The influence of positivism on the understanding of the essence of religion by M. O. Menshikov (according to unpublished notebooks)

Pozdnyakov Aleksey Vasiljevich ORCID: 0009-0007-7695-8943 PhD in Philosophy Employee of the Academy of the Federal Security Service of Russia; Academy of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation 302015, Russia, Orel region, Orel, Priborostroitelnaya str., 35 pozdnyakovav77@mail.ru

Orlov Andrey Sergeevich PhD in History Employee of the Academy of the Federal Security Service of Russia; Academy of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation 302015, Russia, Orel region, Orel, Priborostroitelnaya str., 35 orlov-orl@mail.ru

Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov is one of the important figures of pre—revolutionary journalism. Being a gifted and creative person and having a broad outlook, he covered topical issues of his time in his numerous articles, essays and feuilletons. In his works, readers were attracted primarily by the analytical analysis of important events, which was distinguished by the accessibility of the presentation of the material, non-standard and often paradoxical. Menshikov's personality was perceived by his contemporaries as contradictory as his articles. In 1918, he was accused by the Bolsheviks of "Black Hundreds" and shot in front of his family ^{[1, p. 452]}.

Various specialists have applied to the analysis of the creative legacy of M. O. Menshikov. In their works, various aspects of his work were studied: literary and critical activity (Krizhanovsky N. I., Reitblat A., Sankova S. M., Trofimova V. B.), political views (Ivanov A. A., Kagramanov Yu., Kamnev V. M., Krizhanovsky N. I., Repnikov A.V., Sankova S. M., Smolin M. B., Tolstenko A. K., Shlemin P. I.), reflections on aesthetic and moral and spiritual values, social and economic views (Vakhnina E. A., Zhavoronkov D. V., Zverev N. V., Orlov A. S., Filatkina N. A.). A separate group should include works about the religious views of a publicist. They were analyzed by Ivanov A. A., Filatkina N. A., Sankova S. M., Orlov A. S. and other authors. No issue has ever caused as much discussion as this one. Already during his lifetime, the worldview that he demonstrated in his journalism provoked enthusiastic responses from church critics (for example, from Metropolitan Anthony (Vladkovsky), partly from Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky)), or a harsh negative assessment (from Archbishops Nikon (Rozhdestvensky), Nikolai (Ziorov)) ^{[2, 3]}. Modern researchers also emphasize the ambiguity of Menshikov's position regarding the church and faith ^[4-7]. As it was revealed in a number of recent works, Menshikov at an early stage of his creative career had a tendency to freethink, to be critical of any social phenomena or processes: politics, economics, religious and spiritual life ^{[8, 9]}. Among the numerous studies there are also those that note the influence of positivism on his creative activity, literary tastes and worldview (works by Zverev, Ivanov, Trofimova, Orlov, Sankova, Krizhanovsky). Undoubtedly, in the 19th century, the ideas of positivism were widespread in Russia. Having a distinctive feature — a critical attitude to the prevailing spiritual values — this philosophy often came into conflict with traditional religious doctrine and the church. To date, the degree of study of the role of positivism in Menshikov's views remains insufficient.

The relevance of the research is due to both the lack of consensus among researchers on the question of the religiosity of a publicist, and the need to study the influence of the ideas of the positivist movement on the Russian intelligentsia and spiritual processes in society as a whole. Neither Menshikov's worldview nor his political ideas, as well as his personality itself, can be adequately understood without his ideas about religion.

This article aims to analyze M. O. Menshikov's views on the essence of religion from the perspective of the influence of positivism, one of the most important scientific and philosophical trends of thought of the 19th century.

The research materials are Menshikov's notebooks with an essay, to which he gave the name "Worldview" (written between 1884-1885), and other early diary entries (also dating back to the 1880s), which have not yet been published or studied in a similar context.

Research methods include hermeneutical, causal, biographical, and comparative historical analysis.

