A LETTER TO RUSSIAN LIBERALS 199
retreating, little by little, further and further from the demands of conscience, fall at last into a position of complete dependency on the Government. They receive rewards and salaries from it, and, continuing to imagine that they are forwarding Liberal ideas, become the humble servants and supporters of the very order against which they set out to fight.
It is true that there are also better, sincere people in the Liberal camp, whom the Government cannot bribe, and who remain unbought and free from salaries and position. But even these people, having been en- snared in the nets spread by Government, beat their wings in their cages (as you are now doing in your Committee), unable to advance from the spot they are on. Or else, becoming enraged, they go over to the revolutionary camp ; or they shoot themselves ; or take to drink ; or they abandon the whole struggle in despair, and, oftenest of all, retire into literary activity, in which, yielding to the demands of the censor, they say only what they are allowed to say, and by that very silence about what is most important convey to the public distorted views, which just suit the Government. But they continue to imagine that they are serving society by the writings which give them means of subsistence.
Thus, reflection and experience alike show me that both the means of combating Government used hereto- fore, are not only ineifectual, but actually tend to strengthen the power and irresponsibility of the Government.
What is to be done } Evidently not what for seventy years past has proved fruitless, and has only produced reverse results. ^Vhat is to be done .'* Just what those have done, to whose activity we owe the progress towards light and good that has been achieved since the world began, and that is still being achieved to-day. That is what must be done ! And what is it ?
Merely the simple, quiet, truthful carrying on of what you consider good and needful, quite inde- pendently of the Government, or of whether it likes it
