ONE of the fortunes of war has been the revelation to Western eyes
of a Russian mystic. It is Vladimir Soloviev. He is not only the
foremost spiritual philosopher of Russia, but he is also one of the
most distinguished types of the modern mind. Towards the end of his
life he happened to write a book against Tolstoi, combating that
writer's doctrine of the non-resistance of evil. The book has
lately received two translations into English, as a statement of
the philosophy of war from the Russian point of view. The subject
of war, however, holds but a secondary place in the book, and
indeed a very secondary place in the life of Soloviev. His great
lifework was an exposition and propaganda of the claims of the
Universal Church. He was a convert from Orthodoxy to Catholicism,
and the one ruling passion of his life was to familiarize Russia
with the idea of a Universal Church, monarchical in its
constitution. This is the chief reason for calling him the Russian
Newman. There were other striking similarities between the two men,
although their divergencies were even more striking and more
numerous. Soloviev, like Newman, was very lonely in his soul. He
worked always from within-the voice of conscience was his
all-impelling guide and force. His method was the personal one. He
conceived in his own peculiar way a philosophy of the whole man,
which was neither intellectualist, voluntarist, nor sentimentalist.
With the watchword of "integralism," he stood for the due equipoise
of all the faculties of man in the search for truth. He worked out
for himself a method remarkably analogous to Newman's doctrine of
the Native Sense, but with this important difference, that he
always preserved a profound respect for the use and the value of
the syllogism. Yet if, on the one hand, he was personal and
subjective, it was always with a sane appreciation of the value of
0bjective evidence. Like Newman again, he took a special delight in
the study of Holy Scripture and the Fathers, of Church history and
the development of religion. Like Newman, too, he had an ardent
love for his own country. He thought of Catholicism for Russia, and
believed that if only Russia were Catholic it would mean the
religious transformation of the whole world. Unlike Newman,
Soloviev never became a priest. Both before and after his
conversion he preferred to work as a layman. Nevertheless, he
deemed that he could best follow his calling by remaining a
celibate. Once, at the age of eighteen, he did think of marriage,
but, by the time he had arrived at the age of twenty, he had fully
resolved to lead a single life.
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