Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/260

234 Frequently he contemplates the kingdom of God on an sub specie æternitatis, so remote from time that men, the world and history become more symbols. Thus for him Rome is symbol of the entire history of the world; the eternal city a real point, where concretely and physiologically man can conceptually grasp all the memories of the human race, whilst the pope is a mere idea, a pure abstraction, not a man, but an all-powerful symbol of time.

In association with these problems Čaadaev had to consider how the individual is related to social development. He contrasts society with the individual, and subordinates the individual to society. Not merely does he demand humility and the religious subjugation of the ego, but for him the "universal reason," as he terms it, is the social whole, which is subject to the will of God, but which, as a whole, has an independent and spontaneous existence vis-à-vis the individual. As people this whole is conceived to be something distinct from the mere government, but (at least when he is dealing with the middle ages) he postulates the federative system of nations as a whole, and it is this whole which he terms "the Christian nation," wherein individual and national differences disappear or are subsumed. What view are we to take of divinely sent great men as leaders of the people? "To genius all things are possible." Schelling seemed to him the one man great enough to lead all the leaders of the crowd. What are the blind masses when compared with their leaders? In 1837, without relinquishing his respect for "universal reason," Čaadaev had energetically combated Lamennais' doctrine of the universal spirit, although Lamemmis terms it "la raison universelle du genre humain," which is identified with the tradition and consciousness of the Catholic church, with Catholicism.

If I am to aim at a decisive judgment, I must express my regret that no complete critical edition as yet exists of all Čaadaev's fragmentary writings. In the works of this author we have a concrete example of the difﬁculty to which I referred in the preface, the difﬁculty while in Europe of writing about Russia. For an adequate study of Čaadaev it would be necessary to consider manuscript memorials, to collect all the available fragments, and to arrange them in chronological order. Thus only would it be possible to present Čaadaev's mental development.

I have treated Čaadaev as the first Russian philosopher