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Christianity and Patriotism / Misc, by Lev N. Tolstoy

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Title: The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies

Author: Lev N. Tolstoy

Translator: Leo Wiener

Release Date: August 1, 2013 [EBook #43372]

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  THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
  COUNT TOLSTÓY
  VOLUME XX.

  [Illustration: The Yellow Peril

  _Photogravure after Original Design by Emperor William II._]




  THE KINGDOM OF GOD
  IS WITHIN YOU
  CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM
  MISCELLANIES

  By COUNT LEV N. TOLSTÓY

  Translated from the Original Russian and Edited by
  LEO WIENER
  Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

  [Illustration: Tolstoy]

  BOSTON--DANA ESTES &
  COMPANY--PUBLISHERS




  EDITION DE LUXE

  Limited to One Thousand Copies,
  of which this is
  No. ____

  _Copyright, 1905_
  BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY

  _Entered at Stationers' Hall_

  Colonial Press: Electrotyped and Printed by
  C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, Mass., U. S. A.




CONTENTS


                                           PAGE

  THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU            1

  CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM               381

  REASON AND RELIGION                       459

  PATRIOTISM OR PEACE                       467

  LETTER TO ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY            481


  INTRODUCTIONS TO BOOKS

  A. STOCKHAM'S TOKOLOGY                    499

  AMIEL'S DIARY                             501

  S. T. SEMÉNOV'S PEASANT STORIES           506

  WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT                509




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                PAGE

  THE YELLOW PERIL (_p. 477_)         _Frontispiece_

  WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON                           6

  RUSSIAN PEASANTS AT MASS                        75

  CHURCH OF VASÍLI THE BLESSED, MOSCOW            85

  MALÉVANNIANS                                   395

  ALEXANDER III.                                 449




  THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
  WITHIN YOU

  Or, Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but
  as a New Concept of Life

  1893




  THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
  WITHIN YOU

  Or, Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but
  as a New Concept of Life

     And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free
     (John viii. 23).

     And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill
     the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul
     and body in hell (Matt. x. 28).

     Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men (1.
     Cor. vii. 23).


In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title, _My Religion_. In
this book I really expounded what my religion is.

In expounding my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help but
express the reason why I do not believe in the ecclesiastic faith,
which is generally called Christianity, and why I consider it to be
a delusion.

Among the many deviations of this teaching of Christ, I pointed
out the chief deviation, namely, the failure to acknowledge the
commandment of non-resistance to evil, which more obviously than
any other shows the distortion of Christ's teaching in the church
doctrine.

I knew very little, like the rest of us, as to what had been
done and preached and written in former days on this subject of
non-resistance to evil. I knew what had been said on this subject
by the fathers of the church, Origen, Tertullian, and others, and
I knew also that there have existed certain so-called sects of the
Mennonites, Herrnhuters, Quakers, who do not admit for a Christian
the use of weapons and who do not enter military service, but what
had been done by these so-called sects for the solution of this
question was quite unknown to me.

My book, as I expected, was held back by the Russian censor, but,
partly in consequence of my reputation as a writer, partly because
it interested people, this book was disseminated in manuscripts and
lithographic reprints in Russia and in translations abroad, and
called forth, on the one hand, on the part of men who shared my
views, a series of references to works written on the subject, and,
on the other, a series of criticisms on the thoughts expressed in
that book itself.

Both, together with the historical phenomena of recent times, have
made many things clear to me and have brought me to new deductions
and conclusions, which I wish to express.

First I shall tell of the information which I received concerning
the history of the question of non-resistance to evil, then of
the opinions on this subject which were expressed by ecclesiastic
critics, that is, such as profess the Christian religion, and also
by laymen, that is, such as do not profess the Christian religion;
and finally, those deductions to which I was brought by both and by
the historical events of recent times.


I.

Among the first answers to my book there came some letters from the
American Quakers. In these letters, which express their sympathy
with my views concerning the unlawfulness for Christianity of all
violence and war, the Quakers informed me of the details of their
so-called sect, which for more than two hundred years has in fact
professed Christ's teaching about non-resistance to evil, and which
has used no arms in order to defend itself. With their letters,
the Quakers sent me their pamphlets, periodicals, and books. From
these periodicals, pamphlets, and books which they sent me I
learned to what extent they had many years ago incontestably proved
the obligation for a Christian to fulfil the commandment about
non-resistance to evil and had laid bare the incorrectness of the
church teaching, which admitted executions and wars.

Having proved, by a whole series of considerations and texts, that
war, that is, the maiming and killing of men, is incompatible with
a religion which is based on love of peace and good-will to men,
the Quakers affirm and prove that nothing has so much contributed
to the obscuration of Christ's truth in the eyes of the pagans
and impeded the dissemination of Christianity in the world as the
non-acknowledgment of this commandment by men who called themselves
Christians,--as the permission granted to a Christian to wage war
and use violence.

"Christ's teaching, which entered into the consciousness of men,
not by means of the sword and of violence," they say, "but by means
of non-resistance to evil, can be disseminated in the world only
through humility, meekness, peace, concord, and love among its
followers.

"A Christian, according to the teaching of God Himself, can be
guided in his relations to men by peace only, and so there cannot
be such an authority as would compel a Christian to act contrary to
God's teaching and contrary to the chief property of a Christian in
relation to those who are near to him.

"The rule of state necessity," they say, "may compel those to become
untrue to God's law, who for the sake of worldly advantages try
to harmonize what cannot be harmonized, but for a Christian, who
sincerely believes in this, that the adherence to Christ's teaching
gives him salvation, this rule can have no meaning."

My acquaintance with the activity of the Quakers and with their
writings,--with Fox, Paine, and especially with Dymond's book
(1827),--showed me that not only had the impossibility of uniting
Christianity with violence and war been recognized long ago, but
that this incompatibility had long ago been proved so clearly and
so incontestably that one has only to marvel how this impossible
connection of the Christian teaching with violence, which has been
preached all this time by the churches, could have been continued.

Besides the information received by me from the Quakers, I, at about
the same time, received, again from America, information in regard
to the same subject from an entirely different source, which had
been quite unknown to me before.

The son of William Lloyd Garrison, the famous champion for the
liberation of the negroes, wrote to me that, when he read my book,
in which he found ideas resembling those expressed by his father in
1838, he, assuming that it might be interesting for me to know this,
sent me the "Declaration of Non-resistance," which his father had
made about fifty years ago.

[Illustration: William Lloyd Garrison

_Photogravure from Photograph_]

This declaration had its origin under the following conditions:
William Lloyd Garrison, in speaking before a society for the
establishment of peace among men, which existed in America in 1838,
about the measures for abolishing war, came to the conclusion that
the establishment of universal peace could be based only on the
obvious recognition of the commandment of non-resistance to evil
(Matt. v. 39) in all its significance, as this was understood by the
Quakers, with whom Garrison stood in friendly relations. When he
came to this conclusion, he formulated and proposed to the society
the following declaration, which was then, in 1838, signed by many
members.


DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS ADOPTED BY THE PEACE CONVENTION, HELD IN
BOSTON IN 1838

"We, the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the cause
which we love, to the country in which we live, and to the world, to
publish a Declaration, expressive of the principles we cherish, the
purposes we aim to accomplish, and the measures we shall adopt to
carry forward the work of peaceful and universal reformation.

"We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government....
We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of
mankind....

"Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love
the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The
interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more
dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can
allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or
injury....

"We conceive, that if a nation has no right to defend itself against
foreign enemies, or to punish its invaders, no individual possesses
that right in his own case. The unit cannot be of greater importance
than the aggregate.... But if a rapacious and bloodthirsty soldiery,
thronging these shores from abroad, with intent to commit rapine
and destroy life, may not be resisted by the people or magistracy,
then ought no resistance to be offered to domestic troublers of the
public peace, or of private security....

"The dogma, that all the governments of the world are approvingly
ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States,
in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with His will, is not less
absurd than impious. It makes the impartial Author of human freedom
and equality unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the
powers that be, in any nation, are actuated by the spirit, or guided
by the example of Christ, in the treatment of enemies: therefore,
they cannot be agreeable to the will of God: and, therefore, their
overthrow, by a spiritual regeneration of their subjects, is
inevitable.

"We register our testimony, not only against all wars, whether
offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war; against every
naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification; against the militia
system and a standing army; against all military chieftains and
soldiers; against all monuments commemorative of victory over a
foreign foe, all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honour
of military or naval exploits: against all appropriations for the
defence of a nation by force and arms on the part of any legislative
body; against every edict of government, requiring of its subjects
military service. Hence, we deem it unlawful to bear arms, or to
hold a military office.

"As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its
laws are enforced virtually at the point of the bayonet, we cannot
hold any office which imposes upon its incumbent the obligation to
do right, on pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily
exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and
repudiate all human politics, worldly honours, and stations of
authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature, or on the
bench, neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any
such capacity.

"It follows that we cannot sue any man at law, to compel him by
force to restore anything which he may have wrongfully taken from us
or others; but, if he has seized our coat, we shall surrender up our
cloak, rather than subject him to punishment.

"We believe that the penal code of the old covenant, An eye for an
eye, and a tooth for a tooth, has been abrogated by Jesus Christ;
and that, under the new covenant, the forgiveness, instead of the
punishment of enemies, has been enjoined upon all His disciples, in
all cases whatsoever. To extort money from enemies, or set them upon
a pillory, or cast them into prison, or hang them upon a gallows, is
obviously not to forgive, but to take retribution....

"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences, proving that
physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the
sinful disposition of man can be subdued only by love; that evil
can be exterminated from the earth only by goodness; that it is not
safe to rely upon an arm of flesh ... to preserve us from harm; that
there is great security in being gentle, harmless, long-suffering,
and abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall inherit
the earth, for the violent, who resort to the sword, shall perish
with the sword. Hence, as a measure of sound policy, of safety
to property, life, and liberty, of public quietude, and private
enjoyment, as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him who is King
of kings, and Lord of lords, we cordially adopt the non-resistance
principle; being confident that it provides for all possible
consequences, will ensure all things needful to us, is armed with
omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every assailing
foe.

"We advocate no jacobinical doctrines. The spirit of jacobinism
is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and murder. It neither
fears God, nor regards man. We would be filled with the spirit of
Christ. If we abide by our principles, it is impossible for us to
be disorderly, or plot treason, or participate in any evil work: we
shall submit to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake; obey
all the requirements of government, except such as we deem contrary
to the commands of the gospel; and in no wise resist the operation
of law, except by meekly submitting to the penalty of disobedience.

"But, while we shall adhere to the doctrines of non-resistance and
passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual
sense, to speak and act boldly in the cause of God; to assail
iniquity in high places and in low places; to apply our principles
to all existing civil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical
institutions; and to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world
shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall
reign for ever.

"It appears to us as a self-evident truth, that, whatever the gospel
is designed to destroy, any period of the world, being contrary to
it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time is predicted,
when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into
pruning-hooks, and men shall not learn the art of war any more,
it follows that all who manufacture, sell, or wield these deadly
weapons do thus array themselves against the peaceful dominion of
the Son of God on earth.

"Having thus briefly, but frankly, stated our principles and
purposes, we proceed to specify the measures we propose to adopt, in
carrying our object into effect.

"We expect to prevail through the foolishness of preaching--striving
to commend ourselves unto every man's conscience, in the sight of
God. From the press, we shall promulgate our sentiments as widely
as practicable. We shall endeavour to secure the coöperation of
all persons, of whatever name or sect.... Hence we shall employ
lectures, circulate tracts and publications, form societies, and
petition our State and national governments in relation to the
subject of universal peace. It will be our leading object to
devise ways and means for effecting a radical change in the views,
feelings, and practices of society respecting the sinfulness of war,
and the treatment of enemies.

"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not unmindful
that, in its prosecution, we may be called to test our sincerity,
even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage,
suffering, yea, even death itself. We anticipate no small amount of
misconception, misrepresentation, calumny. Tumults may arise against
us. The ungodly and the violent, the proud and pharisaical, the
ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, and spiritual
wickedness in high places, may combine to crush us. So they treated
the Messiah, whose example we are humbly striving to imitate....
We shall not be afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. Our
confidence is in the Lord Almighty, not in man. Having withdrawn
from human protection, what can sustain us but that faith which
overcomes the world? We shall not think it strange concerning the
fiery ordeal which is to try us, as though some strange thing had
happened unto us; but rejoice, inasmuch as we are partakers of
Christ's sufferings. Wherefore, we commit the keeping of our souls
to God, in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. 'For every one
that forsakes houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother,
or wife, or children, or lands, for Christ's sake, shall receive an
hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.'

"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of the
sentiments contained in this Declaration, however formidable may
be the opposition arrayed against them, in solemn testimony of our
faith in their divine origin, we hereby affix our signatures to
it; commending it to the reason and conscience of mankind, giving
ourselves no anxiety as to what may befall us, and resolving, in the
strength of the Lord God, calmly and meekly to abide the issue."

       *       *       *       *       *

Immediately after this declaration Garrison founded a society of
non-resistance, and a periodical, called _The Non-Resistant_,
in which was preached the doctrine of non-resistance in all its
significance and with all its consequences, as it had been expressed
in the "Declaration." The information as to the later fate of the
society and the periodical of non-resistance I received from the
beautiful biography of William Lloyd Garrison, written by his sons.

The society and the periodical did not exist long: the majority of
Garrison's collaborators in matters of freeing the slaves, fearing
lest the too radical demands, as expressed in _The Non-Resistant_,
might repel people from the practical work of the liberation of the
negroes, refused to profess the principle of non-resistance, as it
had been expressed in the "Declaration," and the society and the
periodical ceased to exist.

This "Declaration" by Garrison, which so powerfully and so
beautifully expressed such an important profession of faith, ought,
it seems, to have startled men and to have become universally known
and a subject of wide discussion. But nothing of the kind happened.
It is not only unknown in Europe, but even among the Americans,
who so highly esteem Garrison's memory, this declaration is almost
unknown.

The same ingloriousness has fallen to the share of another champion
of non-resistance to evil, the American Adin Ballou, who lately
died, and who preached this doctrine for fifty years. How little is
known of what refers to the question of non-resistance may be seen
from the fact that Garrison's son, who has written an excellent
biography of his father in four volumes, this son of Garrison, in
reply to my question whether the society of non-resistance was
still in existence, and whether there were any followers of it,
answered me that so far as he knew the society had fallen to pieces,
and there existed no followers of this doctrine, whereas at the time
of his writing, there lived in Hopedale, Massachusetts, Adin Ballou,
who had taken part in Garrison's labours and had devoted fifty years
of his life to the oral and printed propaganda of the doctrine of
non-resistance. Later on I received a letter from Wilson, a disciple
and assistant of Ballou, and entered into direct communication with
Ballou himself. I wrote to Ballou, and he answered me and sent me
his writings. Here are a few extracts from them:

"Jesus Christ is my Lord and Master," says Ballou in one of
the articles,[1] in which he arraigns the inconsistency of the
Christians who recognize the right of defence and war. "I have
covenanted to forsake all and follow Him, through good and evil
report, until death. But I am nevertheless a Democratic-Republican
citizen of the United States, implicitly sworn to bear true
allegiance to my country, and to support its Constitution, if need
be, with my life. Jesus Christ requires me to do unto others as I
would that others should do unto me. The Constitution of the United
States requires me to do unto twenty-seven hundred slaves" (there
were slaves then, now we may put the working people in their place)
"the very contrary of what I would have them do unto me, viz.,
assist to keep them in a grievous bondage.... But I am quite easy.
I vote on. I help govern on. I am willing to hold any office I may
be elected to under the Constitution. And I am still a Christian.
I profess on. I find no difficulty in keeping covenant both with
Christ and the Constitution....

  [1] In _The Non-Resistant_, Vol. i., No. 4, Hopedale, Milford,
  Mass., Feb. 15, 1845.

"Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evil-doers by taking 'eye for
eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood, and life for life.' My
government requires the very reverse, and depends, for its own
self-preservation, on the halter, the musket, and the sword,
seasonably employed against its domestic and foreign enemies.
Accordingly, the land is well furnished with gibbets, prisons,
arsenals, train-bands, soldiers, and ships-of-war. In the
maintenance and use of this expensive life-destroying apparatus,
we can exemplify the virtues of forgiving our injurers, loving our
enemies, blessing them that curse us, and doing good to those that
hate us. For this reason, we have regular Christian chaplains to
pray for us, and call down the sins of God on our holy murderers....

"I see it all; and yet I insist that I am as good a Christian as
ever. I fellowship all; I vote on; I help govern on; I profess on;
and I glory in being at once a devoted Christian, and a no less
devoted adherent to the existing government. I will not give in
to those miserable non-resistant notions. I will not throw away
my political influence, and leave unprincipled men to carry on
government alone....

"The Constitution says, 'Congress shall have power to declare
war.'... I agree to this. I endorse it. I swear to help carry
it through.... What then, am I less a Christian? Is not war a
Christian service? Is it not perfectly Christian to murder hundreds
of thousands of fellow human beings; to ravish defenceless females,
sack and burn cities, and exact all the other cruelties of war? Out
upon these new-fangled scruples! This is the very way to forgive
injuries, and love our enemies! If we only do it all in true love,
nothing can be more Christian than wholesale murder!"

In another pamphlet, under the title, _How Many Does It Take?_[2]
he says, "How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into
righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder.
Two, ten, one hundred men, acting on their own responsibility, must
not kill. If they do, it is still murder. But a state or nation
may kill as many as they please, and it is no murder. It is just,
necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree
to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly
innocent. But how many men does it take? This is the question. Just
so with theft, robbery, burglary, and all other crimes.... But a
whole nation can commit it.... But how many does it take?"[3]

  [2] Not a pamphlet, but an article in _The Non-Resistant_, Vol. i.
  No. 4, and very imperfectly quoted by Tolstóy.

  [3] To this Tolstóy adds, on his own responsibility: "Why must one,
  ten, one hundred men not violate God's law, while very many may?"

Here is Ballou's catechism, composed for his flock (_The Catechism
of Non-Resistance_[4]):

  [4] Translated freely, with some omissions.--_Author's Note._ I fail
  to find this _Catechism_ in any of Ballou's writings accessible
  in and about Boston. The nearest approach to these questions and
  answers is found scattered throughout his _Christian Non-Resistance,
  in Its Important Bearings, Illustrated and Defended_, Philadelphia,
  1846.

_Q._ Whence originated the term "non-resistance?"

_A._ From the injunction, "Resist not evil," Matt. v. 39.

_Q._ What does the term signify?

_A._ It expresses a high Christian virtue, prescribed by Christ.

_Q._ Is the word "resistance" to be taken in its widest meaning,
that is, as showing that no resistance whatever is to be shown to
evil?

_A._ No, it is to be taken in the strict sense of the Saviour's
injunction; that is, we are not to retaliate evil with evil. Evil is
to be resisted by all just means, but never with evil.

_Q._ From what can we see that Christ in such cases prescribed
non-resistance?

_A._ From the words which He then used. He said, "Ye have heard
that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if
any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him
have thy cloak also."

_Q._ To whom does Jesus refer in the words, "It has been said?"

_A._ To the patriarchs and prophets, to what they said,--to what
is contained in the writings of the Old Testament, which the Jews
generally call the Law and the Prophets.

_Q._ What injunctions did Christ mean by "It hath been said?"

_A._ Those injunctions by which Noah, Moses, and other prophets
authorize men to inflict personal injury on injurers, in order to
punish and destroy evil.

_Q._ Quote these precepts.

_A._ Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for
in the image of God made He man (Gen. ix. 6). He that smiteth a man,
so that he die, shall be surely put to death, and if any mischief
follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for
wound, stripe for stripe (Ex. xxi. 12, 23-25).

And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And if a
man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it
be done to him: breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as
he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again
(Lev. xxiv. 17, 19, 20).

