Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/128

112 IV

lies the explanation of the bewildering complexity of the Russian mind. The Russian has a multiple personality, because he lives and moves in contradictory worlds. The Russian Intellectual lives in the Utopian future, while his parents and sisters still live in the days of serfdom. He has assimilated the doctrines of Marx and of Nietzsche, while his rulers are still carrying on the traditions of Peter the Great and the police are still applying the methods of Ivan the Terrible. And the Russian Intellectual must needs adapt himself, unless he is prepared to leave the country or to go to prison or to commit suicide. And having thus from childhood learned to adapt himself, he develops a pliability, a suppleness, and subtlety which are becoming the main characteristics of his type.

That versatility and power of adaptation gives us the secret both of the moral weakness and of the intellectual quality of Russian culture.

On the one hand it is obvious that this versatility must be injurious to moral character. The co-existence of contradictory ideals must