In former days," said Golenishtchev, not observing, or not willing to observe, that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, "in former days the free-thinker was a man who had been brought up in ideas of religion, law, and morality, and only through conflict and struggle came to free-thought; but now there has sprung up a new type of born free-thinkers who grow up without even having heard of principles of morality or of religion, of the existence of authorities, who grow up directly in ideas of negation in everything, that is to say, savages.

Well, he's of that class.

He's the son, it appears, of some Moscow butler, and has never had any sort of bringing-up.

When he got into the academy and made his reputation he tried, as he's no fool, to educate himself.