And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the
witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his
brother; then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done
unto his brother: and thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go
for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for
foot (Deut. xix. 18, 19, 21). These are the precepts of which Jesus
is speaking.

Noah, Moses, and the prophets taught that he who kills, maims, and
tortures his neighbours does evil. To resist such evil and destroy
it, the doer of evil is to be punished by death or maiming or some
personal injury. Insult is to be opposed to insult, murder to
murder, torture to torture, evil to evil. Thus taught Noah, Moses,
and the prophets. But Christ denies it all. "But I say unto you," it
says in the Gospel, "that ye resist not evil, resist not an insult
with an insult, but rather bear the repeated insult from the doer
of evil." What was authorized is prohibited. If we understand what
kind of resistance they taught, we clearly see what we are taught by
Christ's non-resistance.

_Q._ Did the ancients authorize the resistance of insult with insult?

_A._ Yes; but Jesus prohibited this. A Christian has under no
condition the right to deprive of life or to subject to insult him
who does evil to his neighbour.

_Q._ May a man kill or maim another in self-defence?

_A._ No.

_Q._ May he enter a court with a complaint, to have his insulter
punished?

_A._ No; for what he is doing through others, he is in reality doing
in his own person.

_Q._ May he fight with an army against enemies, or against domestic
rebels?

_A._ Of course not. He cannot take any part in war or warlike
preparations. He cannot use death-dealing arms. He cannot resist
injury with injury, no matter whether he be alone or with others,
through himself or through others.

_Q._ May he choose or fit out military men for the government?

_A._ He can do nothing of the kind, if he wishes to be true to
Christ's law.

_Q._ May he voluntarily give money, to aid the government, which is
supported by military forces, capital punishment, and violence in
general?

_A._ No, if the money is not intended for some special object, just
in itself, where the aim and means are good.

_Q._ May he pay taxes to such a government?

_A._ No; he must not voluntarily pay the taxes, but he must also
not resist their collection. The taxes imposed by the government
are collected independently of the will of the subjects. It is
impossible to resist the collection, without having recourse to
violence; but a Christian must not use violence, and so he must give
up his property to the violence which is exerted by the powers.

_Q._ May a Christian vote at elections and take part in a court or
in the government?

_A._ No; the participation in elections, in the court, or in the
government, is a participation in governmental violence.

_Q._ In what does the chief significance of the doctrine of
non-resistance consist?

_A._ In that it alone makes it possible to tear the evil out by the
root, both out of one's own heart and out of the neighbour's heart.
This doctrine forbids doing that by which evil is perpetuated and
multiplied. He who attacks another and insults him, engenders in
another the sentiment of hatred, the root of all evil. To offend
another, because he offended us, for the specious reason of removing
an evil, means to repeat an evil deed, both against him and against
ourselves,--to beget, or at least to free, to encourage, the very
demon whom we claim we wish to expel. Satan cannot be driven out by
Satan, untruth cannot be cleansed by untruth, and evil cannot be
vanquished by evil.

True non-resistance is the one true resistance to evil. It kills and
finally destroys the evil sentiment.

_Q._ But, if the idea of the doctrine is right, is it practicable?

_A._ It is as practicable as any good prescribed by the Law of
God. The good cannot under all circumstances be executed without
self-renunciation, privation, suffering, and, in extreme cases,
without the loss of life itself. But he who values life more than
the fulfilment of God's will is already dead to the one true life.
Such a man, in trying to save his life, shall lose it. Besides,
in general, where non-resistance costs the sacrifice of one life,
or the sacrifice of some essential good of life, resistance costs
thousands of such sacrifices.

Non-resistance preserves, resistance destroys.

It is incomparably safer to act justly than unjustly; to bear
an insult than to resist it with violence,--it is safer even in
relation to the present life. If all men did not resist evil with
evil, the world would be blessed.

_Q._ But if only a few shall act thus, what will become of them?

_A._ If only one man acted thus, and all the others agreed to
crucify him, would it not be more glorious for him to die in the
triumph of non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than to live
wearing the crown of Cæsar, bespattered with the blood of the slain?
But one or thousands who have firmly determined not to resist evil
with evil, whether among the enlightened or among savage neighbours,
are much safer from violence than those who rely on violence. A
robber, murderer, deceiver, will more quickly leave them alone than
those who resist with weapons. They who take the sword perish with
the sword, and those who seek peace, who act in a friendly manner,
inoffensively, who forget and forgive offences, for the most part
enjoy peace or, if they die, die blessed.

Thus, if all kept the commandment of non-resistance, it is evident
that there would be no offences, no evil deeds. If these formed a
majority, they would establish the reign of love and good-will, even
toward the ill-disposed, by never resisting evil with evil, never
using violence. If there were a considerable minority of these, they
would have such a corrective, moral effect upon society that every
cruel punishment would be abolished, and violence and enmity would
be changed to peace and love. If there were but a small minority of
them, they would rarely experience anything worse than the contempt
of the world, and the world would in the meantime, without noticing
it, and without feeling itself under obligation, become wiser and
better from this secret influence. And if, in the very worst case,
a few members of the minority should be persecuted to death, these
men, dying for the truth, would leave behind them their teaching,
which is already sanctified by their martyr's death.

Peace be with all who seek peace, and all-conquering love be the
imperishable inheritance of every soul, which voluntarily submits to
the Law of Christ: "Resist not evil." In the course of fifty years,
Ballou wrote and edited books dealing mainly with the question
of non-resistance to evil. In these works, which are beautiful
in their lucidity of thought and elegance of expression, the
question is discussed from every possible side. He establishes the
obligatoriness of this commandment for every Christian who professes
the Bible as a divine revelation. He adduces all the customary
retorts to the commandment of non-resistance, both from the Old
Testament and from the New, as, for example, the expulsion from
the temple, and so forth, and all these are overthrown; he shows,
independently of Scripture, the practical wisdom of this rule, and
adduces all the objections which are usually made to it, and meets
all these objections. Thus one chapter of a work of his treats of
non-resistance to evil in exclusive cases, and here he acknowledges
that, if there were cases when the application of non-resistance to
evil were impossible, this would prove that the rule is altogether
untenable. In adducing these special cases, he proves that it is
precisely in them that the application of this rule is necessary and
rational. There is not a single side of the question, either for his
followers or for his adversaries, which is not investigated in these
works. I say all this, in order to show the unquestionable interest
which such works ought to have for men who profess Christianity, and
that, therefore, one would think Ballou's activity ought to have
been known, and the thoughts expressed by him ought to have been
accepted or refuted; but there has been nothing of the kind.

The activity of Garrison the father, with his foundation of a
society of non-resistants and his declaration, convinced me even
more than my relations with the Quakers, that the departure of state
Christianity from Christ's law about non-resistance to evil is
something that has been observed and pointed out long ago, and that
men have without cessation worked to arraign it. Ballou's activity
still more confirmed this fact to me. But the fate of Garrison and
especially of Ballou, who is not known to any one, in spite of
his fifty years of stubborn and constant work in one and the same
direction, has also confirmed to me the other fact, that there
exists some kind of unexpressed but firm understanding as to passing
all such attempts in silence.

Ballou died in August, 1890, and his obituary was given
in an American periodical with a Christian tendency
(_Religio-Philosophical Journal_, August 23d).

In this eulogistic obituary it says that Ballou was a spiritual
guide of a community, that he delivered between eight and nine
thousand sermons, married one thousand pairs, and wrote about five
hundred articles, but not a word is said about the aim to which he
devoted all his life,--the word "non-resistance" is not even used.

Like all that which the Quakers have been preaching for two hundred
years, like the activity of Garrison the father, the foundation of
his society and periodical, and his declaration, so Ballou's whole
activity does not seem to have existed at all.

A striking example of such an ingloriousness of writings intended to
elucidate non-resistance to evil, and to arraign those who do not
recognize this commandment, is found in the fate of the book by the
Bohemian Chelcický, which has but lately become known and has so far
not yet been printed.

Soon after the publication of my book in German, I received a letter
from a professor of the Prague University, which informed me of the
existence of a still unpublished work by the Bohemian Chelcický, of
the fifteenth century, by the name of _The Drawnet of Faith_. In
this work, as the professor wrote me, Chelcický about four centuries
ago expressed the same view in regard to the true and the false
Christianity, which I had expressed in my work, _My Religion_. The
professor wrote to me that Chelcický's work was for the first time
to be published in Bohemian in the periodical of the St. Petersburg
Academy of Sciences. As I was unable to procure the work itself, I
tried to become acquainted with what was known of Chelcický, and
such information I got from a German book sent me by the same Prague
professor, and from Pýpin's "History of Bohemian Literature." This
is what Pýpin says:

"_The Drawnet of Faith_ is that teaching of Christ which is to draw
man out from the dark depths of the sea of life and its untruths.
True faith consists in believing in God's words; but now there has
come a time when men consider the true faith to be heresy, and so
reason must show wherein the true faith consists, if one does not
know it. Darkness has concealed it from men, and they do not know
Christ's true law.

"To explain this law, Chelcický points out the original structure of
Christian society, which, he says, is now regarded as rank heresy by
the Roman Church.

"This primitive church was his own ideal of a social structure,
based on equality, freedom, and brotherhood. Christianity, according
to Chelcický, still treasures these principles, and all that is
necessary is, that society should return to its pure teaching, and
then any other order, in which kings and popes are needed, would
seem superfluous: in everything the law of love alone is sufficient.

"Historically Chelcický refers the fall of Christianity to the
times of Constantine the Great, whom Pope Sylvester introduced into
Christianity with all the pagan customs and life. Constantine, in
his turn, invested the Pope with worldly wealth and power. Since
then both powers have been aiding one another and have striven after
external glory. Doctors and masters and the clergy have begun to
care only for the subjugation of the whole world to their dominion,
have armed men against one another for the purpose of murdering and
plundering, and have completely destroyed Christianity in faith
and in life. Chelcický absolutely denies the right to wage war and
administer capital punishment; every warrior and even 'knight' is
only an oppressor, malefactor, and murderer."

The same, except for some biographical details and excerpts from
Chelcický's correspondence, is said in the German book.

Having thus learned the essence of Chelcický's teaching, I with much
greater impatience waited for the appearance of _The Drawnet of
Faith_ in the journal of the Academy. But a year, two, three years
passed, and the book did not appear. Only in 1888 I learned that the
printing of the book, which had been begun, had come to a stop. I
got the proof-sheets of as much as had been printed, and I read the
book. The book is in every respect remarkable.

The contents are quite correctly rendered by Pýpin. Chelcický's
fundamental idea is this, that Christianity, having united with the
power in the time of Constantine and having continued to develop
under these conditions, has become absolutely corrupt and has ceased
to be Christianity. The title "The Drawnet of Faith," was given by
Chelcický to his work, because, taking for his motto the verse of
the Gospel about calling the disciples to become fishers of men,
Chelcický, continuing this comparison, says, "Christ by means of
His disciples caught in His drawnet of faith the whole world, but
the larger fish, tearing the net, jumped out of it, and through the
holes, which these larger fish had made, all the others went away,
and the net was left almost empty."

The large fish that broke through the net are the rulers, emperors,
popes, kings, who, in not renouncing their power, did not accept
Christianity, but its semblance only.

Chelcický taught what has been taught until the present by the
Mennonites and Quakers, and what in former years was taught by the
Bogomils, Paulicians, and many others. He teaches that Christianity,
which demands from its followers meekness, humility, kindness,
forgiveness of sins, the offering of the other cheek when one cheek
has been smitten, love of enemies, is incompatible with violence,
which forms an indispensable condition of power.

A Christian, according to Chelcický's interpretation, can not only
not be a chief or a soldier, but cannot even take part in the
government, be a merchant or even a landowner; he can be only an
artisan or an agriculturist.

This book is one of the extremely few that have survived the
auto-da-fés of books in which the official Christianity is
arraigned. All such books, which are called heretical, have been
burned together with the authors, so that there are very few ancient
works which arraign the departure of official Christianity, and so
this book is especially interesting.

But besides being interesting, no matter how we look upon it, this
book is one of the most remarkable productions of thoughts, as
judged by the depth of its contents, and the wonderful force and
beauty of the popular language, and its antiquity. And yet this book
has for more than four centuries remained unprinted, and continues
to be unknown, except to learned specialists.

One would think that all these kinds of works, by the Quakers, and
Garrison, and Ballou, and Chelcický, which assert and prove, on the
basis of the Gospel, that our world comprehends Christ's teaching
falsely, ought to rouse interest, agitation, discussions, in the
midst of the pastors and of the flock.

Works of this kind, which touch on the essence of the Christian
teaching, ought, it seems, to be analyzed and recognized as true, or
to be rejected and overthrown.

But nothing of the kind has happened. One and the same thing
is repeated with all these works. People of the most different
views, both those who believe and, what is most surprising, those
who are unbelieving liberals, seem to have an agreement to pass
them stubbornly in silence, and all that has been done by men to
elucidate the true meaning of Christ's teaching remains unknown or
forgotten.

But still more startling is the ingloriousness of two works, of
which I learned also in connection with the appearance of my book.
These are Dymond's book _On War_, published for the first time in
London, in 1824, and Daniel Musser's book _On Non-Resistance_,
written in 1864. The ignorance about these two books is particularly
remarkable, because, to say nothing of their worth, both books treat
not so much of the theory as of the practical application of the
theory to life, of the relation of Christianity to military service,
which is particularly important and interesting now, in connection
with the universal liability to do military service.

People will, perhaps, ask: "What are the duties of a subject, who
believes that war is incompatible with his religion, but of whom the
government demands a participation in military service?"

It seems that this is a very living question, one, the answer
to which is particularly important in connection with the
military service of the present time. All, or a vast majority of
men,--Christians,--all males, are called on to perform military
service. What must a man, as a Christian, answer in reply to this
demand? Dymond's answer is as follows:

"It is his duty, mildly and temperately, yet firmly, to refuse to
serve.

"There are some persons, who, without any determinate process of
reasoning, appear to conclude that responsibility for national
measures attaches solely to those who direct them; that it is the
business of governments to consider what is good for the community,
and that, in these cases, the duty of the subject is merged in the
will of the sovereign. Considerations like these are, I believe,
often voluntarily permitted to become opiates of the conscience. 'I
have no part,' it is said, 'in the councils of the government, and
am not therefore responsible for its crimes.' We are, indeed, not
responsible for the crimes of our rulers, but we are responsible for
our own; and the crimes of our rulers are our own, if, whilst we
believe them to be crimes, we promote them by our coöperation.

"But those who suppose that obedience in all things is required, or
that responsibility in political affairs is transferred from the
subject to the sovereign, reduce themselves to a great dilemma.

"It is to say that we must resign our conduct and our consciences to
the will of others, and act wickedly or well, as their good or evil
may preponderate, without merit for virtue, or responsibility for
crime."

What is remarkable is this, that precisely the same is expressed in
the instruction to the soldiers, which they are made to learn by
rote: it says there that only the general is responsible for the
consequences of his command. But this is not true. A man cannot
shift the responsibility for his acts. And this may be seen from
what follows:

"If the government direct you to fire your neighbour's property, or
to throw him over a precipice, will you obey?[5] If you will not,
there is an end of the argument, for if you may reject its authority
in one instance, where is the limit to rejection? There is no
rational limit but that which is assigned by Christianity, and that
is both rational and practicable.

  [5] Tolstóy's translation from the English, which is generally
  loose, here departs entirely from the text. Tolstóy writes: "If a
  chief direct you to kill your neighbour's child, or your father, or
  your mother, will you obey?"

"We think, then, that it is the business of every man, who believes
that war is inconsistent with our religion, respectfully, but
steadfastly, to refuse to engage in it. Let such as these remember
that an honourable and an awful duty is laid upon them. It is upon
their fidelity, so far as human agency is concerned, that the cause
of peace is suspended. Let them be willing to avow their opinions
and to defend them. Neither let them be contented with words, if
more than words, if suffering also, is required. If you believe
that Jesus Christ has prohibited slaughter, let not the opinion or
the commands of a world induce you to join in it. By this 'steady
and determinate pursuit of virtue,' the benediction which attaches
to those who hear the sayings of God and do them, will rest upon
you, and the time will come when even the world will honour you, as
contributors to the work of human reformation."

Musser's book is called _Non-Resistance Asserted; or, Kingdom of
Christ and Kingdom of This World Separated_, 1864.[6]

  [6] A thorough search through bibliographies, catalogues, and
  libraries has failed to reveal such a book or such an author, and as
  Tolstóy speaks above of the book as being written, it may be that
  Tolstóy had a manuscript before him.

The book is devoted to the same question, which it analyzes in
relation with the demand made by the government of the United States
on its citizens as regards military service during that Civil War,
and it has the same contemporary importance, in that it analyzes the
question as to how and under what conditions men must and can refuse
to do military service. In the introduction the author says:

"It is well known that in the United States there are many people
who consciously deny war. They are called 'non-resistant' or
'defenceless' Christians. These Christians refuse to defend their
country or to bear arms, or to engage, at the request of the
government, in war against its enemies. Until now this religious
cause has been respected by the government, and those who professed
it were excused from service. But with the beginning of our civil
war public opinion has been wrought up by this state of affairs.
Naturally, people who consider it their duty to bear all the burdens
and perils of a military life for the defence of their country feel
harsh toward those who for a long time have with them enjoyed the
protection and the advantages of the government, but in time of
necessity and danger do not wish to share in bearing the labours and
dangers in its defence. It is also natural for the condition of such
men to be considered irrational, monstrous, and suspicious.

"Many orators and writers," says the author, "have raised their
voice against this state and have tried to prove the injustice of
non-resistance from common sense and from Scripture; and this is
quite natural, and in many cases these authors are right,--they
are right in relation to those persons who, declining the labours
connected with military service, do not decline the advantages
which they receive from the governments,--but they are not right in
relation to the principle of non-resistance itself."

First of all the author proves the obligatoriness of the rule of
non-resistance for every Christian in that it is clear and that it
is given to a Christian beyond any possibility of misinterpretation.
"Judge yourselves whether it is right to obey man more than God,"
said Peter and John. Similarly every man who wants to be a Christian
must act in relation to the demand that he should go to war, since
Christ has told him, "Resist not evil with violence."

With this the author considers the question as to principle itself
completely solved. The author analyzes in detail the other question
as to whether persons, who do not decline the advantages which
are obtained through the violence of government, have a right to
refuse to do military service, and comes to the conclusion that a
Christian, who follows Christ's law and refuses to go to war, can
just as little take part in any governmental affairs,--either in
courts or in elections,--nor can he in private matters have recourse
to power, police or court. Then the book proceeds to analyze the
relation of the Old Testament to the New,--the significance of
government for non-Christians; there are offered objections to
the doctrine of non-resistance, and these are refuted. The author
concludes his book with the following:

"Christ chose His disciples in the world," he says. "They do not
expect any worldly goods or worldly happiness, but, on the contrary,
everlasting life. The spirit in which they live makes them satisfied
and happy in every situation. If the world tolerates them, they are
always satisfied. But if the world will not leave them in peace,
they will go elsewhere, since they are wanderers on the earth and
have no definite place of abode. They consider that the dead can
bury the dead,--they need but one thing, and that is to follow their
teacher."

Without touching the question whether the duty of a Christian in
relation to war, as established in these two books, is correct
or not, it is impossible not to see the practical importance and
urgency of the solution of this question.

There are some people,--hundreds of thousands of Quakers,--and
all our Spirit Wrestlers and Milkers, and people belonging to
no definite sects, who assert that violence--and so military
service--is not compatible with Christianity, and therefore every
year several recruits in Russia refuse to do military service on
the basis of their religious convictions. What does the government
do? Does it excuse them? No. Does it compel them to serve, and, in
case of a refusal, punish them? No. In 1818 the government acted as
follows. Here is an excerpt, which is almost unknown in Russia, from
a diary by N. N. Muravév-Kárski, which was not sanctioned by the
censor.


