War world 1 pierre bezukhov. The moral quest of Pierre Bezukhov

A person with a childish kind face and a smile, one whose image is remembered for a long time. Which of the heroes of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" has such features? Of course, Pierre Bezukhov, goodie, an outstanding person who lived an interesting, difficult, but eventful life throughout the work.

First meeting with Pierre Bezukhov

For the first time, a reader of War and Peace meets Pierre Bezukhov at Anna Pavlovna Scherer's. It is immediately evident that he is not at all the same as those around him, and, not fitting into a secular society permeated with falsehood, is, as it were, a white crow. Not surprising, because Pierre is sincere, straightforward, does not accept lies and tries to avoid them.

“... Soon after the little princess, a massive, fat young man with a cropped head, glasses, light trousers in the then fashion, with a high frill and in a brown tailcoat entered. This fat young man was the illegitimate son of the famous Catherine’s nobleman, Count Bezukhov, who was now dying in Moscow ... ”- this is how the meeting of this hero with Anna Pavlovna is described, who, having seen such an unwanted guest, was upset to such an extent that anxiety and fear appeared on her face.

It would seem, why? It turns out that the mistress of the house was frightened by Pierre's observant, natural look, which so distinguished him from everyone present in this living room.

It is noteworthy that we meet Bezukhov precisely on the first pages of a large four-volume novel, which may indicate the importance of this hero for Lev Nikolayevich, who prepared for him a difficult but wonderful fate.

Pierre's past

An observant reader can learn from the novel that Pierre Bezukhov, who hardly knew his father, was brought up abroad from the age of ten and came to Russia as a young man, at the age of twenty.

reckless move

The naivety and inexperience of Pierre Bezukhov led him to a dead end. Once, the question arose before the young man: whom to marry, and since Pierre, after the death of his father, Kirill Bezukhov, became a count and a rich heir, Helen Kuragina did not fail to take advantage of this, for whom the love of money was above all else.

Even an inner voice, when "some kind of incomprehensible horror seized him at the mere thought of this terrible step," could not convince the young count to change his mind. Unfortunately, only after the wedding, Bezukhov realized that, having tied the knot with such an insidious and mercenary girl as Elena, he committed a reckless and reckless act that influenced his future fate. This difficult period of life is described by the author in dark colors.

“... He was silent ... and with a completely absent-minded look he was picking his nose with his finger. His face was sad and gloomy. This marriage, dictated by no means by love, lasted six years, when Helen not only showed her bad character, but also cheated on Pierre with Dolokhov, which prompted the hero to fight the offender in a duel. The result of the fight was the injury of the opponent. However, here, too, Pierre's good feelings prevailed: when he saw that Dolokhov was wounded, he "barely holding back his sobs, ran to him."

Thus, realizing that his wife - depraved woman, and living with her is now unbearable, Pierre broke off relations with Helen and left for St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, during that period the hero of the novel lost faith in God. But then, disappointed in life, Pierre could not even imagine that beyond the mountains of difficult and sometimes unbearable circumstances, in the future, real family happiness awaits him!

New plans of Pierre Bezukhov

Helping them, he regains confidence, despite "bare feet, dirty torn clothes, tangled hair ..." Even Pierre's look changes, because he knows what he lives for.

Changes in fate

Pierre again converges with his wife, but for a short time. Then their relationship is broken completely, and Bezukhov goes to Moscow, after which he goes to war, to the Russian army. Helen, having changed the Orthodox faith to the Catholic, wants to divorce her husband, but a sudden premature death does not allow her plans to come true.

Pierre at war

The war became a severe test for the inexperienced Pierre Bezukhov. Despite the fact that he provided financial support to the regiment he created, and also planned an assassination attempt on Napoleon, whose insidious and inhuman actions disgusted Bezukhov, in this field he could not prove himself as a brave and courageous defender of the Motherland.

Having no shooting skills, not really knowing military affairs, Pierre was captured by the enemy, and this is not surprising.

Being in terrible conditions, the hero of the novel went through a harsh school of life.

