Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/565

Rh who recognise and declare that the revolution is necessary, and who initiate and guide the movement. Always, however, it is essential to adduce proof that the revolution is actually in conformity with the true interests of the people, that it represents a real progress in democratic evolution, and that it is indispensable.

The modern right of initiative ascribes the leading role to the individual intelligence, emotions, and will. Side by side with the legally appointed and officially recognised leaders of humanity, (men need leaders in addition to thinkers), there arise in all domains persons who are assigned leadership or directly and deliberately seize it.

The right of initiative concurrently implies individual responsibility. He who talks of liberty, who talks of the right of initiative, talks also of personal responsibility. The ego, always the ego, is responsible, not the majority, not the plenum, this is the doctrine of modern progressive individualism, whereas the man of an earlier day took shelter behind the church, the state, the nation, the party, the majority, or even mankind as a whole.

The official conservative and reactionary jurists counterposed revolution by proclaiming legitimist right and by appealing to the so-called historic right. In actual fact, the formulas of historic right are fictions, invented to support the actual and historically extant relationships of power. The same remark applies to the attempt to formulate the special rights of reigning dynasts. Rulers appeal to ecclesiastico-religious sanction, to divine right, and Stahl was perfectly logical in referring historic right to the sanction of ecclesiastical Christianity.