CHAPTER VIIPHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS AND POLITICAL THEORYEven though SOUle histories of Russian philosophy mention Speran-
sky's name, it would be wrong to pretend that he was a creative and
original philosopher in any formal sense of the word. He was only a
thoughtful individual with a keen analytical mind, interested in phil-
osophy, who felt the need for understanding and explicitly clarifying
to himself the metaphysical and logical bases of his thinking. Unluckily
for his biographers, he never had the opportunity of formulating his
philosophical ideas as consistently and as systematically as his admin-
istrative schemes. In most cases, random reflections and comments jotted
down in the course of his readings, are all that has been preserved.
They are fragments that have to be pieced together without the
guidance of precise chronology' or even certainty as to their complete-
ness. But as a son of the 18th century, Speransky had an "esprit
systematique" and he always tried to determine the first principles of
the problems he had to face. From an attentive and close reading of
all the accessible evidence, therefore, there emerges a clear and rather
consistent philosophical Weltanschauung which may help us in better
understanding his political and administrative work.
Speransky's numerous and varied writings point to two main sources
of his thinking. In the first place, he possessed a profound and mystical
religious faith that satisfied his deepest psychological needs and filled
his emotional life almost completely (especially, after the loss of his
wife). In the second place, he had a philosophy in the formal sense,
consonant with his mysticism, which provided a framework for his
active and intellectual life. Because of the gaps in our sources, we
cannot always determine precisely to what extent and in what way
these two elements interacted and interpenetrated each other. The
present writer is not qualified to analyze and discuss adequately the
religious and mystical components of Speransky's thought. Fortunately,
this task has been exhaustively performed some time ago in two series
of learned articles, with abundant illustration from original manuscript