When we are obliged to legislate, we proceed in a cautious, tentative way, and are quite satisfied with any homely, simple remedies that common sense and experience may suggest, without taking the trouble to inquire whether the remedy adopted is in accordance with scientific theories.

In short, there is a certain truth in those "famous prophetick pictures" spoken of by Stillingfleet, which "represent the fate of England by a mole, a creature blind and busy, continually working under ground." In Russia we find the opposite extreme.

There reformers have been trained, not in the arena of practical politics, but in the school of political speculation.

As soon, therefore, as they begin to examine any simple matter with a view to legislation, it at once becomes a "question," and flies up into the region of political and social science.

Whilst we have been groping along an unexplored path, the Russians have--at least in recent times--been constantly mapping out, with the help of foreign experience, the country that lay before them, and advancing with gigantic strides according to the newest political theories.