Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/264

238 and his successors definitively subjugated the church. The task of Russia, therefore, is to sectre an intimate and inward union with the west. She must not merely adopt foreign forms but must understand them. At the same time, Russia wil place a vigorous state at the disposal of the church universal so that the latter may complete the rebirth of the nations. The Russian tsar and the pope must become the instruments of the genuine and the free theocracy—for the theocracy that reposes upon force is false.

The content of history is constrained by Solov'ev to submit itself to the limitations of the formula of a struggle between Asia and Europe. Solov'ev frequently speaks of the centralising force of the east (the Mohammedan east), of the individualism of western civilisation, and of the reconciling energy or mission of the Slavs.

Thus Solov'ev looks for light from the east, ex oriente lux. But he asks on one occasion whether it is to come from the east of Xerxes or from the east of Christ.

In historically extant Russia, Solov'ev discerns the capacity for the practical inauguration of the church of the future, and considers that this will be effected by the solution of the Polish problem and of the Jewish problem.

The mission of the Poles, says Solov'ev, is something very different from the attainment of political independence. The Poles forfeited their political independence because their nobles absorbed, overvalued, and therefore ruined, the entire state. The political independence of Poland can never be regained and this political aim is fantastical and fruitless. Nor can Poland become comparatively independent upon the basis of a one-sided idea of nationality. But Poland can constitute a "living bridge" between the west and the east, and may serve the free theocracy by inaugurating the union of the churches.

The political aims of the Polish nobles are "irrational and immoral," and yet these nobles are to take part in the "service of God" which Solov'ev assigns to the Polish nation, they are to help in bringing about the union of the churches! Besides how are we to represent to our minds the "living bridge" between east and west? Do such bridges exist?

The question of the Jews was one by which Solov'ev is more disquieted than by that of the Poles. In the Jews he discovers a living link between Old Testament days and the stage