Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/178

 compiled the first Russian arithmetic in 1645; Bogdan Lykov translated Mercator's Geography in 1637, and some of the manuscript copies contained additional Russian notes; Innokenty Giesel produced in 1674 an historical survey of the "beginnings of the Slavonic Russian people and of the first Russian princes, who reigned in Kiev."

In fulfilling these practical ends, secular thought had much more liberty to display itself: and this point of view became predominant in the time of Peter the Great. He was not without curiosity and even pure love of knowledge; but he appreciated chiefly the public utility of science and learning: thus he used science to build fortresses or ships and organize factories; he wished learning to justify his politics and to glorify his victories.

His reforms were to some extent facilitated by the influence that the Renaissance and the subsequent movements had already exercised on Russian thought, particularly in the 17th century.

The humanistic and individualistic spirit of the Renaissance was not quite unknown to the Russians of the 17th century. Peter Mogila, the enlightened metropolitan of Kiev, had an opportunity of learning something about it, and the monk Epiphanius Slavinetsky, who came from Kiev to Moscow, was acquainted with some of its literary productions. For instance, Russian translations of the treatises of Vesalius on anatomy and of Mozhevsky on politics prove that this movement was beginning to penetrate into literary circles at Moscow.