the term "love" for that which this philosopher calls "will," and this new philosophy consoled him for a few days while he clung to it. But it also proved unsatisfactory when he regarded it from the standpoint of practical life; then it seemed to be the thin muslin without warmth as a dress.
Sergyeï Ivanovitch advised him to read Khomyakof's[1] theological writings: and though he was at first repelled by the excessive affectation of the author's style, and his strong polemic tendency, he was struck by their teachings regarding the Church; he was struck also by the development of the following thought: —
"Man when alone cannot attain the knowledge of theological truths. The true light is kept for a communion of souls who are filled with the same love; that is, for the Church."
He was delighted with the thought: How much easier it is to accept the Church, which united with it all believing people and was endowed with holiness and infallibility, since it had God for its head, — to accept its teachings as to Creation, the Fall, and Redemption, and through it to reach God, — than to begin with God, a far-off, mysterious God, the Creation, and the rest of it.
But, as he read, after Khomyakof, a history of the Church by a Catholic writer, and the history of the Church by an Orthodox writer, and perceived that the Orthodox Greek Church and the Roman Catholic Church, both of them in their very essence infallible, were antagonistic, he saw that he had been deluded by Khomyakof's church-teachings; and this edifice also fell into dust, like the constructions of philosophy.
During this whole spring he was not himself, and passed hours of misery.
"I cannot live without knowing what I am, and why
- ↑ Alekseï Stepanovitch Khomyakof was born in 1804; after serving in the Guard and taking active part in the Turkish campaign, he retired to private life. He wrote several romantic tragedies in verse, also a number of poems of Panslavonic tendencies; he is chiefly remembered as a theological writer, and some of his works have been translated into French and even English. In 1858 he was president of the Moscow Society of the Friends of Russian Literature. He died in 1860. — Ed.