But here, too, there was a chance to look at it in a new way, to make a reassessment of values, and this was facilitated by the same prisoner like him, by the name of Kartaev, who, however, unlike Count Pierre, was a simple peasant, and his actions differed sharply from those that Bezukhov got used to throughout his life. Communicating with this person not of his circle, Pierre understands that he was wrong in many ways, and the meaning must be sought not in high society, but in communication with nature and ordinary people.

Getting Closer to Happiness...

Although Pierre Bezukhov experienced a lot in his life, including the bitter consequences of an unsuccessful marriage, in his heart he really wanted to love and be loved. And secret feelings for one girl lived in his soul. Anyone who is familiar with the novel "War and Peace" knows who it is. Of course, about Natasha Rostova, whom Pierre met when she was a thirteen-year-old girl.

Kindred souls - this is how one could characterize these heroes of the novel in one phrase, who, having gone through a difficult path, having experienced trials and losses, nevertheless created a strong family. Returning from captivity, Pierre married Natasha, the one who became him true friend, adviser, support, with whom one could share both joy and sorrow. The contrast with the past life was obvious, but Pierre needed to go through the path of trials with Helen in order to appreciate true happiness with Natalya Rostova and be grateful to the Creator for this.

Strong family ties

Pierre's life sparkled with new colors, shone with joy, gained stability and lasting peace. Having married Natalya Rostova, he realized how wonderful it is to have such a sacrificial, kind wife. They had four children - three daughters and one son - for whom Natasha became a good mother. The novel ends on such a positive note. “She felt that her connection with her husband was held not by those poetic feelings that attracted him to her, but was held by something else, indefinite, but firm, like the connection of her own soul with her body” - this is what precise definition given to Natalya, who was ready to take part in every minute of her husband, giving herself completely to him. And it is wonderful that Pierre, who drank so much grief in past life finally found real family happiness.

Teilhard uses the term "metaphysical" in the sense of "aspiring to the knowledge of being with its principles, principles, causal mechanisms, etc.", as opposed to "phenomenological", that is, limited to descriptive tasks. The metaphysical approach, as Teilhard understands it, answers the question "why", the phenomenological approach answers the question "how". Teilhard resorts to the rejection of "metaphysics" (a device borrowed from the positivists) in cases where he seeks to avoid discussing ontological questions. It is up to the reader to choose one or another ontology for the "phenomenalistic" picture of facts (see note 15). At the same time, Teilhard also allows anthropomorphization, going back to the medieval and Renaissance (Paracelsus) picture of the world, the parallelism between the "phenomenon of man" and the "phenomenon of the cosmos" as between the microcosm and the macrocosm. As early as 1931, Teilhard formulated his principle, "long seen" by him, that "only on the basis of man, can man unravel (dechiffrer) the world" (R. Teilhard de Chardin. Images et paroles. Paris, 1966, p. 98). Declaring the phenomenological nature of his method, Teilhard, nevertheless, in fact (as a naturalist) cannot but use causal explanations. So, he is by no means content with a “description” of the fact that traces of fire and processed tools were found near the fossil remains of Sinanthropus, but he draws conclusions about the reason for their appearance: the lifestyle and level of organization of Sinanthropus (while rejecting alternative causal explanations: see Note 20). Another departure from the phenomenological is Teilhard's frequent last sections"phenomenon of man", causal explanations coming from the "internal things" and "radial energy". To Teilhard's "anti-metaphysical" approach, therefore, Marx's remark (concerning Hegel's phenomenology) is applicable that in phenomenology, as a possibility, "already hidden ... uncritical positivism and equally uncritical idealism" (K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 42, p. 157). - Here and further approx. translator.

Teilhard's notion of the atomism of Epicurus (341–270 BC), the ancient Greek materialist philosopher, is inaccurate. Epicurean atoms are indivisible, as the etymology of the word "atom" implies, and as it is thought of by all ancient materialists, but Epicurus does not consider his atoms to be inert. He introduced into the doctrine of atoms the thesis of an arbitrary deviation ("clinamen") of atoms from motion along a straight line and substantiated on this thesis the doctrine of the inevitability of the generation of countless worlds by atoms. Marx emphasized the dialectical nature of the idea of ​​"deviation", which expelled inertia from ideas about the atom thanks to that. that in this idea "... the contradiction inherent in the concept of the atom is realized" (K. Marx and F. Engels. Soch., vol. 40, p. 176).

