as publicist he was in uninterrupted contact with Russian friends and opponents. For this reason Černyševskii was, if the expression be permissible, more Russian than Herzen or Bakunin. Russian questions of the day and Russian conditions, were his chief concern.
In further contrast with Herzen, Černyševskii was in philosophical matters more consistent and more stable. At the university and during the first years of his study of Feuerbach he was still a believer; but in the end Feuerbach got the better of faith, and thenceforward, from about 1850, Černyševskii remained a consistent positivist and materialist. He exhibited no trace of the metaphysical struggles which affected Herzen and which Herzen repeatedly described. Černyševskii, like Herzen, had to pass through the process of disillusionment, but as soon as it had been completed, this chapter of development. was closed for ever.
This is a mere outline sketch of Černyševskii, which must now be filled in, so far as a study of his writings renders that possible. Let me repeat, however, that in the case of Černyševskii, the man who makes so few direct references to himself and who far less than most other writers furnishes us with indirect disclosures of his personality, the lack of an adequate biography is peculiarly unfortunate.
Let us begin with an account of Černyševskii's philosophy. In doing so we can justify ourselves by quoting the author in person, for he contended that a man's practical life and all his other activities are largely determined by his general philosophical outlook.
The very title of his leading philosophical study, The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy (1860), suggests Feuerbach to our minds. In view of the censorship Černyševskii did not mention Feuerbach by name, but the contents of the book, show clearly enough that, as he once wrote from Siberia, he knew Feuerbach almost by heart.
Alike epistemologically and metaphysically Černyševskii adopts Feuerbach's anthropologism. Man as a sentient organism is for Černyševskii the arch-reality. Like Feuerbach, Černyševskii combines rationalism with sensualism, and like his German exemplar (whom in this point he outdoes) he utterly ignores epistemological criticism.
A special study of the subject would enable us to display the many points of contact between pupil and