The concept of religion is multifaceted. The 19th century was marked by numerous attempts to overcome not only the religious-traditional formulations of the essence of religion, but also classical philosophical ones. New approaches to understanding religion and the supernatural are emerging: irrational, materialistic-dialectical, positivist, spiritualistic, and later phenomenological. To identify the influence of positivism on Menshikov, it is necessary to consider what is common and different between this philosophy and the ideas in his early diary entries.

At the very beginning of his essay "Worldview" Mikhail Osipovich writes two epigraphs that reflect the central meaning of the work: "If this is a prejudice, it must be refuted, if this is true, it must be proved"; "Agree on the same understanding of terms, at least the basic ones" ^{[10, l. 1]}. Thus, he emphasizes that the main task of the essay is to formulate clear and reasonably grounded positions of one's own worldview, views on reality and the essence of things. Menshikov calls the result of the systematization of such ideas a worldview. He also seeks to provide clear and well-founded statements regarding religion. Already at the very beginning of the essay, an unconventional approach to understanding its essence is visible. He believes that any worldview is by its very nature a religion. That is, the system of ideas and values that fills the life of each of us carries a share of religiosity, which is manifested in a reverent attitude towards this system. It is this moment that often turns out to be harmful to the development of both the individual and societies, because it harbors hostility to the restructuring of ideas, and hence the system as a whole. Menshikov associates the enmity with the limitations of people and their lack of "necessary brainpower." The result is a stagnation of the worldview, while work on improving its forms helps to develop oneself, find new facts in the field of the unknown, and approach the solution of the world question ^{[10, l. 2]}. In a similar vein, Menshikov reveals his vision of the essence of religion.

The understanding of this issue proceeds using a number of approaches and principles. We will highlight them as a result of the analysis of Mikhail Osipovich's notes. The first can be described as evolutionism, the belief in the slow and progressive development of the phenomena of the world. This principle was the hallmark of the positivists.For Menshikov, the evolutionary formation of the surrounding world, things and phenomena in it is obvious. And religion is no exception to the rule.Like many positivists, he builds his theory of the development of religion based on sociological and historical teachings. Religion has a social nature: it originates in society and develops in it. Accordingly, Menshikov denies the divinity of any religion. According to him, they change in the context of social change, adapting to the cultural, social and political needs of society. This explains, for example, the vitality of the Christian religion, despite the utopian ideas of its founder, Jesus Christ. According to Menshikov, the understanding of one of the central commandments of Jesus — to love one's neighbor as oneself — has been transformed throughout the history of Christianity. And the sublime meaning of the commandment that humanity is dealing with today is not the merit of Christ himself, but of the Romantics of the XVIII–XIX centuries, who rediscovered it in the spirit of their time. In turn, the Romantics' worldview was shaped by the cultural past — the Renaissance and pseudo-classicism. After the darkness of the Middle Ages, which cannot boast of humanity, "this idea is resurrected not from the depths of Christianity itself, but along with the seeds of true culture from the forgotten ruins of paganism: the generations of humanists, Erasmus, Reichlin, etc." ^{[10, l. 11]}. "It was only with the flood of light that poured out of the antique-beautiful antiquity — through the Renaissance window — that the pulse of a European began to beat, his gifted nature was outraged, and he wanted human happiness, which is in beauty, peace, and moral nobility" ^{[10, l. 11, vol.]}. However, for Menshikov, this is just "a fresh impression of consciously reading the Gospel for the first time", the impression of people who still think mystically and "fall in love with their idol-God like a child with his mother" ^{[10, l. 11, vol.]}. He attributes his own views to a new, mature period in the development of human culture — realism. It is worth noting here that the concept of "realism" was often identified by Russian enlightenment thinkers of the second half of the 19th century with positivism. The popularizer of realism, D. Pisarev, called realists a new generation of educated people who, based on their experience, facts and scientific methodology, rather than fiction, promote really useful knowledge in society ^[11]. Pisarev used this term more often to understand the history of culture and aesthetic canons. For example, he characterized the prevailing aesthetics in Russia as a stagnant phenomenon of Russian culture, pointing to its inherent desire for illusory and fantasy, albeit sublime. Such an attitude detaches from reality, does not provide practical benefits and does not solve socially important problems of the people as a bearer of this culture. Pisarev's interpretation of realism eventually goes far beyond aesthetics and proves fruitful for criticism of any forms of socio-cultural life. This approach is reflected in Menshikov's criticism of religion.

