The way toward salvation, toward the realization of true equality, true freedom and brotherhood, is that of self-denial. For self-denial, however, a previous self-assertion is necessary: in order to deny one’s own exclusive will, it is necessary first to have it; in order that the particular principles and forces might freely reunite with the unconditional beginning, they must have first separated from it; they must stand on their own, must strive toward exclusive dominion and unconditional significance; for it is only actual experience, a tasted contradiction, the experienced fundamental insolvency of that self-assertion, that can lead toward a voluntary self-denial, as well as toward a conscious and free demand for a union with the unconditional beginning.

Hence can be seen the great meaning of the negative [or] the Western development, the great purpose of Western civilization. It represents the complete and logical falling away of the human, natural forces from the divine beginning, their exclusive self-assertion, the striving to found the edifice of universal culture upon themselves. Through the insolvency and fated failure of that trend comes forth self-denial, and self-denial leads towards the free reunion with the divine beginning.

A fundamental change, a great crisis in the consciousness of the Western part of humanity has already begun. A clear expression of it is manifest in the development and the success of pessimistic ideas according to which the existing reality is evil, deceit, and suffering; while the source of that reality and, consequently, of that evil, deceit, and suffering lies in the self-asserting will, in the will to live—which means that salvation is in the negation of that will, in self-negation.

This pessimistic point of view, which turns toward self-negation, has been manifested so far only in theory, in a philosophic system; but one can foresee with certainty that soon—namely, when the social revolution in the West will be victorious and, after it will have won its victory, will see its own insolvency, the impossibility of establishing a harmonious and correct social order, of realizing the truth upon the foundations of a conditional transient existence—when the Western part of humanity will be convinced by facts, by historical reality, that the self-assertion of the will, no matter how it may manifest itself, is the source of evil and suffering: then pessimism, the turn toward self-denial, will pass from theory into life, and Western humanity will be ready to accept the religious principle, the positive revelation of true religion.

According to the law of the division of historical functions, however, one and the same cultural type, one and the same nation cannot realize two universal ideas, perform two historical acts; and if Western civilization had as its task, as its world function, the embodiment of the negative transition from the religious past to the religious future, then the task of laying the foundation for that religious future is reserved for another historical force.