Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/170

 thought with two actual national types of thought and found these modes existing in different peoples.

Even if this scheme should prove to be true for the characteristics of the thought of some other nations, it would, probably, be too artificial to explain Russian thought. Russian thought can hardly be characterized by either of these modes, and eminent Russian scientific and learned men have been distinguished by the predominance of one or other of them. Besides, some peculiarities of Russian thought, at least, had a much more complicated and concrete origin: they were and still are, in a certain degree, dependent on local and temporal conditions which will be examined here from a historical point of view, mainly in connection with the process of unification.

The unifying principles of Russian thought can be perceived in its history and were formed at its different stages in a religious or secular spirit. Let us consider this in some detail and illustrate our statement by some examples.

Religious thought, whatever may be the factors of its evolution, gives, even at its lowest stages, a conception of the world, which tends to a certain unity. Even in heathen times we can trace such a frame of