I will begin with a description of his most important work, the History of Ethics, the second edition of which was published shortly before his death. At the outset I must insist that this treatise is, in fact, Solov'ev's only finished work. It is far more carefully elaborated than any of the others, and it exhibits the author's views on the philosophy of religion in a clarified and largely mitigated form. It provides free theocracy and theosophy with an ethical foundation, whilst mysticism is kept within bounds by Kantian criticism.
Having to face the decisive question, what proof he can find for theism and consequently for theocracy, he adduces the so-called moral proof of the existence of God, but from this outlook he goes beyond Kant, whose hypothetical statement naturally seems to him inadequate. To Solov'ev the consciousness of good and evil appears absolute; he considers that this consciousness, and the distinction between good and evil, cannot be shaken by any scepticism. All that scepticism can effect is that it may make us doubt the existence of the objective world; it cannot affect moral conviction; man has to recognise within himself the dualism of good and evil, and he cannot fail to feel the sense of moral obligation; conscience cannot be purely subjective. To this point Solov'ev follows Kant. Morality is autonomous. But thence Solov'ev does not merely derive postulates; he deduces rather that God and the soul are not superadded to morality from without, but are the direct energies of morality. The historic fact that for the generality of mankind the moral standard continues to grow, and that for mankind this standard grows independently of individual men, leads Solov'ev to the conclusion that the moral growth of mankind is the direct outcome of the superhuman power of the Good; but the good is God.[1]
Thus for Solov'ev the direct moral consciousness affords direct certainty of the living God and the living soul. Religion is for him the living sense of the real presence of the unitary and all-embracing godhead.
Before ethics, Hume called a halt to his scepticism. Solov'ev accepts this limitation, strengthens the argument by an appeal to Kant, and proceeds thence to the highest good of Plato. Solov'ev believes himself to have thus constructed an ethic entirely independent of theory, independent alike of the theory
- ↑ Solov'ev is not consistent in the use of the capital, writing sometimes "the Good" and sometimes "the good."