In the context of the evolutionary understanding of the development of religion, the existing traditional religious systems are declared to be stagnant, worldviews that have lost their relevance. Menshikov does not see a special ontological difference between the sacred and secular worldviews. He denies the supernatural world, but considers them stages of the same line of development of the worldview of mankind. The difference concerns only the cognitive potential of these systems. There is a strong influence of conticism here. Menshikov is convinced of the need to update any worldview. "Religion, like everything else in the world, is constantly in need of development, verification and restructuring" ^{[10, l. 1, vol.]}. The problem of renewal inevitably leads to the development of principles closely related to epistemological issues.

Therefore, the next principle that should be highlighted in Menshikov's notes is antimetaphysics. It, like evolutionism, gained popularity in the 19th century, but was widely used in the work of positivists. O. Comte and G. Spencer believed that the era of metaphysics had come to an end and that the judgments of metaphysicians could not adequately defend their philosophical position ^{[12, p. 221]}. This criticism concerned both spiritualistic and materialistic philosophical schools.

In Menshikov's thoughts, antimetaphysics is seen primarily in ontological arguments about the beginning of being. So, in the section "On the principles" of the "Worldview" he writes about the Universal essence, which he does not identify with either God or matter. Menshikov rejects the theological model of God the Absolute as a being independent of this world. The publicist also criticizes pantheistic concepts that seek to identify the Universal essence with God because of "cowardice and sloppiness" ^{[10, l. 22]}. "You might say that not all things are accessible to our senses: there are things that are logical and mental, and we cannot deny their existence just because no one has seen them. I totally agree. Things that are logically conceivable cannot be denied at all. But note that it is impossible to prove their existence either. Let's assume for a moment that God thinks logically. What of it? All that remains is to say to myself: maybe God exists, or maybe not, and until this threefold problem is resolved, I dare not be sure that God exists" ^{[10, l. 20]}. Based on this principle, the nature of religion lies in the human ability to imagine, which manifests itself in theorizing, divorced from empirical methods of cognition. On this basis, he also criticizes metaphysical materialism.

However, applying these principles of positivism, Menshikov does not agree with other attitudes of the positivist school. Thus, positivism spoke about the possibility of cognition only within the framework of sensory experience, without recognizing the knowledge of the supersensible. It is worth clarifying here that the supersensible is not necessarily mystical in a religious or magical sense. Supersensory knowledge concerns the reality that stands behind the dichotomy of the material and the spiritual, and its essence, according to philosophical schools with epistemological optimism, is given in rational cognition. The inability to understand and express the supersensible led positivism to agnosticism. But Menshikov's position is fundamentally the opposite. An important point of the "Worldview" is the author's epistemological optimism and denial of agnosticism. For him, cognition is primarily a long-term process: what is not known today will be known tomorrow. "The process of Reason consists in acquiring an increasing number of ideas, conquering the territory of nature... Reason, if not now, then in the future, with the development and completion of exact science, can attain the so-called divine knowledge, divine wisdom" ^{[10, l. 27, vol.]}. The idea of the conditionality and limitations of reason in His knowledge is regarded as a "gross misunderstanding." This attitude towards fundamental cognizability forms the basis for the analysis and evaluation of religion. Here you can feel the "Occam razor" cutting off unnecessary categories of spiritualism, such as God, spirit, soul, etc. For example, Menshikov writes: "The words "Spirit", "spiritual", "transcendental" seem to me just a game and a mistake of the brain" ^{[10, l. 28]}. "Since I recognize the world as a single entity that requires neither its origin nor the preservation of a special, extra-global being, the same logic is suitable for the existence of private organizations: the uselessness of souls for living organisms" ^{[10, l. 28, vol.]}.

