Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/583

Rh is Russian life in Serbia, in Archangel or in Vologda, in Tula or in Caucasia. We must further take into consideration the differences between the Great Russians and the Little Russians; we have to think of the mingling of races; and we must not forget that, as time passes, changes invariably occur in modes of life and in national characteristics. We must carefully distinguish the important from the unimportant, the essential from the casual.

Let me reiterate that in the extant natural and social conditions man forms himself. In fact I share Bělinskii's belief that man is free in his historical environment. It is not chronology, it is not space and time, that constitute the essence of mankind; man himself is that essence. Thus again and again are we brought back to the problem of subjectivism versus objectivism. My decision is in favour of a mitigated subjectivism, and these studies have been a consistent attempt to apply such a view epistemologically and methodologically.

N my attempts at philosophico-historical explanations I start from the conviction that religion constitutes the central and centralising mental force in the life of the individual and of society. The ethical ideals of mankind are formed by religion; religion gives rise to the mental trend, to the life mood of human beings.

We are speaking here of ecclesiastical religion. The church as the organisation of society, the church as the chief pillar of the state and of state organisation, the church as the very foundation of the theocracy, has been and still remains the teacher and educator of the nations.

The effective energy is supplied, not by ecclesiastical doctrine alone, but by the living example which the church furnishes through its priest or its preachers; in every village will be found one or several clerics to guide the inhabitants in the spirit of the church; the church is a grandly conceived, unitary, and centralised educational institute. If it be true, as Comenius declared, that the school is the officina humanitatis, then the church is this officina, for hitherto the church has conducted the school, and has, speaking generally, provided for the entire spiritual leadership of society.

The unbeliever, the philosopher, is subject to the influence