I

To the many literary reactions of recent times, partly provoked by opposite extremes, and partly not provoked by anything positive, there has been added a reaction in favor of "pure" art, or "art for art's sake." It undoubtedly belongs to the first category, to the category of apologetic reactions; the opposite extreme, by which it is caused, is in everyone's memory[92]. But is it really such an inevitable fate for us to balance one untruth with another and to subordinate our mental development to the badly and "hard-heartedly" understood law of retribution: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? If, as is commonly said, one error naturally causes another, opposite one, then it is not quite natural for man, as a rational being, to submit to such a natural process of error, but it is much more natural for him to oppose any error with a simple and pure truth; It is also more fruitful.

When, for example, the writers who declared Pushkin a "vulgar" asked, in confirmation of this idea: "What benefit did Pushkin's poetry bring and still does?" - and they were indignantly objected to this: "Pushkin is a priest of pure art, of beautiful form; poetry should not be useful, poetry is above usefulness!" – then such words do not answer either the enemy or the truth, and as a result leave only mutual misunderstanding and contempt. And yet the real, just answer is so simple and close: "No, Pushkin's poetry, taken as a whole (for it is necessary to measure by a "good measure"), has been and is of great use, because the perfect beauty of its form enhances the action of the spirit that is embodied in it, and this spirit is alive, good and sublime, as he himself testifies in the famous verses:

And for a long time I will be so dear to the people,

That I awakened good feelings with a lyre,

That in this cruel age I glorified freedom

And he called for mercy for the fallen... [93]"

Such a fair answer would be appropriate and convincing even if the opponent in his infatuation understood only material benefit as a benefit and demanded "chimney pots" from poetry; For in that case it would not be difficult to explain that, although good feelings in themselves are not sufficient to supply all men with the necessary household utensils, yet without such feelings there could be no question of such a useful enterprise, for lack of internal motives for it, and then only a continuous war for pots would be possible, and not a just distribution of them for the common good.

If the advocates of "art for art's sake" understood by this only that artistic creation is a special activity of the human spirit, satisfying a special need and having its own domain, they would certainly be right, but then they would have no need to raise a reaction in the name of a truth against which no one would seriously argue. But they go much further; they do not confine themselves to a just assertion of the specific feature of art or the independence of the means by which it operates, but deny any essential connection between it and other human activities and the necessary subordination of it to the general life goals of mankind, considering it to be something closed in itself and unconditionally self-sufficient; instead of legitimate autonomy for the artistic field, they preach aesthetic separatism. But even if art were just as necessary for the whole of mankind as breathing is for the individual, then breathing also essentially depends on the circulation of the blood, on the activity of the nerves and muscles, and it is subordinated to the life of the whole; and the most beautiful lungs will not revive it when other essential organs are affected. The life of the whole does not exclude, but, on the contrary, requires and presupposes the relative independence of the parts and their functions, but no particular function in its own isolation can and cannot be absolutely self-sufficient.

The following subtle distinction, made by some, is also useless for the supporters of aesthetic separatism. Let us assume, they say, that in general life art is connected with other activities and all of them together are subordinated to the final goal of historical development; but this connection and this goal, being beyond the limits of our consciousness, are realized by themselves, apart from us, and consequently cannot determine our attitude to this or that human activity; Hence the conclusion: let the artist be only an artist, think only about the aesthetically beautiful, about the beauty of form, let there be nothing important in the world for him except this form.

Such a reasoning, which is intended to extol art, is in fact deeply demeaning to him—it makes him resemble the work of a factory worker who has to make only certain wheels of a clockwork all his life, and does not care for the whole mechanism. Of course, service to a pseudo-artistic form is much more pleasant than factory work, but for a rational consciousness pleasure alone is not enough.

And on what is this conviction based in the fatal unconsciousness of the historical process, in the unconditional unknowability of its goal? If we demand a definite and adequate conception of the final state of mankind, of the concrete and real, then, of course, it is inaccessible to anyone, and not so much because of the limitations of the human mind, but because the very concept of the absolutely final state, as the conclusion of a temporary process, contains logical difficulties which can hardly be eliminated. But such an impossible idea of an inconceivable object is not necessary. For a conscious participation in the historical process, a general conception of its direction is quite sufficient, it is sufficient to have an ideal idea of that marginal magnitude, mathematically speaking, to which the variable magnitudes of human progress are undoubtedly and continuously approaching, although in the nature of things they can never coincide with it. And of this ideal limit, towards which history is really moving, everyone, including the aesthetic separatist, can get a perfectly clear idea, if only he turns for guidance not to preconceived opinions and bad instincts, but to those conclusions from historical facts for which reason vouches and conscience testifies.

In spite of all the vacillations and zigzags of progress, in spite of the present intensification of militarism, nationalism, anti-Semitism, dynamism, etc., etc., there still remains no doubt that the resultant of history proceeds from cannibalism to philanthropy, from lawlessness to justice, and from the hostile disunity of private groups to general solidarity. To prove this would be to expound a comparative course of universal history. But for conscientious pessimists, confused by the retrograde phenomena of the present epoch, it will suffice to recall that these very phenomena clearly show the irrevocable power of the general historical movement.

Here are two examples from completely different fields, but leading to the same morality. A talented writer [95] appeared in Germany (unfortunately, he turned out to be mentally ill), who began to preach that compassion is a low feeling, unworthy of a self-respecting person; that morality is good only for slave natures; that there is no humanity, but there are masters and slaves, demigods and half-beasts, that everything is allowed to the former, and the latter are obliged to serve as tools for the former, and so on. These ideas, in which the subjects of the Pharaohs of Egypt and the kings of Assyria once believed and lived, ideas for which Beganzin in Dahomey and Lobingula in the land of Matabel are still struggling with their last strength, they were received in our Europe as something extraordinary, original and fresh, and as such everywhere had a grand succes de surprise. Does this prove that we have managed not only to experience, but even to forget what our ancestors lived, so that their worldview has acquired the charm of novelty for us? And that such a never-before-seen resurrection of dead ideas is not at all frightening to the living, is evident from one factual consideration: in addition to the two classes of men mentioned by Nietzsche, the proud masters and the humble slaves, a third has developed everywhere, the unhumble slaves, i.e., those who have ceased to be slaves, and, thanks to the spread of printing and a host of other inevitable and inevitable evils, This third class (which is not limited to one tiers-état) has grown so large that it has almost absorbed the other two. These people have no intention of voluntarily returning to humility and slavish obedience, and there is no one and nothing to force them, at least until the coming of the Antichrist and his prophet with false signs and miracles; And this last disguised reaction of Dahomey ideals will last only a short time.