Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/50

24 Moreover, we can detect a certain vacillation, for despite his campaign against the Oblomovs and superfluous persons, he is almost mastered by an enthusiasm for Stankevič. If, he tells us, most of the members of human society were to resemble Stankevič, no struggles, no sufferings, and no privations, would be necessary—"those privations which unduly utilitarian persons are so fond of expecting from others." We here see the utilitarian discovering that the utilitarians are in the opposite camp.

Dobroljubov's pen, Dobroljubov's realistic criticism, became a political weapon. In his literary critiques the written word was actually transmuted into deeds—opponents declared, into deeds of violence. Doubtless much was said during the heat of battle which would better have been left unsaid, but we must not forget what weapons of word and deed the nihilists' opponents used! Dobroljubov was a fighter; this was his mission and this was the service we owe to him. In his study of Stankevič, he finely tells us upon what he is waging war, and it is, "the constrained and artificial virtue of inner falsehood towards oneself." Dobroljubov fought this fight honourably. We may perhaps note here and there in his polemic the seminarist's touch, that of the preacher or the professor. From his days as a theological student there had clung to him a tinge of the hermit spirit; yet his judgment and condemnation of the world, of society, was not religious but political. Though we learn from his diary that as a student he aspired in ethical matters to be guided by the stoics Cato and Zeno, he shows us often enough that he failed to adhere to his principles. Do we note in him, in fine, a touch of the Oblomov?

Dobroljubov never attempted a philosophical elaboration of his principles. He accepted Černyševskii's materialism without making any strict examination of its foundations. To him personally, since from childhood onwards and at school his education had been strictly theological and religious, materialism brought enfranchisement. Dobroljubov was nourished almost exclusively on Russian literature; European philosophers were practically unknown to him. Moreover, his interest lay rather in the direction of practical ethics than in those of abstract philosophy, as we may learn from his essay directed against the pedagogic principles of Pirogov.

Nor did Dobroljubov acquire his political and socialistic principles in the philosophic field. It is evident from the