The Icon and the Axe

(whose detailed descriptive study of the human heart was written while Sechenov was studying under him in Paris), Sechenov attempted to make a purely physiological study of the brain. He piovid^dJhjsJa amp;s for the famed

Pavlovian theory of conditioned_£eJex^jwu1^1iis_ia^£njtiQn that all move

ments traditionaflyjiescnb_eil^jfjalmitar^^^material

reflexes in the strictest sense of Jh^jvord34

J ~~B^^^E^^_mQSLla^^JSS^SL^^^Bs was tne emergence of

P

tfae intelligentsia as a self-conscious and distinct sociaTgroup and*'ffs~crea-~ tion of the ?^~35??^?^^^?^^??^?1?1??^????^? ideaTn"aTa"haIP hidd^nhigher intelligence rules the world was, as we have seen, a common-* place of higher order Masonry; and Schwarz had actually introduced /'Various forms of the Latin intelligentia and intellectus into the Russian language in this exalted sense in the early 1780's. The Pocket Dictionary of the Petrashevtsy added the word "intellectual" (intellektual'ny) to the Russian vocabulary, suggesting that it had the all-embracing meaning of the Russian word for "spiritual" (dukhovny). This lofty conception of the ruling force of intelligence and the intellect was given a distinctly historical cast by Pisarev in his insistence that "the moving force of history is intelligentsia, the path of history is marked out by the level of theoretical development of intelligentsia."35

??? alsoi~a~specific group elt a certain sense of

But_the striking new feature about the use of the term "intelligentsia'^ in the sixtie^jsjhatitjr^mtjuit^ of^pEopfeTThis grouowas essentially those who

unity-through^fietiation becaaSe~5T^e»-^ti^ation in the iconoclasm of

the slxtleirTlteT^sl^^a liaTa"*"g7T~ac-

cented on the last syllable, and conceived as a member of this intelligentsiia) was used by the novelist Boborykin to describe his own sense of estrangement from the petty concerns of provincial life after returning to Nizhny Novgorod from Tartu, the freest university in the Russian empire in the 1850's. One of ^h5_reasonsJo£th£j;HejQa^ojnofthe intelligentsia frornjhe ordinary folk of Russia was revealed in the verb that was derived from the

name of this_prolific writer: boborykat' ("to talk endlessly^). But the_eyer-

prophetic Herzen ????????????????^alienation

and jjjg_gyCTJLUal fate of thTmtelligentsia in the pages of the Be?TSjulyL 1864. Having been long since rejected by the young generation, Herzen characterizes them as

. . . non-people^ne;^od}_:_._^Jntell^entsia _. ._. democratic Jojds (shliakhta\"commanders, and teachers . . . you ????? nothingr.'. . You have not yet thought about what Holsteln-Arakcheev, PeIelib~u"r^-TsarrsT^erS5c-racy means, soon^ you will feel that it means a redIcaj^jgnj^etrine cudgel. You shall be destroyed lrOhe abysTT'TTandjjgcm _your_grave. . . . there will look on, facing each other: from above a bodyguard the EmperoT^rSseainjjflnsiffo'wers ^????^???????^??^^^^ the worfdT and from below^Jhe^^ojlingj^fenjcjflus-^^eaLof^ the peo£le_ in which^yoSTsBaTl"vanish without a trace.36

Thus the intelligentsia are the leaders of the coming democracy who are destined to be devoured by it. They are alienated both from the ordinary people and from all the "self-willed" political authorities of the present, transitory world of repression.

The intelligentsia are not self-willed because they are dedicated men, as Shelgunov-a leading participant in the ferment of the sixties-stresses in his almost simultaneous article of May, 1864.

The intelligentsia of the XVIII century was purely bourgeois. . . . Only the intelligentsia of the XIX century, schooled in generalization, has posed as the aim of all its efforts the happiness of all . . . equality.37

That whichdeepened and intensified the sense of common dedications, within this aUenateo^iielllgeuiSTa-trasjtS growing belief that progress'was~an,‹‹l ????????????????. Following Pisarev's articles in 1865 on "The Historical Ideas of Auguste Comte" and several serialized works of the late sixties, such as Mikhailovsky's "What is Progress?" and Lavrov's Historical Letters, the nascent intelligentsia can be said to have found new encouragement and umty in the broad vision' oFprogress presented by Auguste ColmteT* Comte's idea that all of human activity moved" from theologythrough meta-phy"siCs~fo""a positive~or scientiHC stage encouraged them to believe that all sociaT problems would SQonJbfi resolved by the last and most promising of the positive sciences--the science of society^ Thus, the appeal which Comte haU^HdresseaTn'vain to Nicholas I to overleap the West by adopting his new "religion of humanity" elicited, in effect, a belated response a decade later from the alienated intelligentsia. They were excited by his appeal for a new aristocracy of talent rather than privilege, which would hasten the in-

evitable transformation of society by pledging themselves to the service of humanity and a socialism that was "practical" and "positive" rather than "metaphysical" and revolutionary.