To understand this we must return to the periodical
literature.

Until the serf question came to be discussed, the reform aspirations
were very vague, and consequently there was a remarkable unanimity among
their representatives. The great majority of the educated classes were
unanimously of opinion that Russia should at once adopt from the West
all those liberal principles and institutions the exclusion of which had
prevented the country from rising to the level of the Western nations.
But very soon symptoms of a schism became apparent. Whilst the
literature in general was still preaching the doctrine that Russia
should adopt everything that was "liberal," a few voices began to be
heard warning the unwary that much which bore the name of liberal was
in reality already antiquated and worthless--that Russia ought not to
follow blindly in the footsteps of other nations, but ought rather to
profit by their experience, and avoid the errors into which they had
fallen. The chief of these errors was, according to these new teachers,
the abnormal development of individualism--the adoption of that
principle of laissez faire which forms the basis of what may be
called the Orthodox School of Political Economists. Individualism and
unrestricted competition, it was said, have now reached in the West
an abnormal and monstrous development. Supported by the laissez faire
principle, they have led--and must always lead--to the oppression of the
weak, the tyranny of capital, the impoverishment of the masses for
the benefit of the few, and the formation of a hungry, dangerous
Proletariat! This has already been recognised by the most advanced
thinkers of France and Germany. If the older countries cannot at once
cure those evils, that is no reason for Russia to inoculate herself with
them. She is still at the commencement of her career, and it would
be folly for her to wander voluntarily for ages in the Desert, when a
direct route to the Promised Land has been already discovered.

In order to convey some idea of the influence which this teaching
exercised, I must here recall, at the risk of repeating myself, what
I said in a former chapter. The Russians, as I have there pointed out,
have a peculiar way of treating political and social questions. Having
received their political education from books, they naturally
attribute to theoretical considerations an importance which seems to us
exaggerated. When any important or trivial question aris