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Complex as is the immediate situation of social theory, a general view reveals some significant continuities, both spatial and temporal. The attitude of the pluralists, whether in theory or in practice, to the sovereign nation-state has more common ground than at first appears with that of the states themselves toward the nascent organs of international government; and the dilemma underlying both controversies is in fact nothing less than a restatement, in modern ideology, of an issue fundamental to the history of the entire Christian era.That issue, stated in the broadest terms, centers about the relation between de facto and de jure sovereignty; or, more broadly still, between political and ethical, secular and spiritual, authority; and its importance may be suggested by the generalization that security in social relations is attainable, and has in fact been attained, only when the de facto, or political, sovereign—whatsoever form it may take—has been substantially integrated with the immediate source of ethical or moral authority. The pre-modern period of history abounds in statements, both factual and doctrinal, of this issue.

In the course of the nineteenth century the breach between the Russian government and the intelligentsia grew steadily wider, until it would scarcely have been credible that the relations between them had once been those of patron and client. This had been in the brighter and more hopeful days of enlightened despotism, under Catherine II, and in some measure also under Alexander I. Now, however, other men were ruling, still despotic but no longer enlightened. The consequence was that the less tractable of the intellectuals became either voluntary or compulsory exiles. Much of nineteenth-century Russian history centers about these exiles, who huddled together in colonies wherever they were tolerated: in Zurich, in Paris, and in London. They constituted the principal bond, both physical and cultural, between Russia and the western world.By tradition and training these exiles possessed a bent for cosmopolitan living; in their mental equipment they were decidedly eclectic. Now more than ever they were exposed to the diversity of intellectual influences in which western Europe was more than commonly rich in this post-revolutionary period. Detached from their own foundations, they yielded themselves the more readily to the new currents of thought. Hegelianism, Darwinism, positivism, socialism—wave after wave of "isms" passed over them. They absorbed something of each and tried to make a blending of all.