Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/344

318 organisation of the great masses of the workers, was guided by the same notion of the decay of all hitherto extant civilisations; the working class was to take the leadership in society and in the development of philosophy.

Characteristic of the period was a historical preference for the study of the very earliest times (archæology in all its departments). The middle ages were rehabilitated.

Associated with this flight into the grey past were the idea and the conviction that new foundations must be discovered for society and for philosophy; widespread was the belief that in these respects a thorough change was essential. Associated therewith was the conflicting conviction that an entirely new era was beginning, and that progress would issue from the endeavours of this reactionary historical movement, which fled from the present into the primal age.

Philosophy, led by Hume and Kant, proved that a new philosophy and a new outlook on the world were indispensable. Widespread was the assurance that change, that thoroughgoing reform, was needful, though some desired reforms in the direction of progress whilst others thought that reforms would best be secured by a return to the past.

The new philosophy of history endeavoured to take stock of the needs of the postrevolutionary epoch and to influence future developments.

In Russia the intelligentsia participated in all these European endeavours, the slavophils, and the westernisers no less, taking the side of those who demanded a return to the past. From Rousseau, Herder, and many of the philosophers of history, above all from those of socialistic views, they learned that civilisation, that Europe, that the west, was falling into decay. Russia was without civilisation, and Kirěevskii's deduction was that this was advantageous to Russia, for the Russians were the chosen people, fresh and uncorrupted, competent with undiminished energies to carry on the task of civilisation. Ščerbatov and Boltin had already adduced proofs that in the moral sphere the Russians were more efficient than the French. The triﬂe of civilisation with which Peter had inoculated the Russians would do no harm. Even Čaadaev, Europe's great admirer, ultimately came over to this view.

Pu3kin's analysis of European Russia must be interpreted as a confirmation of the essential rightness of Rousseau's and Byron's views; the simple country girl, the Cossack's daughter,