The Russian thinker Mikhail Bakunin is often called the father or Russian nihilism. In 1842, he wrote: "Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!". Then in the 1850s and 60s, the theory behind Russian nihilism started to form. Originally it was a philosophy of scepticism towards morals and truth. It was in 1862 that the Russian author Ivan Turgenev made the word "nihilism" popular. He used it in his novel called "Fathers and Sons" to describe the attitude of the younger generation. The nihilists in the book say they are people who "deny ", who do "not take any principle on faith", and who think that "at the present time, negation is the most useful of all". Even though Turgenev was more of an , many young people started to call themselves "nihilists" because of this book.