In confirmation of this view I may mention two facts which have often attracted my attention.  The first is that the Molokanye—­a primitive Evangelical sect of which I shall speak at length in the next chapter—­succumb gradually to German influence; by becoming heretics in religion they free themselves from one of the strongest bonds attaching them to the past, and soon become heretics in things secular.  The second fact is that even the Orthodox peasant, when placed by circumstances in some new sphere of activity, readily adopts whatever seems profitable.  Take, for example, the peasants who abandon agriculture and embark in industrial enterprises; finding themselves, as it were, in a new world, in which their old traditional notions are totally inapplicable, they have no hesitation in adopting foreign ideas and foreign inventions.  And when once they have chosen this new path, they are much more “go-ahead” than the Germans.  Freed alike from the trammels of hereditary conceptions and from the prudence which experience generates, they often give a loose rein to their impulsive character, and enter freely on the wildest speculations.

The marked contrast presented by a German colony and a Russian village in close proximity with each other is often used to illustrate the superiority of the Teutonic over the Slavonic race, and in order to make the contrast more striking, the Mennonite colonies are generally taken as the representatives of the Germans.  Without entering here on the general question, I must say that this method of argumentation is scarcely fair.  The Mennonites, who formerly lived in the neighbourhood of Danzig and emigrated from Prussia in order to escape the military conscription, brought with them to their new home a large store of useful technical knowledge and a considerable amount of capital, and they received a quantity of land very much greater than the Russian peasants possess.  Besides this, they enjoyed until very recently several valuable privileges.  They were entirely exempted from military service and almost entirely exempted from taxation.  Altogether their lines fell in very pleasant places.  In material and moral well-being they stand as far above the majority of the ordinary German colonists as these latter do above their Russian neighbours.  Even in the richest districts of Germany their prosperity would attract attention.  To compare these rich, privileged, well-educated farmers with the poor, heavily taxed, uneducated peasantry, and to draw from the comparison conclusions concerning the capabilities of the two races, is a proceeding so absurd that it requires no further comment.