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even when under the influence of more or less foreign types which have preceded it or which are contemporary with it.

Fourth law. The civilization peculiar to each Historical Type of Culture reaches its plenitude, variety and richness, only when the various ethnographic elements that compose it form a federation or a political system of coordinate governments; presuming that they were not already assimilated in a political whole.

Fifth law. The evolution of Historical Types of Culture is nearly analogous to those perennial plants which bear fruit only once. These plants, although having an indefinite period of growth, enjoy but a relatively short period of bloom and fruit-bearing and through this exhaust once and for all their vital forces.1

This theory of the "Historical Types of Culture" the author applies to his study of the Slavic peoples in contrast to their western neighbors. He finds among the Slavs, especially the Russians, all the elements necessary to form an independent Historical Type of Culture. According to this author also, there are four main lines of activity to which nearly all independent civilizations have contributed : These are: (1) Religion, (2) Culture proper, as science, art and industry, (3) Politics, and (4) Social Economics. All past civilizations have contributed to one or more of these factors, not one has done justice to all. In the case of the Slavs it is to be different. He says: "On the basis of analysis of the general results of activity of past Historical Types of Culture, and comparing them in part with the special characteristics of the Slavic world and in part with

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1 Cf. Russia and Europe, pp. 95-96.

The "special characteristics" which Danilevsky believed the Slavs to possess are much the same as those recognized by other Slavophil writers mentioned, supra, ch. i.

those latent abilities peculiar to the Slavic nature—we may cherish a well founded hope that the Slavic Historical Type of Culture will for the first time present a synthesis of all the aspects of cultural activity. . . . We may hope that the Slavic type will be the first complete four-basal Historical Type of Culture." 1

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This outline of Danilevsky's views needs little comment. His Slavophil predictions are not coincident with the facts of Russian historical development. There is still the possibility, however, that Russia may develop a relatively independent type of civilization.

Danilevsky's attempt to divide history "naturally" is commendable, nevertheless, his tenfold division is arbitrary, as is apparent from such groupings as the "Assyro-Babylono-Phoenician, Chaldean or Ancient Semitic". Modern study of the civilizations of the Mediterranean basin shows at least as much relative difference among these as among the civilizations of contemporary Western and Eastern Europe. The cultural achievements of humanity are the product of no people in particular. It is true that there are types of civilization, but these are not so rigidly divided as Danilevsky supposes. In their aggregate they present a multimodal curve, their independence at its best being merely relative, as all have a common base. As modern means of communication continue to develop and the nations of the world are brought closer together, this fact becomes more and more generally recognized. And there are sociologists who believe that the future will produce one federated type of civilization.

1 Russia and Europe, p. 556. Italics are the author's.

2 Cf. footnote, supra, p. 32.

For example, De Graff, On Boundaries and Yacov Novicov in several of his works.

II. The Russophilism of Leontiev

Akin to the Slavophil views just examined are the social theories of Leontiev.1

By temperament an ultra-conservative, he even parted ways with the Slavophils who seemed to him to undermine Russia's independence by their doctrine of Panslavism.2 His aim was to preserve at any cost: first, a particular kind of mystic Christianity, strictly ecclesiastical and monastic and of a Byzantine and partly Roman type; second, a firm and centralized monarchical government, and finally, the original beauty and simplicity of life in its national forms. Democracy and internationalism he regards as signs of racial decay and therefore as the worst enemies of humanity. His reactionary policy he justifies by a theory of social evolution which presents in itself an attempt to synthesize the ideas of Saint Simon, Hegel, Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer.*

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2 He says:

1 Konstantin Nikolaevitch Leontiev (1831-91). By profession a surgeon, he served as an officer of foreign affairs in the near Orient, was censor of literature, editor, novelist and social philosopher. He ended his life in a monastery, little known and appreciated by his kinsmen. Volumes V and VI of his works cover his sociological writings. "The idea of an orthodox cultural Russism is actually original, lofty and firmly official. But Panslavism at any price" is but an imitation and nothing else. It is a contemporary Europeanliberal ideal, it is a striving to be like the rest-the Russians of our age must strive passionately towards spiritual, intellectual and cultural independence. . . . And then also the other Slavs will in time follow in our footsteps." Works, vol. vi, p. 189.

