The word "Nihilist" is, however, a somewhat misleading one. It was conferred at first as a nickname. Afterwards it was adopted (like the name of the _Gueux_) in a kind of dare-devil mood; and has covered, ever since, a great many varieties of political and social discontent, as well as of philosophical Radicalism. There are Nihilists who, from the sheer hopelessness engendered by a tyranny lasting a thousand years, have come to cultivate a Philosophy of Despair, of Disgust, and of Destruction, without troubling themselves as to the constitution of the Future. These are men that profess a wish to do away with all State organizations, for the sake of a morbid Individualism. Others there are who, in the semi-revolutionary vein of Comte, incline towards a socialist Collectivism in a rather utopian, not to say hierarchic, form. To them the word "Nihilist" is scarcely applicable. Strictly speaking, the word "Nihilist" covers, at most, a small group of persons of a brooding and impracticable temper, such as is sometimes created under the darkest tyrannies. It may be doubted whether the majority of those who use the dagger and the revolver without compunction against the vile _sbirri_ of an intolerable despotism would call themselves Nihilists, or even Socialists. The greater number of the members of the secret leagues are believed to hold views not far removed from those which have found a practical expression in some freely constituted countries. The violent means employed are, with many, only the outcome of a feeling of revenge easily to be understood under the circumstances; or else they are regarded as a dire necessity in insurrectionary warfare. True, there have been Russians abroad who spoke of "abolishing the Family and Property." But nothing warrants the assumption that this is the principle of the Nihilists in Russia itself. If either mere anarchy, or a system of barrack Communism, be the object of the majority of the men and women whose deeds have of late riveted the attention of all Europe, it is hard to comprehend that these conspirators should have secured so many friends among classes which by education and position cannot possibly have any sympathy with mere destructive or utopian schemes. Of the existence of numerous friends of the Nihilists in the higher classes there is, however, no doubt. Thus only can the hold be explained which the occult propaganda of this _hic et ubique_ conspiracy has obtained upon the commonwealth. VI.