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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



is compared to the advancing tide. First the 

 Avave advances, and then it recedes, but only in 

 order to gain new force to advance further than 

 belore. To use this metaphor, I should say that 

 iu a country like ours the waves are mere rip- 

 ples. If we have what may be termed periods 

 of Liberal enthusiasm and periods of Conserva- 

 tive reaction, the enthusiasm does not drive us 

 very far forward, and the Conservatism simply 

 stops us without perceptibly pulling us back. In 

 countries like Russia, on the contrary, the tide ad- 

 vances in great rolling, foam-crested waves, and 

 the recoil is, of course, in proportion to the im- 

 pulse. It is in these moments of recoil that se- 

 cret societies are likely to appear. 



I say likely, because other conditions are 

 also requisite. If a people is in a state of com- 

 plete political passivity and indifference, there 

 may be conspiracies among those who surround 

 the throne, but there cannot be secret societies 

 in the proper sense of the term. It is only when 

 a certain portion of the public, excluded from 

 political influence, have imbibed political aspira- 

 tions which the}' are prevented from expressing 

 freely, that the formation of secret societies be- 

 comes possible. This is well illustrated in the 

 history of Russia. Since the end of the seven- 

 teenth century there have been four great reform- 

 ing epochs, associated respectively with the 

 names of Peter the Great, Catherine II., Alex- 

 ander I., and Alexander II. Each of these vio- 

 lent advances was succeeded by a corresponding 

 recoil, but the first two produced no secret soci- 

 eties, because the reform enthusiasm which pro- 

 duced them was confined to the rulers. There 

 was no outside public sharing the enthusiasm, 

 and excluded from the sobering influence which 

 experience and the possession of authority natu- 

 rally generate. All who moved forward in the 

 impulsion retreated voluntarily in the recoil ; 

 and when the Emperor Paul, Catherine's son 

 and successor, carried his reactionary policy ad 

 absurdum, he was opposed, not by secret socie- 

 ties, but merely by a little band of conspira- 

 tors — men belonging to the court — who re- 

 moved him by assassination. The two more re- 

 cent movements had a very different character, 

 and of them I must speak more in detail. While 

 resembling each other in their origin, they are 

 very different in their character and aim, and the 

 points of similarity and contrast were reflected 

 in the secret societies which they produced. Let 

 us glance first at those in the time of Alexan- 

 der I. 



In 1801 Alexander I. ascended the throne af- 



ter the violently-repressive reign of his father 

 Paul, who had a fanatical hatred of everything 

 which had the least odor of liberalism. Alexan- 

 der presented in almost every respect a marked 

 contrast to his father. He had been trained un- 

 der the eyes of the philosophic Catherine II. 

 by a Swiss tutor called Laharpe, a man of high 

 moral character and imbued with the liberalism 

 then in fashion. Under the influence of this 

 teacher he had, at the age of nineteen, in spite 

 of the reactionary spirit that was then dominant 

 at court, learned to hate despotism in all its 

 forms, to love liberty as something to which 

 every human being had an inalienable right, and 

 even to rejoice at the success of the French 

 Revolution ! He wished to see republics estab- 

 lished everywhere, and regarded that form of 

 government as the only one consistent with the 

 rights of man. For the first time in her history, 

 Russia received as her legitimate, autocratic 

 czar, a young sentimental republican ! 



As soon as this young republican succeeded 

 to the throne, he determined to put his philo- 

 sophical principles into practice on a grand scale. 

 A boundless field of activity opened itself up to 

 his imagination. He would make his subjects 

 free, civilized, prosperous, and happy, and 

 would then retire, like Washington, to the ranks 

 of private life, where he would enjoy, without 

 the cares and responsibilities of office, the love 

 and veneration of his emancipated countrymen. 



These youthful dreams, I need scarcely say, 

 were not destined to be realized. Alexander was 

 not of the stuff of which great reformers are 

 made. His policy did not proceed from vigorous 

 natural instincts, as in the case of Peter the 

 Great, nor from keen political sagacity, as in the 

 case of Catherine II. His political aspirations 

 were the result of education on a weak, impres- 

 sionable character, and, as such, could ill bear 

 the rough handling of real life. He had been 

 taught to believe that a sovereign had merely to 

 be virtuous, well-intentioned, and animated with 

 the liberal spirit of the time, in order to render 

 his people prosperous and happy. But gradu- 

 ally he discovered how different real life is from 

 theory. By bitter experience he learned that 

 high aims, liberal convictions, and autocratic 

 power do not suffice to make a successful reform- 

 er. Looking back over a reign of more than 

 twenty years, he could not but feel that he had 

 realized few of his youthful aspirations, and that 

 his humanitarianism and liberalism had proved a 

 mistake. In the army he saw insubordination 

 and disaffection ; in the civil administration ve- 



