those things which are necessary to the people. And therefore,
again, from the time of Egyptian and Hebrew antiquity, when wheat
and lentils had already been cultivated, down to our own times, not
a single plant has been added to the food of the people, with the
exception of the potato, and that was not obtained by science.

Torpedoes have been invented, and apparatus for taxation, and so
forth. But the spinning-whined, the woman's weaving-loom, the
plough, the hatchet, the chain, the rake, the bucket, the well-
sweep, are exactly the same as they were in the days of Rurik; and
if there has been any change, then that change has not been effected
by scientific people.

And it is the same with the arts. We have elevated a lot of people
to the rank of great writers; we have picked these writers to
pieces, and have written mountains of criticism, and criticism on
the critics, and criticism on the critics of the critics. And we
have collected picture-galleries, and have studied different schools
of art in detail; and we have so many symphonies and orchestras and
operas, that it is becoming difficult even for us to listen to them.
But what have we added to the popular bylini [the epic songs],
legends, tales, songs? What music, what pictures, have we given to
the people?

On the Nikolskaya books are manufactured for the people, and
harmonicas in Tula; and in neither have we taken any part. The
falsity of the whole direction of our arts and sciences is more
striking and more apparent in precisely those very branches, which,
it would seem, should, from their very nature, be of use to the
people, and which, in consequence of their false attitude, seem