The conceptions of legality, of larger patriotism, of national duties and
aspirations have grown under the shadow of the old monarchies of Europe,
which were the creations of historical necessity. There were seeds of
wisdom in their very mistakes and abuses. They had a past and a future;
they were human. But under the shadow of Russian autocracy nothing could
grow. Russian autocracy succeeded to nothing; it had no historical past,
and it cannot hope for a historical future. It can only end. By no
industry of investigation, by no fantastic stretch of benevolence, can it
be presented as a phase of development through which a Society, a State,
must pass on the way to the full consciousness of its destiny. It lies
outside the stream of progress. This despotism has been utterly
un-European. Neither has it been Asiatic in its nature. Oriental
despotisms belong to the history of mankind; they have left their trace
on our minds and our imagination by their splendour, by their culture, by
their art, by the exploits of great conquerors. The record of their rise
and decay has an intellectual value; they are in their origins and their
course the manifestations of human needs, the instruments of racial
temperament, of catastrophic force, of faith and fanaticism.
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