     "TIFLIS, October 2, 1818.

     "In the morning the commandant told me that lately five manorial
     peasants from the Government of Támbov had been sent to Georgia.
     These men had been sent to the army, but they refused to serve;
     they have been flogged several times and have been sent between
     the rows, but they gladly undergo the most cruel torments and
     are prepared for death, if only they can avoid serving. 'Send
     us away,' they say, 'and do not touch us; we shall not touch
     any one. All men are equal and the Tsar is just such a man as
     we are. Why should we pay him tribute? Why should I subject my
     life to danger in order to kill in war a man who has done me no
     wrong? You may cut us into small pieces, but we will not change
     our ideas, we will not put on the military cloak, and will
     not eat rations. He who will pity us will give us an alms, but
     we have nothing belonging to the Crown and we want nothing.'
     Such are the words of these peasants, who assert that there is
     a large number like them in Russia. They have four times been
     taken before the Committee of Ministers, and it was finally
     decided to refer the matter to the Tsar, who commanded that
     they be sent to Georgia to mend their ways, and ordered the
     commander-in-chief to report to him every month concerning the
     gradual success in turning these peasants to the proper ideas."

It is not known how this improvement ended, just as nothing is known
of the whole episode, which was kept a profound secret.

Thus the government acted seventy-five years ago,--thus it has acted
in the vast majority of cases, which are always cautiously concealed
from the people. Thus it acts even at present, except in relation to
the German Mennonites, who live in the Government of Khersón, for
their refusal to do military service is heeded and they are made to
serve their time in connection with forestry work.

In the late cases of refusal to do military service in consequence
of religious convictions, other than those of the Mennonites, the
authorities have acted as follows:

At first they use all means of violence employed in our time for
the purpose of "mending" them and bringing them back to "the proper
ideas," and the whole matter is kept a profound secret. I know that
in the case of one man in Moscow, who in 1884 refused to serve, they
wrote up voluminous documents two months after his refusal, and
these were kept in the ministry as the greatest secret.

They generally begin by sending the one who refuses to the priests,
who, to their shame be it said, always admonish the person refusing.
But since the admonition, in the name of Christ, to renounce Christ
is generally fruitless, the refusing person is after the admonition
by the clergy sent to the gendarmes. The gendarmes, finding nothing
of a political nature in the case, generally return him, and then
the refusing person is sent to the learned, to the physicians, and
into the insane asylum. In all these recommitments the refuser, who
is deprived of his liberty, undergoes all kinds of humiliations and
sufferings, like a condemned criminal. (This was repeated in four
cases.) The physicians dismiss the refuser from the insane asylum,
and then begin all kinds of secret, cunning measures, in order not
to dismiss the refuser and thus encourage others to refuse like him,
and at the same time not to leave him amidst the soldiers, lest the
soldiers might find out from him that the levy for military service
does not at all take place in accordance with God's law, as they are
assured, but contrary to it.

The most convenient thing for the government to do would be to
have the refuser executed, beaten to death with sticks, as they
used to do of old, or executed in some other manner. But it is
impossible openly to execute a man for being true to a teaching
which we all profess, and it is equally impossible to let a man
alone, who refuses to serve. And so the government tries either
through suffering to compel the man to renounce Christ, or in some
way imperceptibly to get rid of the man, without having him publicly
executed,--in some way to conceal this man's act and the man himself
from other people. And so there begin all kinds of devices and
cunning and tortures of this man. Either he is sent to some outlying
region, or he is provoked to commit some act of insubordination,
and then he is tried for breach of discipline and is locked up in
prison, in a disciplinary battalion, where he is freely tortured
in secret, or he is declared insane and is locked up in an insane
asylum. Thus one man was sent to Tashként, that is, as though he
were transferred to the Tashként army, another to Omsk, a third was
tried for insubordination and sent to prison, and a fourth was put
into a lunatic asylum.

Everywhere the same is repeated. Not only the government, but also
the majority of liberals, of freethinkers, as though by agreement,
carefully turn away from everything which has been said, written,
and done by men to show the incompatibility of violence in its most
terrible, rude, and lurid form, in the form of militarism, that
is, the readiness to kill anybody, with the teaching, not only of
Christianity, but even of humanitarianism, which society pretends to
be professing.

Thus the information which I received concerning the extent to which
the true significance of Christ's teaching has been elucidated and
is being elucidated more and more, and concerning the attitude which
the highest ruling classes, not only in Russia, but also in Europe
and in America, take toward this elucidation and execution of the
teaching, convinced me that in these ruling classes there existed a
consciously hostile relation toward true Christianity, which found
its expression mainly in the silence observed concerning all its
manifestations.


II.

The same impression of a desire to conceal, to pass in silence, what
I attempted so carefully to express in my book, has been produced on
me by the criticisms upon it.

When my book appeared, it was, as I had expected, prohibited, and
according to the law it ought to have been burned. But, instead of
being burned, it was distributed among the officials, and it was
disseminated in a large number of written copies and lithographic
reprints, and in translations printed abroad. Very soon there
appeared criticisms upon the book, not only by the clergy, but also
by the laity, which the government not only sanctioned, but even
encouraged, so that the refutation of the book, which was assumed to
be unknown to any one, was made a theme for theological essays in
the academies.

The critics upon my books, both the Russian and the foreign critics,
can be divided into two classes: into the religious critics,--people
who consider themselves to be believers,--and lay critics, who are
freethinkers.

I shall begin with the first:

In my book I accuse the church teachers of teaching contrary to
Christ's commandments, which are clearly and definitely expressed in
the Sermon on the Mount, and especially contrary to the commandment
about non-resistance to evil, thus depriving Christ's teaching
of all significance. The church teachers recognize the Sermon on
the Mount with the commandment about non-resistance to evil as a
divine revelation, and so, if they have found it necessary to write
about my book at all, they ought, it would seem, first of all to
answer this chief point of accusation and say outright whether
they consider the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount and of the
commandment about non-resistance to evil obligatory for a Christian,
or not,--and they must not answer it as this is generally done, that
is, by saying that, although on the one hand it cannot properly be
denied, on the other it cannot be affirmed, the more so that, and so
forth,--but must answer it just as the question is put by me in my
book: did Christ actually demand from His disciples the fulfilment
of what He taught in the Sermon on the Mount? and so, can a
Christian, remaining a Christian, go to court, taking part in it and
condemning people, or seeking in it defence by means of violence,
or can he not? Can a Christian, still remaining a Christian, take
part in the government, using violence against his neighbours, or
not? And the chief question, which now, with the universal military
service, stands before all men,--can a Christian, remaining a
Christian, contrary to Christ's injunction, make any promises as
to future acts, which are directly contrary to the teaching, and,
taking part in military service, prepare himself for the murder of
men and commit it?

The questions are put clearly and frankly, and, it would seem, they
ought to be answered clearly and frankly. But nothing of the kind
has been done in all the criticisms upon my book, just as nothing of
the kind has been done in the case of all those arraignments of the
church teachers for departing from Christ's law, with which history
is filled since the time of Constantine.

Very much has been said in reference to my book about how
incorrectly I interpret this or that passage in the Gospel, how
I err in not acknowledging the Trinity, the redemption, and the
immortality of the soul; very much has been said, but this one
thing, which for every Christian forms the chief, essential question
of life: how to harmonize what was clearly expressed in the
teacher's words and is clearly expressed in the heart of every one
of us,--the teaching about forgiveness, humility, renunciation, and
love of all men, of our neighbours and of our enemies,--with the
demand of military violence exerted against the men of one's own
nation or another nation.

Everything which may be called semblances of answers to this
question may be reduced to the five following divisions. I have
tried in this respect to collect everything I could, not only in
reference to the criticisms upon my book, but also in reference to
what has been written upon the subject in former times.

The first, the rudest way of answering, consists in the bold
assertion that violence does not contradict Christ's teaching, and
that it is permitted and even prescribed by the Old and the New
Testament.

Assertions of this kind issue for the most part from people
high up in the governmental or ecclesiastic hierarchy, who are,
therefore, quite convinced that no one will dare to contradict
their assertions, and that if one actually dared to do so, they
would not hear these objections. These men have, in consequence of
their intoxication with their power, for the most part to such an
extent lost the concept of what that Christianity is, in the name
of which they occupy their places, that everything of a Christian
nature in Christianity presents itself to them as sectarian; but
everything which in the writings of the Old and the New Testament
may be interpreted in an anti-Christian and pagan sense, they
consider to be the foundation of Christianity. In favour of their
assertion that Christianity does not contradict violence, these
men with the greatest boldness generally bring forward the most
offensive passages from the Old and the New Testament, and interpret
them in the most non-Christian manner: the execution of Ananias
and Sapphira, the execution of Simon Magus, and so forth. They
adduce all those words of Christ which may be interpreted as a
justification of cruelty, such as the expulsion from the temple, "It
shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom, than for that city,"
and so forth.

According to the concepts of these men, the Christian government is
not in the least obliged to be guided by the spirit of humility,
forgiveness of offences, and love of our enemies.

It is useless to refute such an assertion, because the men who
assert this refute themselves, or rather, turn away from Christ,
inventing their own Christ and their own Christianity in place of
Him in whose name the church exists and also the position which
they occupy in it. If all men knew that the church preaches Christ
punishing, and not forgiving, and warring, no one would be believing
in this church, and there would be no one to prove what it is
proving.

The second method is a little less rude. It consists in asserting
that, although Christ really taught to offer one's cheek and give up
a shirt, and this is a very high moral demand, there are malefactors
in the world, and if these are not curbed by the exercise of
force, the whole world and all good men will perish. This proof I
found for the first time in John Chrysostom and I pointed out its
incorrectness in my book, _My Religion_.

This argument is ungrounded, because, in the first place, if we
allow ourselves to recognize any men as special malefactors (Raca),
we thus destroy the whole meaning of the Christian teaching,
according to which we are all equal and brothers, as the sons of
one heavenly Father; in the second place, because, even if God
permitted the exertion of violence against malefactors, it is
absolutely impossible to find that safe and indubitable sign by
which a malefactor may be unerringly told from one who is not,
and so every man, or society of men, would recognize another as a
malefactor, which is the case now; in the third place, because even
if it were possible unerringly to tell malefactors from those who
are not malefactors, it would still not be possible in a Christian
society to execute, or maim, or lock up these malefactors, because
in Christian society there would be no one to do this, because every
Christian, as a Christian, is enjoined not to use violence against a
malefactor.

The third method of answering is still shrewder than the previous
one. It consists in asserting that, although the commandment of
non-resistance to evil is obligatory for a Christian when the evil
is directed against him personally, it ceases to be obligatory
when the evil is directed against his neighbours, and that then a
Christian is not only not obliged to fulfil the commandments, but
is also obliged in the defence of his neighbours, contrary to the
commandment, to use violence against the violators.

This assertion is quite arbitrary, and in the whole of Christ's
teaching no confirmation of such an interpretation can be found.
Such an interpretation is not only a limitation of the commandment,
but a direct negation and annihilation of it. If any man has a right
to use violence when another is threatened by danger, then the
question as to the use of violence reduces itself to the question
of defining what constitutes a danger for another person. But if my
private judgment decides the question of danger for another, then
there does not exist such a case of violence that it could not be
explained on the basis of a danger with which another is threatened.
Wizards were executed and burned, aristocrats and Girondists were
executed, and so were their enemies, because those who were in power
considered them to be dangerous for others.

If this important limitation, which radically undermines the meaning
of the commandment, entered Christ's mind, there ought somewhere to
be mention made of it. But in all the preaching and the life of the
teacher there is not only no such limitation, but, on the contrary,
there is expressed a particular caution against such a false and
offensive limitation, which destroys the commandment. The mistake
and the blunder of such a limitation is with particular clearness
shown in the Gospel in connection with the judgment of Caiaphas, who
made this very limitation. He recognized that it was not good to
execute innocent Jesus, but he saw in Him danger, not for himself,
but for the whole nation, and so he said: "It is expedient for us
that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not." And more clearly still was the negation of such a
limitation expressed in the words said to Peter when he attempted
with violence to resist the evil which was directed against Jesus
(Matt. xxvi. 52). Peter was not defending himself, but his beloved
and divine teacher. And Christ directly forbade him to do so, saying
that he who takes the sword shall perish with the sword.

Besides, the justification of violence used against a neighbour
for the sake of defending another man against worse violence is
always incorrect, because in using violence against an evil which is
not yet accomplished, it is impossible to know which evil will be
greater,--whether the evil of my violence or of that against which
I wish to defend my neighbour. We execute a criminal, thus freeing
society from him, and we are positively unable to tell whether
the criminal would not have changed on the morrow and whether our
execution is not a useless cruelty. We lock up a man whom we suppose
to be a dangerous member of society, but beginning with to-morrow
this man may cease to be dangerous, and his incarceration is futile.
I see that a man whom I know to be a robber is pursuing a girl, and
I have a gun in my hand,--I kill the robber and save the girl; the
robber has certainly been killed or wounded, but it is unknown to
me what would happen if that were not the case. What an enormous
amount of evil must take place, as it actually does, as the result
of arrogating to ourselves the right to prevent an evil that may
occur! Ninety-nine hundredths of the evil of the world, from the
Inquisition to dynamite bombs and the executions and sufferings of
tens of thousands of so-called political criminals, are based on
this reflection.

The fourth, still more refined answer to the question as to how a
Christian should act toward Christ's commandment of non-resistance
to evil consists in asserting that the commandment of non-resistance
to evil is not denied by them, but is accepted like any other; but
that they do not ascribe to this commandment any special exclusive
significance, as the sectarians do. To ascribe to this commandment
an invariable condition of Christian life, as do Garrison, Ballou,
Dymond, the Quakers, the Mennonites, the Shakers, and as did the
Moravian brothers, the Waldenses, Albigenses, Bogomils, Paulicians,
is one-sided sectarianism. This commandment has neither more nor
less significance than all the others, and a man who in his weakness
transgresses any one of the commandments about non-resistance
does not cease to be a Christian, provided he believes correctly.
This subterfuge is very clever, and men who wish to be deceived
are easily deceived by it. The subterfuge consists in reducing
the direct conscious negation of the commandment to an accidental
violation of the same. But we need only compare the relation of
the church teachers to this commandment and to others, which they
actually recognize, in order that we may convince ourselves that
the relation of the church teachers to the commandments which they
recognize is quite different from their relation to this one.

They actually recognize the commandment against fornication, and so
never, under any condition, admit that fornication is not an evil.
The preachers of the church never point out any cases when the
commandment against fornication ought to be broken, and they always
teach that we must avoid the offences which lead to the temptation
of fornication. But this is not the case with the commandment about
non-resistance. All the church preachers know cases when this
commandment may be broken. And thus they teach men. And they not
only do not teach how to avoid these offences, of which the chief
one is the oath, but themselves commit them. The church preachers
never and under no condition preach the violation of any other
commandment; but in relation to the commandment of non-resistance
they teach outright that this prohibition must not be understood in
too direct a sense, and not only that this commandment must not be
carried out at all times, but that there are conditions, situations,
when directly the opposite should be done, that is, that we should
judge, wage war, execute. Thus, in reference to the commandment
about non-resistance to evil, they in the majority of cases preach
how not to fulfil it. The fulfilment of this commandment, they
say, is very difficult and is characteristic only of perfection.
But how can it help but be difficult, when its breach is not
only not prohibited, but is also directly encouraged, when they
directly bless the courts, prisons, guns, cannon, armies, battles?
Consequently it is not true that this commandment is recognized
by the church preachers as of equal significance with the other
commandments. The church preachers simply do not recognize it, and
only because they do not dare to confess it, try to conceal their
failure to recognize it.

Such is the fourth method of answers.

The fifth method, the most refined, most popular, and most powerful
one, consists in begging the question, in making it appear as though
the question had long ago been decided by some one in an absolutely
clear and satisfactory manner, and as though it were not worth while
to speak of it. This method is employed by more or less cultivated
ecclesiastic writers, that is, such as feel the laws of logic to be
obligatory for them. Knowing that the contradiction which exists
between Christ's teaching, which we profess in words, and the whole
structure of our life cannot be solved with words, and that, by
touching it, we can only make it more obvious, they with greater or
lesser agility get around it, making it appear that the question
about the connection of Christianity with violence has been decided
or does not exist at all.[7]

  [7] I know but one piece of writing, not a criticism in the strict
  sense of the word, but an article which treats the same subject,
  and which has my book in view, that departs from this common
  definition. It is Tróitski's pamphlet (Kazán) _The Sermon on the
  Mount_. The author obviously recognizes Christ's teaching in its
  real significance. He says that the commandment about non-resistance
  to evil means what it does, and the same is true of the commandment
  about swearing; he does not deny, as others do, the significance
  of Christ's teaching, but unfortunately he does not make from this
  recognition those inevitable deductions, which in our life beg for
  recognition in connection with such a comprehension of Christ's
  teaching. If it is not right to resist evil and to swear, every
  man will naturally ask: "How about military service?" And to this
  question the author gives no answer, though an answer is demanded.
  And if it cannot be answered, it is best not to speak at all,
  because silence produces error.--_Author's Note._

The majority of the ecclesiastic critics of my book employ this
method. I could adduce dozens of such criticisms, in which without
exception one and the same thing is repeated: they speak of
everything but the chief subject of the book. As a characteristic
example of such criticisms, I shall quote an article by the famous,
refined English writer and preacher, Farrar, a great master, like
many learned theologians, of evasions and reticence. This article
was printed in the American periodical, _Forum_, in October, 1888.

Having conscientiously given a short review of my book, Farrar says:

"Tolstóy came to the conclusion that a coarse deceit was palmed
upon the world when these words were held by civil society to
be compatible with war, courts of justice, capital punishment,
divorce, oaths, national prejudice, and indeed with most of the
institutions of civil and social life. He now believes that the
kingdom of God would come if all men kept these five commandments,
... (1) Live in peace with all men; (2) be pure; (3) take no oaths;
(4) never resist evil; (5) renounce national distinctions.

"Tolstóy," he says, "rejects the divine inspiration of the Old
Testament and of the epistles; he rejects all the dogmas of the
church, that of the atonement by blood, that of the Trinity, that of
the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles ... and recognizes
only the words and commandments of Christ.

"Is this interpretation of Christ a true one?" he asks. "Are all men
bound, or is any man bound, to act as Tolstóy has taught, that is,
to fulfil the five commandments of Christ?"

One just hopes that in reply to this essential question, which
alone could have urged the man to write an article on the book, he
will say that this interpretation of Christ's teaching is correct,
or that it is not correct, and so will prove why, and will give
another, a correct interpretation to the words which I interpret
incorrectly. But nothing of the kind is done. Farrar only expresses
his conviction that, "though actuated by the noblest sincerity,
Tolstóy has been misled by partial and one-sided interpretations of
the meaning of the Gospel and the mind and will of Christ."

No explanation is given as to what this error consists in, but all
there is said, is:

"To enter into the proof of this is impossible in this article, for
I have already exceeded the space at my command."

And he concludes with an easy mind:

"Meanwhile the reader who feels troubled lest it should be his duty
also to forsake all conditions of his life, and to take up the
position and work of a common labourer, may rest for the present
on the principle, _Securus judicat orbis terrarum_. With few and
rare exceptions," he continues, "the whole of Christendom, from
the days of the apostles down to our own, has come to the firm
conclusion that it was the object of Christ to lay down great
eternal principles, but not disturb the bases and revolutionize the
institutions of all human society, which themselves rest on divine
sanction as well as on inevitable conditions. Were it my object to
prove how untenable is the doctrine of communism, based by Tolstóy
upon the divine paradoxes (_sic!_), which can be interpreted on only
historical principles in accordance with the whole method of the
teaching of Jesus, it would require an ampler canvas than I have
here at my disposal."