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He says: The leveling process brought about by the mixture of classes and the strong tendency towards shallow homogeneity, instead of the former despotic unity in an heterogeneous forcibly controlled environment-this is the first step towards disintegration." Ibid., p. 219.

♦ Leontiev claims to have arrived at this theory of social evolution independently of Herbert Spencer. He says: "Herbert Spencer was not known to me when in 1870 I wrote my essay, "Byzantium and Slavophilism." Ibid., p. 52, chapter vii of this essay contains in outline his theory of social evolution.

The author concludes that, as this is the case with all nations and governments, one ought to be active like “a moving sail or a steam boiler" as the nation is approaching its heights, but after that "it is more worthy to be an anchor or a brake for a nation which is descending as down a steep mountain". By this curious application of his theory of social evolution, Leontiev seeks to justify Russian despotism and to combat democracy, which he feared as a sign of approaching disintegration.

We cannot deny to the author a certain degree of ingenuity, but throughout he lacks consistency and the ability to correlate facts with a theoretic formula. His picture of Democracy is a phantom of his imagination and is not drawn from historical facts. Throughout known history Democracy has not been primarily a leveling and shallowing force. Its tendency has been rather to equalize opportunity and so to advance a natural and not an hereditary aristocracy. Probably the highest degree of complexity has been reached only in democratic society which necessitates an extensive division of labor. It has been held together not by bonds of ecclesiastical and monarchical despotism, but by the bonds of homogeneous consumption and equalization of opportunity. Whatever of truth Leontiev's theory of the three organic stages may possess, the facts of European history do not fall within his categories.

III. The Neo-Slavophilism of. Vladimir S. Soloviev

To conclude the review of the Slavophil theories we present the contribution of Vladimir Soloviev to this trend of thought.2

1 Works, vol. v, p. 208.

2 Vladimir Sergeyevitch Soloviev (1853-1900) was the son of the eminent Russian historian S. M. Soloviev. Vl. S. Soloviev is regarded as

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P. N. Milyoukov calls him the founder of Neo-Slavophilism or of the left insurgent wing of the Slavophil movement. He claims that Soloviev based this new school on the principle that the social ideals of Christianity must be realized in the social and political life of humanity, and that the Russian people united with the Roman hierarchy are best fitted to realize this ideal in a united Catholic Church.2

This premise of the older Slavophilism seems to have been difficult for Soloviev to part with, although he himself had severely criticized the Slavophils as "idolaters of the people", because they considered the Slavic people to be endowed with ultimate truth, power and beauty.

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Soloviev is not so much of a partisan as his predecessors were. He is, however, strongly biased by religious predilections.

Sociology in his system appears as social ethics. He says: The actual ethical problem inevitably carries us into the province which determines the current historical existence of society, or of collective man."

The problem which he tries to solve is that of the interrelation of society and of the individual, or the problem of

one of Russia's most able thinkers and the creator of the first complete system of Russian Philosophy. His works are in nine volumes. His philosophical system has been summed up in a doctor's dissertation by D. V. Usnadse, "Die Metaphysishe Weltanschauung Wladimir Ssolowiows mit orientirendem Uberblick seiner Erkenntnistheorie." HalleWittenberg, 1909.

1 In an article, "The Disintegration of Slavophilism,” Questions of Philosophy and Psychology (Russian), May, 1893.

'In Russia and Its Crisis, p. 63. Milyoukov says: "Pope and Tzar allied with the prophet of their union between them; such was Soloviov's apocolyptical vision."

Cf. his National Questions of Russia, Works, vol. v, pp. 139-336. ♦ Works, vol. vii, p. 210.

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