when we read that the empress Josephine spent during six years no less than five and twenty million francs upon dress, the extravagance of the "Semiramis of the North" becomes more comprehensible.
These, of course, are mere details. European philosophers of history have ere this effected a thorough criticism of the development and of the present condition of the various western peoples, and have endeavoured to fashion new ideals. Nietzsche was not first in the field with his demand for the revaluation of values.
Herzen and many of his successors had little love for Europe, esteeming Europe far less highly than their predecessors and the westernisers had done; but such judgments must be accepted with caution, since they are those of refugees who never struck firm root in European soil. In some cases, and this is especially true of Herzen, these writers' vision was obscured by Russian prejudice. One becomes used in time even to hanging—the proverb applies to Russians as well as to Europeans. Our judgments concerning Europe and Russia must have a sociological, a philosophico-historical foundation.
In Europe there still exist medieval Catholicism and the papacy, whose philosophic foundations have long since been undermined; in Europe we find that ecclesiastical Protestantism still persists, though it too is philosophically outworn; Europe remains familiar with absolute monarchy, which proved competent after the revolution to convert constitutionalism and parliamentarism into its own instruments (tsarism, too, will in due course achieve the like success!); Europe knows monarchical militarism, and Europe knows capitalism—in Europe, in a word, democracy is not yet secure, and the political strength of theocracy is still considerable. It is true that in point of principle the European theocracy no longer possesses any philosophic basis, whilst politically the theocracy has been so greatly weakened that it is compelled to compromise with democracy. Speaking generally, Europe is the land of compromise, of half-measures; but they are the half-measures of transition. The philosopher of history can already regard democracy as an attainable ideal, and as the predestined heir of theocracy.
The danger in Russia is that many Russians do not feel this conviction as far as their own country is concerned.
Europe has to face the problem of the suicidal impulse, the
