Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/234

208

In our attempt at tracing some of the philosophic aspects of Russian literature, we have come to the period of the "sixties." It was at this time that Nihilism developed its theories. We have seen that Nihilistic thinking begins with a denial of the past, specifically, of the patriarchal and master institutions. The Nihilists rejected the past as unreal and uncertain, for their attitude was one of skepticism toward all appearances and traditions. Their search, as we have seen, was for reality. But how was man to attain to a sense of reality, and a power over it? Only by the royal road of freedom. So that the cardinal doctrine of the Nihilists of the time may be summed up in the words: "It is freedom that liberates, for fredomfreedom [sic] is creative power. It is only in order to be able to create that we learn. The creative power is the panacea for our suffering, the relief for our burden." Hence, they felt the great necessity of liberating the individual. Freedom and power for the individual—this expresses the new reliance of the Nihilists. The title of Herzen's essay, Omnia mea mecum porto, well expresses the point. But they were not, bless the mark, "anarchists," for most of them saw the great need of civic organization in society, and demanded that each man perform civic duty for the common good. They wished to liberate individual energy for the benefit of all. Finally, they desired to rationalize life, to free it from everything mystical and contrary to reason, and to reconstruct life according to the logic of utility. In fact, utilitarianism early became their guiding principle, for the Nihilists were enamored of the natural sciences, and in their thinking the materialistic conception is very prominent. Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Darwin, were names to conjure with, and they studied the works of Bentham, the utilitarian, and of Buckle, the historian of civilization.

In the works of Chernyshevsky, some of the logical