Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/428

402 egoism, self-will (svoevolie) be subordinated to "others-will" (čyževolie)? The individual, the personality, is "the climax of the historic world," is "the living and conscious instrument of his age"—at least this is true of the man of genius. Herzen agrees with Bělinskii that such persons are the instruments of the nation and of mankind. Revolutions, in so far as Herzen approves them, have not been begun and carried through by a class, and least of all by the bourgeoisie; they have been the work of free men, of such men as Ulrich von Hutten, the knight; Voltaire the aristocrat; Rousseau, the watchmaker's son; Schiller, the regimental surgeon; Goethe, the descendant of craftsmen—these were free men belonging to no class in particular, and the bourgeoisie as a class merely reaped the harvest of their labours.

But side by side with this extreme individualism we continually encounter Feuerbachian formulas. In From the Other Shore, for example, we read that there is no antagonism between ego and tu; and Herzen warns us that despite the sacrosanctity of individuality we must not shiver society into atoms. From this standpoint there is no logical place for Byronic crime, either metaphysically or ethically.

What did he understand by Byronic crime and murder at the time when he was invoking curses on revolution? Bělinskii makes his Kalinin commit murder, but the murderer kills himself too; it is certain that Herzen had no desire for such a solution, while Bělinskii got the better of his own hero. The Byronic mood and a deliberate decision to murder are something different from the murder done by Kalinin, who was driven by circumstances to unpremeditated deeds.

Herzen was faced by the problem of revolution and was forced into a decision. Europe set Russia an example in revolutions; the thought of the decabrists was sacred to Herzen, and this is why, in his revolutionary enthusiasm, he hastened so hopefully to Paris. As a Russian, as a foreigner, it was obvious that he could take no part in the revolution. As a Frenchman he would have been under no obligation to participate actively. But was he right in his condemnation of the revolution?

Moreover, what has become of his decision in favour of murder after the example of Byron's Cain? Why does he despise mankind on account of 1848, despise men who like Herzen himself had decided in favour of murder—and had