The fundamental knowability of the phenomena of the world and the denial of the divine nature of religion make the essence of the latter knowable in the context of history. The divine element does not reveal itself in nature; rather, on the contrary, religion functions according to the laws of natural selection and the struggle for existence. Menshikov specifically focuses on the presence of violence in the process of spreading religious systems ^{[10, l. 10-11]}. At the same time, he rightly notes that the spread of Christianity in the 19th century "is extremely insignificant, since they are now ashamed to spread it by the measures of the Byzantine emperors, German kings or Dobrynya Nikitich" ^{[10, l. 10]}. The crusades and religious wars of Christians, the persecution of Jews, Arabs, heretics and pagans, and the conquest of America, which led to the genocide of local tribes, are primarily criticized. These historical facts cannot but outrage Menshikov. "Christian humanity has not only smeared the idea of love for one's neighbor in bloody hands, but also strangled it with these bloody hands," he concludes.

Other reasons for the spread of religion, according to Menshikov, are the search for profit or manipulation of uneducated people. In the first case, we are talking about a voluntary change of native faith, for example, by Jews and Tatars. This factor works most often where a change of faith is not considered a crime. At the same time, "the naive legend about the baptism of Prince Vladimir, when he traded with the Khazars, Jews and Greeks," is regarded by Menshikov precisely in such a mercantile context.

In the second case, we are talking about the use of religious dogmas in order to lead the masses. Agreeing with Auerbach's ideas about the role of the church in enslaving people, he complements them with his reflections. In the spirit of voluntarism of that time, Menshikov criticized the clergy for preaching submission to despots for many hundreds of years, deifying them, resisting any attempt at liberation, and stifling the spark of sound human reason and protest. At the same time, the publicist recognizes this behavior of the clergy as the natural course of things. "I do not in the least condemn the clergy for their pernicious role in history. Predation is quite natural and depends on the existence and non-existence of a suitable element for it" ^{[10, l. 12, vol.]}. A similar element for Menshikov is the consciousness of the crowd, revealed by him in phrases such as "stupid human herd", "Panurg herd", internally suitable for the slave share. Such fragmentation is evident in the ideas and deeds of the church. Because the ideals of the Christian Church are not viable and do not correspond to the course of things. In this sense, he sees Islam as a system more adapted to historical reality.

Already in Menshikov's early diaries, one can see a tendency not to compromise with religion. On this point, the author of the diary is more in tune with the French positivist E. Littre than with the English positivists. Littre also did not adhere to neutrality in relation to religion and was inclined to materialism ^{[13, p. 52]}. Recall that the English positivists, attacking theology, recognized religious feeling as a natural phenomenon. Thus, Thomas Huxley, who earned the nickname "Darwin's bulldog" for his ardent commitment to Darwinism, believed that the religious instinct is inherent in every human being. A deep realization of this comes to him during the funeral of his young son, as he writes in a letter to Charles Kingsley, an English preacher and writer. But at the same time, Huxley still emphasizes that "a deep sense of religion is compatible with a complete lack of theology" ^{[14, p. 237]}.

Other positivists, such as Spencer and Mill, being agnostics, recognized the possibility of miracles and a divine creator. For example, Spencer believed that the basis of religion lies not in theology and dogmas, but in the feelings that awaken in a person in relation to an Incomprehensible force. Comprehension, analysis, and formulation of the nature of this Mysterious force go beyond the reach of the intellect, which is limited by an understanding of the relative and finite ^{[15, p. 8]}. Mill, considering religion to be a strictly scientific subject of study, at the same time did not deny the possibility of miracles. Thus, arguing that nothing is impossible, he considered, on the one hand, all the propositions against the possibility of miracles, and on the other, all the arguments in their favor ^[16].It should be noted that Menshikov enthusiastically appreciated Mill's treatise On Freedom, which outlined some ideas about religion. But Mill's main work on religious issues was presented in a collection of three essays.: "Nature", "The Benefits of Religion", "Theism", published in 1874 and still not translated into Russian. It is not known whether Menshikov was able to read the essay data in the original language or in any other way.

