There is one more aspect of the matter that exposes to us an immanent lie, an inner untruth in the usual structure of the moral norm of life. Every moral principle or ideal, in whatever form it may be expressed, so long as it is expressed in an abstract and rational way, involves the elevation of a particular content of life or interest to the dignity of the supreme lord and administrator of that infinite whole which is given in living human life. Whether we are declared to be obliged to serve the people or the state, or to remain faithful to the family, or to remain faithful to the family, or any other duty as the supreme and absolute duty, everywhere the immeasurable fullness of our spirit is artificially limited, squeezed into narrow, strictly delineated limits, mercilessly pushed into a certain Procrustean bed. We are well aware, of course, of the need for some kind of self-restraint in general, the spiritual formation of the personality, without which we are in danger of melting into chaos, losing the guiding thread in life; But we seek this formation from within, from the integral nature of our spirit, from the depths of our personal, uniquely unique calling. Squeezing our personality into some particular form, prepared in advance, without attention to its peculiarity, we inevitably feel as violence and mutilation, which we do not want to submit, nay, to which we cannot submit, even if we wanted to. For we are conscious of our spirit in all its fullness and wholeness as something absolutely valuable, which we have no right to enslave, and which we cannot actually dispose of, because its original essence is stronger than all our conscious intentions. And even in the most spontaneous, partly even in the vicious inclinations of ours, we feel, perhaps, the lower, requiring purification and enlightenment, but nevertheless genuine, the revelation of this inner originality of our being, which overcomes our reason.

Therefore, the fatal, inevitable consequence of the abstract moral norming of life is moral hypocrisy. Life is divided into two parts - official and genuine, intimate. In the first one, we are all decent, "decent" people, inwardly calm, freely obedient to all the "principles" and norms of morality, and some of us even deserve the reputation of "bright personalities", "deeply ideological" and "principled people". But how little inner light, silence, tranquility, how much rebellion, torment, darkness and depravity in the depths of the soul of even the most "bright personalities"! Moral norming not only does not achieve its true goal, but usually achieves exactly the opposite goal. For the relative ease of outward, visible obedience to moral norms and the reputation that we deserve for it easily leads to moral self-satisfaction, to pharisaical self-admiration, the individual learns to hide from himself, and not only from others, the darkness, vagueness and weakness of his true being, his true spiritual need, and to look at himself from the outside as the universally recognized bearer of moral ideals and values; And the dormant impulses to inner moral perfection, to spiritual purification and formation, to the search for a solid spiritual ground, gradually die out. Official service to high principles, faith in them, and therefore in oneself as their herald and servant, has the same corrupting effect on weak human souls as high rank, power, and wealth; A person becomes spiritually blind from them. Most of us play some kind of "role" in life, in one area or another, and try only to play it well and earn the approval of the audience; We get used to this role so much that we continue to play it without an audience, for ourselves, maybe even die with memorized words on our lips. And only in rare moments do we, for the most part, vaguely feel the untruth of this role; and only a few people who are quite courageous and truthful are not afraid to admit to themselves that they bear as little resemblance to the roles they portray as the actor has an inner resemblance to Julius Caesar or the Marquis of Poza, whom he portrays on the stage.

You can cripple the human spirit, you can outwardly rule over it; But it is impossible to enslave it internally, even if its bearer consciously agrees to it. And therefore moral principles and abstract moral ideals do not regulate spiritual life; they regulate only its external manifestations, for the most part at the cost of its internal moral distortion, pollution, imprisonment in a stifling and poisonous underground prison. Whoever has once realized this—and some spiritual currents of modernity, incomprehensible to ourselves, lead us to do so, as if forcing us to open our eyes and boldly see the truth—can no longer worship the idol of "ideas" and "moral idealism."

And finally, the last thing. In a state of mind subordinated to "moral idealism," to the service of "ideas" and "principles," there is a fatal dialectic at work, by virtue of which everything that appears to be obviously good in moral intention and aspiration becomes evil in its real realization. The moral ideal, descending from its misty abstract heights to earth, penetrating into life and really acting in the complex, always imperfect and contradictory conditions of human life and concrete human nature, unexpectedly reveals itself not as an enlightening, elevating, ennobling force of life, but precisely as a force that destroys and oppresses. We have already noted this in the reflection on the idol of the revolution and the idol of the political ideal. Here we can extend this to every "ideal" in general, i.e., to every model expressed in an abstract formula, to which life must be subordinated and according to which it must be remade. Moral idealism is always quite right in its castigation of the vices and imperfections of existence; and he attracts hearts to himself by his martyrdom in the name of the higher principles, by his devotion to the dream of the good to be realized. But when its heralds pass from the role of dreamers, accusers, and fighters for truth into the role of realizers of this truth, the real administrators and rulers of life, they arouse hatred by their tyranny, by their inattention to the concretely complex needs of life, to the diversity of human needs and the weakness of human nature. The more ardent their faith in a certain ideal, the more unshakable the authority of this ideal, the more blindly and cruelly they mutilate and destroy life. For hatred of evil turns into hatred of all living life, which cannot be squeezed into the framework of the "ideal". It is then that it is usually discovered that, however imperfect real life may be, spontaneously composed of imperfect, weak, vicious human strivings, it already has that enormous, immeasurable advantage over any abstract ideal of life, that it has somehow actually taken shape, grown organically, adapted itself to real human nature, and expresses it, while the ideal is only that which must be, that which is prescribed for realization. but which has no real roots in life itself, and for the sake of which real life is destroyed and crippled. In order to return to the first and most powerful external impression under the influence of which our present moral crisis is taking place: what, in fact, lies the ultimate source of the evils of socialism so stunningly and so clearly revealed? Of course, socialism is the extreme degree of moral and social rationalism, the dream of subordinating all life without exception, including even the entire sphere of man's bodily needs and their economic satisfaction, to the strict general, abstractly expressed, uniform principles of moral justice. After all, socialism is quite negatively right: a person, even if he does not consciously offend anyone, does not intentionally harm anyone, even if he does. only he devotes himself to the peaceful cultivation of his plot of land or to work in his workshop, and then just as peacefully exchanges what he produces for other objects he needs, is guilty of the existing evil and untruth, is responsible for the poverty and hunger of his neighbors; he is guilty because he thinks only of his own needs, and not of the needs of his neighbor and of objective justice; And, of course, the spontaneous clash of blind egoistic desires does not always and not in everything, as the liberal optimists thought, ensure the realization of social harmony and general happiness.

