Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/41

Rh was far from being an epicurean, and indeed as regards this department of life we must rather look upon him as a stoic.

Černyševskii desired to liberate woman from the Old Russian atmosphere, from the yoke of so-called patriarchalism, and to make her into a "thinking being." With this end in view, utilitarianism seemed to him to offer the best guiding principle where the love of man and wife was concerned, just as it offered the best guiding principle elsewhere. In the days of their courtship, Věra reproached Lopuhov for his theory of rational egoism. It was, she said, cold, prosaic, and harsh. The utilitarian egoist answered his wife as follows: "This theory is cold, but it teaches men how to create warmth. A match is cold, the side of the matchbox on which you strike it is cold, but in them is fire, which prepares warm food for man and warms his body. This theory is harsh, but if men will follow it they will cease to be the tragic sport of futile sympathies. The hand that holds the lancet must not flinch, for mere sympathy will not do the patient any good. This theory is prosaic, but it reveals the true motive of life, and only in the truth of life is poesy found."

Through the personality of his hero, Černyševskii expressed his detestation for the theory of self-sacrifice, which was always being held up against him. "The word and the concept are false," says Lopuhov. "Nobody ever sacrifices himself, for everyone does what he likes best. Sacrifice is mere fustian."

Černyševskii is perfectly right in his animadversions against sacrifice. His ethic in general is a serious and noble-minded attempt; but its foundation is unsound, and it is impossible to accept the solution suggested in What is to be Done.

Self-sacrifice? It is true that genuine self-sacrifice is a rarity. Such sacrifice is as a rule purely imaginary. But it exists. There is such a thing as self-sacrifice utterly devoid of egoism and utterly free from the spirit of mercenary calculation. This is where Černyševskii errs; there are feelings and impulses of a quite unegoistic order; and Černyševskii simply does not understand—himself! But from the days of Aristippus and Epicurus down to those of Bentham and Mill the same mistake has been made by more than one philosopher, by more than one of the best and noblest among mankind. They all desired an empirical and practical system of ethics, and believed they could base such a system upon the doctrine of egoism. Unquestionably society ought to be