Being socially active, the positivists sought to reconcile science and religion through the creation of a humanistic religion based on scientific knowledge ^[17]. Auguste Comte was obsessed with this idea, but in the author's interpretations of Spencer, Harrison and Mill, the idea of creating a new religion of mankind had a number of contradictions. For example, the Spencer-Harrison dispute is well-known. The latter denied Spencer's position on the Unknowable origin. He argued that trying to find something similar to a common and truthful element in religious systems is futile. The doctrine of the unknowable is just a futile attempt to deify Absolute Nothingness. The unknowable is a barren abstraction, there is nothing religious in it, and therefore it is completely useless as the basis of religion ^{[15, p. 9]}. Therefore, Harrison presents his doctrine of humanistic religion. By 1877, there was a split among positivists based on dissatisfaction with the activities of R. Congreve, the head of the philosophical and religious society of positivists, who wanted to present Comte's teachings as a new Revelation.

However, for Menshikov, no reconciliation of completely incompatible worldviews (science and religion) was impossible. Therefore, he adopted a more radical position: he began to criticize not only the institution of the church, but also the phenomenon of religiosity itself. For Menshikov, if there is a religious instinct, it is an unhealthy one. The most genuine healthy instincts can only be animal instincts, both original and given to man by nature itself. His reflections on this topic are interesting in one of his early diaries: "As a matter of fact," he writes, "even now, when man lives, he lives by animal instincts: he only suffers from other instincts.Everything that is not an animal is not alive: the idea of God as a figure outside of nature, ideas about life as time outside of our real being, ideas about art outside of things and goals, about religion for religion and other absolutes" ^{[18, l. 103]}. According to Menshikov, the natural logic of an animal recognizes nothing but nature. Therefore, the early forms of religion are natural, because the god of the savage is nature itself, and therefore he is related to the savage with his weaknesses and qualities. The appearance of a question about the meaning of the existence of the world, from the point of view of a publicist, is a deviation from the norm, a healthy brain will never come up with the question "Why?", but it will ask itself the question "From what?". It is worth saying that Menshikov is not always consistent in his positions. On the one hand, he has a craving for the natural, even the wild. "Home! To nature!" is his call in his diary for 1882 ^{[18, l. 104, vol.]}. On the other hand, when it comes to analyzing religion, he bases his criticism on a negative attitude towards savagery and admiration for civilization. This is clearly seen in an attempt to understand the origin of monotheism. Applying an evolutionary approach to this problem, he does not agree with the then widespread theory that monotheism is a higher level of religiosity than polytheism. With his inquisitive and sharp mind, he finds a gap in existing research and rightly points out the fact that monotheism originated and spread among nomadic tribes with a lower culture (Jews and Arabs). While the highly developed polytheistic world of the Hellenes and Romans provides humanity with everything necessary for development: medicine, philosophy, logic, the canons of beauty, the doctrine of virtues. Although Menshikov says that the question of the origin of monotheism is rather obscure, he, without noticing it, is inclined to the idea of its origin from polytheism, when he points to the systematic falling away of Jews from faith in one god as something natural.

Mr. Spencer is also criticized, or rather his judgment that the idea of God, being the property of millions of people, can serve as a strong argument in favor of the idea itself. He explains the persistence of the idea of one God by the example of the persistence of other prejudices that could often accompany it ^{[10, l. 22]}.

However, it should be noted that Menshikov's similarity with Littre is not only in the matter of understanding the essence of religion. Menshikov (whether intentionally or not is unknown) repeats Littre's profound wisdom in religious tolerance, which he begins to practice in the family after marriage. Littre respected the religious feelings of his wife, who, according to contemporaries, was a "very intelligent, devoted soul" woman ^{[13, p. 10]}. He raised his daughter himself and treated her beliefs with the same delicacy and tenderness. Similarly, Menshikov does not seek to affect the religious beliefs of his beloved wife, does not interfere in the religious upbringing of children carried out on her part, and even attends divine services with the whole family. But in his soul he is tormented by the search for a new worldview.

