. THE DEEP SEA AND ITS CONTENTS. By Dr. W. B. Carpenter. A NONCONFORMIST'S VIEW OF THE ELECTION. By the Rev. J. Guin- DAYS IN THE WOODS. By the Right Hon. the Earl of Dunraven IMPERIALISM AND SOCIALISM. By Frederic Seebolan DE PROFUNDIS. By Alfred Tennyson, Poet-Laureate ATHEISM AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN. By W. H. Mallock THE CEREMONIAL USE OF FLOWERS: a Sequel. By Miss Agnes THE POUND OF FLESH. By Moncure D. Conray AGNOSTICISM AND WOMEN: a Reply. By Miss J. H. Clapperton THE PINCH OF POVERTY. By James Payn ON THE NURSING CRISIS AT GUY'S HOSPITAL. By Sir Wm. Gull, Kebbel A CONSERVATIVE VIEW OF THE ELECTIONS. By T. E. Kebbel ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN ASIA. By Professor A. Vambéry 737 SOME INDIAN SUGGESTIONS FOR INDIA. By Syed Ameer Ali. 979 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. No. XXXV.-JANUARY 1880. 845 RUSSIAN NIHILISM.. RATIONALISM and radicalism exist to a certain extent in every country of Europe. But the Social Democrats of Germany and Austria and the Communists of France and Spain turn with horror from Russian revolutionists, who consider the programme of the Paris Commune of 1871 condemnably weak, and Felix Pyat, Cluseret, and their companions as little better than Conservatives. The Social Democrats and even the Communists of the rest of Europe have in view aims which, no matter how fantastic, are always of a sufficiently defined nature. They look forward to an entirely democratic form of government, and hope for a reorganisation of the social world, under which all capital and property would be held either by the State or Commune for the equal benefit of everybody. They are levellers, but they are not destroyers. The revolutionary party in Russia, on the other hand, has no definite aims of reorganisation or improvement in view. In its sight, everything as it now exists is rotten, and before anything new and good can be created, all existing institutions must be utterly destroyed. Religion, the State, the family, laws, property, morality-all are equally odious and must be rooted out and abolished. It is because 'nothing' as it exists at present finds favour in their eyes that they have been called 'Nihilists.' They desire to break up the actual social organisation into mere individualism, with VOL. VII.-No. 35. B entire independence for each separate person. They maintain that no one should be bound by laws or even moral obligations of any kind, but that everybody should be allowed to do exactly as he pleases. Their object is anarchy in the very truest sense of the word. They are only modest enough to decline the attempt to create a new order of things in the place of what they propose to destroy. That they intend to leave for a better and more enlightened generation. Nihilism cannot be better described than by the Nihilists themselves in their speeches, proclamations, and writings. Here is a speech made in 1868, at Geneva, by the father of Nihilism, the arch-conspirator, Michael Bakunin, to whose history we shall have occasion to refer later on. Brethren, I come to announce unto you a new gospel, which must penetrate to the very ends of the world. This gospel admits of no half-measures and hesitations. The old world must be destroyed, and replaced by a new one. The Lie must be stamped out and give way to Truth. It is our mission to destroy the Lie; and, to effect this, we must begin at the very commencement. Now the beginning of all those lies which have ground down this poor world in slavery, is God. For many hundred years monarchs and priests have inoculated the hearts and minds of mankind with this notion of a God ruling over the world. They have also invented for the people the notion of another world, in which their God is to punish with eternal torture those who have refused to obey their degrading laws here on earth. This God is nothing but the personification of absolute tyranny, and has been invented with a view of either frightening or alluring nine-tenths of the human race into submission to the remaining tenth. If there were really a God, surely he would use that lightning which he holds in his hand, to destroy those thrones, to the steps of which mankind is chained. He would assuredly use it to overthrow those altars, where the truth is hidden by clouds of lying incense. Tear out of your hearts the belief in the existence of God; for, as long as an atom of that silly superstition remains in your minds, you will never know what freedom is. When you have got rid of the belief in this priest-begotten God, and when, moreover, you are convinced that your existence, and that of the surrounding world, is due to the conglomeration of atoms, in accordance with the laws of gravity and attraction, then, and then only, you will have accomplished the first step towards liberty, and you will experience less difficulty in ridding your minds of that second lie which tyranny has invented. The first lie is God. The second lie is Right. Might invented the fiction of Right in order to insure and strengthen her reign; that Right which she herself does not heed, and which only serves as a barrier against any attacks which may be made by the trembling and stupid masses of mankind. Might, my friends, forms the sole groundwork of society. Might makes and unmakes laws, and that might should be in the hands of the majority. It should be in the possession of those nine-tenths of the human race whose immense power has been rendered subservient to the remaining tenth by means of that lying fiction of Right before which you are accustomed to bow your heads and to drop your arms. Once penetrated with a clear conviction of your own might, you will be able to destroy this mere notion of Right. And when you have freed your minds from the fear of a God, and from that childish respect for the fiction of Right, then all the remaining chains which bind you, and which are called science, civilisation, property, marriage, morality, and justice, will snap asunder like threads. Let your own happiness be your only law. But in order to get this law recognised, and to bring about the proper relations which should exist between the majority and minority of mankind, you must destroy everything which exists in the shape of State or social organisation. So educate yourselves and your children that, when the great moment for constituting the new world arrives, your eyes may not be blinded and deceived by the falsehoods of the tyrants of throne and altar. Our first work must be destruction and annihilation of everything as it now exists. You must accustom yourselves