In this chapter, we take a detailed look at Solov"ëv's background in philosophy from adolescence to the defense of his magister's thesis. In that thesis, Solov"ëv presents a unique though highly selective history of modern philosophy, the point of which is to support his claim that Western philosophy, having passed through all logical options, has exhausted itself leaving no option but a new synthesis incorporating religion. We see, among other things, that Solov"ëv presents two different and not harmonious accounts of the development of philosophy from Hegel to the post-Hegelian reaction. We then look at the issue whether Solov"ëv at this time was indebted to the later Schelling. This question is all the more intriguing in that Solov"ëv does not explicitly accord a place for Schelling in his development of Western philosophy, and thus omission presents an internal threat to his argument. We also see the emergence of a new paradigm in Russian philosophy placing a primacy on ontology over epistemology that would serve into the twentieth century.