SOLOVIEV, VLADIMIR SERGEVICH Russian idealistic philosopher, critic and poet, son of the his torian, Sergei Soloviev (q.v.), was born in Moscow on Jan. 16, 1853, and died at Uzkoe, near Moscow, on July 31, 1900. Vladimir studied theology at the University of Moscow, publishing in 1875 his Ph.D. thesis on The Crisis of Western Philosophy. After visit ing England and Egypt, where he studied eastern philosophical ideas, he returned to Russia and was appointed reader in philos ophy at Moscow university in 1877. But his outspoken criticism of the Government cut short his career as a lecturer; a speech against capital punishment lost him his readership at Moscow, and he was soon removed from the minor professorship at St. Peters burg (now Leningrad) to which he was next appointed. The rest of his life was devoted chiefly to writing. The chief tenet of Soloviev's theology, the union of eastern and western beliefs in a universal church, led him to take up a pro-Roman attitude for a time, and in 1889 he published in French La Russie et l'Eglise Universelle (3rd ed., 1922). He upheld the Christian ideal of universal brotherhood as opposed to Slavophilism. Philosophically he laid stress on the spirituality of all being, the idea of absolute oneness, and the evolution of the God-man. His best known works are a History of Materialism (1894) ; History of Ethics (1896 98) ; The Justification of the Good (1898; Eng. trans. in Con stable's Russian Library, 1915) ; War, Progress, and the End of History, including a short story of the Anti-Christ (19oo; Eng.
trans. 1915, with biographical notice by Dr. Hagberg Wright). See also War and Christianity from the Russian Point of View, three conversations, translated 1915, with an introduction by Stephen Graham. For a brief account of Soloviev's philosophy see L. M. Lopatin, The Philosophy of Vladimir Soloviev (1916). SOLSTICE, in astronomy either of the two points at which the sun reaches its greatest declination north or south (Lat. sol stitium, from so/, sun, and sistere, to stand still). Each solstice is upon the ecliptic midway between the equinoxes, and therefore 90° from each. The term is also applied to the time at which the sun reaches the point thus defined (about June 21 and Dec. 21). SOLUNTUM (Gr. ZoXims or /oXoi.n) , an ancient town of Sicily, one of the three chief Phoenician settlements in the island, situated on the north coast, io m. E. of Panormus (Palermo), 600 ft. above sea-level, on the south-east side of Mte. Catalfano (1,225 ft.), in a naturally strong situation, and commanding a fine view. It was a Carthaginian possession until the First Punic War, when, after the fall of Panormus, it opened its gates to the Romans. Excavations have brought to light considerable remains of the ancient town, belonging entirely to the Roman period.