Teilhard alludes to the idea of ​​the inexhaustibility of the atom, formulated by the French philosopher and naturalist Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) in his posthumously published Thoughts. Pascal takes the tick as "one of the smallest creatures known to people", shows the most complex structure of its organism despite its tiny size, allocates smaller and smaller parts in this organism, up to "drops of juice", "gas bubbles" and atoms and, finally, he suggests: “Let a person imagine innumerable Universes in this atom, and each one has its own vault of heaven, and its planets, and its own Earth, and the same ratios as in the visible world. And on this Earth, its animals and, finally, their ticks, which again can be divided without knowing rest and time, until the head is spinning from the second miracle, just as amazing in its smallness as the first in its vastness "(B. Pascal. Thoughts. Per. E Lipetskaya, in: F. La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, B. Pascal, Thoughts, J. La Bruyère, Characters, Moscow, 1974, p. 122). By the "first miracle" Pascal here means the infinite size of the Universe, in comparison with which man and everything that he can grasp with his thought is only an "atom".

Judging by the reference in this section to ancient natural philosophy (cf. note 2), Teilhard here has in mind the whirlwinds of Democritus (460-370 BC), resulting from the repulsion and collision of atoms. However, it is possible that Teilhard also recalls here the doctrine of vortices by his compatriot R. Descartes (1596–1650), which was very popular (as the basis of mechanics) in France even in post-Newtonian times. The whirlwinds in Descartes' view really had a power or energy character and gave rise to planets, comets, the "sphere of fixed stars" and almost (to use Teilhard's expression) "everything that in the world has a form."

About the "two abysses" of B. Pascal, that is, about the infinity of the Universe and the infinite divisibility of matter, see above, note. 3.

Pari passu (lat.) in the same rhythm, in parallel, at the same time.

In this dispute, which unfolded over the competition theme of the Paris Academy of Sciences for 1858 (“Experimentally illuminate the issue of spontaneous generation with new data”), L. Pasteur (1822–1895), the founder of modern biochemistry and immunology, proved that whenever the possibility of penetration of bacteria, protozoa, etc. into a previously sterilized plant or animal infusion, no organisms were born in it. In the experiment of Pasteur's opponent, doctor and embryologist F.-A. Pouche, sterilization was not carried through to the end, which explains the “positive” result he received in a number of cases, allegedly indicating spontaneous generation under modern conditions. In the course of his experiments, Pasteur not only refuted this result, but also developed a method for quantitatively determining the relative richness (in terms of the number of species and individuals) of the microfauna of various localities. Repeatedly, attempts were made to unjustifiably extend the data obtained by Pasteur to spontaneous generation in general.

Teilhard's assumption is not justified. In a series of experiments undertaken in the course of the controversy with Pouchet (see previous remark), Pasteur took special precautions against "spoiling" (by sterilizing) the air samples taken.

This refers to the "paradox of transformism", uncovered by Teilhard a few years before. how he began to write "the phenomenon of man." The origin, the petiole, of each phylum or evolutionary stem is not itself yet a typical component of it, and usually merges in the perception of the paleontologist or evolutionist with the source phylum. or it generally escapes the attention of the researcher due to the paucity of the material that has been preserved and has come down to us (P. Teilhard de Chardin. Le paradoxe transformiste. "Rev. Quest. Sci.". 1925, No. 7. p. 53-80).

Here Teilhard refers to the idea of ​​the French philosopher-phenomenologist. mathematician and economist Angoin Augustin Cournot (1801–1877). set out in his "Essay on the foundations of our knowledge and on the features of philosophical criticism" ("Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissance et sur les caracteres de la critique philosophique", Paris. 1851).

