Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/252

226 philosophy of that restoration. Frenchified by his education, he had become acquainted with the change of philosophic front in France; had familiarised himself with the thoughts of Chateaubriand, of Madame de Staël, de Maistre, de Bonald, and Ballanche; had learned something of German philosophy—from Schlegel a little, from Schelling a great deal, and somewhat from Hegel. Among classical thinkers he had paid great attention to Plato. Writers of his own day had exhibited the counter-revolution to him as a.great historical problem with which humanity was faced; in his own land and in his personal experience he had acquired first-hand knowledge of this counter-revolution and of the part played in it by the Russia of Alexander and of Nicholas. He had participated in the war against Napoleon. At a later date (1820), a mutiny occurred in his regiment, and he was ordered to report on it by Tsar Alexander, who was then in Troppau. After a prolonged sojourn in Europe, in his Philosophic Writing Čaadaev proclaimed his dissent from the Nicolaitan system.

Čaadaev's literary remains are fragmentary; they have not hitherto been subjected to adequate criticism; reports as to his views are indefinite. For these reasons I cannot attempt a decisive judgment.

Beyond question Čaadaev passed through a religious crisis, like so many of his contemporaries. He moved away from the rationalist outlook of Voltaire to romanticist mysticism. From available evidence it is impossible to determine whether and to what extent he returned to Voltairism. Even though as late as 1837 he described the philosophy of the decabrists as mere frigid deism culminating in doubt, this must not be taken as implying that by that date he had himself ceased to doubt. It seems probable that towards the year 1820 he inclined towards mysticism, a mysticism intense to a degree that was almost morbid. This much, at least, is certain, that he was greatly interested in the writings of Jung-Stilling and Eckartshausen, and was pondering about the spirit world. I think, however, that he got the better of this mysticism. There is no mystical element in his Philosophic Writing or in his other known works. It is true that thoughts are occasionally expressed by him which may be the outcome of a mystical contemplativeness, but side by side with these we find disquisitions with no trace of mysticism, and his conception of the philosophy of history is entirely unmystical. His demand for