Such harsh criticism of religion logically leads to the question: what is the basis for the new worldview that should replace religion? M. O. Menshikov, responding to it, says that the replaced system of knowledge will be based not only on sensory experience, but also on reason. Menshikov does not support the positivist negation of the deductive method of cognition. Accordingly, another distinctive feature of his worldview is the recognition of the positive role of the deductive method in the study of things existing in the world. Unlike Comte's approach, which focused more on inductive methodology, Menshikov recognized the usefulness of deduction in building a scientific and philosophical generalization, and hence a worldview. The publicist opposes the following judgments to those who like to absolutize the inductive method of cognition: "But you will say: isn't this contrary to the scientific, analytical method? Isn't the scientific method "moving from the particular to the general"? In fact, there is no contradiction: a simple study of the world and a set of truths obtained by this study should have processes of a different nature: deduction, as you know, begins and ends thinking" ^{[10, l. 6]}. Deduction helps to build a "general architectural plan" for building one's own view of the world, and private sciences provide valuable "building" material for the implementation of this plan. Menshikov admits that the planned site so far contains "crude, antediluvian and harmful buildings, dilapidated worldviews of a Judeo-Roman-Slavic uncultured warehouse." "The place is littered with garbage and this garbage needs to be taken out" ^{[10, l. 6, vol.]}. As can be seen from these confessions, Menshikov finds it difficult to get rid of old ideological cliches, despite his harsh criticism of religion and its values for man. The publicist in his essay thinks a lot about religion, and in these arguments he is both close and far from positivism.

It is worth noting that Comte's attitude towards pure empiricism was questioned and criticized by many Russian thinkers of the 19th century. Thus, Ogarev, after attending O. Comte's lectures in 1845, despite his admiration for the philosopher, was still not fully satisfied with his system of correlation of empirical and rational knowledge ^{[19, p. 69]}. The same can be said about Herzen and Belinsky, who demanded that experience and reason be considered in unity ^{[19, pp. 70, 74]}. Various ideas of positivism were reflected in Chernyshevsky's works, but this thinker, the father of the Russian school of "reasonable egoism," was more inclined to rationalism.Menshikov's philosophical arguments about cognition bear a strong resemblance to the ideas of the thinker and publicist P. L. Lavrov. The latter also sought to build holistic knowledge on reason, and criticized some of his colleagues for blindly worshiping empiricism. They, in turn, responded to him with weighty criticism. After the publication of the article "Three conversations on the modern meaning of modern Philosophy", Lavrov was given the nickname "metaphysician", which was given to him by the ardent adherents of positivism Pisarev and Antonovich ^{[20, p. 28]}. This can be explained by the fact that many Western thinkers, having absorbed the ideas of rationalism in the 1850s and 1860s, were in no hurry to give up faith in the power of the human mind.

Hence Menshikov's different interpretation of the scientific approach to studying and understanding the world or any thing in it, including religion: for this, it is necessary to know not their particulars, but the general idea, but the general must always be known through the study of particulars ^{[10, l. 1]}. "There is not and cannot be outside the Mind for a person. to be an accessible possible means of cognition" ^{[10, l. 4]}. These are the attitudes of his philosophical scientism. According to Menshikov, objective knowledge can be considered only that which contains the basis of the data of the scientific method or at least appeals to it. In this regard, any other knowledge, including religious and mystical, disappears due to its backwardness. "There can be no better, deeper knowledge than science will give us," the author writes ^{[10, l. 27]}. In his essay, Menshikov demonstrates a good awareness of the latest achievements of various sciences of that time: physics, biology, physiology, psychology. The central attitude of the entire "Worldview" is the fundamental knowability of the phenomena of the world, realized by reason with the help of science. The analysis of the "particulars" of religion (the ways of its dissemination, development and change of its key concepts, the personality of the founders of specific forms of religiosity, the historical context of the functioning of religion, its reflection in the mass consciousness, etc.) leads Menshikov to a general idea about the essence of religion. For him, religion is a complex of outdated views of the world, which has its origin both in unreliable feelings and in a damaged human instinct. Nevertheless, Menshikov does not consider himself an atheist. For example, in one of his diary entries from 1883, he states the following:: "I am not an atheist, and not all minds have worked as much on the search for God as I have. However, I boldly say that all religions have nothing in common with God and cannot have anything in common" ^{[21, l. 33]}.

