannot be eradicated from the human soul by any positive evolutionary phrases, and it is impossible to appreciate sufficiently highly such writers as Tolstoy and Ibsen, who pose this old and ever-new question with extraordinary force. From all the above arguments, the most important conclusion naturally suggests itself, that progress and perfection are higher than happiness and contentment. The reactionary nature of utilitarianism and hedonism, their profound contradiction to the very idea of progress, has been pointed out more than once, and this indication is absolutely correct. Progress presupposes the supreme, universally obligatory goal of the social life of mankind.

In another place I have tried to show, on the basis of Kant, that the fundamental principle of morality and the formal condition of all moral good is the end in itself of the human person and the equivalence of all human persons. Some may think that this is an old eudaemonistic principle that appeals to the happiness of the harmoniously developed personality. This would be a gross mistake, testifying to the inability to orient oneself in the highest innermost demands of the human spirit. First of all, we recognize the absolute value of man as an end in itself, and this idea cannot be arrived at empirically. Further, when we recognize the sanctity of man as an end in itself, and his equivalence with every other man as an end in itself, we do not have in mind utility and happiness, and we do not regard our ultimate ethical idea as merely a historically worked out useful condition for the same happiness of men. Man is a holy end in itself, he is not a creature who digests food and receives pleasant satisfaction from it, no, he is a spiritual being, the bearer of truth, goodness and beauty, the realization of the highest truth; For this end in itself, perfection and progress are higher than satisfaction and happiness. For a consistent hedonist, the word man, insofar as it has an ethical meaning, is an empty sound, a beautiful phrase, but for us this word is full of high meaning and significance. The development of the historical personality into man is the triumph of spiritual values, eternal and absolute values, without which the life of men is not yet human life, without which it is so hideously empty and aimless, so bourgeois in the crudest and truest sense of the word.

There is a legend that metaphysical idealism is an abstraction detached from life, that positive evolutionary science is much closer to life. This is, first of all, the greatest psychological lie. "Metaphysics, as Struve put it, is much richer than experience and much closer to reality, i.e., to the fullness of human experience." Only the point of view of metaphysical idealism comes close to the integral experiences of the human soul, only here does the human soul find complete and all-round satisfaction. I even venture to express an idea that may at once seem like a paradox: every living acting man, a man who seeks truth, who does justice and goodness, or who contemplates beauty, is a metaphysician-idealist. You are searching for the truth, and this search fills your life with sublime content and meaning, which you feel and experience directly, but by doing so you already assume from the starting point that truth is not an empty sound, that truth is a value, an absolute value that you do not yet know, but which you must know. The evolutionist will now begin to show you how knowledge has developed from the zoological state to you, and will end by recognizing the idea of truth, which is absolutely present to you as a living, searching being, only a useful illusion, he will make a chemical analysis, and nothing will remain of the valuable experience which constitutes the intimate nature of your spirit. In this way, a scientific proposition may be obtained, but it will turn out to be inopportune, since you are not asking about it at the moment, you will be interested in it another time. The evolutionist with his constant call to turn to mollusks to explain everything in the world, including your search for truth, is right in his partial field, but he does not have the last word in the development of the worldview. Philosophical idealism, by its very nature, always calls forward to the eternal values that must be realized in life, and it comes close to you, to your soul, thirsting for truth, it supports the voice of your consciousness, loudly declaring the value of your search, a value that no evolutionism can encroach upon. As a living person who is aware of the great importance of a moral problem, you say: this is good and this is evil, good is a value, I feel it as something unconditionally valuable, and I want to serve the good and fight evil. The moment you establish an independent quality of good in your soul, recognize its absolute value and serve it, you are performing the greatest act of your life, true worship, service to the God of truth. But then the evolutionist comes, calls you back to the study of mollusks, and invites you to show you at once that everything you experience as sacred is only a useful illusion in the struggle for existence, that moral consciousness is dissolved into some particles that have nothing to do with morality, and that all this is irrefutably proved by the level of the moral ideals of fish. Every social fighter for justice is a supporter of "natural law", he calls for truth in human relations, for the assertion of eternal human rights, he is an idealist and accepts a martyr's crown for the idea of truth-justice, which he will experience as an absolute value. The evolutionist will try to cool his idealistic call for justice, he will try to show in an evolutionist way that the "natural right" of man, which the idealist-fighter is aware of, which he so ardently desires to put into practice, is a pure illusion and that it originated in such and such a way from mollusks. Only philosophical idealism affirms and substantiates the thirst for truth and justice with which the life of practical idealists is filled, it recognizes the absolute value of moral good and the natural right of man. The developed human soul contemplates beauty and admires it, it feels that "beauty is a great power" – and experiences the feeling of beauty as something of absolute value. Man strives for beauty in his feelings, in works of art, in external nature, and this striving elevates him above worldly vulgarity. Evolutionary science does not know beauty as a value that elevates us, it decomposes it into molecules and shows the development of the sense of beauty from the animal world to the aesthetically refined man of our time. The critical method in philosophy, proclaimed by Kant, takes the developed human consciousness and analyzes it, firmly believing that in it one can find the key to the mystery of knowledge and morality rather than in the consciousness of some medusa.