This refers to the evolutionary-paleontological direction created in the USA by Henry Fairfield Osborne (1857–1953), the author of many works on the phylogeny of mammals. The idea cited in the text was expressed by Osborn in the 10-30s of the 20th century, when he departed from the Lamarckism he originally defended and attempted to synthesize (to explain evolution) vitalistic and energistic concepts with elements of neo-Darwinism. Osborn's concept of "aristogenes" or "genes of progress" served as one of the sources of Teilhard's teachings on radial energy.

In his general scheme Teilhard's evolution is largely based on the work of one of the first French geneticists, Lucien Quenot (1866–1951). who developed the concept of pre-adaptation and "anti-randomness" as opposed to Darwinian natural selection allegedly based only on the "randomness" factor. In the 1930s and 1940s, Teilhard's scheme of Queneau was accepted by almost all French evolutionists as a classic and has the advantage over many other "phylogenetic trees" that it illustrates the multiplicity of directions for the development of land and air in various evolutionary trunks of the animal world. In § 2 "The Rise of Consciousness" of Chapter III ("Mother Earth") of this section, Teilhard uses Queneau's concept of "anti-randomness" to separate two "zones of evolution - the Darwinian one, where regularity breaks through a mass of accidents, and the Lamarckian one, where it "perceptibly dominates" To the second zone Teilhard relates, first of all, the evolution of man: in practice, the difference between "zones" corresponds to the difference between biological and cultural evolution. Teilhard, following Queneau, clearly underestimates the regular nature of evolution under the influence of natural selection.

The pattern that characterizes "Darwinian" evolution has nothing to do with the "neo-Lamarckian anti-case", which includes direct adaptation, inheritance of acquired traits, and other speculative constructs. On Teilhard's influence this issue See the previous note for L. Keno's views.

See note. eleven.

Here Teilhard approached the idea of ​​the genesis of consciousness on the basis of early social structures, but failed due to the shortcomings of his methodology. He admits that the emergence of consciousness is somehow the result of an increase in material complexity. but at the same time he notes ("the paradox of man") that the anatomical difference of man from other anthropoids is incomparably weaker than his "mental superiority". Assuming an inter-individual origin of thought, Teilhard cannot take a decisive step towards explaining this inter-individuality, since he lacks a labor theory of anthropogenesis. As a result, he is forced to abandon the analysis of "deeper reasons that guide the whole game" and hide under a "phenomenalistic veil": it seems to him sufficient to allow the reader to place any ontological structure of the world under the facts of the genesis of consciousness from interaction. "whatever suits him." that is, both materialistic and idealistic (cf. note 1).

The term "germen" for the designation of "germinal" (French germe germ) or hereditary substance was borrowed by Teilhard from L. Keno (see note 12).

This refers to published in 1883-1909. the three-volume work of the Austrian geologist Eduard-Friedrich Suess (1831-1914) "The Face of the Earth", where the concept of the biosphere as a special shell of the Earth (along with the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere) is developed in detail. Previously, this concept was theoretically substantiated by Suess in his works of the late 19th century, but for the first time it occurs (under other terms) in the works of J.-B. Lamarck.

William King Gregory (1876–1952), American paleontologist, worked at the New York Museum of Natural History, 1907–1943 professor of paleontology at Columbia University (New York). Main works: on Eocene primates; on the morphology and evolution of the skull and locomotor system of mammals and other vertebrates; on the phylogeny of fish.

Heidelberg man. Homo heidelbergensis, a species of fossil man, established on the basis of a single lower jaw, which was found in 1907 by the German anthropologist O. Schötenzak at a depth of 24 m in the river valley. Elsenz near the village of Mauer near Heidelberg (now Germany, Baden-Württemberg). Later, a number of flint fragments were found in the same area, bearing traces of artificial processing. Its character and structure of the jaw make it possible to roughly approximate the Heidelberg man (who lived 400 thousand years ago, i.e., in the early Pleistocene) with Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus.

Marcellin-Pierre Boulle (1861–1942), French geologist and anthropologist professor of geology at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, and then (1902–1936) at the Paris National Museum natural history, where Teilhard worked under his leadership in the twenties. He was the first (in 1908) to completely reconstruct the skeleton of a Neanderthal. After the discovery of Sinanthropus, he put forward a hypothesis, which was not confirmed later and criticized by Teilhard, that tools, remains of fires and other traces of the life of Sinanthropus actually do not belong to him, but to another species of people, possibly standing at a level of development closer to Neanderthals.

