Man cannot conceive of his fate independently of the fate of mankind, of that higher collective whole in which he lives and in which the full meaning of life is revealed to him.

Of course, the very intercourse of people presupposes in them (potential) reasonableness, the ability to understand each other; but real, actual reason is formed only in society and through communication. Therefore, society cannot be considered as an accidental sum or external aggregate of human personalities. Its members mutually presuppose each other, and if there were no social whole, then these members could not exist as rational persons, only the animal individuals of the human species. But at the same time, society is not a simple natural organism in which the parts are united according to unconscious physical, chemical, and biological laws: it is the product of "supra-organic," rational development. On the one hand, it contains the organic, generic basis of personal life, and on the other hand, it is a supra-personal, rational, moral whole, a product of collective reason. At the lowest levels of social

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development, the unconscious, generic principle predominates, and at the higher levels, social relations are more and more subordinate to conscious rational norms. Thus, the evolution of the individual and society and their rational progress mutually condition each other. What is the purpose of this progress?

From an empirical point of view, the visible goal of history is the creation of a perfect society; Social unions, which appear from the beginning, enter into a mutual clash, into a common struggle for existence, in which the most solid, strong, viable organizations, the most solidary, rational and cultured survive. And in this way states arise. For many thinkers, a perfect cultural state, a legal, rational union of people, is the highest ideal goal of humanity. The state is a supra-personal moral being, the embodiment of objective, collective reason: it is Hobbes's Leviathan, the earthly deity of Hegel. For others, the state is only a stepping stone in the unification or gathering of humanity into a single whole, a single "Great Being," le Grand Etre, as Comte called it. The rational goal of mankind cannot be the endless generation of warring, warring states, monstrous leviathans competing in size and destructive power and devouring each other. The Great Being of the future, the true earthly deity or divine society, must embrace all mankind and realize the kingdom of reason, peace and freedom. It alone can serve as the ultimate goal of mankind in its entirety, and the peoples are moving towards it in the general cultural work of their states, in their wars, alliances, revolutions and reforms, in their industry, technology, arts and science. Even now mankind has ceased to be an abstraction and has become a real quantity, all parts of which are in mutual dependence, in more and more active economic and political interaction with each other; even now no people is confined to the narrow framework of national existence, but lives and acts in one world political arena; Already now one pan-European culture is asserting its indivisible

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domination in the world, condemning all lower, imperfect cultures to extinction or rebirth. Final unity, of course, is still very far away. In spite of the growing intercourse and rapprochement of peoples, in spite of the growing dependence, their enmity is sharpening, their weapons are becoming more and more formidable, although the very danger of extermination awakens a universal thirst for peace and causes the need for a rational all-human organization to ensure such peace. But if the ultimate goal of mankind were as far from the present as this present is from the savage primitive state from which mankind began its journey, then mankind would have achieved its goal. Those who believe in progress and in reason see in the pangs of childbirth mankind and believe that it will give birth to a great Being of all mankind, who will realize in himself the ultimate ideal.

С такой точки зрения работа народов представляется как теургическая работа, а исторический процесс как длинный и мучительный теогонический процесс, завершением которого должно быть рождение последнего, высшего божественного зона мира. Древние теогонии указывали начало этого процесса в хаосе и тьме, из которых родились и первые боги народов; он протекает через ряд эонов, через поколения борющихся богов, исполинов и чудовищ, которые побеждали друг друга, царствовали и падали, сменяя друг друга во власти над миром.

В этих образах, общих стольким народам, заключается как бы естественный апокалипсис человечества. Народы олицетворяют себя в своих богах, и апокалиптика видит их в образе чудовищных многоголовых зверей, воюющих между собою. Под этими мифическими видйниями скрывается первое непосредственное сознание действительных сил, борющихся в историческом процессе, тех реальных «потенций» истории, которые сменяют, одолевают, но не упраздняют друг друга до конца. Кто победит в последней борьбе? Светлые боги европейцев, победившие титанов Востока и поделившие между собою мир? или восставшие титаны, которые овладевают их оружием? или трудолюбивые нибелунги, подкопавшие аристократическую Валгалу богов и героев? В каком образе явится Великое Существо грядущего человечества? В образе одухотворенного Человека, «Сына человеческого»,

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который будет «пасти народы», или в образе многоголового «зверя», нового всемирного дракона, который растопчет народы, поглотит их и поработит себе все?