222 PIDLOSOPIDCAL VIEWS AND POLITICAL THEORY
fashion, he turned "problems of politics into problems of administra-
tion." 1
Speransky soon experienced himself dramatically the danger of
relying entirely on the personal qualities of the sovereign. His sudden
dismissal and exile were a telling reminder that to live under an auto-
cracy meant to be at the mercy of the monarch. During his long exile
and retirement, he had ample opportunity to reflect on this lesson. His
return to active life gave him an opportunity to broaden his political
and administrative knowledge in an area he had slighted until then -
local administration. He came to appreciate better the importance of
local government, and he related his political analyses more closely to
the state of Russia at the time. This newly gained awareness found
expression in a series of fragmentary notes which he wrote down
between the years 1812 and 1826.
In becoming better acquainted with German romantic philosophies
during his exile, he was fascinated by their view of the organic charac-
ter of the world and of nature's development. He felt that these cosmol-
ogical ideas could be applied to political societies as well. Societies and
nations go through different stages of development; like living beings,they have a childhood, mature age, and an old age. It is essential not to
confuse these ages; "the legislator cannot and should not change this
age, but he should know it exactly and govern each according to its
own character." 2 One cannot expect a child to perform the actions otan adult, nor should one be surprised if an old man refuses to be
treated like a child. "Each age has its advantages and its weaknesses.
One can forest.all an age by means of laws, but this is highly unreason-
able, unless there are some very strong arguments for it in external
circumstances." 3 This is true of political bodies as well. And though
it may be perhaps best to preserve a society at a given "age level," it is
well nigh impossible, for everybody is part of a larger organism. This
Napoleon's "constitution" could be applied almost literally to his own: "Les prin-
cipaux traits de cette organisation sont les suivants: 1. constituer un corps depositaire
en apparence d'un pouvoir legislatif independant, mais qui dans Ie fait soit sous
l'influence et entiere dependance du Pouvoir absolu. 2. RegIer Ie pouvoir executif
sur la base d'une Ioi dont Ia lettre Ie rende responsable, tandis que par l'esprit de
cette meme loi il se trouverait reellement independant. 3. Laisser au pouvoir
judiciaire toutes les prerogatives d'une liberte apparente, mais Ie lier par desinstitutions qui Ie mettent a la disposition du Pouvoir absolu." (Speransky's statement
to Alexander I in 1809 - manuscript in Repinskoe sobranie) quoted by S. Prut-
chenko, Sibirskie okrainy: oblastnye ustanovleniia, sviazannye s Sibirskim Uchrezh-
deniem 1822 g. v stToe upravleniia Tusskogo gosudaTstva, vol. I, (St Pbg. 1899),
p. 176 (note 1).
1 K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, (N. Y. 1951), p. 105.
2 Speranskii, "0 vozraste obshchestv i 0 soobrazhenii s nim mer zakonodatel'nykh,"
Pamiati, p. 800.
3 Ibid.