The key moment of anthropogenesis, dating back to the early Paleolithic, is covered by Teilhard briefly and clearly insufficiently. This moment or, more precisely, the stage was characterized by a qualitative transition from biological evolution to forms of socio-cultural progress as a phenomenon that was absent at all earlier stages. At this transitional stage, factors of a socio-cultural order, and above all labor, also act as factors of anthropogenesis, which includes the biological (for example, anatomical, functional, etc.) improvement of the human body. It is at this stage that the hand, the structure of which was the primary stimulus for separating a person from the animal world, is already, as F. Engels writes, "not only an organ of labor, it is also its product" (K. Marx and F. Engels. Op. , vol. 20, p. 488). Starting from this stage, a person becomes a being with a proper human and social (and not just biological, species, natural) history: “The first historical act of these individuals, thanks to which they differ from animals, is not that they think, but in that they begin to produce the means of subsistence they need" (K. Marx and F. Engels. Soch., vol. 3, p. 19). Predominantly in connection with this stage, the question of the formation of speech arises, which Teilhard does not touch upon. Meanwhile, only for a being with articulate speech, that is, for a person, does it become possible development conceptual apparatus of thinking, and a situation is created (disclosed, for example, in the works of S. L. Rubinshtein), when each single fact or set of circumstances contains a semantic meaning, and objects acquire independence from the context in which they are directly given.

Henri-Edouard-Prosper Bray (1877–1961), French archaeologist, one of the pioneers of the study of Paleolithic art Author of many monographs on cave and rock carvings in France, Spain, South and South-West Africa. In 1912, he described the Aurignacian culture, which existed about 20–35 thousand years ago and is currently recognized as one of milestones Late European Paleolithic. He was Teilhard's closest friend from the twenties until his death, and then one of the initiators of the posthumous publication of Teilhard's collected works.

This refers to the geological work of the French naturalist Georges-Louis-Leclerc Buffon (1707–1788), including his Theory of the Earth (1749), the geological sections of the Natural History (vols. 1–36, 1749–1788 .) and especially The Ages of Nature (1778). In the last of the listed works, an attempt was made to divide the history of the Earth into periods (seven epochs), and the total age of the Earth was determined at 75 thousand years, which for that time was almost fantastically bold.

ipso facto - thereby (lat.).

B. Pascal in his "Thoughts" proves the impossibility of rational arguments to confirm or refute the existence of God and further proposes to solve this issue by tossing a coin. "Let's weigh your possible gain or loss if you bet on the eagle, that is, on God. If you win, you gain everything, if you lose, you will not lose anything ... Thus, if it is impossible not to play, it is better to abandon the mind in the name of life, it is better to risk them in the name of an infinitely large gain, as possible as non-existence is possible "(B. Pascal. Thoughts. - In the book: F. La Rochefoucauld. Maxims. B. Pascal. Thoughts. J. La Bruyère. Characters. M., 1974 , p. 155).

Leon Brunswick (1869–1944), French philosopher, representative of the "critical rationalism" school. Teilhard is referring to his works "Introduction to the Life of the Spirit" (1900) and "Progress of Consciousness in Western Philosophy" (1927), where the thesis is affirmed that scientific knowledge and morality form a certain unity of a higher order, crowning world evolutionary process.

"Eppur si muove!" (Italian) "And yet it spins!". The words attributed by legend to Galileo and allegedly spoken by him when he left the court of the Inquisition after his forced renunciation of the principle of the rotation of the Earth around the Sun (June 21, 1633).

First of all, Plato's dialogue "Feast" is meant: "Love is called the thirst for integrity and the desire for it" (Plato, Works in three volumes. T. 2. M., 1970, p. 120). One of the participants in the dialogue, the doctor Eryximachus (historical person), says that the god of love Eros is poured throughout nature: "... he lives not only in human soul and not only in her striving for beautiful people, but also in many of her other impulses, and in general in many other things in the world - in the bodies of any animals, in plants, in everything, one might say, that exists, for he is a great god, amazing and all-embracing, involved in all the affairs of people and gods" (Ibid., p. 112).

