Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/441

Rh acterised the Slav, and therefore, despite the mir, he remained a slave. Contrasted with the Russian, the Teuton was a vigorous individualist, and in European political history the Teuton realised the individualistic ideal.

Russian critics have disputed whether Herzen became a slavophil. Herzen himself threw light on this accusation and rejected it, saying that his metaphysical and religious outlook on fundamentals differed from that of the slavophils, and that the distinction was essential. The assertion would have been perfectly correct had not Herzen modified or at least toned down his fundamental outlook under the influence of slavophil political views. Turgenev reminded his friend on one occasion (November 8, 1862) of the earlier phase: "A foe to mysticism and absolutism, you kneel mystically before the Russian sheepskin, discerning therein all the blessings, all the novelty and originality, of coming social forms—discerning, in a word, the absolute, that absolute over which you make merry in the philosophical field. All your idols have been shattered, and yet, since man cannot live without an idol, you suggest that we should erect an altar to this sheepskin, to this unknown god. Happily we know nothing about him, and we can therefore once again pray, believe, and hope."

Turgenev is right. Herzen appraised the Russian people and the mužik from the standpoint to which Homjakov gave the name of talismanism. In Moscow, Herzen had frequent talks with the slavophils concerning such matters, and Homjakov would have nothing to do with Herzen's antiteleological philosophy of history. In Europe. however, in 1859, Herzen came to recognise that he had a much closer kinship with the slavophils than with the "westernist old believers" (the liberals)

After 1848, in fact, the Herzenian solus ipse felt distinctly out of sorts, and the disorder was not metaphysical merely, but political and social as well; the Byronic intoxication was succeeded by the customary fit of headache and depression. "We are at once the corpses and the assassins, the diseases and the pathological anatomists of the old world. I have long considered that it is at least possible to begin a new personal life, to retire into oneself. to get away from the old-clothe market. It remains impossible, however, as long as there is any one about you with whom you have not broken off all ties, for the old world will return to you through him." But now Herzen does not fear contact with the Old Russian world.