Tichon would have learnt little in the school had he not attracted the attention of one of his teachers, the Pastor Glück, a native of Königsberg. Glück, who had acquired a kind of Russian from a runaway Polish monk, came to Russia “to teach,” quoting his own words, “the Muscovy youths, who were soft and impressionable as clay.” He was soon disillusioned however, not so much by the youths themselves, as by the Russian method employed in training them, “like horses,” knocking knowledge into their heads with whips. Glück was kind and clever in spite of being a drunkard; sorrow drove him to drink, because not only Russians but even Germans considered him mad. He was engaged upon an enormous task, the writing of commentaries on “Newton’s Commentary to the Apocalypse”; a book in which all Christian revelations concerning the end of the world were proved by minute astronomical calculations, based on the laws of gravitation, laid down in Newton’s recently published “Philosophæ Naturalis Principia Mathematical.”
He discovered in his pupil Tichon an extraordinary gift for mathematics; he loved him dearly, as his own kin.
After a glass or two, he would converse with Tichon as with his dearest friend, forgetful of his age. He used to tell him about the new teachings in philosophy; about Bacon’s “Magna Instauratio,” Spinoza’s “Geometrical Ethics,” Descartes’ “Vortices,” “The Monads of Leibnitz”; but the greatest inspiration kindled in him when talking about the great discoveries in astronomy, made by Copernicus, Kepler and Newton. The boy could not follow all he heard, yet he listened to these accounts of scientific wonders as eagerly as he did to the talks of the three old men about the legendary town.
As to Pahómitch, he considered all foreign science, especially astrology and astronomy, blasphemous. “The damned Copernicus rivals God Himself,” he used to say, “he has lifted the heavy globe into the air; it is nothing but a dream, all this nonsense about the sun and the stars being fixed while the earth alone goes round; it is clean contrary to Holy Writ. Theologians laugh at him.”
“True philosophy,” Pastor Glück was wont to say, “is not only useful, but even necessary to faith. Many of the Holy Fathers excelled in philosophy. Knowledge of nature does not impede Christianity, and God honours him who strives to explore nature. To reason about the created tends to the glory of the Creator, for it is written; ‘the heavens declare the glory of God.’”
A vague instinct, however, told Tichon that this reconciliation between knowledge and faith was not quite as simple and easy even to Glück, as the latter believed, or tried to believe. It was not without reason, that sometimes, after a learned debate with himself about the plurality of worlds and the incomprehensibility of cosmic space, the drunken old man, oblivious of his pupil’s presence, would in exhaustion lay his bald head on the table-edge, his wig awry, dazed not so much with wine, as by the confusing metaphysical thoughts, and groan, repeating Newton’s celebrated words:—
“O Physica—save me from Metaphysica!”
One day Tichon found on his teacher’s table a manuscript collection of Spinoza’s letters, which had been brought from Holland. Tichon, nineteen at that time and about to leave school, could read Latin fluently. He opened the book, the first lines he chanced to see were these: “There is much in common between man’s nature and God’s, as between the constellation of the Dog and the dog, the barking animal. For I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would in like manner say that God is eminently triangular, and a circle, that the Divine nature is in an eminent manner circular.” And in another letter concerning the Eucharist: “Oh, foolish youth! Who has so bewitched you as to make you believe in the possibility of swallowing something holy and eternal? as if holy and eternal things could remain in your bowels! Stupendous are the sacraments of your church, they are contrary to reason!” Tichon closed the book, he read no further. For the first time in his life thought had roused in him the old feeling of terror at the end of all things, which so far had only been called forth by external impressions.
In the Súkharev tower, James Bruce had a well-stocked library, a cabinet of mathematical, mechanical and other instruments, also a collection of natural objects: animals, insects, plants, various ores and minerals, antiquities, old coins, medals, cut stones, larvae, and foreign, as well as Russian curiosities. Bruce had commissioned Glück to catalogue all the books and objects. Tichon helped him, and spent whole days in the library.