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), philosopher of the early Renaissance, expounds his theory of the binding role of love, for example in the treatise "The Hunt for Wisdom": "... love, the connection of unity and being, in the highest degree natural. It comes from unity and equality, in which its natural beginning: they breathe their connection, and in it they irresistibly long to unite. Nothing is devoid of this love, without which nothing would be stable; everything is permeated with an invisible spirit of connection, all parts of the world are internally preserved by its spirit, and each one is connected by it with the world. This spirit binds the soul to the body, and it ceases to give life to the body when it flies away. Intellectual nature can never be deprived of the spirit of connection, since it is itself congenial to this spirit; the unity and being of the intellectual nature is intellectual and therefore held together by an intellectual bond, and this bond, intellectual love, can neither end nor weaken as long as the life of the intellect, understanding, is nourished by immortal wisdom. The natural connection in intellectual nature, which gravitates towards wisdom, therefore not only preserves intellectual nature in its existence, but also brings it closer to what it naturally loves, up to union with it. "(Nicholas of Cusa. Works in two volumes. T. 2. M., 1980, pp. 386–387).

William Diller Matthew (1871–1930), American paleontologist Major work on fossil vertebrates of the New World. Worked at the Museum of Natural History in New York; since 1927 professor of paleontology at the University of California. Teilhard's idea was developed by Matthew in Climate and Evolution (1915) and Mammalian Evolution in the Eocene (1927).

Alexis Carrel (1873–1944), French biologist and experimental surgeon Laureate Nobel Prize in Medicine for 1912 (for the development of new methods of treatment and wound healing). From 1904 he worked in the USA (at the Physiological Institute in Chicago and then at the Rockefeller Center in New York). The phrase cited by Teilhard is the title of a popular scientific work by Carrel, published in 1935.

His flavor text:

"Every cook"s dream wrapped up in a perfect bundle of metal and bolts. Too bad what he cooks up isn't suitable for humanoid consumption. According to Jard's notes, he intends to make this little guy for his friend,

Comment from laural

I love this pet! He is my favorite of all the pets in world of warcraft, I just think he"s so funny. I wish he played fetch with the Playball but alas he does not seem to want to go get them, though he does turn to look at them when I toss them around Stormshield.

Comment from Skullhawk13

If you keep him out as your main pet, keep in mind he will occasionally stop to smell the flowers, and will take his sweet time to catch up and let you cook. I highly advise keeping him on the action bar spot formaly reserved for your cooking fire, as it will let you quickly get him, rather than have to walk over to him like a peasant.

Comment from GrahamCracker

best Pierre strategy you"re going to get.
Go to Draenor, pick/choose a fight with ANY pet (besides Legendary ones, like in Tanaan, cause that "s just insta-suicide since Pierre kinda sucks) So have Pierre as the first to fight/default/1st slot, then in 2nd slot a LVL 1 Battle Pet and then another Good level 25 in 3rd slot (Be sure not to fight Critters (as they are immune to sleep/stun etc) and have him cast food coma . this will put the enemy to sleep for 2 rounds, enough time to swap out Pierre, bring the LVL 1, have it attack and then swap back to Pierre or your 3rd slot LVL 25. you will gain 5-8 lvls per battle, until about level 13 then 2-3 lvls until about 18, and after that, if you have The Menagerie at your Garrison, just throw a few of those Any Pet stones you get for doing your Daily Pet Battle and voila, you just got that sweet, rare quality that just dropped in that raid a couple of hours ago to a lvl 25 Beefcake.

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) is considered the forerunner of the Enlightenment. His main work is the Historical and Critical Dictionary, which became the bestseller of its time. In this dictionary, he tried to summarize the development of various Christian concepts, collected various approaches to the knowledge of God, His description, and came to the conclusion that since these concepts themselves are contradictory and do not agree with each other, any person has the right to profess any form of Christianity. None of them has the right to force people to be only its supporter, since each of these confessions is equally reliable and provable. Bayle was one of the first philosophers to put forward the principle of freedom of conscience.

