Leo Pasvolsky

“ A few minutes before his death, in that small railroad station which for a time attracted the gaze of the whole world, Tolstoy pronounced his last great words, "the soft, sad, gentle final chord of a great symphony," as Kuprin has called it: "The hero of my story, whom I love with my whole soul, whom I have attempted to reproduce in all his beauty, and who has always been, is, and ever will be beautiful, is truth." ”

“ Tolstoy represented the soul of Russia, the ever-seeking, ever-striving, never-contented soul, full of true mysticism, that seeks and yearns for the absolute solution of the world's problems, that reaches out for the ultimate, and, never attaining it, perishes in the quenchless flames of its mighty quest. ”

“ To him the essence of sociology consists in a comparative study of the different phases of man's social, political and economic development. He insists especially upon this "historico-comparative" method, as he terms it, and devotes a brilliant monograph to its presentation. He believes that only by gathering our material in the widest possible field, and comparing the results of our investigations, can we obtain a really adequate picture of any stage of man's social evolution. And human history, to him, is nothing but social evolution, that ever strives to reach truer and juster forms. ”

“ But it is as a scientist that the world outside of Russia knows Kovalevsky, and, as a scientist, he is no less an interesting figure than as a man. His scientific tendencies became evident quite early in life. As a young man, he was fond of making summer excursions to different parts of southern Russia, and curiosity often led him to the Caucasus, that never-failing source of inspiration to the great Russian poets. ”

“ The unprecedented war, in which Russia is now engaged, requires the utmost straining of all the resources of the country. And the financial resources are not the least important; perhaps, just the contrary. Over a century ago, one of the world's greatest military leaders, Napoleon, recognized the importance of finance in modern wars when he said: "The three things that are most needed in war are money, money, and still more money." ”

“ Death is usually too hasty; it insists on coming before it is a welcome guest, before the completion of that perfect cycle of life, of which Kovalevsky's friend, Mechnikov, speaks so hopefully in his studies of optimistic philosophy. And the great works that we cherish as the priceless possessions of mankind are usually fragmentary. Buckle's monumental work and Kovalevsky's unfinished syntheses bear ample witness to this lack of justice, to this incongruity in man's nature. ”

“ Of the three methods, the most interesting one is that of meeting war expenses by means of new paper money, which is not redeemable at the time of its issue. It is considered by economists the most dangerous way of raising money for government expenses. Despite its apparent ease of practical application, it often leads to such variations in the exchange value of the money unit, especially when it has not behind it a sufficiently large specie fund for immediate conversion, that an over indulgence in it is a very hazardous method indeed for any government to adopt. ”

“ As a historian of human institutions, Kovalevsky believes that history is made by the minority, that thought is the guiding factor in human development, although he does not deny that political ideas are dependent upon the existing social and economic conditions. ”

“ The most important method, however, by which the State Bank is enabled to assist the government financially is by discounting short-term treasury bonds, which, too, are beginning to secure a good position upon the open market.
As has been already pointed out, the issue limits allowed the State Bank have already been reached, and the Ministry of Finance proposes another extension of the limit. Assuming that the War will last until the end of the present year, it is calculated that the war expenses of the government during the year will reach approximately ten billion roubles. ”

“ In the history of the cultured life of Moscow and of the Moscow University, Kovalevsky, then young, full of life, ideas and erudition, played an extraordinary part, which, like a beautiful tradition, was fully appreciated during the latest period of intensive life at the university, beginning with 1900 and up to the wrecking of the university in 1911 ”

“ Since evolution is determined by the interaction of social, political, and economic forces, the conditions of their relations must be ascertained, and this led Kovalevsky to extended studies in the domain of the history of human institutions. ”

“ Each, through his achievements, rendered his country inestimable service by raising her higher amongst the nations of the world, higher in that most precious of all attainments: intellectual achievement. ”

“ The Russian agency for the issue of paper money is the State Bank, and the amount of its issue is authorized by the government. It is usually kept well within the limits of the gold reserve, so that ordinarily the money market of Russia presents a condition of considerable stability, even when compared with the countries of Western Europe. ”

“ The Russian money market is not so strongly developed as those of the other belligerents. Hence it is more difficult to float loans within the country with any degree of rapidity that would approach the need, and the burden of these financial operations temporarily falls upon the State Bank. The Bank is thus compelled to allow credit to private banks, requiring from them as security government bonds issued for these loans. ”

“ Besides his strictly scientific works, he wrote an enormous number of newspaper and magazine articles, sometimes giving, in non-technical language, the results of scientific investigations conducted by himself and others, sometimes writing on some great man with whom he had been associated, or some great event that he had followed with the studious and appreciative attention of a scholar. During the past ten years, it was the charm of his personality, perhaps more than anything else, that endeared him to the whole of cultured Russia. ”

“ Should this proposal be accepted, Russia would be embarking upon a policy of regulation of paper money issue that would be very much similar to the National Bank system of the United States. The analogy is almost perfect, when we recall that the circumstances under which the United States established the National Banks as the banks of issue in the country, are almost identical with those which obtain in Russia to-day. Then, as now, it was a question of providing means of floating government bonds, the proceeds of which were imperatively required in order to cover war expenses. ”

“ From his early youth there was something in the apperceptive mass of his great mind that made him interested in man as he finds himself in his social relations, in man's social evolution. The picturesque tribes of the Caucasus held unconquerable fascination for young Kovalevsky because of their rich folklore, because of their interesting customs and laws. ”

“ With these colossal resources at their disposal, the commercial banks of Russia ought to be able to consummate a whole series of financial deals outside of the country, which would tend to raise the exchange value of the Russian money, which unfortunately has now fallen very much below the normal. Moreover, an alliance of the largest commercial banks might be powerful enough to extract from circulation a very considerable amount of the paper money, and thus, by decreasing the amount of paper money in circulation, raise very perceptibly its exchange value. ”

“ But all these millions of individual deaths are of more or less local concern; the report of each one of them carries the grim message of misfortune only to some one corner of the countries plunged into madness. ”

“ We have not taken into account at all the commercial banks of the country, which are also very powerful and have at their disposal means of aiding the preservation of the money standards of the country. ”

“ He had an opportunity to associate with the best men of the time, to meet the greatest specialists in the particular fields in which he was working. Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer and Frederic Harrison were among the men with whom he came in contact in his studies. During this period, too, he met Turgeniev, and the two became friends.
Soon after he returned to Russia, Kovalevsky received an offer to become a professor at the University of Moscow, and in 1878 he took the chair of civil law and comparative government at this university. ”