But in order that real progress should be made, he thinks that certain current and fashionable errors must be avoided, and among these errors he places, in the first rank, the views and principles of the advanced Liberals, who have a blind admiration for Western Europe, and for what they are pleased to call the results of science.  Like the Liberals of the West, these gentlemen assume that the best form of government is constitutionalism, monarchical or republican, on a broad democratic basis, and towards the realisation of this ideal all their efforts are directed.  Not so our Conservative friend.  While admitting that democratic Parliamentary institutions may be the best form of government for the more advanced nations of the West, he maintains that the only firm foundation for the Russian Empire, and the only solid guarantee of its future prosperity, is the Autocratic Power, which is the sole genuine representative of the national spirit.  Looking at the past from this point of view, he perceives that the Tsars have ever identified themselves with the nation, and have always understood, in part instinctively and in part by reflection, what the nation really required.  Whenever the infiltration of Western ideas threatened to swamp the national individuality, the Autocratic Power intervened and averted the danger by timely precautions.  Something of the kind may be observed, he believes, at present, when the Liberals are clamouring for a Parliament and a Constitution; but the Autocratic Power is on the alert, and is making itself acquainted with the needs of the people by means far more effectual than could be supplied by oratorical politicians.

With the efforts of the Zemstvo in this direction, and with the activity of the Zemstvo generally, the Prince has little sympathy, partly because the institution is in the hands of the Liberals and is guided by their unpractical ideas, and partly because it enables some ambitious outsiders to acquire the influence in local affairs which ought to be exercised by the old-established noble families of the neighbourhood.  What he would like to see is an enlightened, influential gentry working in conjunction with the Autocratic Power for the good of the country.  If Russia could produce a few hundred thousand men like himself, his ideal might perhaps be realised.  For the present, such men are extremely rare—­I should have difficulty in naming a dozen of them—­and aristocratic ideas are extremely unpopular among the great majority of the educated classes.  When a Russian indulges in political speculation, he is pretty sure to show himself thoroughly democratic, with a strong leaning to socialism.