What a misfortune,--he has not any space! And, strange to say, space
has been lacking for fifteen centuries, to prove that Christ, whom
we profess, said something different from what He said. They could
prove it, if they only wanted to. However, it does not pay to prove
what everybody knows. It is enough to say: "_Securus judicat orbis
terrarum_."

And such are, without exception, all the criticisms of the
cultivated believers, who, therefore, do not understand the
perilousness of their position. The only way out for them is the
hope that, by using the authority of the church, of antiquity,
of holiness, they may be able to confuse the reader and draw him
away from the thought of reading the Gospel for himself and of
considering the question with his own mind. And in this they are
successful. To whom, indeed, will it occur that all that which
with such assurance and solemnity is repeated from century to
century by all these archdeacons, bishops, archbishops, most
holy synods, and Popes, is a base lie and calumny, which they
foist on Christ in order to secure the money which they need for
the purpose of leading a life of pleasure, while sitting on
the backs of others,--a lie and a calumny, which is so obvious,
especially now that the only possibility of continuing this lie
consists in frightening men into belief by their assurance, their
unscrupulousness? It is precisely the same that of late years has
taken place in the Recruiting Sessions: at the head of the table,
with the Mirror of Laws upon it, and beneath the full-sized portrait
of the emperor, sit dignified old officials in their regalia,
conversing freely and unreservedly, noting down, commanding,
calling out. Here also, with the cross over his breast and in
silk vestments, with his gray hair falling down straight over his
scapulary, stands an imposing old man, the priest, in front of the
pulpit, on which lies a gold cross and a gold-trimmed Gospel.

Iván Petróv is called out. A young man steps out. He is poorly
and dirtily dressed and looks frightened, and the muscles of his
face tremble, and his fugitive eyes sparkle, and in a faltering
voice, almost in a whisper, he says: "I--according to the law I, a
Christian--I cannot--"

"What is he muttering there?" impatiently asks the presiding
officer, half-closing his eyes and listening, as he raises his head
from the book.

"Speak louder!" shouts to him the colonel with the shining
shoulder-straps.

"I--I--I--as a Christian--"

It finally turns out that the young man refuses to do military
service, because he is a Christian.

"Talk no nonsense! Get your measure! Doctor, be so kind as to take
his measure. Is he fit for the army?"

"He is."

"Reverend father, have him sworn in."

No one is confused; no one even pays any attention to what this
frightened, pitiable young man is muttering.

"They all mutter something, but we have no time: we have to receive
so many recruits."

The recruit wants to say something again.

"This is against Christ's law."

"Go, go, we know without you what is according to the law,--but
you get out of here. Reverend father, admonish him. Next: Vasíli
Nikítin."

And the trembling youth is taken away. And to whom--whether the
janitor, or Vasíli Nikítin, who is being brought in, or any one else
who witnessed this scene from the side--will it occur that those
indistinct, short words of the youth, which were at once put out
of court by the authorities, contain the truth, while those loud,
solemn speeches of the self-possessed, calm officials and of the
priest are a lie, a deception?

A similar impression is produced, not only by the articles of a
Farrar but by all those solemn sermons, articles, and books, which
appear on all sides, the moment the truth peeps out and arraigns
the ruling lie. Immediately there begin long, clever, elegant
conversations or writings about questions which touch closely upon
the subject with a shrewd reticence concerning the question itself.

In this consists the fifth and most effective means for removing
the contradiction in which the ecclesiastic Christianity has placed
itself by professing Christ in words and denying His teaching in
life, and teaching the same to others.

Those who justify themselves by the first method, asserting
outright and rudely that Christ has permitted violence,--wars,
murder,--withdraw themselves from Christ's teaching; those who
defend themselves according to the second, the third, and the fourth
methods get themselves entangled, and it is easy to point out their
untruth; but these last, who do not discuss, who do not condescend
to discuss, but hide themselves behind their greatness and make
it appear that all this has been decided long ago by them, or by
somebody else, and that it no longer is subject to any doubt, seem
invulnerable, and they will be invulnerable so long as people will
remain under the influence of hypnotic suggestion, which is induced
in them by governments and churches, and will not shake it off.

Such was the attitude which the ecclesiastics, that is, those who
profess Christ's faith, assumed toward me. Nor could they have
acted otherwise: they are bound by the contradiction in which they
live,--the faith in the divinity of the teacher and the unbelief
in His clearest words,--from which they must in some way extricate
themselves, and so it was not possible to expect from them any free
opinion concerning the essence of the question, concerning that
change in the lives of men which results from the application of
Christ's teaching to the existing order. Such opinions I expected
from the freethinking lay critics, who are in no way bound to
Christ's teaching and who can look upon it without restraint. I
expected that the freethinking writers would look upon Christ not
only as the establisher of a religion of worship and personal
salvation (as which the ecclesiastics understand him), but, to
express myself in their language, as a reformer, who destroys the
old, and gives the new foundations of life, the reform of which is
not yet accomplished, but continues until the present.

Such a view of Christ and His teaching results from my book, but,
to my surprise, out of the large number of criticisms upon my book,
there was _not one_, either Russian or foreign, which treated the
subject from the same side from which it is expounded in my book,
that is, which looked upon Christ's teaching as a philosophical,
moral, and social doctrine (again to speak in the language of the
learned). This was not the case in a single criticism.

The Russian lay critics, who understood my book in such a way
that all its contents reduced themselves to non-resistance to
evil, and who understood the teaching about non-resistance to evil
itself (apparently for convenience of refutal) as meaning that
it prohibited any struggle against evil, furiously attacked this
teaching and very successfully proved for the period of several
years that Christ's teaching was incorrect, since it taught us
not to resist evil. Their refutals of this supposed teaching of
Christ were the more successful, since they knew in advance that
their views could neither be overthrown nor corrected, because the
censorship, having failed to sanction the book itself, did not
sanction the articles in its defence either.

What is remarkable in connection with the matter is this, that
with us, where not a word may be said about the Holy Scripture
without a prohibition by the censorship, the clearly and directly
expressed commandment of Matt. v. 39 has for several years been
openly contorted, criticized, condemned, and ridiculed in all the
periodicals.

The Russian lay critics, who evidently did not know all that had
been done in the development of the question as to non-resistance
to evil, and who at times even seemed to assume that I personally
invented the rule of not resisting evil with violence, attacked the
idea itself, rejecting and contorting it, and with much fervour
advancing arguments which have long ago been analyzed from every
side and rejected, proved that a man is obliged (with violence) to
defend all the insulted and the oppressed, and that, therefore, the
doctrine about not resisting evil with violence is immoral.

The whole significance of Christ's preaching presented itself to the
Russian critics as though maliciously interfering with a certain
activity, which was directed against what they at a given moment
considered to be an evil, so that it turned out that the principle
of not resisting evil with violence was attacked by two opposite
camps,--by the conservatives, because this principle interfered
with their activity of resisting the evil which was produced by the
revolutionists, and with their persecutions and executions; and
by the revolutionists, because this principle interfered with the
resistance to the evil which was produced by the conservatives, and
with the overthrow of the conservatives. The conservatives were
provoked, because the doctrine of non-resistance to evil interfered
with the energetic suppression of the revolutionary elements,
who are likely to ruin the welfare of the nation; while the
revolutionists were provoked, because the doctrine of non-resistance
to evil interfered with the overthrow of the conservatives, who were
ruining the well-being of the nation.

What is remarkable is, that the revolutionists attacked the
principle of non-resistance, although it is most terrible and most
dangerous for every despotism, because ever since the beginning of
the world the opposite principle of the necessity of resisting evil
with violence has been lying at the basis of all violence, from the
Inquisition to the Schlüsselburg Fortress.

Besides, the Russian critics pointed out that the application to
life of the commandment about non-resistance to evil would turn
humanity away from the path of civilization, on which it was
marching now; but the path of civilization, on which the European
civilization is marching, is, in their opinion, the one on which all
humanity must always march.

Such was the chief character of the Russian criticisms.

The foreign critics proceeded from the same bases, but their reviews
of my book differed from those of the Russian critics not only in a
lesser degree of irritability and a greater degree of culture, but
also in the essence of the matter.

In discussing my book and the Gospel teaching in general, as it is
expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the foreign critics asserted
that such a teaching is really not Christian (Christian in their
opinion is Catholicism and Protestantism), and that the doctrine
of the Sermon on the Mount is only a series of very charming,
impracticable reveries "_du charmant docteur_," as Renan used to
say, which were good enough for the naïve and half-wild inhabitants
of Galilee, who lived eighteen hundred years ago, and for the
Russian peasants, Syutáev and Bondarév, and the Russian mystic,
Tolstóy, but can in no way be applied to the high degree of European
culture.

The foreign lay critics tried, in a refined manner, without giving
me any offence, to let me know that my opinion that humanity can
be guided by such a naïve teaching as the Sermon on the Mount is
due partly to my ignorance, lack of acquaintance with history,
lack of knowledge of all those vain attempts to realize in life
the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, which have been made in
history, and have led to nothing, thanks to ignorance concerning the
whole significance of that high degree of culture on which European
civilization now stands, with its Krupp guns, smokeless powder, the
colonization of Africa, the government of Ireland, parliaments,
journalism, strikes, constitutions, and Eiffel Tower.

Thus wrote Vogüé, and Leroy Beaulieu, and Matthew Arnold, and the
American writer Savage, and Ingersoll, a popular American preacher
of free thought, and many others.

"Christ's teaching is no good, because it does not harmonize with
our industrial age," naïvely says Ingersoll, thus expressing with
absolute precision and naïveté what the refined and cultured men
of our time think about Christ's teaching. The teaching is no good
for our industrial age, as though the existence of the industrial
age is something sacred which must not and cannot be changed. It is
something like what drunkards would do, if, in response to advice
about how to get themselves into a sober state, they should reply
that the advice is out of place in connection with their present
alcoholic state.

The discussions of all the lay writers, both Russian and foreign, no
matter how different their tone and the manner of their arguments
may be, in reality reduce themselves to one and the same strange
misunderstanding, namely, that Christ's teaching, one of the
consequences of which is non-resistance to evil, is useless to us,
because it demands that our life be changed.

Christ's teaching is useless, because, if it were put into practice,
our life could not continue; in other words,--if we began to live
well, as Christ has taught us, we could not continue to live
badly, as we live and are accustomed to live. The question of
non-resistance to evil is not discussed, and the very mention of the
fact that the demand for non-resistance to evil enters into Christ's
teaching is considered a sufficient proof of the inapplicability of
the whole teaching.

And yet, it would seem, it is indispensable to point out some kind
of a solution to this question, because it lies at the foundation of
nearly all affairs which interest us.

The question consists in this: how are we to harmonize the conflicts
of men, when some consider an evil what others consider to be good,
and vice versa? And so, to consider that an evil which I consider
an evil, although my adversary may consider it good, is no answer.
There can be but two answers: either we have to find a true and
indisputable criterion of what an evil is, or we must not resist
evil with violence.

The first solution has been tried since the beginning of historical
times, and, as we all know, has so far led to no satisfactory
results.

The second answer, not to resist with violence what we consider
evil, so long as we have found no common criterion, was proposed by
Christ.

It may be found that Christ's answer is not correct: it may be
possible to put in its place another, better answer, by finding
a criterion which would indubitably and simultaneously for all
define the evil; we may simply not recognize the essence of the
question, as it is not recognized by the savage nations,--but it is
impossible, as the learned critics of the Christian teaching do, to
make it appear that such a question does not at all exist, or that
the relegation of the right to determine the evil and resist it with
violence to certain persons or assemblies of men (much less, if we
are these men), solves the question; whereas we all know that such
a relegation does not at all solve the question, since there are
some people who do not recognize this right as belonging to certain
people or to assemblies of men.

But it is this recognition that what to us appears evil is evil,
or an absolute failure to comprehend the question, which serves as
a foundation for the judgment of the lay critics concerning the
Christian teaching, so that the opinions concerning my book, both of
the ecclesiastic and the lay critics, showed me that the majority of
men absolutely fail to comprehend, not only Christ's very teaching,
but even those questions to which it serves as an answer.


III.

Thus, both the information received by me after the publication of
my book, as to how the Christian teaching in its direct and true
sense has without interruption been understood by the minority of
men, and the criticisms upon it, both the ecclesiastic and the lay
criticisms, which denied the possibility of understanding Christ's
teaching in the direct sense, convinced me that, while, on the one
hand, the true comprehension of this teaching never ceased for the
minority, and became clearer and clearer to them, on the other hand,
for the majority, its meaning became more and more obscure, finally
reaching such a degree of obscuration that men no longer comprehend
the simplest propositions, which are expressed in the Gospel in the
simplest words.

The failure to comprehend Christ's teaching in its true, simple,
and direct sense in our time, when the light of this teaching has
penetrated all the darkest corners of human consciousness; when,
as Christ has said, that which He has spoken in the ear, they now
proclaim upon the housetops; when this teaching permeates all the
sides of human life,--the domestic, the economic, the civil, the
political, and the international,--this failure to comprehend would
be incomprehensible, if there were no causes for it.

One of these causes is this, that both the believers and the
unbelievers are firmly convinced that Christ's teaching has been
comprehended by them long ago, and so completely, indubitably, and
finally, that there can be no other meaning in it than the one they
ascribe to it. This cause is due to the duration of the tradition
of the false comprehension, and so of the failure to understand the
true teaching.

The most powerful stream of water cannot add a drop to a vessel that
is full.

It is possible to explain the most intricate matters to a man of
very hard comprehension, so long as he has not formed any idea about
them; but it is impossible to explain the simplest thing to a very
clever man, if he is firmly convinced that he knows, and, besides,
incontestably knows, what has been transmitted to him.

The Christian teaching presents itself to the men of our world
precisely as such a teaching, which has for a long time and in a
most indubitable manner been known in its minutest details, and
which cannot be comprehended in any other manner than it now is.

Christianity is now understood by those who profess the church
doctrines as a supernatural, miraculous revelation concerning
everything which is given in the symbol of faith, and by those
who do not believe, as an obsolete manifestation of humanity's
need of believing in something supernatural, as a historical
phenomenon, which is completely expressed in Catholicism, Orthodoxy,
Protestantism, and which has no longer any vital meaning for us.
For the believers the meaning of the teaching is concealed by the
church, for unbelievers by science.

I shall begin with the first:

Eighteen hundred years ago there appeared in the pagan Roman world
a strange, new teaching, which resembled nothing which preceded it,
and which was ascribed to the man Christ.

This new teaching was absolutely new, both in form and in contents,
for the European world, in the midst of which it arose, and
especially in the Roman world, where it was preached and became
diffused.

Amidst the elaborateness of the religious rules of Judaism,
where, according to Isaiah, there was rule upon rule, and amidst
the Roman legislation, which was worked out to a great degree of
perfection, there appeared a teaching which not only denied all
the divinities,--every fear of them, every divination and faith
in them,--but also all human institutions and every necessity
for them. In the place of all the rules of former faiths, this
teaching advanced only the model of an inner perfection of truth
and of love in the person of Christ, and the consequences of this
inner perfection, attainable by men,--the external perfection, as
predicted by the prophets,--the kingdom of God, in which all men
will stop warring, and all will be taught by God and united in love,
and the lion will lie with the lamb. In place of the threats of
punishments for the non-compliance with the rules, which were made
by the former laws, both religious and political, in place of the
enticement of rewards for fulfilling them, this teaching called men
to itself only by its being the truth. John vii. 17: "If any man
wants to know of this doctrine, whether it be of God, let him fulfil
it." John viii. 46: "If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?"
Why do you seek to kill a man who has told you the truth? The truth
alone will free you. God must be professed in truth only. The whole
teaching will be revealed and will be made clear by the spirit of
truth. Do what I say, and you will know whether what I say is true.

No proofs were given of the teaching, except the truth, except the
correspondence of the teaching with the truth. The whole teaching
consisted in the knowledge of the truth and in following it, in a
greater and ever greater approximation to it, in matters of life.
According to this teaching, there are no acts which can justify a
man, make him righteous; there is only the model of truth which
attracts all hearts, for the inner perfection--in the person of
Christ, and for the outer--in the realization of the kingdom of
God. The fulfilment of the teaching is only in the motion along a
given path, in the approximation to perfection,--the inner,--the
imitation of Christ, and the outer,--the establishment of the
kingdom of God. A man's greater or lesser good, according to this
teaching, depends, not on the degree of perfection which he attains,
but on the greater or lesser acceleration of motion.

The motion toward perfection of the publican, of Zacchæus, of the
harlot, of the robber on the cross, is, according to this teaching,
a greater good than the immovable righteousness of the Pharisee.
A sheep gone astray is more precious than ninety-nine who have
not. The prodigal son, the lost coin which is found again, is more
precious, more loved by God than those who were not lost.

Every condition is, according to this teaching, only a certain step
on the road toward the unattainable inner and outer perfection, and
so has no meaning. The good is only in the motion toward perfection;
but the stopping at any stage whatsoever is only a cessation of the
good.

"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," and "No man,
having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the
kingdom of God." "Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto
you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven."

"Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." "Seek
the kingdom of God and His righteousness."

The fulfilment of the teaching is only in unceasing motion,--in the
attainment of a higher and ever higher truth, and in an ever greater
realization of the same in oneself by means of an ever increasing
love, and outside of oneself by an ever greater realization of the
kingdom of God.

It is evident that, having appeared in the midst of the Jewish and
the pagan world, this teaching could not have been accepted by
the majority of men, who lived a life entirely different from the
one which this teaching demanded; and that it could not even be
comprehended in its full significance by those who accepted it, as
it was diametrically opposed to their former views.

Only by a series of misconceptions, blunders, one-sided
explanations, corrected and supplemented by generations of men,
was the meaning of the Christian teaching made more and more clear
to men. The Christian world-conception affected the Jewish and the
pagan conceptions, and the Jewish and pagan conceptions affected
the Christian world-conception. And the Christian, as being vital,
penetrated the reviving Jewish and pagan conceptions more and more,
and stood forth more and more clearly, freeing itself from the false
admixture, which was imposed upon it. Men came to comprehend the
meaning better and better, and more and more realized it in life.

The longer humanity lived, the more and more was the meaning of
Christianity made clear to it, as indeed it could not and cannot be
otherwise with any teaching about life.

The subsequent generations corrected the mistakes of their
predecessors, and more and more approached the comprehension of
its true meaning. Thus it has been since the earliest times of
Christianity. And here, in the earliest times, there appeared men,
who began to assert that the meaning which they ascribed to the
teaching was the only true one, and that as a proof of it served
the supernatural phenomena which confirmed the correctness of their
comprehension.

It was this that was the chief cause, at first, of the failure to
comprehend the teaching, and later, of its complete corruption.

It was assumed that Christ's teaching was not transmitted to men
like any other truth, but in a special, supernatural manner, so
that the truth of the comprehension of the teaching was not proved
by the correspondence of what was transmitted with the demands of
reason and of the whole human nature, but by the miraculousness of
the transmission, which served as an incontrovertible proof of the
correctness of the comprehension. This proposition arose from a
lack of comprehension, and its consequence was an impossibility of
comprehending.

This began with the very first times, when the teaching was still
understood incompletely and often perversely, as we may see from the
gospels and from the Acts. The less the teaching was understood, the
more obscurely did it present itself, and the more necessary were
the external proofs of its veracity. The proposition about not doing
unto another what one does not wish to have done to oneself did
not need any proof by means of miracles, and there was no need for
demanding belief in this proposition, because it is convincing in
itself, in that it corresponds to both man's reason and nature, but
the proposition as to Christ being God had to be proved by means of
miracles, which are absolutely incomprehensible.

The more obscure the comprehension of Christ's teaching was, the
more miraculous elements were mixed in with it; and the more
miraculous elements were mixed in, the more did the teaching deviate
from its meaning and become obscure; and the more it deviated from
its meaning and became obscure, the more strongly it was necessary
to assert one's infallibility, and the less did the teaching become
comprehensible.

