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482 of religion. Leont'ev, for all that he became a monk, occupies a peculiar position among the reactionary religious philosophers, and the church has certainly no occasion to congratulate herself upon the accession of this apologist.

Thus Russia presents a picture of philosophic and religious disunion. Ecclesiastical religion is opposed by the absolute negation characteristic of nihilism. From its very program, nihilism is not merely empiricism and agnostic positivism, but it is materialism and atheism as well—especial stress being laid upon materialism. Herzen's "great disillusionment" is a consistent renunciation of ecclesiastical religion with its doctrines and its conduct of life; it is an assertion of the epistemological and metaphysical sufficiency of positivist materialism, which sees through the thought-creations of the ego as illusion and fantasy, and therefore looks upon the transient and mortal ego as a thing of no moment. Herzen's disillusionment and Herzen's interpretation of nihilism harmonise perfectly with Stirner's nihilistic iconoclasm. Herzen, like Stirner, deduces the ultimate logical conclusions from the teachings of Feuerbach.

Herzen rightly appraised nihilism as a transitional doctrine. Čaadaev had spoken of prepetrine Russia as a blank sheet of paper; the nihilist fought Russia in order to fill the intellectual void with a new content. As Kropotkin expresses it, nihilism is a struggle for individuality.

Saltykov, when his newspaper was suppressed, was utterly overwhelmed by this arbitrary act of authority. He tells us that he suddenly lost the use of his tongue. Awakening one day, he felt that he had gone utterly astray, that he had ceased to exist. Theocratic absolutism in Russia is, in fact, aphasia, is the cessation of thought and the abandonment of individuality.

We can understand why the progressive opponents of ecclesiastical doctrine lay so much stress on individualism, and why Russian socialism is so strongly individualistic. To the progressive Russian, individualism is so important and so dear because it is the converse of Orthodox passivism, of the individualism of the traditional faith of the church. In its radical and embittered negation of theocracy, Russian individualism is apt to pass into anarchism. This is why the opponents of ecclesiastical religion (Lavrov, Mihailovskii, etc.) are such enthusiastic advocates of the idea of progress.