ence which it is impossible to overrate. Even as the leaders of the French Revolution were haunted by the memories of ancient Rome, and by the heroes of Plutarch, the Russian Revolutionists are obsessed and possessed by the tragic events of 1789, and the heroes of the Terror. These events and these men are to them a permanent source of inspiration. Every psychologist and sociologist who has investigated the power of hypnotic suggestion and the laws of imitation will realize the enormous significance of the fact, all the more so because the Russian Revolution must be to some extent a purely artificial revolution and not a spontaneous outburst of elemental forces. Nearly all the leaders belonged to the intellectual classes, to what is characteristically called in Russia the "Intelliguenz." And these leaders have been brought up on the theories of 1789, they have been fed on the "Immortal Principles." They appear to me like students who are repeating to themselves lessons vaguely understood, or like actors who want to rehearse the same tragic parts over again. They would like to persuade the world that the Russian people are engaged in the same struggle for freedom and equality, and that their triumph would inaugurate a new
