Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/489

Rh Lectures, 1838). A few days before his death, talking about Schopenhauer, he condemned individualism, writing: "Our whole philosophy is established upon a false foundation when it conceives human beings as individuals, instead of looking upon them, as it should, as members of a collectivity. Hence arise most philosophical errors, the upshot of which is that happiness is looked for in the clouds, or else that pessimism ensues, like that of Schopenhauer and Hartmann." In 1838 he considered suicide the necessary consequence of extreme subjectivism and individualism, in 1876 pessimism was the consequence—the distinction is not very great. It is not clear how Bakunin represented to himself the relationship between the individual and the collectivity. His formula of 1876 smacks of Comte, not of Marx—Engels. This corresponds with Bakunin's demand for collectivism, not communism. The question how much individualism and how much collectivism was not precisely formulated by Bakunin.

As compared with Bakunin, Marx is more scientific, more critical. The German is the theorist, whilst the Russian's attention is directed rather towards political practice. At furst, and even later, Marx's outlook did not in essentials differ from that of Bakunin. Marx, too, was a revolutionary, and took personal part in the revolution of 1848, although much more cautiously than Bakunin; Marx, again, wished to destroy the state, and believed in the speedy attainment of an ideal condition of society. But Marx abandoned the revolutionism of his youth, devoted himself to scientific study, spent his days in the British Museum library, and endeavoured to provide positivist and materialist foundations for political economy and the philosophy of history. Bakunin, on the other hand, was an organiser of revolts in which he took an active share, and only on occasions did he endeavour to collect his thoughts theoretically.

This is why Marx so greatly excels Bakunin as sociologist and still more as philosopher of history.

Vis-à-vis revolutionism the main difference is to be found in Marx's historical materialism and in his conception of the determinism of historical deveIopment. But Marx and his disciples did not at the outset deduce the logical consequences of historical materialism; and, moreover, the doctrine was not at ﬁrst (if ever) clearly and unambiguously formulated. Historical materialism led Marx and the Marxists to views