And then it becomes clear that, however true a moral idea may be in itself, it is false and disastrous in that it is only an idea, only an abstract "postulate," and not a living creative force, and that therefore, when it collides with life, it does not enrich it, but impoverishes and destroys it.

But such is the fate of every idea in general, of every abstract idealism; the difference can only be in the degree of their destructiveness, but not in the very nature of their harmfulness; And this degree is determined by the degree of logical forming, abstract precision and therefore narrowness of the moral ideal, one might say, by the degree of idealism of the ideal, its remoteness from life, its adherence to principles and therefore anti-realism. And in this sense it can be said that there is only one ideal which is even worse than materialist socialism: it is consistently "idealist" socialism, the theocratic dream of planting on earth with the help of abstract principles of morality a perfect society of saints, the ideal of all Tolstoyans and similar sectarians. For such a society, if it could be realized, would be the realization of the complete evil engendered by hypocrisy, fanaticism, hypocrisy, cruelty, and moral stupidity.

Such is the fatal fate of idealism. His saints and ascetics inevitably become Pharisees, his heroes become monsters, rapists and executioners. No, let us, today's people, be hopelessly weak, sinful, wandering without a path and a goal, it is no longer possible to tempt us with moral "idealism" and service to an abstract "idea."

V. SPIRITUAL EMPTINESS AND ENCOUNTER WITH THE LIVING GOD

We languish with spiritual thirst In the sultry desert I dragged on. From the poem by A. S. Pushkin "The Prophet"

What follows from all this? Or rather, since we are not concerned here with reasoning and theories, what have we come to? What do we have left and what should we live on?

All the idols whom we formerly enthusiastically served and whose service made our lives meaningful have lost their charm and cannot attract our souls, no matter how many people around us give them their strength. We have only a thirst for life—a life full, living, and deep, some of the last, deepest demands and desires of our spirit, of which we not only do not know how to satisfy them, but we do not even know how to express them.

For the negative result of our review of spiritual wanderings cannot satisfy us in any way. There was an era in our spiritual past when this negative result seemed like a great positive revelation to many of us. This is perhaps the last, most imperfect and lifeless idol that the soul meets on these paths. This is the ghost of complete, perfect personal freedom. We have already met with him and pointed out that, in comparison with the tyranny of moral norms; He seduces us with a hint of some truth in life. But this temptation is brief and too easily exposed as a lie; Only the most naïve, inexperienced souls can succumb to it for a while. To seek nothing, to serve nothing, to enjoy life, to take from it all that it can give, to satisfy every desire, every passion, to be strong and daring, to rule over life — this sometimes seems tempting; and, as has been pointed out, there was a brief epoch—it may be called the age of Nietzsche—when it seemed to many to be the supreme wisdom of life.

We do not need to refute this imaginary wisdom with any abstract arguments. I think it can be said of most of us that we are no longer the same and that this temptation does not work on us. Freedom from everything in the world – what good is it for us if we do not know what we are free for? Will it give us much, are all the pleasures and ecstasies that are given by the simple unbridled desires already so great? We are spiritually old and are skeptical not only of "ideals" but of all the so-called "blessings of life." We know well that every moment of happiness is more than redeemed by suffering or anguish of satiety; We know that there is more sorrow in life than happiness and joy, we have known poverty, we clearly see the inevitable end of all life — death, in the face of which everything becomes equally illusory. In short, we have too vivid a sense of the meaninglessness of life to be carried away by the bare process of life itself. And the word "freedom" in this sense seems to us even offensive and inappropriate. Is he free who, without meaning or purpose, wanders from side to side, wandering without a path, driven only by the desires of the moment, the meaninglessness of which he is well aware? Is he free who does not know where to escape from spiritual idleness and spiritual poverty? In the face of such "temptations", one involuntarily recalls with bitterness the old stupid, but symbolically significant witticism:

"Cabman, are you free?"