Nikolay Speshnev chapter of "Demons" when, in the midst of confessing to a terrible crime, he formulates the guiding idea of his life: "that I neither know nor feel good and evil and that I have not only lost any sense of it, but that there is neither good nor evil (which pleased me), and that it is just a prejudice." It is speculated that Dostoevsky also refers to Speshnev on one occasion in "The Idiot". The central character, Prince Myshkin, recounts a long conversation with "a certain S—", an erudite and well-bred man, on the subject of atheism. Nikolay Speshnev Nikolay
Demons (Dostoevsky novel) in the ideas of Petr Tkachev. Tkachev argued that the only biologically possible 'equality' for human beings was "an organic, physiological equality conditioned by the same education and common living conditions" and he saw this as the supreme goal of all historical and social progress. Contemporary events in Russia and the terroristic actions of the Paris Commune had convinced Dostoevsky that the world was entering an apocalyptic age. Kjertsaa claims that Dostoevsky did not regard "Revelation" as "merely a consolatory epistle to first century Christians during the persecution they suffered", but as a "prophecy being fulfilled in his own time".