Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/226

200 spirit of the genuine Russian, being uncorrupted by logic, accepts this authority as a matter of course; the folk feels directly, feels in its soul, and perceives absolute truth, artist fashion, by way of faith. In folk-sagas this absolute truth has found artistic expression, for the saga is the history of the whole folk. History is the most trustworthy of all authorities. Absolute truth is religious truth; but it is the Russian church, not religion in the abstract, which embodies absolute truth. This truth is imparted to the uncultured masses by the church ceremonies, without any admixture of logic and philosophy. The Russian church possesses absolute truth, is absolute truth, and therefore the Russian folk possesses and is this truth. The various churches correspond to the needs of the various nations, and the Russians have a church of their own. The believer will never recognise a foreign doctrine, but on the contrary, "should need arise he will forcibly impose his own belief on others."

As we see, the mysticism of Joannes Damascenus (who was the slavophils' favourite father of the church) has degenerated into orthodox Jesuitism. If every nation has its own religion and nationality, why should Russia, with its millions of Poles, Germans, I'inns, Swedes, etc., have but one church and but one recognised nationality? "Europeans!" the answer runs—that is quite another affair: the Russian church, the Russian folk, has and is absolute truth, and that suffices!

From rationalism, the original sin of Europe, there arises by logical sequence a second original sin, belief in the excellence of the natural man. Pobědonoscev, however, teaches that man is by nature bad and full of malice, and he infers from this that democracy in all its forms is evil. Pobědonoscev attacks parliamentarism and the representative system of government with inexorable scorn and mockery, stigmatising Parliamentarism as "the great lie of our age." Liberty, equality, and fraternity are mere phrases and idols. No man of honour, no man with a sense of duty, can accept the modern electoral system with its universal suffrage. Pobědonoscev inveighs against the agitators, the modern sophists and logomachists, who keep the masses in leading strings, and he is no less opposed to the demagogy of trial by jury. He detests the newspaper press, and denies its claim to represent public opinion, for the press too is one of the most lying institutions of our time. Of course this remark was not to be taken as applying to Katkov's news-