Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/385

Rh objectivism. Not until later did Bělinskii become acquainted with the ideas of Feuerbach after he had been introduced to them by his friends Herzen and Bakunin, and all the more interesting, therefore, was the insight he displayed into extreme objectivism.

I do not contend that Bělinskii grasped the problem accurately and in its entirety. Systematism in philosophy and epistemology was not his gift. He was content with an ethical solution of the problem, with demonstrating its limits, and with pointing out how to harmonise subjectivism and objectivism. His subsequent development enables us to learn what were the ethical ideas which did him this important service.

N St. Petersburg, Bělinskii was able to watch the realities of Russian officialdom close at hand. Three or four months, he tells us, sufficed to inform him regarding these matters, and henceforward to the day of his death he was at one with Herzen on the subject, whilst diverging in outlook from Polevoi, who had now grown reactionary. Hardly had the article been published when to his friend Botkin, Bělinskii reported the intellectual crisis through which he had been passing, and anathematised the detestable whimsey which had led him to make peace with the detestable reality. Removing Goethe from the place of honour in his critical sanctuary, he now extolled Schiller, the noble advocate of humanity. "I am told; Develop all the treasures of thy spirit that thou mayest achieve free self-satisfaction for that spirit; weep to console thyself; mourn to bring thyself joy; strive towards perfection; mount towards the highest steps upon the staircase of development; and shouldst thou stumble—well, thou wilt fall! The devil take thee then, for thou wert fit for nothing better Most humble thanks, Egor Feodorovič Gegel [Hegel], I bow before your philosophic nightcap, but notwithstanding my respect for your philosophic philistinism I must dutifully assure you that if l should succeed in creeping up the developmental stairs to attain the topmost step I would endeavour, even there, to take into the reckoning all the victims of vital conditions and of history, all the victims of misfortune, of superstition, of the inquisition of Philip II, and so on—and in default would hurl myself headlong from the summit. I do not desire