French-speaking section of the Swiss, and the Roumans of
Moldo-Wallachia and Hungary. Or would it be less chimerical to try to
form a Teutonic Federation among Germans, Dutch, Danes, Swedes,
Norwegians, Icelanders, German-Swiss, Englishmen, North Americans, and
the various English colonies?

Nihilism, on its part, has nothing in common with those Panslavist
intrigues which mainly cover an Imperialist ambition. Nihilism, as at
present known, is, in fact, the very negation of such dangerous
ambitious schemes.

The first Nihilist Society, properly speaking, is said to have been
founded by Russian students about the year 1859. German works on
philosophy and natural science were then much in demand, as forbidden
fruit among the aspiring youths of Russia. The books not being allowed
to pass the frontier, stray copies were smuggled in, and lithographed
translations passed from hand to hand. The Agricultural College of
Petrovski, near Moscow, is considered to have been one of the first
places where young men became imbued with such advanced ideas. In this
neighbourhood the Netchaieff tragedy was enacted. Among literary men,
Tchernitcheffski was one of the first who became a "Nihilist." He
suffered for it by being banished to Siberia.

The word "Nihilist" is, however, a somewhat misleading one. It was
conferred at first as a nickname. Afterwards it was adopted (like the
name of the _Gueux_) in a kind of dare-devil mood; and has covered, ever
since, a great many varieties of political and social discontent, as
well as of philosophical Radicalism. There are Nihilists who, from the
sheer hopelessness engendered by a tyranny lasting a thousand years,
have come to cultivate a Philosophy of Despair, of Disgust, and of
Destruction, without troubling themselves as to the constitution of the
Future. These are men that profess a wish to do away with all State
organizations, for the sake of a morbid Individualism. Others there are
who, in the semi-revolutionary vein of Comte, incline towards a
socialist Collectivism in a rather utopian, not to say hierarchic, form.
To them the word "Nihilist" is scarcely applicable.

Strictly speaking, the word "Nihilist" covers, at most, a small group of
persons of a brooding and impracticable temper, such as is sometimes
created under the darkest tyrannies. It may be doubted whether the
majority of those who use the dagger and the revolver without
compunction against the vile _sbirri_ of an intolera