We can see from the gospels, the Acts, the epistles, how from the
earliest times the failure to comprehend the teaching called forth
the necessity of proving its truth by means of the miraculous and
the incomprehensible.

According to the Acts, this began with the meeting of the disciples
at Jerusalem, who assembled to settle the question which had arisen
as to baptizing or not baptizing the uncircumcised who were still
eating meats offered to idols.

The very putting of the question showed that those who were
discussing it did not understand the teaching of Christ, who
rejected all external rites--ablutions, purifications, fasts,
Sabbaths. It says directly that not the things which enter a man's
mouth, but those which come out of his heart, defile him, and so the
question as to the baptism of the uncircumcised could have arisen
only among men who loved their teacher, dimly felt His greatness,
but still very obscurely comprehended the teaching itself. And so it
was.

In proportion as the members of the assembly did not understand
the teaching, they needed an external confirmation of their
incomplete understanding. And so, to solve the question, the very
putting of which shows the failure to comprehend the teaching,
the strange words, "It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to
us," which were in an external manner to confirm the justice of
certain establishments, and which have caused so much evil, were,
as described in the Book of Acts, for the first time pronounced at
this meeting, that is, it was asserted that the justice of what they
decreed was testified to by the miraculous participation of the Holy
Ghost, that is, of God, in this solution. But the assertion that
the Holy Ghost, that is, God, spoke through the apostles, had again
to be proved. And for this it was necessary to assert that on the
day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down in the shape of tongues
of fire on those who asserted this. (In the description the descent
of the Holy Ghost precedes the assembly, but the Acts were written
down much later than either.) But the descent of the Holy Ghost
had to be confirmed for those who had not seen the tongues of fire
(though it is incomprehensible why a tongue of fire burning above
a man's head should prove that what a man says is an indisputable
truth), and there were needed new miracles, cures, resurrections,
putting to death, and all those offensive miracles, with which the
Acts are filled, and which not only can never convince a man of the
truth of the Christian teaching, but can only repel him from it. The
consequence of such a method of confirmation was this, that the more
these confirmations of the truth by means of stories of miracles
heaped up upon one another, the more did the teaching itself depart
from its original meaning, and the less comprehensible did it become.

Thus it has been since the earliest times, and it has been
increasingly so all the time, until it logically reached in our
time the dogmas of the transubstantiation and of the infallibility
of the Pope, or of the bishops, or of the writings, that is,
something absolutely incomprehensible, which has reached the point
of absurdity and the demand for a blind faith, not in God, not in
Christ, not even in the teaching, but in a person, as is the case in
Catholicism, or in several persons, as in Orthodoxy, or in a book,
as in Protestantism. The more Christianity became diffused, and the
greater was the crowd of unprepared men which it embraced, the less
it was understood, the more definitely was the infallibility of
the comprehension asserted, and the less did it become possible to
understand the true meaning of the teaching. As early as the time of
Constantine the whole comprehension of the teaching was reduced to a
résumé, confirmed by the worldly power,--a résumé of disputes which
took place in a council,--to a symbol of faith, in which it says, I
believe in so and so, and so and so, and finally, in the one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic church, that is, in the infallibility of
those persons who call themselves the church, so that everything
was reduced to this, that a man no longer believes in God, nor in
Christ, as they have been revealed to him, but in what the church
commands him to believe.

But the church is holy,--the church was founded by Christ. God
could not have left it to men to give an arbitrary interpretation
to His teaching,--and so He established the church. All these
expositions are to such an extent unjust and bold that one feels
some compunction in overthrowing them.

There is nothing but the assertion of the churches to show that God
or Christ founded anything resembling what the churchmen understand
by church.

In the Gospel there is an indication against the church, as an
external authority, and this indication is most obvious and clear in
that place where it says that Christ's disciples should not call any
one teachers and fathers. But nowhere is there anything said about
the establishment of what the churchmen call a church.

In the gospels the word "church" is used twice,--once, in the
sense of an assembly of men deciding a dispute; the other time, in
connection with the obscure words about the rock, Peter, and the
gates of hell. From these two mentions of the word "church," which
has the meaning of nothing but an assembly, they deduce what we now
understand by the word "church."

But Christ could certainly not have founded a church, that is,
what we now understand by the word, because neither in Christ's
words, nor in the conceptions of the men of that time, was there
anything resembling the concept of a church, as we know it now, with
its sacraments, its hierarchy, and, above all, its assertion of
infallibility.

The fact that men named what was formed later by the same word
which Christ had used in respect to something else, does in no way
give them the right to assert that Christ established the one, true
church.

Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution as
the church, on which the whole doctrine and the whole faith are
based, He would most likely have expressed this establishment in
such definite and clear words, and would have given the one, true
church, outside of the stories about the miracles, which are used
in connection with every superstition, such signs as to leave no
doubts concerning its authenticity; there is nothing of the kind,
but there are now, as there have been, all kinds of institutions
which, each of them, call themselves the one, true church.

The Catholic catechism says: "_L'église est la société de fidèles
établie par notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, répandue sur toute la terre
et soumise à l'autorité des pasteurs légitimes, principalement notre
Saint Père--le Pape_," meaning by "_pasteurs légitimes_" a human
institution, which has the Pope at its head and which is composed
of certain persons who are connected among themselves by a certain
organization.

The Orthodox catechism says: "The church is a society, established
by Jesus Christ upon earth, united among themselves into one whole
by the one, divine teaching and the sacraments, under the guidance
and management of the God-established hierarchy," meaning by
"God-established hierarchy" the Greek hierarchy, which is composed
of such and such persons, who are to be found in such and such
places.

The Lutheran catechism says: "The church is holy Christianity,
or an assembly of all believers, under Christ, their chief, in
which the Holy Ghost through the Gospel and the sacraments offers,
communicates, and secures divine salvation," meaning, by this, that
the Catholic Church has gone astray and has fallen away, and that
the true tradition is preserved in Lutheranism.

For the Catholics the divine church coincides with the Roman
hierarchy and the Pope. For the Greek Orthodox the divine church
coincides with the establishment of the Eastern and the Russian
Church.[8] For the Lutherans the divine church coincides with the
assembly of men who recognize the Bible and Luther's catechism.

  [8] Khomyakóv's definition of the church, which has some currency
  among Russians, does not mend matters, if we recognize with
  Khomyakóv that the Orthodox is the one true church. Khomyakóv
  asserts that the church is an assembly of men (of all, both the
  clergy and the congregation) united in love, and that the truth
  is revealed only to those who are united in love (Let us love one
  another, so that in agreement of thought, and so forth), and that
  such a church is the one which, in the first place, recognizes
  the Nicene symbol, and, in the second, after the division of the
  churches, does not recognize the Pope and the new dogmas. But with
  such a definition of the church there appears a still greater
  difficulty in harmonizing, as Khomyakóv wants to, the church which
  is united in love with the church which recognizes the Nicene symbol
  and the justice of Photius. Thus Khomyakóv's assertion that this
  church, which is united in love and so is holy, is the church as
  professed by the Greek hierarchy, is still more arbitrary than the
  assertions of the Catholics and of the ancient Orthodox. If we admit
  the concept of the church in the sense which Khomyakóv gives to it,
  that is, as an assembly of men united in love and in truth, then
  everything a man can say in relation to this assembly is, that it is
  very desirable to be a member of such an assembly, if such exists,
  that is, to be in love and truth; but there are no external signs
  by which it would be possible to count oneself or another in with
  this holy assembly, or to exclude oneself from it, as no external
  institution can correspond to this concept.--_Author's Note._

Speaking of the origin of Christianity, men who belong to one or the
other of the existing churches generally use the word "church" in
the singular, as though there has been but one church. But this is
quite untrue. The church, as an institution which asserts of itself
that it is in possession of the unquestionable truth, appeared only
when it was not alone, but there were at least two of them.

So long as the believers agreed among themselves, and the assembly
was one, it had no need of asserting that it was the church. Only
when the believers divided into opposite parties, which denied one
another, did there appear the necessity for each side to assert its
authenticity, ascribing infallibility to itself. The concept of the
one church arose only from this, that, when two sides disagreed and
quarrelled, each of them, calling the other a heresy, recognized
only its own as the infallible church.

If we know that there was a church, which in the year 51 decided
to receive the uncircumcised, this church made its appearance only
because there was another church, that of the Judaizing, which had
decided not to receive the uncircumcised.

If there now is a Catholic Church, which asserts its infallibility,
it does this only because there are the Græco-Russian, Orthodox,
Lutheran Churches, each of which asserts its own infallibility, and
thus rejects all the other churches. Thus the one church is only a
fantastic conception, which has not the slightest sign of reality.

As an actual, historical phenomenon there have existed only many
assemblies of men, each of which has asserted that it is the one
church, established by Christ, and that all the others, which call
themselves churches, are heresies and schisms.

The catechisms of the most widely diffused churches, the Catholic,
the Orthodox, and the Lutheran, say so outright.

In the Catholic catechism it says: "_Quels sont ceux, qui sont hors
de l'église? Les infidèles, les hérétiques, les schismatiques._"
As schismatics are regarded the so-called Orthodox. The Lutherans
are considered to be heretics; thus, according to the Catholic
catechism, the Catholics alone are in the church.

In the so-called Orthodox catechism it says: "By the one church of
Christ is meant nothing but the Orthodox, which remains in complete
agreement with the œcumenical church. But as to the Roman Church
and the other confessions" (the church does not even mention the
Lutherans and others), "they cannot be referred to the one, true
church, since they have themselves separated from it."

According to this definition the Catholics and Lutherans are outside
the church, and in the church are only the Orthodox.

But the Lutheran catechism runs as follows: "_Die wahre Kirche wird
daran erkannt, dass in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne
Menschenzusätze gelehrt und die Sacramente treu nach Christi
Einsetzung gewahrt werden_."

According to this definition, all those who have added anything to
the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the Catholic and Greek
Churches have done, are outside the church. And in the church are
only the Protestants.

The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost has uninterruptedly
operated in their hierarchy; the Orthodox assert that the same Holy
Ghost has operated in their hierarchy; the Arians asserted that the
Holy Ghost operated in their hierarchy (this they asserted with as
much right as the now ruling churches assert it); the Protestants of
every description, Lutherans, Reformers, Presbyterians, Methodists,
Swedenborgians, Mormons, assert that the Holy Ghost operates only in
their assemblies.

If the Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost during the division of
the Arian and of the Greek Churches left the apostatizing churches
and remained only in the one, true church, the Protestants of
every denomination can with the same right assert that during the
separation of their church from the Catholic the Holy Ghost left the
Catholic Church and passed over to the one which they recognize. And
so they do.

Every church deduces its profession through an uninterrupted
tradition from Christ and the apostles. And, indeed, every Christian
confession, arising from Christ, must have inevitably reached the
present generation through a certain tradition. But this does not
prove that any one of these traditions, excluding all the others, is
indubitably the correct one.

Every twig on the tree goes uninterruptedly back to the root; but
the fact that every twig comes from the same root does in no way
prove that there is but one twig. The same is true of the churches.
Every church offers precisely the same proofs of its succession
and even of the miracles in favour of its own authenticity; thus
there is but one strict and precise definition of what the church
is (not as something fantastic, which we should like it to be, but
as something which in reality exists), and this is: the church is
an assembly of men, who assert that they, and they only, are in the
full possession of the truth.

It was these assemblies, which later on, with the aid of the support
of the temporal power, passed into mighty institutions, that were
the chief impediments in the dissemination of the true comprehension
of Christ's teaching.

Nor could it be otherwise: the chief peculiarity of Christ's
teaching, as distinguished from all the former teachings, consisted
in this, that the men who accepted it tried more and more to
understand and fulfil the teaching, whereas the church doctrine
asserted the full and final comprehension and fulfilment of this
teaching.

However strange it may seem to us people educated in the false
doctrine about the church as a Christian institution, and in the
contempt for heresy, it was only in what is called heresy that there
was true motion, that is, true Christianity, and it ceased to be
such when it stopped its motion in these heresies and became itself
arrested in the immovable forms of the church.

Indeed, what is a heresy? Read all the theological works which treat
about heresies, a subject which is the first to present itself for
definition, since every theology speaks of the true teaching amidst
the surrounding false teachings, that is, heresies, and you will
nowhere find anything resembling a definition of heresy.

As a specimen of that complete absence of any semblance of a
definition of what is understood by the word "heresy" may serve
the opinion on this subject expressed by the learned historian
of Christianity, E. de Pressensé, in his _Histoire du Dogme_,
with the epigraph, "_Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia_" (Paris, 1869).
This is what he says in his introduction: "_Je sais que l'on nous
conteste le droit de califier ainsi_," that is, to call heresies
"_les tendances qui furent si vivement combattues par les premiers
Pères. La désignation même d'hérésie semble une atteinte portée à
la liberté de conscience et de pensée. Nous ne pouvons partager
ces scrupules, car ils n'iraient à rien moins qu'à enlever au
christianisme tout caractère distinctif._"

And after saying that after Constantine the church actually misused
its power in defining the dissenters as heretics and persecuting
them, he passes judgment on the early times and says:

"_L'église est une libre association; il y a tout profit à se
séparer d'elle. La polémique contre l'erreur n'a d'autres resources
que la pensée et le sentiment. Un type doctrinal uniforme n'a pas
encore été élaboré; les divergences secondaires se produisent en
Orient et en Occident avec une entière liberté, la théologie n'est
point liée à d'invariables formules. Si au sein de cette diversité
apparait un fond commun de croyances, n'est-on pas en droit d'y
voir non pas un système formulé et composé par les représentants
d'une autorité d'école, mais la foi elle même, dans son instinct
le plus sûr et sa manifestation la plus spontanée? Si cette même
unanimité qui se revèle dans les croyances essentielles, se retrouve
pour repousser telles ou telles tendances, ne seront-nous pas en
droit de conclure que ces tendances étaient en désaccord flagrant
avec les principes fondamentaux du christianisme? Cette présomption
ne se transformera-t-elle pas en certitude si nous reconnaissons
dans la doctrine universellement repoussée par l'église les traits
caractéristiques de l'une des religions du passé? Pour dire que
le gnosticisme ou l'ebionitisme sont les formes légitimes de la
pensée chrétienne, il faut dire hardiment qu'il n'y a pas de pensée
chrétienne, ni de caractère specifique qui la fasse reconnaître.
Sous prétexte de l'élargir on la dissent. Personne, au temps de
Platon, n'eut osé de couvrir de son nom, une doctrine qui n'eut pas
fait place à la théorie des idées, et l'on eut excité les justes
moqueries de la Grèce, en voulant faire d'Epicure ou de Zénon un
disciple de l'Académie. Reconnaissons donc que s'il existe une
religion et une doctrine qui s'appelle le christianisme elle peut
avoir ses hérésies._"

The whole discussion of the author reduces itself to this, that
every opinion which is not in agreement with a code of dogmas
professed by us at a given time is a heresy; but at a given time and
in a given place people profess something, and this profession of
something in some place cannot be a criterion of the truth.

Everything reduces itself to this, that "_Ubi Christus, ibi
Ecclesia_;" but Christ is where we are. Every so-called heresy, by
recognizing as the truth what it professes, can in a similar manner
find in the history of the churches a consistent explanation of what
it professes, using for itself all the arguments of De Pressensé and
calling only its own confession truly Christian, precisely what all
the heresies have been doing.

The only definition of heresy (the word ἁίρεσις means
_part_) is the name given by an assembly of men to every judgment
which rejects part of the teaching, as professed by the assembly.
A more particular meaning, which more frequently than any other is
ascribed to heresy, is that of an opinion which rejects the church
doctrine, as established and supported by the worldly power.

There is a remarkable, little known, very large work
(_Unpartheyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historia_, 1729), by Gottfried
Arnold, which treats directly on this subject and which shows all
the illegality, arbitrariness, senselessness, and cruelty of using
the word "heresy" in the sense of rejection. This book is an attempt
at describing the history of Christianity in the form of a history
of the heresies.

In the introduction the author puts a number of questions: (1)
regarding those who make heretics (_von den Ketzermachern selbst_);
(2) concerning those who were made heretics; (3) concerning the
subjects of heresy; (4) concerning the method of making heretics,
and (5) concerning the aims and consequences of making heretics.

In connection with each of these points he puts dozens of questions,
answers to which he later gives from the works of well-known
theologians, but he chiefly leaves it to the reader himself to
make the deduction from the exposition of the whole book. I shall
quote the following as samples of these questions, which partly
contain the answers. In reference to the fourth point, as to how
heretics are made, he says in one of his questions (the seventh):
"Does not all history show that the greatest makers of heretics and
the masters of this work were those same wise men from whom the
Father has hidden His secrets, that is, the hypocrites, Pharisees,
and lawyers, or entirely godless and corrupt people?" Questions 20
and 21: "And did not, in the most corrupt times of Christianity,
the hypocrites and envious people reject those very men who were
particularly endowed by God with great gifts, and who in the time
of pure Christianity would have been highly esteemed? And, on
the contrary, would not these men, who during the decadence of
Christianity elevated themselves above everything and recognized
themselves to be the teachers of the purest Christianity, have
been recognized, in apostolic times, as the basest heretics and
antichristians?"

Expressing in these questions this thought, among others, that the
verbal expression of the essence of faith, which was demanded by the
church, and a departure from which was considered a heresy, could
never completely cover the world-conception of the believer, and
that, therefore, the demand for an expression of faith by means of
particular words was the cause of heresy, he says, in Questions 21
and 33:

"And if the divine acts and thoughts present themselves to a man as
so great and profound that he does not find corresponding words in
which to express them, must he be recognized as a heretic, if he is
not able precisely to express his ideas? And is not this true, that
in the early times there was no heresy, because the Christians did
not judge one another according to verbal expressions, but according
to the heart and acts, in connection with a complete liberty of
expression, without fear of being recognized as a heretic? Was it
not a very common and easy method with the church," he says in
Question 21, "when the clergy wanted to get rid of a person or ruin
him, to make him suspected as regards his doctrine and to throw over
him the cloak of heresy, and thus to condemn and remove him?

"Though it is true that amidst the so-called heretics there were
errors and sins, yet it is not less true and obvious from the
numberless examples here adduced" (that is, in the history of the
church and of heresy), he says farther on, "that there has not been
a single sincere and conscientious man with some standing who has
not been ruined by the churchmen out of envy or for other causes."

Thus, nearly two hundred years ago, was the significance of heresy
understood, and yet this conception continues to exist until the
present time. Nor can it fail to exist, so long as there is a
concept of the church. Heresy is the reverse of the church. Where
there is the church, there is also heresy. The church is an assembly
of men asserting that they are in possession of the indisputable
truth. Heresy is the opinion of people who do not recognize the
indisputableness of the church truth.

Heresy is a manifestation of motion in the church, an attempt at
destroying the ossified assertion of the church, an attempt at a
living comprehension of the teaching. Every step of moving forward,
of comprehending and fulfilling the teaching has been accomplished
by the heretics: such heretics were Tertullian, and Origen, and
Augustine, and Luther, and Huss, and Savonarola, and Chelcický, and
others. Nor could it be otherwise.

A disciple of Christ, whose teaching consists in an eternally
greater and greater comprehension of the teaching and in a greater
and greater fulfilment of it, in a motion toward perfection,
cannot, for the very reason that he is a disciple of Christ, assert
concerning himself or concerning any one else, that he fully
understands Christ's teaching and fulfils it; still less can he
assert this concerning any assembly.

No matter at what stage of comprehension and perfection a disciple
of Christ may be, he always feels the insufficiency of his
comprehension and of his fulfilment, and always strives after a
greater comprehension and fulfilment. And so the assertion about
myself or about an assembly, that I, or we, possess the complete
comprehension of Christ's teaching, and completely fulfil it, is a
renunciation of the spirit of Christ's teaching.

