PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS AND POLITICAL THEORY 223situation is further complicated by the fact that a given society, though
an organic unit, may include groups of different age levels. This, of
course, was especially true of Russia ~ as Speransky had observed in the
provinces. In Russia the nobility had reached the "maturity" of Western
Europe, while the peasantry was still in the "youthful stage" of a more
primitive civilization. One of the aims of education and of government
action is to help equalize these levels. 1 But the process of development,
whether of separate social groups or of society as a whole, cannot be
speeded up artificially by mechanical means. It cannot be forced upon
an unprepared and unwilling population. Agreeing with the romantic
thinkers of his time, Speransky believed only in a gradual transforma-
tion. The social organism should not be forced into ready-made molds.
Only slow and careful efforts aiming at a spread of education and, more
particularly, at a spiritual transformation of the people, can secure
permanent amelioration and progress in government. 2 As in gardening,
the growth of the body politic can be guided, but only on the condition
that no violence is done to the natural predisposition of the "plants."
Actually, government is an auxiliary in the spiritual development and
education (in the broadest sense) of the people. Thus, for Russia, the
question is: can the necessary moral forces be developed? 3 Speransky
was certain that government and kingship should never be founded on
considerations of the private interests of individuals or groups. Because
"everything which we call interest (interet) is but a relative good, and
all relative good is' nothing else but benefit, a means towards an end,
a goal." 4 He developed this idea in a letter from Tobol'sk, dated
August 15, 1820: "The predominance of the nobility is harmful, the
predominance of the merchants more harmful, and the predominance
of the people a real tragedy," and to prevent it, one must have the rule
of one man. 5 But this one ruler, the autocrat, can and should be above
all private interests, for if he were to ally himself with any single
interest, it would lead to its complete dominance at the expense of the
people's welfare. In Speransky's view, such a misuse of the divine and
1 Ibid., p. 801.
2 In Burkian manner, Speransky said: "The former [government measures] are
easy but not durable, for they do not have guarantees [of prescription]. The latter
[legislation] are difficult but enduring, for they are founded not on the letter [of
the law] but on the living, active moral force." "Nuzhdy i zhelaniia," Pamiati, p. 814.
3 "0 sile pravitel'stva," lac. cit., p. 496.
4 Speranskii. "Poniatie dobra i pol'zy," Pravoslavnyi Sobesednik, (1889), part III,
p.564.
5 "The confusion of sovereign right with lower rights (i.e., that of individuals
and groups) is actually called despotism. It is not a special form of right but a
confusion of rights, a blending of the divine with the human (rniscet divilla hUlIlal1ae),
of the sovereign and of the subject," "Pravo verkhovnoe," Pamiati p. 802 - see
also, Pamiati p. 819.