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UZOV (Kablitz) attempted to provide a philosophic basis for the narodničestvo, not however with much success. He was a diligent translator of Spencer and the English empiricists (Bain and Mill), and he published detailed studies of the raskolniki, whom he considered to embody the genuine Russian essence. Juzov accepted Spencer's and Comte's emotionalism, and in his consideration of the national essence and of national character, he found these to subsist psychologically in the realm of feeling, in the dominance of emotion over understanding.

By his campaign against intellectualism he was led to take up a position adverse to the intelligentsia and to their endeavours on behalf of popular education. Drawing a sharp distinction between the nation and the state, he lapsed into a hazy apolitism, conceiving the mir and the artel to furnish sufficient support for the folk and for its economic activities in the domains of agriculture and home industry. Juzov's Principles of the Narodnicestvo (1882, etc.) thus inclined to the side of the reaction under Alexander III, and was opposed to the radical and revolutionary trend of the narodničestvo.

The more critical adherents of the narodničestvo did not follow Juzov's lead, being inclined rather to accept the views of Lavrov, Černyševskii, and Mihailovskii. On the other hand, some of the narodniki were especially interested in the economic aspect of the problem. In deliberate opposition to Marx and the Marxists, they attempted to show that the economic and social evolution of Russia was quite peculiar, was distinct from and independent of that of Europe. Notable was the manner in which the teaching of the narodničestvo was likewise defended by the historians of literature.