Now this moral nature of man, this 'Good' is from God. We are imperfect, and God is actually perfect, but towards this actual perfection we are striving. These three elements are involved in the religious attitude, with its double sense of prostration and exaltation. To recognize clearly in oneself, and objectively to realize, this Divine perfection, is the aim of human history; accordingly it repudiates any narrow individualism. The Divine commandment is, Be ye perfect, not, Be thou perfect (vs. Kant).
The third part of the book is therefore devoted to the realization of the Good through human history. A survey of the historical development of man shows that moral progress parallels social progress. In the last analysis, all social sanction, and the value and moral character of all social institutions, depend upon the principle of the absolute worth of human personality. But the realization of this worth demands social organization; indeed society is truly described as organized morality (p. 261).
From this general point of view Solovyof now turns to examine several more particular problems: the national, the penal, and the economic questions, morality and legal justice, and the significance of war. Solovyof's conception of the true nationalism is strongly reminiscent of Dostoyevsky's: a nation is greatest in the moments when it most clearly transcends its narrow nationalistic limitations and is in harmony with the universal life of mankind. In his discussion of penal justice the author opposes the doctrine of retribution, but also the Tolstoyan idea of non-resistance, and advocates "public guardianship over the criminal ... with a view to his possible reformation" (p. 325). Accordingly, in his discussion of legal justice, Solovyof condemns capital punishment.
Especially stimulating is the chapter on the economic question. Solovyof attacks the socialistic theory of reform because its conception of life is just as materialistic as that of capitalism. It treats man as if he were simply a producer-consumer, and society, a merely economic union. Now, if man were a merely economic agent, there would be no inherent reason why he should not be exploited (p. 335). It is only because man is first and last a moral agent, a human being, that exploitation is to be condemned; it is only because he is a person that he is entitled to the means of a worthy human existence. Until this fundamental principle is clearly recognized, all social reform is futile.
Solovyof's constant insistence on the sacredness and absolute worth of human nature might lead us to expect from him a condemnation of war. His attitude in the matter is perplexing. He actually calls war "the direct means of the external and the indirect means of the inward unification of humanity" (p. 408). To the moral organization of humanity, thus stimulated, the last chapter of the book is devoted. And by humanity Solovyof does not mean merely contemporaneous society. He insists on our bond with our ancestors and with our descendants. This natural bond is to be made unconditionally moral, through the spiritualization of family piety, of marriage, of education. National historical life is to gain a new spiritual meaning. Finally piety is to be universalized and organized into a Universal Church Catholic, and pity into
