Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/540

514 fringe of the matter in their accounts of the historical development of realism and naturalism vis-à-vis romanticism and classicism, and in their descriptions of the relationship of such artists as Heine to the political parties. Still, we have advanced so far at least, that democracy is understood to have an aesthetic side.

The emergence in Russian literature of the raznočinec (plebeian) beside and in opposition to the aristocrat has been acclaimed as a democratic achievement, but it is necessary to reiterate that the aristocratic and the democratic spirit respectively are not mere matters of birth.

It should be hardly necessary to point out that democracy does not become established all at once. The decline of aristocracy is gradual, and the replacement of aristocracy by the democratic program and democratic institutions is no simple matter. The English cry for "men not measures" is the fruit of a study from the life. Universal suffrage affords no guarantee that democratic sentiments will prevail; the true democrat will feel democratically and work democratically, not in parliament alone, but in municipal life, in his political party, in the circle of his friends, in family life, everywhere. Democracy is a new outlook and a new conduct of life.

It is a significant fact that the idea of progressive evolution was advocated, and secured general acceptance, simultaneously with the formulation of the demands of democracy. The connection is intimate and important. Aristocracy is absolutist, conservative, and traditionalistic; democracy is progressive and renovative because its trust is placed, not in revelation, but in experience of historic evolution. Democracy is the aspiration towards a new life.

O many persons, democracy seems essentially antireligious, but it is in fact no more than antitheological and antiecclesiastical; radical materialism and atheism were political weapons against theocratic absolutism. The antecedent studies should have made this perfectly clear; the democratic struggle to promote progressive development, in religion as well as in other things, is hostile to ecclesiastical religion with its demand for faith in myth and for ethical passivism.

Democracy is not inimical to religion per se, if by religion