RUSSIA S GIFT TO THE WORLD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 19 May 1915, Page 2

RUSSIA S GIFT TO THE WORLD.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN ARTS AND SCIENCES.

Professor Mackail has accomplished a very useful task in compiling a Tmef account of Russian achievements in the arts and sciences which he has pub- i lished under the title of-'Rusisa's Gift to the World." Bis object has been to dispel a belief often expressed in England at the beginning of the war, and still constantly expressed in Germany, that, judged by the contributions of : other nations to the common stock of' knowledge and ideas, Russia is a bar- j barous country. For this purpose he has consulted a number of distinguished , men, each of whom is an authority on i his own department. He has, for in- j stance,, gone to the mathematicians to | learn about Russian mathematics, to' the physicists to learn about physics in Russia, to the physiologists to learn about Russian physiology. Neither by this nor any other method could Professor Mackail write a dull essay, and even his scientific sections are of the greatest interest. But the difference between the sections on literature and those oii science is a warning to any-I one who thinks that*he can appreciate ! Russia by taking the word of another, i however clearly and however wisely i that authority5 may' write. It is only ] the expert who can appreciate what! Russia has done, and may do, for the world, and, fortunately, in the one branch of. work in which the Russian genius has flourished beyond any oilier, in imaginativeliterature, the "man in the street, the, average sensual ma«,' is as well qualified to become an expert as the most learned teacher. The characteristics of the Russian people, both in science and in literature, is on^ with which English people should have a grea;t deal of sympathy. The vacs tends rather to the production of a few great men than to a general!v high level achievement. Theirs is a land of men, not of schools. This proposition is certainly true of science, and unless English readers are deceived by >tlie difficulty of translation, it is true also of literature. In Russia the level of scientific education is low, and many promising students have for this reason done their best work in other countries. Professor Mackail, however, mentions the names of many men who stayed and did their best research in Russia, and yet have each acquired a Jiuropean reputation. The greatest, or one of the greatest, of living physiologists, Pavlof, is a Russian. To him modern students owe the greater part of their knowledge of the iunctions of digestion in the nigher animals, and a grea't deal of .their knowledge of the brain. Though his work is still going on, he was one of the first to receive tile Mobel prize. I notiier departments of the biological sciences discoveiies of almost equai importance have been inade by four other men. Vinogradsky and other Russian investigatois have thrown new light on one of the main problems of practical agriculture, tiio application of atmospheric nitrogen to the nutrition of plants. Kolaveskv has acquired a place in all the text books for his discoveries in embryology. Danilevsky.is one of the first of a large army of scientists who have studied tne contents of *he blood and levealed the causes of such maladies as maiaru, sleeping sickness, and syphiiis.

Timirassv, oesides adding greatly to the world's knowledge oi p.uiit ''"me has done tor Kussia wiiat Ruxiey and lyndai did for England by popularising tiie lessons of science, and guiding his countrymen to the writings oi other nations than their own. In the pur.3 science of mathematics t\\ o Russian names stand in the very front rank. In tiie development of new Euclidean geometry and iu all that has followed from it, Lobachevsky and Minkovsky have done work of tne finest originality, and of the utmost value. Other Russians have added landmarks to a science which can claim to be at least as certain a test of the disinterested intellect as the speculations of Germany. Both these two men have been pioneers, both in method and in hypothesis, without whom the modern study of" mathematics would have lost half its present freedom. In physical science and in chemistry Russia also has two great names, fit to stand beside any others in the history of science. Mendelev, by the publication of his wellknown periodic law of the elements, has changed the whole current of thought in the chemical world, and gained a place beside Boyle, Lavoisier, and Dalton. Lebedev in physics was the first to detect the minute pressur.3 exercised by light upon a reflecting surface by a triumph of experimental skill and ingenuity. Other Russians have accomplished work of the first order on all the novel problems of physics, both in their own and in foreign Laboratories, and one of them, Hvulson, has produced the best modern text books. In all the branches of geography they have been equally successful. The physical and geographical sciences are, indeed, striking exceptions to the rule already noted, that in Russia we must look only for individual eminence. In geography as in physics there has been a school of able men, who with the colonising genius of their race have mapped out and studied all the peoples, climates, and soils of their vast Empire. The Russian Geographical Society has a record which began long before Russia was known to the averageeducated man in Europe. It is a record of united and persistent effort, of which the final triumph is due in a large -neasiire to pioneers, to whom the Government has given good reason to desert the service of their country.

It might he said of Russian scientists that if they had never lived their work would certainly have been done by other students in other countries. Such a criticism, could it be made, of the greatest gift of Russia to the world, the novels of three supremely great writers and of a number of lesser novelists and playwrights, who, if their talents were not of the very first order, have disclosed an outlook on life to which there is not, and could not, be anything similar outside their own country. Knowledge of the greater Russian novelists came slowly to England cwing to the slovenliness of the earlv translators lint, oneo known, they were sure of an appreciative audience, if only for the contrast between English and Russian ideals. Tolstoi Mid Turgeniev felt as deeply as Hardy and MerediMx the effect of climate and'landscape on character. In "War and Peace,' 1 "Anna Karenina," in "Fathers and Sons" and "Virgin Soil," the reader feels the influence of the illimitable spaces of Russia insensibly moulding the thoughts and controlling the actions of vital men and women. Unquestionably, if we are ever to understand the feelings of Russia in this war we must read her great novelists and begin with the most entirely Russian of the three, Dostoievsky The plays and the theatres of which Mi-

Mackall 4d\ us are the delight of European canieaJs. 'Jhe music of xtussian composers has given new forms and new ideas-to the artists of the world. These, however, are for the pre&unt ac- I cessibie to a few only, even though Mr I MacMahon has produced the Vwya of! Tchekoft in Melbourne. But anyone can read tho great Russian novelists, anyone who knows how to get through for.ms and artifices to breathing :u3n and vvojncii living on o visible earth. Since ihey wrote Russia has made great changes. There has been a reconciliation between -executive and people, and many social reforms. Yet if we wish to find the true spirit of Russia we must locrk for it in the imaginative writers, not so much in Turgeniey, who wrote of a passing generation^ but in the earlier Tolstoi and in Dostoievsky, the exile and martyr; in such books as "Dead Souls" ; "The Brothers £aramasov," and "Crime and Punishment." The belief which still sustains the Russian people was expressed by Dostoievsky in a now familiar passage in "The Brothers Karamsov" : —"I have been amazed all my life in our great people by their dignity, their true and seemly dignity. They are not. servile, and even after two .centuries of serfdom they are free in manner and bearing. They are without insolence, and not revengeful and not envious. You are rich i and noble, you are clever and talent--1 ed; well, be so, God bless you. I especjfc you, but I know that I, too, I am j a man. By the-very fact that I respect j you without envy. I prove that I am a ; man. God will save Russia, because i Russia is great in her humility. It wi)l | come to pass that even the most corrupt of our' rich will end by being ashamed before the poor, and the poor : seeing his humility will understand and | give way before him, will. nssDond jcyI fully and kindly to his honorable ;,shame. We preserve the. image of , 'Christ,'' arrl it will shine forth like a 'precious dirunoml to the whole world' ;So bo it. So be it."