210 PWLOSOPIDCAL VIEWS AND POLITICAL THEORY
performance of the ritual of religion with other faithful, go to Church.
to hear mass and partake of communion with other believers. 1 Actually.
society is a means only, a stage for the achievement of a higher goal
which very few individuals can attain unaided and in isolation. As
Speransky explains it, "The revolt against the social order comes from
the fact that men have been taught to regard this social order as an
ultimate aim of being and do not see anything beyond it. Society is a
stage, not the culmination of the moral order. The summit is religion." 2;
These reflections lead him to an examination of the origin and
character of society and of the moral aspect of men's existence.
Society is not the result of convenience and the mechanical and
atomistic combination and interplay of private individual interests.
Society has a high moral and unifying function in counteracting the
brutishness and atomization of individuals left to themselves. Inciden-
tally, Speransky here follows quite closely in the footsteps of Fichte and
German romantic philosophy, which also developed under the influence
of the religious revival of the latter part of the 18th century. Outside
of society, the individual is but a savage without any moral law or
order.^3 Justice too is possible only in union with others, an isolated
individual cannot be just, even if he is in communion with God. 4-
There is a social order when two individuals freely recognize their
mutual freedom and moral rights. "As soon as two persons agree
among themselves to recognize one another as moral beings ... there is
formed between them a social union (Ie lien de la vie sociale)." 5 They
arrive at this recognition in order to foster their mutual liberty and
moral right and to achieve the higher goal - attainment of God.
From this follows Speransky's definition of right and liberty as an
essential cause and basis of society. First of all, right and liberty are
not synonymous or interchangeable. Right is truly the recognition of
the liberty of the other individual and the latter's recognition of one's
own. Without right we would be dealing not with individuals and
persons, but with brute animal beings.^6 In the second place, liberty
then, is neither an absolute nor merely the absence of restraint andfreedom from something or somebody. It is the subjection of an in-
1 Cf. Speranskii's letters to P. A. Slovtsov, 6 Aug. 1813 and 3 Oct. 1829, in
Pamiati, pp. 46-51 and 431, respectively; see also his letter to his daughter, 21
Nov. 1816, Russkii Arkhiv, (1868), pp. 1114-1115.
2 Speranskii, "Tsel' obshchezhitiia," Pamiati, p. 828.
3 Speranskii, "0 nachale obshchestv," Pamiati, p. 793.
4-"Justice is a form 01' truth. One cannot be just in union with God alone or inunion with oneself, one can be just only in union with others." Speranskii, "0
vliianii razuma i sovesti na zhelaniia i namereniia," Pamiati, p. 838.
5 "0 nachale obshchestv," loco cit., p. 789 (sic).
6 Speranskii, "Svoboda," Pamiati, p. 788 (sic).