From his main subject of Education, Tolstoy digresses in these articles into a discussion of other problems, in a way which reminds one of those wonderful essays he began to pour forth a quarter of a century later.
That he had been somewhat influenced by the Slavophils is indicated by his readiness to assume that Russia may advance along a line of her own, entirely different to that the Western nations have travelled. 'Progress,' in which like almost all his contemporaries he had believed, he now questions; and he indulges in a sharp attack on Macaulay for the third chapter of his History, which he says contains no proof that any real progress has been achieved. Buckle, similarly, is roughly handled for the assumption of progress that underlies his History of Civilisation; but most scathing of all is his onslaught upon Hegel, who (till Darwin appeared) was the rock on which many of the intellectual Liberals took their stand.
From the time of Hegel and his famous aphorism: 'What is historic is reasonable,' a very queer mental hocus-pocus has prevailed in literary and in verbal disputes, especially among us, under the name of 'the historic view.' You say, for instance, that man has a right to freedom, or to be tried on the basis of laws of which he himself approves; but the historic view replies that history evolves a certain historic moment conditioning a certain historic legislation and a people's historic relation thereto. You say you believe in a God; and the historic view replies that history evolves certain historic views and humanity's relation to those views. You say the Iliad is the greatest of epic works; and the historic view replies that the Iliad is merely the expression of the historic consciousness of a people at a certain historic moment. On this basis, the historic view does not dispute with you as to whether man needs freedom, or whether there is or is not a God, or whether the Iliad is good or bad: it does nothing to establish the freedom you desire; to persuade or dissuade you of the existence of a God or of the beauty of the Iliad; it merely points out to you the place your inner need or your love of truth or beauty, occupy in history. It merely recognises—and recognises not by direct cognition, but by historic ratiocination.
Say that you love or believe anything, and the historic view tells you: 'Love and believe, and your love and faith will find their place in our historic view. Ages will pass and we shall find the place you are to occupy in history. Know however in advance, that what you love is not absolutely beautiful, and what you believe in is not absolutely true; yet amuse yourselves, children: your love and faith will find their place and application.'
It is only necessary to add the word 'historic' to any conception you like, and that conception loses its real vital meaning, in an artificially-formed historic world-conception.
Of the introduction of telegraphs and railways he remarks that people attribute great importance to these inventions, and boast of the progress that is being made, declaring that:
'Man is mastering the forces of Nature. Thought, with the rapidity of lightning, flies from one end of the world to the other. Time is vanquished.'
This, says Tolstoy, is excellent and touching.
But let us see who gains by it. We are speaking of the progress of the electric telegraph. Evidently the advantage and use of the telegraph is reserved for the upper, so-called 'educated' class; while the people, nine-tenths of the whole, only hear the droning of the wires and are hampered by the strict laws made for the protection of the telegraph.
Along the wires flies the thought that the demand for such-and-such an article has increased, and that the price must therefore be raised; or the thought that I, a Russian landed proprietress, living in Florence, have, thank God, recovered from my nervous prostration, and that I embrace my adored husband and beg him to send me 40,000 francs as quickly as possible.