No matter how strange this may seem, the churches, as churches, have
always been, and cannot help but be, institutions that are not only
foreign, but even directly hostile, to Christ's teaching. With good
reason Voltaire called the church "_l'infâme_;" with good reason
all, or nearly all, the Christian so-called sects have recognized
the church to be that whore of whom Revelation prophesies; with good
reason the history of the church is the history of the greatest
cruelties and horrors.

The churches, as churches, are not certain institutions which have
at their base the Christian principle, though slightly deviated
from the straight path, as some think; the churches, as churches,
as assemblies, which assert their infallibility, are antichristian
institutions. Between the churches, as churches, and Christianity
there is not only nothing in common but the name, but they are
two absolutely divergent and mutually hostile principles. One is
pride, violence, self-assertion, immobility, and death; the other is
meekness, repentance, humility, motion, and life.

It is impossible at the same time to serve both masters,--one or the
other has to be chosen.

The servants of the churches of all denominations have tried,
especially of late, to appear as advocates of motion in
Christianity; they make concessions, wish to mend the abuses which
have stolen into the church, and say that for the sake of the
abuses we ought not to deny the principle of the Christian church
itself, which alone can unite all men and be a mediator between
men and God. But all this is not true. The churches have not only
never united, but have always been one of the chief causes of the
disunion of men, of the hatred of one another, of wars, slaughters,
inquisitions, nights of St. Bartholomew, and so forth, and the
churches never serve as mediators between men and God, which is,
indeed, unnecessary and is directly forbidden by Christ, who has
revealed the teaching directly to every man, and they put up dead
forms in the place of God, and not only fail to reveal God to man,
but even conceal Him from them. Churches which have arisen from the
failure to comprehend, and which maintain this lack of comprehension
by their immobility, cannot help persecuting and oppressing every
comprehension of the teaching. They try to conceal this, but this is
impossible, because every motion forward along the path indicated by
Christ destroys their existence.

As one hears and reads the articles and sermons, in which the church
writers of modern times of all denominations speak of Christian
truths and virtues, as one hears and reads these clever discussions,
admonitions, confessions, which have been worked out by the ages,
and which sometimes look very much as though they were sincere,
one is prepared to doubt that the churches could be hostile to
Christianity: "It certainly cannot be that these people, who
have produced such men as Chrysostom, Fénelon, Butler, and other
preachers of Christianity, should be hostile to it." One feels like
saying: "The churches may have deviated from Christianity, may be in
error, but cannot be hostile to it." But as one looks at the fruits,
in order to judge the tree, as Christ has taught us to do, and sees
that their fruits have been evil, that the consequence of their
activity has been the distortion of Christianity, one cannot help
but feel that, no matter how good the men have been, the cause of
the churches in which they have taken part has not been Christian.
The goodness and the deserts of all these men, who served the
churches, were the goodness and the deserts of men, but not of the
cause which they served. All these good men--like Francis d'Assisi
and Francis de Lobes, our Tíkhon Zadónski, Thomas à Kempis, and
others--were good men, in spite of their having served a cause which
is hostile to Christianity, and they would have been better and more
deserving still, if they had not succumbed to the error which they
served.

But why speak of the past, judge of the past, which may have been
falsely represented to us? The churches with their foundations and
with their activity are not a work of the past: the churches are now
before us, and we can judge of them directly, by their activity,
their influence upon men.

In what does the activity of the churches now consist? How do they
act upon men? What do the churches do in our country, among the
Catholics, among the Protestants of every denomination? In what
does their activity consist, and what are the consequences of their
activity?

The activity of our Russian, so-called Orthodox, Church is in full
sight. It is a vast fact, which cannot be concealed, and about which
there can be no dispute.

In what consists the activity of this Russian Church, this
enormous, tensely active institution, which consists of an army of
half a million, costing the nation tens of millions?

The activity of this church consists in using every possible means
for the purpose of instilling in the one hundred millions of the
Russian population those obsolete, backward faiths, which now have
no justification whatsoever, and which sometime in the past were
professed by people that are alien to our nation, and in which
hardly any one now believes, frequently even not those whose duty it
is to disseminate these false doctrines.

The inculcation of these alien, obsolete formulas of the Byzantine
clergy, which no longer have any meaning for the men of our time,
about the Trinity, the Holy Virgin, the sacraments, grace, and
so forth, forms one part of the activity of the Russian Church;
another part of its activity consists in the activity of maintaining
idolatry in the direct sense of the word,--worshipping holy relics
and images, bringing sacrifices to them, and expecting from them
the fulfilment of their wishes. I shall not speak of what is spoken
and written by the clergy with a shade of learning and liberalism
in the clerical periodicals, but of what actually is done by the
clergy over the breadth of the Russian land among a population of
one hundred million people. What do they carefully, persistently,
tensely, everywhere without exception, teach the people? What is
demanded of them on the strength of the so-called Christian faith?

[Illustration: Russian Peasants at Mass

_Photogravure from Drawing by Carl Buddeus_]

I will begin with the beginning, with the birth of a child: at
the birth of a child, the clergy teaches that a prayer has to be
read over the mother and the child, in order to purify them, since
without this prayer the mother who has given birth to a child
is accursed. For this purpose the priest takes the child in his
hands in front of the representations of the saints, which the
masses simply call gods, and pronounces exorcising words, and
thus purifies the mother. Then it is impressed on the parents,
and even demanded of them under threat of punishment in case of
non-fulfilment, that the child shall be baptized, that is, dipped
three times in water by the priest, in connection with which
incomprehensible words are pronounced and even less comprehensible
acts performed,--the smearing of various parts of the body with
oil, the shearing of the hair, and the blowing and spitting of the
sponsors on the imaginary devil. All this is supposed to cleanse
the child and make him a Christian. Then the parents are impressed
with the necessity of giving the holy sacrament to the child, that
is, of giving him under the form of bread and wine a particle of
Christ's body to eat, in consequence of which the child will receive
the grace of Christ, and so forth. Then it is demanded that this
child, according to his age, shall learn to pray. To pray means to
stand straight in front of the boards on which the faces of Christ,
the Virgin, the saints, are represented, and incline his head and
his whole body, and with his right hand, with fingers put together
in a certain form, to touch his brow, shoulders, and stomach,
and pronounce Church-Slavic words, of which all the children are
particularly enjoined to repeat, "Mother of God, Virgin, rejoice!"
etc. Then the pupil is impressed with the necessity of doing the
same, that is, crossing himself, in presence of any church or image;
then he is told that on holidays (holidays are days on which Christ
was born, though no one knows when that was, and circumcised, on
which the Mother of God died, the cross was brought, the image was
carried in, a saintly fool saw a vision, etc.,) he must put on his
best clothes and go to church, buy tapers there and place them in
front of images of saints, hand in little notes and commemorations
and loaves, that triangles may be cut in them, and then pray many
times for the health and welfare of the Tsar and the bishops, and
for himself and his acts, and then kiss the cross and the priest's
hand.

Besides this prayer he is enjoined to prepare himself at least
once a year for the holy sacrament. To prepare himself for the
holy sacrament means to go to church and tell the priest his sins,
on the supposition that his imparting his sins to a stranger will
completely cleanse him of his sins, and then to eat from a spoon a
bit of bread with wine, which purifies him even more. Then it is
impressed upon a man and a woman, who want their carnal intercourse
to be sacred, that they must come to church, put on metallic crowns,
drink potions, to the sound of singing walk three times around a
table, and that then their carnal intercourse will become sacred and
quite distinct from any other carnal intercourse.

In life people are impressed with the necessity of observing the
following rules: not to eat meat or milk food on certain days, on
other certain days to celebrate masses for the dead, on holidays to
receive the priest and give him money, and several times a year to
take the boards with the representations out of the church and carry
them on sashes over fields and through houses. Before death a man is
enjoined to eat from a spoon bread with wine, and still better, if
he has time, to have himself smeared with oil. This secures for him
happiness in the next world. After a man's death, his relatives are
enjoined, for the purpose of saving the soul of the defunct, to put
into his hands a printed sheet with a prayer; it is also useful to
have a certain book read over the dead body and the name of the dead
man pronounced several times in church.

All this is considered an obligatory faith for everybody.

But if one wants to care for his soul, he is taught, according to
this faith, that the greatest amount of blessedness is secured for
the soul in the world to come by contributing money for churches and
monasteries, by putting holy men thus under obligation to pray for
him. Other soul-saving measures, according to this faith, are the
visiting of monasteries and the kissing of miracle-working images
and relics.

According to this faith, miracle-working images and relics
concentrate in themselves particular holiness, strength, and grace,
and nearness to these objects--touching, kissing them, placing
tapers before them, crawling up to them--contributes very much to a
man's salvation, and so do masses, which are ordered before these
sacred objects.

It is this faith, and no other, which is called Orthodox, that is,
the right faith, and which has, under the guise of Christianity,
been impressed upon the people for many centuries by the exercise
of all kinds of force, and is now being impressed with particular
effort.

And let it not be said that the Orthodox teachers place the essence
of the teaching in something else, and that these are only ancient
forms which it is not considered right to destroy. That is not true:
throughout all of Russia, nothing but this faith has of late been
impressed upon the people with particular effort. There is nothing
else. Of something else they talk and write in the capitals, but
only this is being impressed on one hundred million of people, and
nothing else. The churchmen talk of other things, but they enjoin
only this with every means at their command.

All this, and the worship of persons and images, is introduced
into theologies, into catechisms; the masses are carefully taught
this theoretically, and, being hypnotized practically, with every
means of solemnity, splendour, authority, and violence, are made to
believe in this, and are jealously guarded against every endeavour
to be freed from these savage superstitions.

In my very presence, as I said in reference to my book, Christ's
teaching and his own words concerning non-resistance to evil were
a subject of ridicule and circus jokes, and the churchmen not only
did not oppose this, but even encouraged the blasphemy; but allow
yourself to say a disrespectful word concerning the monstrous idol,
which is blasphemously carried about in Moscow by drunken persons
under the name of the Iberian Virgin, and a groan of indignation
will be raised by these same churchmen. All that is preached is the
external cult of idolatry. Let no one say that one thing does not
interfere with the other, that "these ought ye to have done, and not
to have left the other undone," that "all, therefore, whatsoever
they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their
works: for they say, and do not" (Matt. xxiii. 23, 3). This is
said of the Pharisees, who fulfilled all the external injunctions
of the law, and so the words, "whatsoever they bid you observe,
that observe," refer to works of charity and of goodness, and the
words, "but do ye not after their works, for they say, and do not,"
refer to the execution of ceremonies and to the omission of good
works, and have precisely the opposite meaning to what the churchmen
want to ascribe to this passage, when they interpret it as meaning
that ceremonies are to be observed. An external cult and serving
charity and truth are hard to harmonize; for the most part one thing
excludes the other. Thus it was with the Pharisees, and thus it is
now with the church Christians.

If a man can save himself through redemption, sacraments, prayer, he
no longer needs any good deeds.

The Sermon on the Mount, or the symbol of faith: it is impossible
to believe in both. And the churchmen have chosen the latter: the
symbol of faith is taught and read as a prayer in the churches; and
the Sermon on the Mount is excluded even from the Gospel teachings
in the churches, so that in the churches the parishioners never hear
it, except on the days when the whole Gospel is read. Nor can it
be otherwise: men who believe in a bad and senseless God, who has
cursed the human race and who has doomed His son to be a victim, and
has doomed a part of humanity to everlasting torment, cannot believe
in a God of love. A man who believes in God-Christ, who will come
again in glory to judge and punish the living and the dead, cannot
believe in Christ, who commands a man to offer his cheek to the
offender, not to judge, but to forgive, and to love our enemies. A
man who believes in the divine inspiration of the Old Testament and
the holiness of David, who on his death-bed orders the killing of
an old man who has offended him and whom he could not kill himself,
because he was bound by an oath (Book of Kings, ii. 3), and similar
abominations, of which the Old Testament is full, cannot believe
in Christ's moral law; a man who believes in the doctrine and the
preaching of the church about the compatibility of executions and
wars with Christianity, cannot believe in the brotherhood of men.

Above all else, a man who believes in the salvation of men through
faith, in redemption, or in the sacraments, can no longer employ
all his strength in the fulfilment in life of the moral teaching of
Christ.

A man who is taught by the church the blasphemous doctrine about his
not being able to be saved by his own efforts, but that there is
another means, will inevitably have recourse to this means, and not
to his efforts, on which he is assured it is a sin to depend. The
church doctrine, any church doctrine, with its redemption and its
sacraments, excludes Christ's teaching, and the Orthodox doctrine,
with its idolatry, does so especially.

"But the masses have always believed so themselves, and believe so
now," people will say to this. "The whole history of the Russian
masses proves this. It is not right to deprive the masses of their
tradition." In this does the deception consist. The masses at one
time, indeed, professed something like what the church professes
now, though it was far from being the same (among the masses,
there has existed, not only this superstition of the images, house
spirits, relics, and the seventh Thursday after Easter, with its
wreaths and birches, but also a deep moral, vital comprehension
of Christianity, which has never existed in the whole church, and
was met with only in its best representatives); but the masses, in
spite of all the obstacles, which the government and the church
have opposed to them, have long ago in their best representatives
outlived this coarse stage of comprehension, which is proved by
the spontaneous birth of rationalistic sects, with which one meets
everywhere, with which Russia swarms at the present time, and with
which the churchmen struggle in vain. The masses move on in the
consciousness of the moral, vital side of Christianity. And it is
here that the church appears with its failure to support, and with
its intensified inculcation of an obsolete paganism in its ossified
form, with its tendency to push the masses back into that darkness,
from which they are struggling with so much effort to get out.

"We do not teach the masses anything new, but only what they believe
in, and that in a more perfect form," say the churchmen.

This is the same as tying up a growing chick and pushing it back
into the shell from which it has come.

I have often been struck by this observation, which would be
comical, if its consequences were not so terrible, that men, taking
hold of each other in a circle, deceive one another, without being
able to get out of the enchanted circle.

The first question, the first doubt of a Russian who is beginning
to think, is the question about the miracle-working images and,
above all, the relics: "Is it true that they are imperishable, and
that they work miracles?" Hundreds and thousands of men put these
questions to themselves and are troubled about their solution,
especially because the bishops, metropolitans, and all the
dignitaries kiss the relics and the miracle-working images. Ask the
bishops and the dignitaries why they do so, and they will tell you
that they do so for the sake of the masses, and the masses worship
the images and relics, because the bishops and dignitaries do so.

The activity of the Russian Church, in spite of its external
veneer of modernness, learning, spirituality, which its members
are beginning to assume in their writings, articles, clerical
periodicals, and sermons, consists not only in keeping the masses
in that consciousness of rude and savage idolatry, in which they
are, but also in intensifying and disseminating superstition
and religious ignorance, by pushing out of the masses the vital
comprehension of Christianity, which has been living in them by the
side of the idolatry.

I remember, I was once present in the monastery bookstore of Óptin
Cloister, when an old peasant was choosing some religious books for
his grandson, who could read. The monk kept pushing the description
of relics, holidays, miraculous images, psalters, etc., into his
hands. I asked the old man if he had the Gospel. "No." "Give him the
Russian Gospel," I said to the monk. "That is not proper for him,"
said the monk.

This is in compressed form the activity of our church.

"But this is only true in barbarous Russia," a European or American
reader will say. And such an opinion will be correct, but only in
the measure in which it refers to the government which aids the
church in accomplishing its stultifying and corrupting influence in
Russia.

It is true that nowhere in Europe is there such a despotic
government and one to such a degree in accord with the ruling
church, and so the participation of the power in the corruption of
the masses in Russia is very strong; but it is not true that the
Russian Church in its influence upon the masses in any way differs
from any other church.

The churches are everything the same, and if the Catholic, the
Anglican, and the Lutheran Churches have not in hand such an
obedient government as is the Russian, this is not due to the
absence of any desire to make use of the same.

The church, as a church, no matter what it may be, Catholic,
Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian,--every church, insomuch as it
is a church, cannot help but tend toward the same as the Russian
Church,--toward concealing the true meaning of Christ's teaching
and substituting in its place its own doctrine, which does not
put a person under any obligations, excludes the possibility of
understanding the true activity of Christ's teaching, and, above
all else, justifies the existence of priests who are living at the
expense of the nation.

Has Catholicism been doing anything else with its prohibition of the
reading of the Gospel, and with its demand for unreasoning obedience
to the ecclesiastic guides and the infallible Pope? Does Catholicism
preach anything different from what the Russian Church preaches?
We have here the same external cult, the same relics, miracles,
and statues, the miracle-working Notre-Dames, and processions. The
same elatedly misty judgments concerning Christianity in books and
sermons, and, when it comes to facts, the same maintenance of a
coarse idolatry.

And is not the same being done in Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and in
every Protestantism which has formed itself into a church? The same
demands from the congregation for a belief in dogmas which were
expressed in the fourth century and have lost all meaning for the
men of our time, and the same demand for idolatry, if not before
relics and images, at least before the Sabbath and the letter of
the Bible. It is still the same activity, which is directed upon
concealing the real demands of Christianity and substituting for
them externals, which do not put a man under any obligations, and
"cant," as the English beautifully define the occupation to which
they are particularly subject. Among the Protestants this activity
is particularly noticeable, since they do not even have the excuse
of antiquity. And does not the same take place in the modern
Revivalism,--the renovated Calvinism, Evangelism,--out of which has
grown up the Salvation Army? Just as the condition of all the church
doctrines is the same in reference to Christ's teaching, so are also
their methods.

Their condition is such that they cannot help but strain all their
efforts, in order to conceal the teaching of Christ, whose name they
use.

The incompatibility of all the church confessions with Christ's
teaching is such that it takes especial efforts to conceal this
incompatibility from men. Indeed, we need but stop and think of
the condition of any adult, not only cultured, but even simple,
man of our time, who has filled himself with conceptions, which
are in the air, from the fields of geology, physics, chemistry,
cosmography, history, when he for the first time looks consciously
at the beliefs, instilled in him in childhood and supported by the
churches, that God created the world in six days; that there was
light before the sun; that Noah stuck all the animals into his ark,
and so forth; that Jesus is the same God, the son, who created
everything before this; that this God descended upon earth for
Adam's sin; that He rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and sits
on the right of the Father, and will come in the clouds to judge the
world, and so forth.

All these propositions, which were worked out by the men of the
fourth century and had a certain meaning for the men of that time,
have no meaning for the men of the present. The men of our time may
repeat these words with their lips, but they cannot believe, because
these words, like the statements that God lives in heaven, that the
heavens opened and a voice said something from there, that Christ
rose from the dead and flew somewhere to heaven and will again come
from somewhere in the clouds, and so forth, have no meaning for us.

It was possible for a man, who regarded the heaven as a finite, firm
vault, to believe, or not, that God created the heaven, that heaven
was opened, that Christ flew to heaven; but for us these words have
no meaning whatsoever. Men of our time can only believe that they
must believe so; but they cannot believe in what has no meaning for
them.

But if all these expressions are to have a figurative meaning and
are emblems, we know that, in the first place, not all churchmen
agree in this, but that, on the contrary, the majority insist on
understanding Holy Scripture in a direct sense, and, secondly, that
these interpretations are varied and not confirmed by anything.

But even if a man wishes to make himself believe in the doctrine
of the churches, as it is imparted,--the general diffusion of
knowledge and of the Gospels, and the intercourse of men of various
denominations among themselves, form for this another, even more
insuperable obstacle.

