and women, as it were, into badly
fitting, unelastic clothes which cause intense discomfort and prevent
all healthy muscular action, why not adapt the costume to the anatomy
and physiology of the human frame? Then the clothes will no longer be
rent, and those who wear them will be contented and happy.

Unfortunately for the progress of humanity there are serious obstacles
in the way of this radical change of system. The absurd, antiquated
and pernicious institutions and customs are supported by abstruse
metaphysical reasons and enshrined in mystical romantic sentiment, and
in this way they may still be preserved for generations unless the axe
be laid to the root of the tree. Now is the critical moment. Russia must
be made to rise at once from the metaphysical to the positivist stage of
intellectual development; metaphysical reasoning and romantic sentiment
must be rigorously discarded; and everything must be brought to the
touchstone of naked practical utility.

One might naturally suppose that men holding such opinions must be
materialists of the grossest type--and, indeed, many of them gloried
in the name of materialist and atheist--but such an inference would
be erroneous. While denouncing metaphysics, they were themselves
metaphysicians in so far as they were constantly juggling with abstract
conceptions, and letting themselves be guided in their walk and
conversation by a priori deductions; while ridiculing romanticism, they
had romantic sentiment enough to make them sacrifice their time,
their property, and sometimes even their life, to the attainment of an
unrealisable ideal; and while congratulating themselves on having passed
from the religious to the positivist stage of intellectual development,
they frequently showed themselves animated with the spirit of the early
martyrs! Rarely have the strange inconsistencies of human nature been so
strikingly exemplified as in these unpractical, anti-religious fanatics.
In dealing with them I might easily, without very great exaggeration,
produce a most amusing caricature, but I prefer describing them as they
really were. A few years after the period here referred to I knew some
of them intimately, and I must say that, without at all sharing or
sympathising with their opinions, I could not help respecting them
as honourable, upright, quixotic men and women who had made great
sacrifices for their convictions. One of them whom I have specially
in view at this moment suff