The Works of Plato

with a positive idealism that is rooted in the very belief in the ideal of absolute truth and goodness, as almighty and divine; these two opposing strivings struggle within Plato and are combined in the Christian idealism of V. Solovyov. In the dominance of the Christian idea lies the undeniable deep distinction of both Solovyov’s philosophy and his entire spiritual structure and his very personal fate, compared to the great Greek thinker. But this did not prevent Solovyov from looking deeper than others into the "life drama of Plato," which ended in the collapse of not only his external designs but also of his idealism itself. The life drama of V. Solovyov is also a drama of idealism—the collapse of his designs and hopes regarding that "boundary between two worlds," the unconditional nature of which Plato recognized and which our philosopher rejected to the end—that boundary which was removed for him subjectively in feeling and thought, in eros and in philosophy. This life drama took Solovyov’s strength, but he emerged from it a victor both as a philosopher and as a Christian, having preserved his ideals, believing in their final triumph in the very visible collapse of them.

"With the growth of life experience," he says at the beginning of that same preface to the Creations of Plato, "without any change in the essence of my convictions, I doubted more and more in the feasibility and usefulness of those external designs to which my so-called 'best years' were devoted. To be disillusioned in this meant to return to the philosophical pursuits that had been pushed into the background during that time." Anyone who knows what the "external designs" of the author of "World Theocracy" were will understand and appreciate the deep meaning of this confession and the calm faith expressed in these simple words. Having become convinced of the vanity of his external designs, he did not doubt the all-conquering power of his ideal, nor its eternal kingdom, nor that this kingdom is indeed coming and will triumph over all evil and injustice, and will appear "in glory" at the end of the historical process. And, having humbled himself, he continues to serve it as a philosopher; he turns with new depth and strength of thought to the realm of "eternal forms of the true and the beautiful"—to the place where, before the spiritual gaze, the boundary between the two worlds is removed, where speculation anticipates the existing ideal, that which ought to be, the worthy-to-be. Solovyov’s life feat, his personal work, was finished,