Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/79

Rh slavophils, regard Europe as decadent. In his view the European masses (the middle classes) had not yet entered into full activity. It must not be forgotten that we are writing about the beginning of the sixties, and that at that time there did not as yet exist a sharp distinction between socialism and narodničestvo, for the conceptual differentiæ of the two doctrines had not then been fully elaborated.

HORTLY after his first appearance on the scene, Pisarev was branded by numerous opponents as the enfant terrible of the Černyševskian trend. Even to-day, "the annihilation of aesthetics," if not ascribed to him as a crime, is at least charged to his literary account.

Pisarev, like Dobroljubov, was a critic, and he carried on the work of Dobroljubov, but died in the flower of his youth. While still a schoolboy Pisarev had begun to write upon the burning questions of the day. His mind had been stirred by Černyševskii and Dobroljubov; Herzen, to a lesser extent Bakunin, and Feuerbach who was the spiritual father of them all, influenced him. He knew of Stirner's work, but I believe at second hand, (Pisarev occasionally admits that his knowledge even of Russian literature was second hand.) He preached radical individualism, understanding by this term the struggle for the emancipation of the individuality, a struggle which for him embodied the essential meaning of civilisation. ("Every living being is for himself the centre and the meaning of the universe. For the most insignificant subject, his personal joys, vexations, aspirations, and cares, are more important than universal revolutions which take place without his participation and exercise no influence upon the destiny of his individuality.") Pisarev believed that the securest foundation for his individualism, for individualist doctrine, was to be found in declared egoism, but at an early stage he was cautious enough to recommend a "rational egoism." To Pisarev it seemed self-evident that the healthy human under-