Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/254

228 Even though at a later date Čaadaev gave a psychological explanation of the characteristics of his Writing, attributing it to a condition of morbid mental irritability which had even led him to entertain thoughts of suicide. I hesitate to accept the characterisation. In any case, the occurrence of this mood of despair would suggest that his earlier attitude of doubt had not been definitively replaced by religious conviction.

For all his gifts, Čaadaev was not a profound thinker, for he lacked scientific steadfastness and power of elaboration. He said of himself that he had but one idea. It is true that in his eyes history was the realisation of only one idea, but even this he fails to formulate with sufficient clearness and to trace without ambiguity. The defect in his work is associated with and exemplified by his attitude towards Catholicism. He never went over to Rome, and when questioned on the matter he would take refuge in indefinite phraseology, or would explain that he regarded Catholicism as a kind of regulative principle for faith. He was not a strong, firm man, being much more the dandy of the English club than the man of faith. In my view, he was greatly impressed by French civilisation, and in accordance with the Catholic philosophy of his day he regarded this civilisation as the fruit of Catholicism, which, once more in the French spirit, was identified by him with Christianity. He was fortified in such a position by his romanticist predilection for Catholicism. We are justified in assuming that he noted the progress made by Catholicism in the west, especially among the Protestant peoples, for this progress was notorious. Moreover, he himself tells us that from 1833 onwards he had observed the spread of the Puseyite movement in England. Catholicisation was a widespread phenomenon of the day. In Russia, Čaadaev was not the only Catholiciser. I may remind the reader of Alexander I and of his hopes of the pope. Since the days of Tsar Paul, among the Russian aristocracy there had been much sympathy with Catholicism and above all with Jesuitism. Several highly placed nobles were Catholics, and some were actually Jesuits, like Prince Gagarin, the editor of Čaadaev's Writing. An interesting career in this connection was that of Pečerin, at one time professor of philology at Moscow, who sought refuge from atheism