The idea of ​​the Dictionary itself, new for its time, was also based on the principle that the publication of all knowledge would somehow change people's opinions on certain, in particular religious, truths and would improve the moral climate in society. That is, the publication of the "Historical and Critical Dictionary" was based on the educational idea.

Bayle advanced another idea for which he was highly regarded in the courses of so-called scientific atheism: he was the first person in the history of philosophy to assert that a society of atheists was possible and even would be moral. Before Bayle, people had always taken for granted that the denial of God led to the denial of morality and that such a society, if built, would be self-destructive. Bayle, in his Dictionary, tried to prove that such a society is not only possible, but will be much more moral than a society based on the principles of religious morality. In addition, there are natural mechanisms of morality: fear of shame, profit, etc. “Fear of a deity and love for him is not always a more effective reason than anything else. Love for glory, fear of shame, death or torment, the hope of obtaining a profitable position act on some people with greater force than the desire to please God and the fear of breaking his commandments, ”writes P. Bayle in the Dictionary (1, v. 2 , p. 143).

§ 2. Jean Mellier

Another forerunner of the Enlightenment is Jean Mellier (1664–1729). He was a rural priest who lived in the province of Champagne, although the parishioners did not know the true views of their pastor. After his death, notes were discovered that were published not without the participation of Voltaire, who gave them the name "Testament", under which they went down in history.

From the "Testament" it follows that Mellier, it turns out, was an ardent atheist, materialist and revolutionary. Perhaps, of all the enlighteners, he was closest to Marxism. Neither the materialists Diderot and Holbach, nor the revolutionary Rousseau can compare with Mellier in this respect.

Mellier proceeded from the fact that the people are burdened with suffering. Evil reigns in the world; the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The culprits of the poverty of the poor are the rich, who rob and humiliate the people. Therefore, it is necessary to establish justice in the world on our own, not relying on God's will, especially since, according to Mellier, God does not exist.

Since the basis of the origin of evil is property and political inequality, it is necessary to get rid of it, since people are equal by nature. To do this, people need to be enlightened, because they are dark and downtrodden, they believe in various fictions and superstitions and do not know that their happiness is in their own hands.

Among the superstitions stands out in the first place the Christian religion, invented by the rich in order to keep the people in obedience. Without any religion (and Christianity is the best way to do this) it is difficult to keep the people in line. Therefore, it is necessary to fight against religion, especially against Christianity. Christianity is a fiction, it is invented by people, so by educational means it is possible to ensure that people learn the truth about Christianity.

Mellier does not stop at enlightenment reformism, he understands that the rich will cling to their power, and he considers it necessary to wage a revolutionary struggle of the poor against their enslavers.

Among the arguments against the existence of God, Mellier highlights the following. They say that God exists because the world is perfect, there is beauty in it. However, Mellier argues that beauty is a concept inherent in the material world and is its property, so it is absolutely not necessary to invent a source of this beauty. To the argument that if the world is perfect, then it was created by a perfect being, God, Mellier argues that this is untenable, since it implies an infinite chain: the perfection of God means the presence of a criterion of perfection to which God obeys, therefore, if God is perfect, then He also requires his Creator, etc. It turns out an endless meaningless chain.

The proof of Thomas Aquinas from the first impulse (because matter cannot have the principle of motion in itself) is also rejected by Mellier: matter itself has the beginning of motion, therefore it is not necessary to assume the existence of any immovable First Mover.

Regarding the soul as a non-material entity directly given to us, proving the existence of a non-material world, Mellier argues that the soul is also material, it is simply a subtle matter and dissipates with death. Therefore, nothing exists in the world except matter, everything else is just its properties.

One of the brightest masterpieces in Russian prose is the epic novel War and Peace. The four-volume work, which is distinguished by the diversity of plot lines, an extensive system of characters, the number of which reaches five hundred heroes, is primarily not only a reflection of historical reality, but a novel of ideas. To the final version of the work, Tolstoy followed the path of ideological and plot searches, which is also reminiscent of the image of Pierre Bezukhov in Tolstoy's "War and Peace".