According to the analysis of later diary notes, Menshikov also remained faithful to the chosen path of understanding the essence of religion, however, radical criticism of confessional forms of religiosity noticeably subsided, God-seeking was declared a natural necessity of man. "To create God, to discover him, is not a whim, but an organic human need," he declares in one of his notes."Religion, of course, is not what the church, with its theologians and cathedrals, teaches. In reality, the church religion is only a form of practical religion, its language, its material expression"^{[22, l. 11]}. Menshikov's close acquaintance with the writer L. N. Tolstoy and his teachings allows him to supplement his understanding of religion as a natural moral feeling ^{[22, l. 11 vol.]}. However, in the future, he will break with Tolstoy's teachings and severely criticize a number of his provisions. Also interesting are the attempts of the publicist to comprehend the nature of prayer from the standpoint of natural causes, which is reflected in his notes from 1890. He recognizes the effectiveness of prayers, but connects this not with the mystical influence of the deity, but with the important natural components present in it: a strong, concentrated will, a strong desire, a passionate thought, an excited feeling ^{[23, l. 27]}.

Scientific-oriented knowledge remains in the prerogative in subsequent years, as evidenced by diary entries from 1917. According to Menshikov, miracles are possible only within the framework of natural laws. "There is no such God in the world who performs unnatural miracles. There is no God in the world who acts on his own or on our whim, bowing to our prayers, smoking and burning candles. Humanity prays into empty space" ^{[24, p. 294]}. The utopian idea of Christ's universal love of people for each other is no longer ridiculed by him, but is reinterpreted in the context of scientific and technological achievements of his time. To this end, Menshikov compares the realization of the commandment of love of Jesus Christ with the development of aeronautics. The publicist puts the preachers' appeals to universal love on a par with the tales of Icarus and the "magic carpet", which are filled with a rush of dreams about the impossible. "To dream, like Christ and all the religious teachers before Leo Tolstoy, that it is worth saying: "Love each other," as it will appear, is simply naive. It's like saying: fly through the air!For millennia, people recognized the possibility of flying through the air, created fairy tales about Icarus and the Magic Carpet, but it didn't go beyond fairy tales. The Wright brothers appeared and built a flying machine" ^{[24, p. 295]}. It is not enough to indulge in dreams alone, you need to make a strong-willed and intellectual effort to achieve your goal. "There is no such love of God, there is no such way of salvation, there never was and there never will be, but there is another love and another way, established forever. If you want bliss, achieve it yourself, using your mind and your love" ^{[24, p. 294]}. Therefore, the formation of a virtuous society is possible only through the implementation of social programs, and not through rituals and rituals.

In his public articles, Menshikov did not directly voice his ideas. Moreover, his early books, as well as articles and feuilletons written by him in the magazine "Nedelya" and in the early years of his work in the newspaper "Novoe Vremya" are filled with Christian meaning. For example, his works such as "On Love" (1899), "On the Health of the People" (1902), "Who is My Neighbor?" (1902), "On the Tomb and the Cradle" (1902), "Homeland and Heroes. Palm Sunday" (1902), "Eternal Resurrection" (1904). In them, "Holy Scripture" appears as "something sacred in wisdom and beauty" ^{[25, p. 123]}, Christ as a moral ideal, and Christianity as a religion of light, as opposed to gloomy paganism. At the same time, the publicist reconciles religion and science, which strongly resembles the position of the positivists. "It is indisputable to me," writes Menshikov, "that true science is fundamentally religious, and by discovering knowledge in the depths of nature, it leads us to the Father of Lights, where we all unconsciously turn our souls like flowers to the sun" ^{[26, p. 24]}. His articles provoked enthusiastic responses from some clergy, including Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, who called the publicist a man who understands what a true Christian is ^{[25, p. 10]}. Is Menshikov cheating on himself in such articles? The answer is unequivocal: no. Journalism for Menshikov becomes a kind of "pulpit" from which he preaches his ideas to his contemporaries. He uses those cultural symbols that are understandable and close to the average reader. This contributed to the formation of the illusion that Menshikov was a deeply Orthodox man. But his "religiosity" is not ecclesiastical, or even Christian, it is supra-confessional. For him, the divine law is expressed in certain positive qualities of people: "truthfulness, honesty, kindness, selflessness and nobility" ^{[25, p. 128]}, and it is embedded in people regardless of their religion and historical epoch. Menshikov points out that many wild tribes possess a set of similar qualities. "It's as if the eternal law of Christ has already been embedded in their lives and their very souls," Menshikov argues in his essay "Has the Gospel been Preached?", "and missionaries cannot teach, but sometimes learn from them." "The moral truth of Christianity was definitely expressed in paganism: in the teachings of Zoroaster, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Socrates, and the Stoics. In the depths of the masses of the people, when their lives were put together in completely healthy forms, the very truth of life that Christ brought inevitably arose" ^{[25, p. 128]}.