But this does not in the least encroach on the legitimacy and necessity of the genetic method of research. All of the above is not directed against evolutionary science, which we revere no less than any evolutionist, but is only a protest against the sovereignty of the positive evolutionary point of view and a defense of the rights of philosophical idealism, which is closer to the experiences of the human soul, more vital in the broadest sense of the word than evolutionary science, which performs only one special function of life. At present, it is impossible not to be an evolutionist, but in order for the theory of development to acquire philosophical meaning and significance, it needs to be reworked. The scientific-philosophical theory of development must first of all understand what many evolutionists do not understand: already Democritus knew that nihil ex nihilo, life cannot develop from the absence of life, the psychic from the absence of the psychic, morality from the absence of morality, knowledge from the absence of knowledge, beauty from the absence of beauty. There must be something that develops. It is time to put an end to the accounts with the mechanical-materialistic conception of the world, which decomposes every quality into a certain number of material particles, from which everything in the world miraculously proceeds. It is necessary to recognize the qualitative independence of the elements of the universe; The world in its development unfolds only that content which in an undeveloped state was eternally given.

In order to turn the theory of development into a theory of progress, it is necessary to introduce a teleological principle. Progress is the movement of the being towards the ought, it is the triumph of the ought in the ought. Progress can have no other meaning, and in the philosophy of progress we must return to the great idealists of the past, especially to Fichte, without in the least betraying the traditions of realistic science in general, and realistic sociology in particular. The whole meaning of social development, which makes this development progress, lies only in the fact that it is the only way of discovering what is due in the life of mankind, i.e., of such spiritual values as truth in human knowledge, goodness in human will, beauty in human feelings. Idealist metaphysics must understand this social and world progress as a movement towards the supreme goal of existence, that single truth in the name of which all the affairs of the world must be carried out. Everything that is true, just, and beautiful in the life of mankind is immortal, just as immortal is that eternal and absolute truth to which we partake in our service to good and our struggle against evil. And evil, that evil which makes itself felt so tangibly in empirical reality, from the highest point of view is only "the unfound path to good," and it is doomed to a shameful death, to an inglorious death, even more humiliating than any punishment. Peer Gynt, in Ibsen's wonderful play, prefers to accept the torments of hell than to go rafting, and appeals to his great sins, but in vain: he has not done anything great in evil, and in his insignificance he has proved worthy of only one fate: to go on an alloy from which spoons are made. Evil is negative and insignificant through and through, the great in evil that history knows is only an optical illusion, in it the power of good is great, and not evil, good, obscured by the historical situation in which it had to manifest itself. Such is every demonism with its strong will and strong protest. In the amoralist Fr. Nietzsche makes a majestic impression on the good that lives in him, and not evil. And the brazenly triumphant evil never impresses, its impotent nature is clear to everyone who is morally sighted. The deep tragedy of human life lies not so much in the conflict between good and evil, as in the diversity and complexity of the good itself. Such, for example, is the truly tragic conflict between the striving for the embodiment of justice in human relations and the desire to freely create truth and beauty in one's life. Tragic writers depict the clash of human passions with moral duty, but great passions are not evil in themselves. Fichte's doctrine of the active Self and of the world as the material of duty, clothed in a sensual form, has, I think, an undying significance and is one of the greatest metaphysical conceptions embodying the idealistic spirit of progress. Evil is only an insufficient realization of duty in the sensible world, an insufficient approximation of existence to an ideal goal, and therefore the nature of evil is completely negative.

We may be asked: where is absolute truth, absolute goodness, absolute beauty, point out the content of these ideas to which you constantly appeal. There is a misunderstanding in this formulation of the question. No man, no historical epoch can claim to possess absolute truth, goodness and beauty, which are attained only throughout progress, as its ultimate goal. Any other point of view would contradict the idea of eternal development, progress would be transformed into the moment of finding the absolute. But everything in the life of mankind has a value only according to the degree of approximation to these ideas, which are absolute in their significance. The content of the entire spiritual culture of mankind is relative, but it acquires meaning only as a striving for the absolute.

Recently, from the lips of P. B. Struve there was an appeal to return to Lassalle, and I can only wholeheartedly join in this appeal. In his philosophical and idealist spirit, Lassalle stands above Marx, it was to him that the idealist interpretation of the "idea of the fourth estate" belonged, it was he who showed with extraordinary force the universal character of this idea and invested it with valuable moral content. And in our struggle for idealism we must find a point of support in Lassalle, his historical image sufficiently shows how progressive the nature of philosophical idealism is. A great task lies ahead: while maintaining a sober realism and an understanding of the need for material means, to introduce an idealistic spirit into the social movement. Lassalle understood this necessity, he understood it more deeply and broadly than Marx. At the moment, it is especially necessary to insist on it. The ideologists of the new society must not allow bourgeois souls to enter this society, they must prepare a person with a valuable life content. The progressive intelligentsia of our time has to work on the spiritual regeneration of those elements of society that should form the cornerstone of the future, and this spiritual regeneration must be closely intertwined with the social struggle that prepares "dwellings for young people." And high "towers" can and should be built on "dwellings". If philistine contentment and bourgeois satiety settle in these dwellings, then, of course, it is possible to build them, but it is unlikely that such work is capable of particularly inspiring, it is unlikely that the consciousness of the builders will be particularly elevated. We think that this will not happen, that a new person will settle in the "dwellings of the future", a spiritually reborn, a person with a broad formula of life, a bearer of ideal values that put the seal of high meaning on life.