Ideological searches of the author and the hero

Initially, Lev Nikolayevich did not plan to write history this character, creating it in the image of a Decembrist, fighting for civil equality and freedom. However, gradually in the course of understanding historical events and writing a novel ideological orientation Tolstoy is changing. At the end of the work, we clearly see that the true essence of the mission of the active hero is not in the struggle, but in gaining spiritual harmony and personal happiness through rapprochement with the people. Tolstoy reflected his ideological search through the image of the main character - Pierre Bezukhov.

The development of the image of Pierre Bezukhov

At the beginning of the work, the hero is opposed to his contemporary high society, in which insincerity, flattery, and superficiality dominate. The young Bezukhov from the first pages of the novel appears as an open and honest person who, at all costs, is trying to find the truth and his calling in life - such is the characterization of Pierre in Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace".

Suddenly rich, Pierre becomes a victim of his own financial situation and falls into the fetters of an unhappy marriage. Marrying Helen Kuragina made Pierre disillusioned with the spirituality and purity of the institution of marriage and family. Pierre still does not give up. He tries to find his place in life in order to do good, to help people, to feel his need for society. He believes that he will definitely find his just cause: “I feel that besides me, spirits live above me and that there is truth in this world.” These aspirations became the reason for the hero's entry into the ranks of the Masonic movement. Imbued with the ideas of equality and fraternity, mutual assistance and self-sacrifice, Pierre shares the views of Freemasonry with high ideological passion. However, this period of his life brought disappointment. The hero again finds himself at a crossroads.

Whatever he did or thought was caused by the desire to carry out activities that are useful for society, for Russia. The war of 1812 was his chance to finally do the right thing and serve his people. The protagonist of the novel "War and Peace" Pierre Bezukhov, with the same passion and zeal, lights up with the idea of ​​​​sharing the fate of his people and bringing his all possible help for common victory. To this end, he organizes the regiment and fully finances its provision.

Not being a military man, Pierre cannot directly participate in hostilities, but the role of a passive observer is also not nice for such an active hero. He decides that it is he who needs to carry out the most important mission, which will save Russia from the French invaders. Desperate Pierre is planning an assassination attempt on Napoleon himself, whom he once considered his idol. Following the lead of his ardent ideas, Bezukhov does not think about possible consequences. In the end, his plan failed, and the hero himself was captured.

Awareness of the essence of true human happiness

It's time for another disappointment. This time the hero is completely disappointed in faith in people, in kindness, in the possibility of mutual assistance and friendship. However, the meeting and conversation with Platon Karataev completely changes his worldview. It was this simple soldier who had the maximum impact on the change in the views of the hero. The simplicity and a certain primitiveness of Karataev's speech managed to reveal all the spiritual wisdom and value human life more than intricate Masonic treatises.

Thus, Pierre's stay in captivity became decisive in the formation of his civil and personal consciousness. Finally, Pierre realizes that the essence of happiness was in fact so simple and always on the surface, while he was looking for its meaning in philosophical depths, personal suffering, striving for action. The hero realized that true happiness is to have the opportunity of spiritual and physical freedom, to live a simple life in unity with his people. “There is truth, there is virtue; and the highest happiness of man consists in striving to achieve them. Awareness of such simple human values ​​finally led the protagonist to peace of mind, inner harmony and personal happiness.

Implementation of the idea of ​​the novel by the hero

At the end of his ideological quest, the author rewards Pierre with a life in the atmosphere of a real family idyll. The hero enjoys peace and happiness, surrounded by the care of his beloved wife and the happy voices of four children. The image of Pierre Bezukhov is the personification of the hero, through wind and ideological search which and the path of their awareness is revealed main idea works.

As we can see, like Pierre Bezukhov, the author himself renounces his original convictions. So, at the heart of the novel "War and Peace" the main idea was not to serve civic duty or participation in social movements. The main idea of ​​​​the work and my essay on the topic: The image of Pierre Bezukhov in the novel "War and Peace" is in the image of the ideal of human happiness in the family circle, in life in one's native land, in the absence of war, in unity with one's people.

Artwork test