In another place, he also writes: "The faith of the people is the immortal soul of the people, and does it matter what excites the life of the soul: a bouquet of flowers brought in front of a statue of Buddha, or this singing: "May my prayer be corrected" in blue incense smoke? Who is used to what, who has grown together with what" ^{[25, p. 72]}.

In later feuilletons, Menshikov expresses his real views more openly. Hints of natural religiosity are becoming more and more evident in his articles. Using the traditional symbols and concepts of Russian Orthodoxy, he fills them with meaning in his own way. This could not go unnoticed by conservative and ecclesiastical circles. Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) is known for his restrained criticism of his ideas. In his article "The Morality of Black and White Clergy", the hierarch enthusiastically accepts Menshikov's patriotism and his zeal to transform the spiritual life of Russia, but at the same time notes that the publicist is far from real church life, that "religiosity is alien to him, Christianity is alien, church and prayer are alien" ^{[27, p. 455]}. A harsher criticism of the publicist was carried out by Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky). Nikon admits that Menshikov reminds him of "a pendulum that swings from side to side," as the publicist gives contradictory ideas in his feuilletons.: "he claims that Christianity is becoming a relic and is being replaced by pagan Buddhism; he stands for faith in God, although he does not speak directly about Christianity" ^[28]. Nikon subtly notes that the publicist uses religious concepts, carefully replacing their Christian content with another, either secular or "pagan." Thus, Menshikov specifically reduces the concept of faith to autosuggestion, to moral faith in oneself, brought up by centuries-old religious suggestions, and by "Holy Scripture" he means the words of any book that has had a beneficial effect on the development of civilization. The Avesta, the Iliad, the Koran and the Bible are in the same row. Accordingly, the value of faith, and with it religion, is recognized by Menshikov not so much from the standpoint of truth as from the standpoint of benefit for the moral healing of society. In this respect, he is close to the positivists, who, as we said above, sought to create a humanistic religion. Menshikov came to this idea relatively later than the positivists, when he began to actively participate in the socio-political life of the country and formulated the program of the "All-Russian National Union."

So, from all of the above, we can draw some conclusions. It is important to note that the word "religion" in the early diary entries is used by Menshikov in a narrow and broad sense. In the generally accepted narrow sense, religion is understood by him as a belief in the supernatural. Broadly speaking, it is like any system of worldview that has value and plays an important role in the life of an individual or social group. The influence of positivism on the formation of Menshikov's view of the essence of religion was not absolute. Here we see a fusion of positivist and rationalist principles. His understanding of religion is based on their binary intersection. On the one hand, Menshikov rejects the metaphysical understanding of the essence of religion, rechecks its cosmology with empirical and exact sciences, but on the other hand, reserves the deductive method for crucial importance in essential cognition. The principle of evolutionism is accompanied by the rejection of agnosticism, which was then characteristic of positivist philosophy. In our opinion, it is precisely this correlation of principles that leads Menshikov at an early creative stage to a position of radical rejection of both any religious (theological) theoretical knowledge and religious feeling in general, which puts his views on this issue in opposition to positivism. However, in the late period of his work, Menshikov had a pragmatic attitude towards faith and religion, which is associated with his socio-political activities, with the awareness of the need to create ideological foundations capable of uniting different strata of Russian society.