1915J General Monthly Meeting 415 



South African Association for the Advancement of Science — Annual Report, 



1912-13. 8vo. 1914. 

 Stonyhurst College Observatory — Results of the Meteorological, Magnetical 



and Seismological Observations, 1914, with Report and Notes by the 



Director, the Rev. W. Sidgreaves, S.J., F.R.A.S. 8vo. 1915. 

 Tokyo, Imperial ^cac?(?7«7/— Proceedings, Vol. I. No. 4. 8vo. 1914. 

 United States Department of Agriculture — Journal of Agricultural Research, 



Vol. III. No. 5, Feb. 1915. Svo. 

 Experiment Station Record, Vol. XXXII. Nos. 1-3, -Jan. 1915. Svo. 

 United States Patent O^ce— Official Gazette, Vol. CCXI. No. 3 ; Vol. CCXII. 



Nos. 1-4. Svo. 1915. 

 WasJiington, National Academy of Sciences — Memoirs, Vol. XII. No. 1. 4to. 



1914. 

 Western Australia, Agent-General — Monthlv Statistical Abstract for Nov. 1914. 



4to. 

 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Z/^ff^rs— Transactions, Vol. XVII. 



Nos. 1-6. Svo. 1914. 



WEEKLY EVEXINO MEETING, 

 Friday, April 16, 1915. 



J. H. Balfour Browne, K.C. D.L. J.P. LL.D., 



Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Stephen Graham, 



Author of " The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary," 

 " With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem," etc. 



The Russian Idea. 



Those familiar with ideas can tell at sight, a German idea, an 

 American idea, a Russian idea, a Roman Catholic idea, and so on. 

 Each nation has its fundamental idea, its mother idea, the idea of 

 which all other characteristic ideas are children. As Dostoieffsky 

 says : " No nation has ever been founded on science reason ; it has 

 always grown about some central idea," 



It is a remarkable fact that, although Russia is a great composite 

 empire with an enormous number of small nations and tribes under 

 her rule, she is not a country of mixed ideas. Her literature, art, 

 music, philosophy, religion, her theatre, her dancing, is something 

 intrinsically Russian. Xo Poles, Finns, Jews, Armenians, Kirghiz, 

 contribute to it. No German-Russians contribute to it. Of all the 

 names by which Russia is known as a nation mighty in art and in 

 thought not one belongs to the subject nations. In literature — 

 Dostoieffsky, Turgenief, Tolstoy, Gogol, Pushkin, Chekhof, Gorky, 

 Balmont ; in painting — Vasnetsof, Nesterof, Yerestchagin, Sierof ; 

 in music — Tchaikovsky, Korsakof, Mossugorsky ; in philosophy — 



2 E 2 



