other topics; the chief authors translated were Varenius, Vignola, Vauban and Braun, Allard and Manson, Puffendorff and Stratemann; the Tsar printed, moreover, a defence of his right to dethrone his own son, with quotations from Hobbes and Grotius: and he published a pamphlet, explaining the circumstances that provoked the Great Northern war.
The stream of thought, produced by these somewhat artificial and, in certain cases, violent means, continued to flow and received some new contributions in the 18th and 19th centuries, from German, French and English sources.
These influences, on which I cannot dwell at length, were of different kinds: German philosophy excited in Russian coteries a growing interest in the problem of unity of thought, of a systematic conception of the world, of a harmonious comprehension of nature and man; but it was often marked by its transcendent, metaphysical character, and exceeded the limits of positive science and learning which German scholars were introducing into Russia.
In this respect German influence was supplemented by other movements: French sensualism and English empiricism did much to promote the rise of secular thought and its development in Russia; and the culmination of French and English science which crowned the 18th century and inaugurated the 19th has contributed as much as German learning, and perhaps even more, to the growth of Russian thought in its secular aspect. These influences enriched it, moreover, with new and valuable contents.
The influence of Germany on Russian thought,
