Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/240

214 democracy, favouring not merely Magyar aristocracy but even Turkish aristocracy and the German aristocracy of the Baltic provinces. He held that a baron in the Baltic provinces was of more use to Russia than were the Letts and the Lithuanians. So logical was Leont'ev in the application of his principles, that in the American civil war his sympathies were with the southern slave-owning planters. Writing a good many years after the event, it was a regret to him that Russia should have supported the north against the south.

EONT'EV'S thought and literary style recall Hamann and Carlyle in many respects, but also de Maistre and similar authors, whilst in the matter of doctrine we must refer back to Tertullian and his "credo quia absurdum." For Leont'ev will believe and can believe in nothing but the absurd.

For him religion exists only as mysticism, and he clings to theology and scholasticism. Though the declared enemy of the revolutionary realists and nihilists, he is himself obstinately realist and nihilist. Desiring a positively clear and definite religion, he holds fast to the letter as realised in practice at Athos and in the Russian monasteries. He puts his trust in ritual (terming it "ritual-mystic" religion), in monasteries, in monks, in the church visible with its doctrines and religious practices. "Before all, love the church;" do not love mankind, do not love your neighbour. Love for the church is the true Christian love. The church teaches us to know God, to know Christ; therefore we must obediently follow the church; "love is a secondary matter."

Thus the church is the most important thing, not God,. [sic] In the church, moreover, the hierarchy is the essential. In addition, Leont'ev venerates the monk (not the white clergy, for the members of that body are married); and among the monks he venerates the starec (the elder), whom he recognises as the absolute leader in religion and morals. Leont'ev desires to have an entirely material religion. To him personally God and Jesus are nothing; he thinks only of the definitely prescribed teachings, dogmas, and practices of the church.

The world is naught, heaven is all, and he therefore seeks the