tion of youth and to the prevalence of masturbation, and in the same connection the writers speak of the increasing frequency of suicide, also on the part of the young.
It is needless to undertake a detailed criticism of Signposts, for most of the problems with which it deals have been discussed elsewhere in these volumes. Moreover, the writers make no serious attempt to establish their chief propositions, which appear merely as unsupported assertions.
It was not difficult for adversaries to discover numerous weaknesses in Signposts. There are frequent contradictions, as between the various authors; the style is often hyperbolical, and there are many overstatements upon matters of fact; the theses are not precisely formulated; the whole work gives the impression of an improvisation. The validity of these criticisms was recognised by some of the contributors, and in the course of the discussion the book evoked they modified and toned down their views. None the less the work had considerable significance, for it showed that quite a number of writers, much as they might differ upon points of detail, were agreed at least in this, that it was necessary to abandon the road trodden by the radical intelligentsia since the days of Bělinskii and Herzen, and to enter a new domain of united thought and activity. In_a_word, Signposts urged the intelligentsia to face the religious problem. A purely political revolution is futile, said the writers, for it can have, no more than political consequences; such consequences are not worthy objects of desire, for the aspirations towards them is based upon false philosophy and false sentiment.
Indisputably since the revolution the radical intelligentsia has been passing through a crisis. This crisis has involved all Russia, and the great problem that has to be faced may be formulated thus: Was the old path a wrong one; must a new path be entered; if so, where is that new path to be found?
Most of the writers in Signposts were by no means clear upon the last matter, and for this reason the real philosophical backbone of the book is furnished by Bulgakov's essay, for Bulgakov simply returns to Dostoevskii, and with Dostoevskii to the church. Like Dostoevskii, Bulgakov counterposes faith in God to atheistic nihilism, and the worship of Christ to the Feuerbachian worship of man. The intelligentsia must discard socialism in all its forms, for socialism is materialistic