A man of our time need but buy himself a Gospel for three kopeks
and read Christ's clear words to the woman of Samaria, which are
not subject to any other interpretation, about the Father needing
no worshippers in Jerusalem, neither in this mountain, nor in that,
worshippers in spirit and in truth, or the words about a Christian's
being obliged to pray, not in temples, as the pagans do, and in
the sight of all, but in secret, that is, in his closet, or that a
disciple of Christ must not call any one father or teacher,--a man
needs but read these words, to become convinced that no ecclesiastic
pastors, who call themselves teachers in opposition to Christ's
teaching, and who quarrel among themselves, form an authority,
and that that which the churchmen teach us is not Christianity.
But more than that: if a man of our time continues to believe in
miracles and does not read the Gospel, his mere intercourse with men
of other denominations and faiths, which has become so easy in our
time, will make him doubt in the authenticity of his faith. It was
all very well for a man who never saw any men of another faith than
his own to believe that his own faith was the correct one; but a
thinking man need only come in contact, as he now does all the time,
with equally good and equally bad men of various denominations,
which condemn the doctrines of one another, in order to lose faith
in the truth of the religion which he professes. In our time only a
very ignorant man or one who is quite indifferent to the questions
of life, which are sanctified by religion, can stay in the church
faith.

[Illustration: Church of Vasili the Blessed, Moscow

_Photogravure from Drawing by E. Thérond_]

What cunning and what effort must be exerted by the churches, if, in
spite of all these conditions which are subversive of faith, they
are to continue building churches, celebrating masses, preaching,
teaching, converting, and, above all, receiving for it a fat income,
like all these priests, pastors, intendants, superintendents,
abbots, archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops.

Especial, supernatural efforts are needed. And such efforts, which
are strained more and more, are used by the churches. With us,
in Russia, they use (in addition to all other means) the simple,
coarse violence of the civil power, which is obedient to the church.
Persons who depart from the external expression of faith and who
give expression to it are either directly punished or deprived of
their rights; while persons who strictly adhere to the external
forms of faith are rewarded and given rights.

Thus do the Orthodox; but even all other churches, without
exception, use for this all such means, of which the chief is what
now is called hypnotization.

All the arts, from architecture to poetry, are put into action,
to affect the souls of men and to stultify them, and this action
takes place without interruption. Particularly evident is this
necessity of the hypnotizing action upon men, in order to bring them
to a state of stupefaction, in the activity of the Salvation Army,
which uses new, unfamiliar methods of horns, drums, songs, banners,
uniforms, processions, dances, tears, and dramatic attitudes.

But we are startled by them only because they are new methods. Are
not the old methods of the temples, with especial illumination,
with gold, splendour, candles, choirs, organs, bells, vestments,
lackadaisical sermons, and so forth, the same?

But, no matter how strong this action of hypnotization may be,
the chief and most deleterious activity of the churches does not
lie in this. The chief, most pernicious activity of the church
is the one which is directed to the deception of the children,
those very children of whom Christ said that it will be woe to him
who shall offend one of these little ones. With the very first
awakening of the child, they begin to deceive him and to impress
upon him with solemnity what those who impress do not believe in
themselves, and they continue to impress him, until the deception,
becoming a habit, is engrafted on the child's nature. The child is
methodically deceived in the most important matter of life, and when
the deception has so grown up with his life that it is difficult to
tear it away, there is revealed to him the whole world of science
and of reality, which can in no way harmonize with the beliefs
instilled in him, and he is left to make the best he can out of
these contradictions.

If we should set ourselves the task of entangling a man in such a
way that he should not be able with his sound reason to get away
from the two opposite world-conceptions, which have been instilled
in him since his childhood, we could not invent anything more
powerful than what is accomplished in the case of every young man
who is educated in our so-called Christian society.

What the churches do to people is terrible, but if we reflect
on their condition, we shall find that those men who form the
institution of the churches cannot act otherwise. The churches are
confronted with a dilemma,--the Sermon on the Mount, or the Nicene
Creed,--one excludes the other: if a man sincerely believes in the
Sermon on the Mount, the Nicene Creed, and with it the church and
its representatives, inevitably lose all meaning and significance
for him; but if a man believes in the Nicene Creed, that is, in the
church, that is, in those who call themselves its representatives,
the Sermon on the Mount will become superfluous to him. And so the
churches cannot help but use every possible effort to obscure the
meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and to attract people toward
itself. Only thanks to the tense activity of the churches in this
direction has the influence of the churches held itself until now.
Let a church for the shortest time arrest this action upon the
masses by means of hypnotizing them and deceiving the children, and
people will understand Christ's teaching. But the comprehension
of the teaching destroys the churches and their significance. And
so the churches do not for a moment interrupt the tense activity
and hypnotization of the adults and the deception of the children.
And it is this activity of the churches, which instils a false
comprehension of Christ's teaching in men, and serves as an obstacle
in its comprehension for the majority of so-called believers.


IV.

Now I will speak of another putative comprehension of Christianity,
which interferes with the correct comprehension of it,--the
scientific comprehension.

The churchmen regard as Christianity that conception of it which
they have formed, and this comprehension of Christianity they regard
as the one indubitably true one.

The men of science regard as Christianity only what the different
churches have been professing, and, assuming that these professions
exhaust the whole significance of Christianity, they recognize it as
a religious teaching which has outlived its time.

To have it made clear how impossible it is with such a view to
understand the Christian teaching, we must form an idea of the place
which the religions in general and Christianity in particular have
in reality occupied in the life of humanity, and of the significance
which is ascribed to religion by science.

As an individual man cannot live without having a definite idea of
the meaning of his life, and always, though often unconsciously,
conforms his acts to this meaning which he ascribes to his life,
even so aggregates of men living under the same conditions,--nations
cannot help but have a conception about the meaning of their
collective life and the activity resulting therefrom. And as
an individual, entering into a new age, invariably changes his
comprehension of life, and a grown man sees its meaning in something
else than in what a child sees it, so an aggregate of people, a
nation, inevitably, according to its age, changes its comprehension
of life and the activity which results from it.

The difference between the individual and the whole of humanity in
this respect consists in this, that while the individual in the
determination of the comprehension of life, proper to the new stage
of life into which he enters, and in the activity which arises from
it, makes use of the indications of men who have lived before him
and who have already passed through the period of life upon which
he is entering, humanity cannot have these indications, because it
all moves along an untrodden path, and there is no one who can tell
how life is to be understood, and how one is to act under the new
conditions into which it is entering, and in which no one has lived
before.

And yet, as a married man with children cannot continue to
understand life as he understood it when he was a child, so
humanity cannot in connection with all the various changes
which have taken place,--the density of the population, and the
established intercourse between the nations, and the improvement of
the means for struggling against Nature, and the accumulation of
science,--continue to understand life as before, but must establish
a new concept of life, from which should result the activity which
corresponds to that new condition into which it has entered or is
about to enter.

To this demand responds the peculiar ability of humanity to
segregate certain people who give a new meaning to the whole of
human life,--a meaning from which results the whole new activity
which is different from the preceding one. The establishment of the
new life-conception, which is proper for humanity under the new
conditions into which it is entering, and of the activity resulting
from it, is what is called religion.

And so religion, in the first place, is not, as science thinks, a
phenomenon which at one time accompanied the evolution of humanity,
and later became obsolete, but is a phenomenon always inherent in
the life of humanity, and is in our time as inevitably inherent in
humanity as at any other time. In the second place, religion is
always a determination of the activity of the future, and not of the
past, and so it is obvious that the investigation of past phenomena
can in no way include the essence of religion.

The essence of every religious teaching does not consist in the
desire to express the forces of Nature symbolically, or in the fear
of them, or in the demand for the miraculous, or in the external
forms of its manifestation, as the men of science imagine. The
essence of religion lies in the property of men prophetically to
foresee and point out the path of life, over which humanity must
travel, in a new definition of the meaning of life, from which also
results a new, the whole future activity of humanity.

This property of foreseeing the path on which humanity must travel
is in a greater or lesser degree common to all men, but there have
always, at all times, been men, in whom this quality has been
manifested with particular force, and these men expressed clearly
and precisely what was dimly felt by all men, and established a new
comprehension of life, from which resulted an entirely new activity,
for hundreds and thousands of years.

We know three such conceptions of life: two of them humanity has
already outlived, and the third is the one through which we are
now passing in Christianity. There are three, and only three, such
conceptions, not because we have arbitrarily united all kinds of
life-conceptions into these three, but because the acts of men
always have for their base one of these three life-conceptions,
because we cannot understand life in any other way than by one of
these three means.

The three life-conceptions are these: the first--the personal, or
animal; the second--the social, or the pagan; and the third--the
universal, or the divine.

According to the first life-conception, man's life is contained
in nothing but his personality; the aim of his life is the
gratification of the will of this personality. According to
the second life-conception, man's life is not contained in
his personality alone, but in the aggregate and sequence of
personalities,--in the tribe, the family, the race, the state;
the aim of life consists in the gratification of the will of this
aggregate of personalities. According to the third life-conception,
man's life is contained neither in his personality, nor in the
aggregate and sequence of personalities, but in the beginning and
source of life, in God.

These three life-conceptions serve as the foundation of all past and
present religions.

The savage recognizes life only in himself, in his personal desires.
The good of his life is centred in himself alone. The highest
good for him is the greatest gratification of his lust. The prime
mover of his life is his personal enjoyment. His religion consists
in appeasing the divinity in his favour, and in the worship of
imaginary personalities of gods, who live only for personal ends.

A pagan, a social man, no longer recognizes life in himself alone,
but in the aggregate of personalities,--in the tribe, the family,
the race, the state,--and sacrifices his personal good for these
aggregates. The prime mover of his life is glory. His religion
consists in the glorification of the heads of unions,--of eponyms,
ancestors, kings, and in the worship of gods, the exclusive
protectors of his family, his race, his nation, his state.[9]

  [9] The unity of this life-conception is not impaired by the
  fact that so many various forms of life, as that of the tribe,
  the family, the race, the state, and even the life of humanity,
  according to the theoretical speculations of the positivists, are
  based on this social, or pagan, life-conception. All these various
  forms of life are based on the same concept that the life of the
  personality is not a sufficient aim of life and that the meaning of
  life can be found only in the aggregate of personalities.--_Author's
  Note._

The man with the divine life-conception no longer recognizes life to
consist in his personality, or in the aggregate of personalities (in
the family, the race, the people, the country, or the state), but
in the source of the everlasting, immortal life, in God; and to do
God's will he sacrifices his personal and domestic and social good.
The prime mover of his religion is love. And his religion is the
worship in deed and in truth of the beginning of everything, of God.

The whole historical life of humanity is nothing but a gradual
transition from the personal, the animal life-conception, to the
social, and from the social to the divine. The whole history of the
ancient nations, which lasted for thousands of years and which came
to a conclusion with the history of Rome, is the history of the
substitution of the social and the political life-conception for the
animal, the personal. The whole history since the time of imperial
Rome and the appearance of Christianity has been the history of the
substitution of the divine life-conception for the political, and we
are passing through it even now.

It is this last life-conception, and the Christian teaching which
is based upon it and which governs our whole life and lies at
the foundation of our whole activity, both the practical and the
theoretical, that the men of so-called science, considering it
in reference to its external signs only, recognize as something
obsolete and meaningless for us.

This teaching, which, according to the men of science, is contained
only in its dogmatic part,--in the doctrine of the Trinity, the
redemption, the miracles, the church, the sacraments, and so
forth,--is only one out of a vast number of religions which have
arisen in humanity, and now, having played its part in history, is
outliving its usefulness, melting in the light of science and true
culture.

What is taking place is what in the majority of cases serves as
a source of the coarsest human errors,--men who are standing on a
lower level of comprehension, coming in contact with phenomena of a
higher order, instead of making efforts to understand them, instead
of rising to the point of view from which they ought to look upon
a subject, judge it from their lower point of view, and that, too,
with greater daring and determination the less they understand what
they are talking about.

For the majority of scientific men, who view Christ's vital,
moral teaching from the lower point of the social conception of
life, this teaching is only a very indefinite, clumsy combination
of Hindoo asceticism, Stoical and Neo-platonic teachings, and
Utopian antisocial reveries, which have no serious significance
for our time, and its whole meaning is centred in its external
manifestations,--in Catholicism, Protestantism, the dogmas, the
struggle with the worldly power. In defining the significance of
Christianity according to these phenomena, they are like deaf
persons who should judge of the meaning and the worth of music
according to the appearance of the motions which the musicians make.

The result of it is this, that all these men, beginning with Comte,
Strauss, Spencer, and Renan, who do not understand the meaning of
Christ's sermons, who do not understand why they are uttered and
for what purpose, who do not even understand the question to which
they serve as an answer, who do not even take the trouble to grasp
their meaning, if they are inimically inclined, deny outright the
rationality of the teaching; but if they wish to be condescending to
it, they correct it from the height of their grandeur, assuming that
Christ wanted to say precisely what they have in mind, but did not
know how to say it. They treat his teaching as, in correcting the
words of an interlocutor, self-confident men generally speak to one
whom they regard as standing below them, "Yes, what you mean to say
is this." This correction is always made in the sense of reducing
the higher, divine life-conception to the lower, social conception.

People generally say that the moral teaching of Christianity is
good, but exaggerated,--that, in order that it should be absolutely
good, we must reject from it what is superfluous, what does not fit
in with our structure of life. "For otherwise the teaching, which
demands too much, which cannot be carried out, is worse than one
which demands from men what is possible and in conformity with their
strength," think and assert the wise interpreters of Christianity,
repeating what was long ago affirmed and still is affirmed, and
could not help but be affirmed, in relation to the Christian
teaching, by those who, having failed to comprehend the teacher of
it, crucified Him,--by the Jews.

It turns out that before the judgment of the learned of our time,
the Jewish law, A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye,--the
law of just retaliation, which was known to humanity five thousand
years ago,--is more useful than the law of love which eighteen
hundred years ago was preached by Christ in place of this very law
of justice.

It turns out that everything which has been done by the men who
comprehended Christ's teaching in a direct manner and lived in
conformity with such a comprehension, everything which all true
Christians, all Christian champions, have done, everything which now
transforms the world under the guise of socialism and communism,--is
exaggeration, of which it is not worth while to speak.

Men who have been educated in Christianity for eighteen centuries
have convinced themselves in the persons of their foremost men,
the scholars, that the Christian teaching is a teaching of dogmas,
that the vital teaching is a misconception, an exaggeration, which
violates the true legitimate demands of morality, which correspond
to man's nature, and that the doctrine of justice, which Christ
rejected and in the place of which he put his own teaching, is much
more profitable for us.

The learned consider the commandment of non-resistance to evil an
exaggeration and even madness. If it be rejected, it would be much
better, they think, without observing that they are not talking of
Christ's teaching at all, but of what presents itself to them as
such.

They do not notice that to say that Christ's commandment about
non-resistance to evil is an exaggeration is the same as saying
that in the theory of the circle the statement about the equality
of the radii of a circle is an exaggeration. And those who say so
do precisely what a man, who did not have any conception as to
what a circle is, would do if he asserted that the demand that all
the points on the circumference should be equally distant from the
centre is an exaggeration. To advise that the statement concerning
the equality of the radii in a circle be rejected or moderated is
the same as not understanding what a circle is. To advise that the
commandment about non-resistance to evil in the vital teaching of
Christ be rejected or moderated means not to understand the teaching.

And those who do so actually do not understand it at all. They do
not understand that this teaching is the establishment of a new
comprehension of life, which corresponds to the new condition into
which men have been entering for these eighteen hundred years, and
the determination of the new activity which results from it. They
do not believe that Christ wanted to say what he did; or it seems
to them that what he said in the Sermon on the Mount and in other
passages He said from infatuation, from lack of comprehension, from
insufficient development.[10]

  [10] Here, for example, is a characteristic judgment of the kind
  in an article of an American periodical, _Arena_, October, 1890.
  The article is entitled "A New Basis of Church Life." In discussing
  the significance of the Sermon on the Mount, and especially its
  non-resistance to evil, the author, who is not obliged, like the
  ecclesiastic writers, to conceal its meaning, says: "Christ actually
  preached complete communism and anarchy; but we must know how to
  look upon Christ in His historical and psychologic significance."
  [This sentence is not in the English article.--_Tr._] "Devout common
  sense must gradually come to look upon Christ as a philanthropic
  teacher who, like every enthusiast who ever taught, went to an
  Utopian extreme of His own philosophy. Every great agitation for the
  betterment of the world has been led by men who beheld their own
  mission with such absorbing intensity that they could see little
  else. It is no reproach to Christ to say that He had the typical
  reformer's temperament; that His precepts cannot be literally
  accepted as a complete philosophy of life; and that men are to
  analyze them reverently, but, at the same time, in the spirit of
  ordinary, truth-seeking criticism," and so forth. Christ would have
  liked to speak well, but He did not know how to express Himself as
  precisely and clearly as we, in the spirit of criticism, and so we
  will correct him. Everything He said about meekness, sacrifice,
  poverty, the thoughtlessness for the morrow, He said by chance,
  having been unable to express himself scientifically.--_Author's
  Note._

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye
shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than
raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do
they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking
thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought
for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is,
and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe
you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What
shall we eat? or, What shall we drink, or, Wherewithal shall we be
clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for
your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and
all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought
for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things
of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Matt. vi.
25-34).

Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax
not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief
approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is
there will your heart be also (Luke xii. 33-34).

Go and sell that thou hast, and follow me, and who hath not forsaken
father or mother, or children, or brethren, or fields, or house,
cannot be my disciple.

Turn away from thyself, take thy cross for every day, and come after
me. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to do His
work. Not my will be done, but Thine; not what I want, but what Thou
wantest, and not as I want, but as Thou wantest. The life is in
this, not to do one's will, but the will of God.

All these propositions seem to men who are standing on a lower
life-conception to be an expression of an ecstatic transport, which
has no direct applicability to life. And yet these propositions
just as strictly result from the Christian conception of life as
the tenet about giving up one's labour for the common good, about
sacrificing one's life in the defence of one's country, results from
the social conception.

Just as a man of the social life-conception says to a savage, "Come
to your senses, bethink yourself! The life of your personality
cannot be the true life, because it is wretched and transitory. Only
the life of the aggregate and of the sequence of personalities,
of the tribe, the family, the race, the state, is continued and
lives, and so a man must sacrifice his personality for the life of
the family, the state." Precisely the same the Christian teaching
says to a man of the aggregate, of the social conception of life.
"Repent, μετανοεῖτε, that is, bethink yourselves, or
else you will perish. Remember that this carnal, personal life,
which originated to-day and will be destroyed to-morrow, cannot be
made secure in any way, that no external measures, no arrangement of
it, can add firmness and rationality to it. Bethink yourselves and
understand that the life which you live is not the true life: the
life of the family, the life of society, the life of the state will
not save you from ruin." The true, rational life is possible for man
only in proportion as he can be a participant, not in the family or
the state, but in the source of life, the Father; in proportion as
he can blend his life with the life of the Father. Such indubitably
is the Christian life-comprehension, which may be seen in every
utterance of the Gospel.

It is possible not to share this life-conception; it is possible to
reject it; it is possible to prove its inexactness and irregularity;
but it is impossible to judge of the teaching, without having
first grasped the life-conception from which it results; still
less possible is it to judge about a subject of a higher order
from a lower point of view, to judge of the tower by looking at
the foundation. But it is precisely this that the learned men of
our time are doing. They do so because they abide in an error,
which is like the one of the churchmen, the belief that they are
in possession of such methods of the study of the subject that, as
soon as these methods, called scientific, are used, there can be no
longer any doubt as to the correctness of the comprehension of the
subject under advisement.

It is this possession of an instrument of cognition, which
they deem infallible, that serves as the chief obstacle in the
comprehension of the Christian teaching by unbelievers and so-called
scientific men, by whose opinion the vast majority of unbelievers,
the so-called cultured men, are guided. From this imaginary
comprehension of theirs arise all the errors of the scientific
men in respect to the Christian teaching, and especially two
strange misconceptions which more than any other impede the correct
comprehension of it.

One of these misconceptions is this, that the Christian vital
teaching is impracticable, and so is either entirely unobligatory,
that is, need not be taken for a guide, or else must be modified
and moderated to such an extent as to make it practicable in our
society. Another misunderstanding is this, that the Christian
teaching of love of God, and so the service of Him, is an obscure,
mystical demand, which has no definite object of love, and so must
give way to a more precise and comprehensible teaching about loving
men and serving humanity.

