FORERUNNERS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
sentimentality in all its forms, by pressing for a real interpretation of men’s motives. Besides, he remained in Russia, and so had to deal with native friends and foes. Russian problems and conditions always had the first claim upon his mind.
Černyševski himself professed Materialism, and as such his outlook is regarded both by friend and foe. In his own words “philosophy sees in man what medicine, physiology and chemistry see in him; these sciences prove that no dualism is noticeable in man, but philosophy adds, that if man, outside his real nature, had a second nature, this latter would certainly manifest itself in something; and as it shows itself in nothing, and as all that happens and manifests itself in man takes place according to his real nature, there is no such thing as a second nature in him.” He is a materialist sans phrase, and so above all, denies the immortality of the soul. . . . Psychology is for him a part of physiology. As a consequence of his materialism, he teaches egoism as the real motive of every action, however noble. . . . His outlook upon the world and upon life is the foundation of the Realism of the sixties, to which Turgenev gave the name of Nihilism, and which was opposed, not only by the Conservatives, but also by the Liberals.
Černyševski’s philosophy and literary activity have altogether the character of the philosophy of enlightenment, in its aggressive form before the French Revolution. He knows that he is revolutionising his fellow men; for he wants to continue and deepen the revolution of Peter the Great. To him Peter is the ideal for Russia. If French enlightenment and its materialism offer him the philosophical and political example, he finds in Lessing his literary teacher.
It was his ambition to become a modern Aristotle, a teacher not only for Russia but for all mankind. He planned, quite in the sense of the French school, several encyclopædic works, intended to sum up the material and intellectual development of mankind as in a codex or bible. In his view enlightenment was above all necessary for Russia, who had, it is true, an army of a million and a half soldiers, and could some day conquer Europe like the Huns or Mongols, but could do nothing further. Thus, according to Peter’s example, true patriotism consists in the task of enlightenment and hence Černyševski called himself a publicist, for to him “a
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