to destroy everything, the good with the bad; for if but an atom of this old world remains, the new will never be created. According to the priests' fables, in days of old a deluge destroyed all mankind, but their God specially saved Noah in order that the seeds of tyranny and falsehood might be perpetuated in the new world. When you once begin your work of destruction, and when the floods of enslaved masses of the people rise and engulf temples and palaces, then take heed that no ark be allowed to rescue any atom of this old world which we consecrate to destruction. In another of his speeches delivered at Berne in December 1868 he says: Your beautiful civilisation, ye gentlemen of the West, which you flout in the faces of us barbarians of the East, is based on the compulsory servitude of the immense majority of the human race, which is condemned to a slavish and almost bestial existence, in order that a very small minority may be able to live in luxury. This monstrous inequality in the conditions of life is due to your West-European system. It is incapable of improvement, for it is the necessary consequence of your civilisation, which is grounded on the sharply-defined separation existing between mental and manual labour. This degrading state of things cannot last much longer, for the manual labourers are determined to look after their own interests in future. They have decided that in future there shall be only one great class instead of two; that everybody shall have equal advantages for starting in life; that all shall enjoy the same privileges and support, the same means of education and bringing up; finally, that every one shall have the same advantages from his labour, not in consequence of any law, but by the mere nature of the work which will permit everybody to labour with his brain as well as with his hands. I detest Communism; it is the denial of freedom, and I do not like to picture to myself any human being without freedom. I oppose it because it concentrates and absorbs all the forces of society, and because it places all property and capital in the hands of the Commune or of the State. In demanding the abolition of Commune and State, I also wish for the annulment of the law of inheritance, which is nothing but an institution brought into life by the State, and a consequence of its principles. Give all children, from their very birth, the same means of support and education. Then grant to all grown-up people the same social standing and the same means of supplying their wants by their own labour, and you will see that the inequalities, which are now looked upon as being quite normal, will disappear, for they are merely the result of the difference made in the conditions of development. You can even improve nature by destroying the present social organisation. For, when you have succeeded in making everything and everybody equal, when you have equalised all the conditions of development and labour, then many crimes, miseries, and evils will disappear. After proceeding to advocate the abolition of marriage, which he condemns as a mere political and religious institution, he concludes by saying: It is impossible to destroy the superstition of religion by means of arguments or education. Religion is not only an aberration of the brain, but also a protest of human nature and human hearts against the misery and narrowness of the reality by which we are surrounded. As man finds nothing in this world but injustice, stupidity, and misery, he allows his fantasies to beget a new and a better one. When, however, the earth again receives her due, namely, happiness and fraternity, then religion will have lost its raison d'être. We need but a social revolution to bring about its disappearance. And again : Conscience is a mere matter of education. A Christian living in Europe, who has murdered anybody with cunning and premeditation, usually experiences a certain kind of remorse. But a Red Indian, who is every bit as much a man of flesh and blood, rejoices when he is able to surprise and slay a defenceless enemy. His conscience in no wise suffers from the act, for he has been taught from earliest youth that the more scalps he possesses, the better he will be received in the happy hunting-grounds of the great Manitou. The speech of another Nihilist is as follows: Nothing, in the present state of social organisation, can be worth much, for the simple reason that our ancestors instituted it. If we are still obliged to confess ourselves ignorant of the exact medium between good and evil, how could our ancestors, less enlightened than we, know it? A German philosopher has said: Every law is of use. It rules the conduct of individuals who feel for one another and appreciate their respective wants. Every religion, on the other hand, is useless; for, ruling, as it does, our relations with an incommensurable and indefinite Being, it can only be the result of a great terror, or else of a fantastic imagination.' Now we Nihilists say, No law, no religion-Nihil! The very men who instituted these laws ruling their fellow-creatures have lived and died in complete ignorance of the value of their own acts, and without knowing in the least how they had accomplished the mission traced for them by destiny at the moment of their birth. Even taking it for granted that our ancestors were competent to order the acts of their fellow-creatures, does it necessarily follow that the requirements of their time are similar to those of to-day? Evidently not. Let us, then, cast off this garment of law, for it has not been made according to our measure, and it impedes our free movements. Hither with the axe, and let us demolish everything. Those who come after us will know how to rebuild an edifice quite as solid as that which we now feel trembling over our heads. In another speech it is asserted that the deeds of political assassins and incendiaries are not the offspring of any sentiment of personal hatred or vengeance. They know full well that one emperor killed will merely be succeeded by another, who in his turn will again. nominate the chiefs of police and of the Third Section. Such deeds are justified by the necessity of rooting out from men's minds the habitual respect for the powers that be. The more the attacks on the Czar and his officials increase, the more will the people get to understand the absurdity of the veneration with which they have been regarded for centuries. When it becomes evident that a person cannot be more severely punished for the assassination of his sovereign than for the murder of a mere comrade, then the |
