In the books on political economy--in Mill, for instance, whom he studied first with great ardor, hoping every minute to find an answer to the questions that were engrossing him--he found laws deduced from the condition of land culture in Europe; but he did not see why these laws, which did not apply in Russia, must be general.

He saw just the same thing in the socialistic books: either they were the beautiful but impracticable fantasies which had fascinated him when he was a student, or they were attempts at improving, rectifying the economic position in which Europe was placed, with which the system of land tenure in Russia had nothing in common.

Political economy told him that the laws by which the wealth of Europe had been developed, and was developing, were universal and unvarying.

Socialism told him that development along these lines leads to ruin.