Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/486

460 sacrifice themselves, should be ready to die; what they need is a more accurate understanding of the historical process! It would be impossible to give a plainer demonstration of the futility of historism, to show more clearly how fond the exponents of that doctrine are of playing hide and seek.

As exemplar of the subjective struggle against the objective norms, Plehanov adduces Socrates, and he tells us that the struggle between subjectivism and objectivism is waged in the field of science. But assuredly a very moderate "understanding of the historical process" suffices to convince us from a study of this very example that Socrates and Ropšin's George have nothing whatever in common. Both, certainly, are in revolt against the traditional environment, but whereas Socrates deliberately accepts the poisoned draught handed him by the representatives of coercive authority, George kills certain men even while he doubts whether they are in fact his oppressors. In the Apology, Plato demonstrated the innocence of Socrates and the guilt of his adversaries. Ropšin, in his novels, displays to us the doubts he has come to entertain regarding terrorist methods. History cannot help us, nor yet Hegel, who tells us both sides are in the right. "Is it right for me to kill a man?"—there is the simple question, and what any historian or philosopher of history may have written concerning the historical process as an objectively given whole, is utterly irrelevant. What is the "historical process?" Is there any such process, over and above the individual consciousness of particular individuals, who continually, and amid varying conditions, have severally to face the ethical problems of life! Ropšin, we are told, has not a sufficient understanding of the historical process. Perhaps not! Perhaps not! But does the historical process, as Plehanov contends, determine the functions of the social struggle; and if so, how? Characteristic of the superficiality of historism and its objectivist amoralism is the continued evasion of the question of personal decision, of personal responsibility for action, for action in general, and not merely for