it was the merit of Lavrov that he mooted the problems as early as the close of the sixties. But his defect was that he made no attempt to solve the problems epistemologically. I have previously explained that he effected no more than a compromise between Kant and Comte, his essential mistake being that he degraded the Kantian criticism to the level of the criticism of Ruge and Bruno Bauer.
I may point out that Lavrov, in contradistinction to the other philosophers that have been treated in this work, though himself an imaginative writer, was but little concerned with literary criticism. It is true that he wrote essays on Tolstoi, Turgenev, and others, but merely in order to discuss the socio-political problems of the day, as they were presented in the works of these writers.[1]
Consider, again, what Lavrov thinks concerning the problem of individualism. Writing of the relationship between the individual and society, he declares that individuals (by which he means the "more definite" individuals, his critically-thinking individualities) create the organism, wherein they subsist "as mere organs" of the common organisin. It is true that the individualities are accustomed to "moral isolation," but they voluntarily undertake social duties, they subordinate themselves, so that their individualities disappear, to become merged in the general trend of thought.
Now what precisely is this "general trend of thought"? Must not the "more definite" individuals recognise it as a duty, on occasions, to resist the general trend? Is it permissible for these "more definite" individuals to merge themselves, to disappear, if the thought trend is to be general or universal? It can be universal only if they too exert their influence upon it; if they disappear, the individualities of less value remain predominant.
- ↑ In a dialogue, To Whom Belongs the Future? Lavrov formulates his views on aesthetics. Being a positivist, he is on the side of realism as against romanticism, and rejects the romanticist theory that artists are persons of especially lofty and positively prophetic capacity. Realistic psychology will admit that things can be comprehended without precise analysis and systematic synthesis. Lavrov is therefore inclined (and this is typical of his method) to adopt a middle position between the two extremes, and to say that the artist perceives the true significance of things by his direct intuition of them. Lavrov gives as an example Lermontov and his poetic "intuition" of contemporary history. It is obvious that, notwithstanding his positivism, Lavrov has here abandoned positivism for romanticism, or has at any rate tinged positivism deeply with romanticism.
