Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/364

338 was and still is split into progressive, democratic Europe and conservative, aristocratic Europe. We must bear this main distinction in mind when we are appraising slavophilism and westernism as tendencies, and no less when we are forming our estimates of the individual representatives of these tendencies, and we must distinguish between the separate doctrines of the systems. It is often far from easy to classify a particular thinker, to decide whether he is to be designated westerniser or slavophil. Of Kirěevskii, for instance, it is certainly right to maintain that he always remained a westerniser; whereas Čaadaev, though a typical westerniser, was extremely conservative.

Marked differences exist between individual westernisers, and between individual slavophils.

As regards the general distinction between the westernisers and the slavophils, the most important divergence of outlook concerned ecclesiastico-religious and metaphysical questions. Even here, however, manifold transitional phases and numerous points of agreement can be discerned. To the westernisers, too, it seemed that the most profound cause for severance in minds and in tendencies was discoverable in variations of outlook upon ecclesiastico-religious and metaphysical questions.

The westemism of the eighteenth century and of the opening part of the nineteenth was "enlightened." It contained elements derived from the rationalism of the German philosophy of enlightenment; many of its advocates were inclined towards Voltairism. They were sceptically minded. Alleging themselves superior to the superstition of the mužik, in actual fact they were indifferent in religious matters, though, following Voltaire, official religion seemed to them necessary on political grounds. Some, however, in religious matters held the views of Rousseau rather than those of Voltaire. Of these was Radiščev, who during his banishment to Siberia defended theism (using Robespierre's terminology and speaking of the "grand être suprême"), and championed the doctrine of immortality with especial warmth. Most Russian freemasons held similar views.

In Russia too, after the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, there ensued a movement equivalent to a restoration. German idealist philosophy, the philosophy of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, practically thrust Voltairist liberalism into the background. This was as obvious in the case of