Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/269

Rh spiritual affairs. "Holy Russia" does not signify what the politically Holy Roman Empire had signified; Holy Russia is a treasure house for relics.

In Russia property is communal (the mir), for the individual has a value as such; in Europe the individual is valueless, for the meaning of European private property is that the human being is adscript to the soil—it is the soil which has value, not the individual.

In Russia, consequently, the family has an entirely different constitution from that which obtains in Europe. The Russian family is patriarchal; by the ties of blood its members are associated to form a moral unity from which have originated by organic growth the commune and ultimately the state with its patriarchal ruler. The European family is individualistic and therefore egoistic; it leads to the emancipation of women and children.

Russian life is simple, but Europe seeks luxury and comfort. Political economy is the science of the life of material enjoyments.

The Russian finds genuine civilisation, Old Russian, Slavic, prepetrine civilisation, upon the land; its sustainer is the peasant, the mužik, the community at large. The European has his modern civilisation, whose focus is in the town, and whose sustainer is the bourgeois. Bourgeois industrialism dominates social life; bourgeois philanthropy is essentially the outcome of egoistic calculation.

The fruits of these differing outlooks and activities are likewise fundamentally diverse. The Russian is spiritually unified; though he never fails to be aware of his imperfections, his conscience gives him repose and satisfaction. The European has a conviction that he is perfect, and yet has no feeling of happiness or satisfaction, for his spiritual nature is utterly disunited and he is plunged into scepticism and unbelief, but without faith it is impossible to live.

Kirěevskii, having been led to formulate this dualism by an analysis of contemporary Russia and Europe, next endeavours to explain it on philosophic and historical grounds. In his view the contrast between two civilisations and two worlds existed already in antiquity in the contrast between Rome and Athens (later replaced by Constantinople). Christianity mitigated national peculiarities. Within the unified worldwide church, local and national qualities were pushed outward