The first misconception about the impracticableness of the teaching
consists in this, that the men of the social comprehension of
life, being unable to comprehend the method by means of which the
Christian teaching guides men, and taking the Christian indications
of perfection to be rules which determine life, think and say that
it is impossible to follow Christ's teaching, because a complete
fulfilment of this teaching destroys life.

"If a man fulfilled what was preached by Christ, he would destroy
his life; and if all men should fulfil it, the whole human race
would come to an end," they say.

"If we care not for the morrow, for what we shall eat and drink and
be clothed in; if we do not defend our lives; if we do not resist
evil with force; if we give our lives for our friends, and observe
absolute chastity, no man, nor the whole human race, can exist,"
they think and say.

And they are quite correct, if we take the indications of
perfection, as given by Christ, for rules, which every man is
obliged to carry out, just as in the social teaching everybody is
obliged to carry out the rule about paying the taxes, about taking
part in court, etc.

The misconception consists in this, that Christ's teaching guides
men in a different way from the way those teachings guide which
are based on a lower life-conception. The teachings of the social
life-conception guide only by demanding a precise execution of the
rules or laws. Christ's teaching guides men by indicating to them
that infinite perfection of the Father in heaven, toward which it is
proper for each man to strive voluntarily, no matter at what stage
of perfection he may be.

The misconception of people who judge about the Christian teaching
from the social point of view consists in this, that they,
assuming that the perfection pointed out by Christ may be attained
completely, ask themselves (even as they question themselves,
assuming that the social laws will be fulfilled) what will happen
when all this shall be fulfilled. This assumption is false, because
the perfection pointed out by Christ is infinite and can never be
attained; and Christ gives His teaching with this in view, that
complete perfection will never be attained, but that the striving
toward complete, infinite perfection will constantly increase
the good of men, and that this good can, therefore, be increased
infinitely.

Christ does not teach angels, but men, who live an animal life,
who are moved by it. And it is to this animal force of motion that
Christ seems to apply a new, a different force of the consciousness
of divine perfection, and with this He directs the motion of life
along the resultant of two forces.

To assume that human life will go in the direction indicated by
Christ is the same as assuming that a boatman, in crossing a rapid
river and directing his boat almost against the current, will move
in that direction.

Christ recognizes the existence of both sides of the parallelogram,
of both the eternal, indestructible forces, of which man's life
is composed,--the force of the animal nature and the force of the
consciousness of a filial relation to God. Without saying anything
of the animal force, which, asserting itself, always remains equal
to itself and exists outside of man's power, Christ speaks only of
the divine force, calling man to recognize it in the highest degree,
to free it as much as possible from what is retarding it, and to
bring it to the highest degree of tension.

In this liberation and increase of the force does man's true life,
according to Christ's teaching, consist. The true life, according
to the previous conditions, consisted in the execution of rules, of
the law; according to Christ's teaching, it consists in the greatest
approach to the divine perfection, as pointed out to every man and
inwardly felt by him, in a greater and ever greater approach toward
blending our will with the will of God, a blending toward which a
man strives, and which would be a destruction of life as we know it.

Divine perfection is the asymptote of the human life, toward which
it always tends and approaches, and which can be attained by it only
at infinity.

The Christian teaching seems to exclude the possibility of life only
when men take the indication of the ideal to be a rule. It is only
then that the demands put forth by Christ's teaching appear to be
destructive of life. Without these demands the true life would be
impossible.

"Too much should not be demanded," people generally say, in
discussing the demands of the Christian teaching. "It is impossible
to demand that we should not care for the future, as it says in
the Gospel; all that we should do is not to care too much. It is
impossible to give everything to the poor; but we should give a
certain, definite part to them. It is not necessary to strive after
chastity; but debauchery should be avoided. We must not leave our
wives and children; but we should not be too much attached to them,"
and so forth.

But to speak in this manner is the same as telling a man who is
crossing a rapid river, and who is directing his course against the
current, that it is impossible to cross the river by going against
the current, but that to cross it he should row in the direction he
wishes to go.

Christ's teaching differs from previous teachings in that it guides
men, not by external rules, but by the internal consciousness of
the possibility of attaining divine perfection. And in man's soul
there are not moderated rules of justice and of philanthropy, but
the ideal of the complete, infinite, divine perfection. Only the
striving after this perfection deflects the direction of man's life
from the animal condition toward the divine, to the extent to which
this is possible in this life.

In order to land where you wish, you must direct your course much
higher up.

To lower the demands of the ideal means not only to diminish the
possibility of perfection, but to destroy the ideal itself. The
ideal which operates upon people is not an invented one, but one
which is borne in the soul of every man. Only this ideal of the
complete, infinite perfection acts upon people and moves them to
activity. A moderated perfection loses its power to act upon men's
souls.

Christ's teaching only then has force, when it demands full
perfection, that is, the blending of God's essence, which abides in
the soul of every man, with the will of God,--the union of the son
and the Father. Only this liberation of the son of God, who lives in
every man, from the animal, and his approximation to the Father form
life according to Christ's teaching.

The existence of the animal in man, of nothing but the animal, is
not the human life. Life according to the will of God alone is also
not the human life. The human life is the resultant from the animal
and the divine lives, and the more this resultant approaches the
divine life, the more there is of life.

Life, according to the Christian teaching, is a motion toward
divine perfection. No condition, according to this teaching, can
be higher or lower than another. Every condition, according to this
teaching, is only a certain step, indifferent in itself, toward the
unattainable perfection, and so in itself forms neither a greater
nor a lesser degree of life. The increase of life, according to
this teaching, is only an acceleration of motion toward perfection,
and so the motion toward perfection of the publican Zacchæus, of
the harlot, of the robber on the cross, forms a higher degree of
life than the immovable righteousness of the Pharisee. And so there
can be no obligatory rules for this teaching. A man who stands on
a lower step, in moving toward perfection, lives more morally and
better, and better performs the teaching, than a man who stands
on a much higher stage of morality, but who does not move toward
perfection.

In this sense the lost sheep is dearer to the Father than one which
is not lost. The prodigal son, the lost coin which is found again,
are dearer than those which were not lost.

The fulfilment of the teaching consists in the motion from oneself
toward God. It is evident that for such a fulfilment of the teaching
there can be no definite laws and rules. All degrees of perfection
and all degrees of imperfection are equal before this teaching; no
fulfilment of the laws constitutes a fulfilment of the teaching; and
so, for this teaching there are, and there can be, no rules and no
laws.

From this radical distinction of Christ's teaching as compared
with previous teachings, which are based on the social conception
of life, there results the difference between the social and the
Christian commandments. The social commandments are for the most
part positive, prescribing certain acts, justifying men, giving
them righteousness. But the Christian commandments (the commandment
of love is not a commandment in the strict sense of the word, but
an expression of the very essence of the teaching)--the five
commandments of the Sermon on the Mount--are all negative, and
they all show only what men may not do at a certain stage of human
development. These commandments are, as it were, signals on the
infinite road to perfection, toward which humanity walks, signals of
that stage of perfection which is possible at a given period of the
development of humanity.

In the Sermon on the Mount Christ has expressed the eternal ideal
toward which it is proper for men to tend, and that degree of its
attainment which can be reached even in our time.

The ideal consists in having no ill-will against any one, in calling
forth no ill-will, in loving all; but the commandment, below which,
in the attainment of this ideal, it is absolutely possible not to
descend, consists in not offending any one with a word. And this
forms the first commandment.

The ideal is complete chastity, even in thought; the commandment
which points out the degree of attainment, below which, in the
attainment of this ideal, it is absolutely possible not to descend,
is the purity of the marital life, the abstaining from fornication.
And this forms the second commandment.

The ideal is not to care for the future, to live only in the
present; the commandment which points out the degree of the
attainment, below which it is absolutely possible not to descend is
not to swear, not to promise anything to men. And this is the third
commandment.

The ideal is never, under any condition, to make use of violence;
the commandment which points out the degree below which it is
absolutely possible not to descend is not to repay evil with evil,
but to suffer insult, to give up one's cloak. And this is the fourth
commandment.

The ideal is to love our enemies, who hate us; the commandment which
points out the degree of the attainment, below which it is possible
not to descend, is to do no evil to our enemies, to speak well of
them, to make no distinction between them and our fellow citizens.

All these commandments are indications of what we are fully able not
to do on the path of striving after perfection, of what we ought to
work over now, of what we must by degrees transfer into the sphere
of habit, into the sphere of the unconscious. But these commandments
fail to form a teaching, and do not exhaust it, and form only one of
the endless steps in the approximation toward perfection.

After these commandments there must and will follow higher and
higher ones on the path to perfection, which is indicated by the
teaching.

And so it is the peculiarity of the Christian teaching that it makes
higher demands than those which are expressed in these commandments,
but under no condition minimizes the demands, either of the ideal
itself, or of these commandments, as is done by people who judge
the teaching of Christianity free from the standpoint of the social
conception of life.

Such is one misconception of the scientific men concerning the
meaning and significance of Christ's teaching; the other, which
flows from the same source, consists in the substitution of the love
and service of men, of humanity, for the Christian demand for loving
God and serving Him.

The Christian teaching of loving God and serving Him, and (only in
consequence of this love and this service) of the love and service
of our neighbour, appears obscure, mystical, and arbitrary to the
men of science, and they completely exclude the demand of love of
God and of serving Him, assuming that the teaching about this love
of men, of humanity, is much more intelligible and firm and better
grounded.

The men of science teach theoretically that the good and sensible
life is only the life of serving the whole of humanity, and in this
alone do they see the meaning of the Christian teaching; to this
teaching do they reduce the Christian teaching; for this their
teaching do they seek a confirmation in the Christian teaching,
assuming that their teaching and the Christian teaching are one and
the same.

This opinion is quite faulty. The Christian teaching, and that of
the positivists, communists, and all the preachers of a universal
brotherhood of men, which is based on the profitableness of such a
brotherhood, have nothing in common among themselves, and differ
from one another more especially in this, that the Christian
teaching has firm, clear foundations in the human soul, while the
teaching of the love of humanity is only a theoretical deduction
from analogy.

The teaching of the love of humanity alone has for its basis the
social conception of life.

The essence of the social conception of life consists in the
transference of the meaning of our personal lives into the life of
the aggregate of personalities,--the tribe, the family, the race,
the state. This transference has taken place easily and naturally in
its first forms, in the transference of the meaning of life from the
personality to the tribe, the family. But the transference to the
race or nation is more difficult and demands a special education for
it; and the transference of the consciousness to the state forms the
limit of such a transference.

It is natural for any one to love himself, and every person loves
himself without any special incitement; to love my tribe, which
supports and defends me, to love my wife, the joy and helpmate of my
life, my children, the pleasure and hope of my life, and my parents,
who have given me life and an education, is natural: and this kind
of love, though far from being as strong as the love of self, is met
with quite frequently.

To love one's race, one's nation, for the sake of oneself, of one's
pride, though not so natural, is still to be met with. The love of
one's nation, which is of the same race, tongue, and faith with
one, is still possible, though this sentiment is far from being as
strong as the love of self, or even of family and race; but the
love of a country, like Turkey, Germany, England, Austria, Russia,
is almost an impossible thing, and, in spite of the intensified
education in this direction, is only assumed and does not exist in
reality. With this aggregate there ends for man the possibility of
transferring his consciousness and of experiencing in this fiction
any immediate sensation. But the positivists and all the preachers
of a scientific brotherhood, who do not take into consideration the
weakening of the sentiment in proportion as the subject is widened,
continue the discussion theoretically along the same direction:
"If," they say, "it was more advantageous for the personality to
transfer its consciousness to the tribe, the family, and then to the
nation, the state, it will be still more advantageous to transfer
the consciousness to the whole aggregate of humanity, and for all
to live for humanity, just as individuals live for the family, the
state."

Theoretically it really comes out that way.

Since the consciousness and the love of personality are transferred
to the family, from the family to the race, the nation, the
state, it would be quite logical for men, to save themselves from
struggle and calamities, which are due to the division of humanity
into nations and states, most naturally to transfer their love to
humanity. This would seem to be the most logical thing, and this is
theoretically advocated by men, who do not observe that love is a
sentiment which one may have, but cannot preach, and that, besides,
for love there must be an object, whereas humanity is not an object,
but only a fiction.

The tribe, the family, even the state, are not invented by men, but
were formed naturally like a swarm of bees or ants, and actually
exist. A man who loves his family for the sake of his animal
personality, knows whom he loves: Anna, Mary, John, Peter, and so
forth. A man who loves a race and is proud of it, knows that he
loves the whole race of the Guelphs, or all the Ghibellines; he who
loves the state knows that he loves France as far as the Rhine and
the Pyrenees, and its capital, Paris, and its history, and so forth.
But what does a man love, when he loves humanity? There is the
state, the nation; there is the abstract conception--man; but there
is not, and there cannot be, a real conception of humanity.

Humanity? Where is the limit of humanity? Where does it end and
where does it begin? Does humanity stop short of a savage, an idiot,
an alcoholic, an insane person? If we are going to draw a line of
demarcation for humanity, so as to exclude the lower representatives
of the human race, where are we going to draw it? Are we going to
exclude the negroes, as the Americans do, and the Hindoos, as some
English do, and the Jews, as some do? But if we are going to include
all men without exception, why include men only, and not the higher
animals, many of whom stand higher than the lower representatives of
the human race?

We do not know humanity as an external object,--we do not know its
limits. Humanity is a fiction, and it cannot be loved. It would
indeed be very convenient, if men could love humanity just as they
love the family; it would be very convenient, as the communists talk
of doing, to substitute the communal for the competitive tendency
of human activity, and the universal for the individual, so that
every man may be for all, and all for every man, only there are no
motives whatever for it. The positivists, the communists, and all
the preachers of the scientific brotherhood preach the widening of
that love which men have for themselves and for their families and
for the state, so as to embrace all humanity, forgetting that the
love which they advocate is the personal love, which, by spreading
out thinner, could extend to the family; which, by spreading out
still thinner, could extend to the natural country of birth, which
completely vanishes as soon as it reaches an artificial state, as
Austria, Turkey, England, and which we are not even able to imagine,
when we come to humanity, an entirely mystical subject.

"Man loves himself (his animal life), loves his family, loves even
his country. Why should he not love also humanity? How nice that
would be! By the way, this is precisely what Christianity teaches."

Thus think the preachers of the positivist, communistic, socialistic
brotherhoods. It would indeed be very nice, but it cannot be,
because love which is based on the personal and the social
conception of life cannot go beyond the state.

The error of judgment consists in this, that the social
life-conception, on which is based the love of family and of
country, is built on the love of personality, and that this love,
being transferred from the personality to the family, the race, the
nationality, the state, keeps growing weaker and weaker, and in the
state reaches its extreme limit, beyond which it cannot go.

The necessity for widening the sphere of love is incontestable; but
at the same time this very necessity for its widening in reality
destroys the possibility of love and proves the insufficiency of the
personal, the human love.

And here the preachers of the positivist, communistic, socialistic
brotherhoods, to succour the human love, which has proved
insufficient, propose the Christian love,--in its consequences
alone, and not in its foundations: they propose the love of humanity
alone, without the love of God.

But there can be no such love. There exists no motive for it.
Christian love results only from the Christian conception of life,
according to which the meaning of life consists in the love of God
and in serving Him.

By a natural progression, from the love of self to the love of
family, of the race, of the nation, of the state, the social
conception of life has brought men to the consciousness of the
necessity for a love of humanity, which has no limits and blends
with everything in existence,--to something which evokes no
sensations in man; it has brought them to a contradiction, which
cannot be solved by the social conception of life.

Only the Christian teaching in all its significance, by giving a
new meaning to life, solves it. Christianity recognizes the love of
self, and of the family, and of the nation, and of humanity,--not
only of humanity, but of everything living, of everything in
existence; it recognizes the necessity for an endless widening of
the sphere of love; but the object of this love it does not find
outside of self, or in the aggregate of personalities,--in the
family, the race, the state, humanity, in the whole external world,
but in oneself, in one's personality,--which, however, is a divine
personality, the essence of which is the same love, to the necessity
of widening which the animal personality was brought, in saving
itself from the consciousness of its perdition.

The difference between the Christian teaching and what preceded it
is this, that the preceding social teaching said: "Live contrary
to your nature (meaning only the animal nature), subordinate it
to the external law of the family, the society, the state;" but
Christianity says: "Live in accordance with your nature (meaning the
divine nature), subordinating it to nothing,--neither to your own,
nor to anybody else's animal nature,--and you will attain what you
are striving after by subordinating your external nature to external
laws."

The Christian teaching takes man back to the primitive consciousness
of self, not of self--the animal, but of self--God, the divine
spark, of self--the son of God, of just such a God as the Father
himself, but included in an animal integument. And the recognition
of self as this son of God, whose chief quality is love, satisfies
also all those demands for the widening of the sphere of love, to
which the man of the social conception of life was brought. There,
with a greater and ever greater widening of the sphere of love for
the salvation of the personality, love was a necessity and was
applied to certain objects,--self, the family, society, humanity;
with the Christian conception of life, love is not a necessity and
is not adapted to anything, but is an essential quality of man's
soul. Man does not love because it is advantageous for him to love
this man or these men, but because love is the essence of his
soul,--because he cannot help loving.

The Christian teaching consists in pointing out to man that the
essence of his soul is love, that his good is derived not from the
fact that he will love this or that man, but from the fact that he
will love the beginning of everything, God, whom he recognizes in
himself through love, and so will love everybody and everything.

In this does the fundamental difference between the Christian
teaching and the teaching of the positivists and of all the
theorists of the non-Christian universal brotherhood consist.

Such are the two chief misconceptions concerning the Christian
teaching, from which originate the majority of the false opinions in
regard to it. One is, that, like the preceding teachings, Christ's
teaching inculcates rules, which men are obliged to follow, and
that these rules are impracticable; the other is, that the whole
significance of Christianity consists in the teaching about the
advantageous cohabitation of humanity, as one family, for which,
without mentioning the love of God, it is necessary only to follow
the rule of love toward humanity.

The false opinion of the scientific men, that the teaching of
the supernatural forms the essence of the Christian teaching, and
that Christ's vital teaching is impracticable, together with the
misconception which arises from this false opinion, forms the second
cause why Christianity is not understood by the men of our time.


V.

There are many causes for the failure to comprehend Christ's
teaching. One cause lies in this, that men assume that they
understand the teaching, when they decide, as the churchmen do,
that it was transmitted to us in a supernatural manner; or, as the
scientific men do, that they understand it, when they have studied a
part of those external phenomena in which it is expressed. Another
cause of a failure to comprehend lies in the misconceptions as to
the impracticability of the teaching and as to this, that it ought
to give way to the teaching about the love of humanity; but the
chief cause which has engendered all these misconceptions is this,
that Christ's teaching is considered to be such as can be accepted,
or not, without changing one's life.

The men who are accustomed to the existing order of things, who love
it and are afraid to change it, try to comprehend the teaching as a
collection of revelations and rules, which may be accepted, without
changing their lives, whereas Christ's teaching is not merely a
teaching about rules which a man may follow, but the elucidation
of a new meaning of life, which determines the whole, entirely new
activity of humanity for the period upon which it is entering.

Human life moves, passes, like the life of the individual, and every
age has its corresponding life-conception, and this life-conception
is inevitably accepted by men. Those men who do not consciously
accept the life-conception proper for their age are brought to it
unconsciously. What takes place with the change of views on life
in the case of individuals, takes place also with the change of the
views on life in the case of nations and of all humanity. If a man
with a family continues to be guided in his activity by a childish
comprehension of life, his life will become so hard for him that
he will involuntarily seek another comprehension of life, and will
gladly accept the one which is proper for his age.

The same is now taking place in our humanity in the transition from
the pagan conception of life to the Christian, which is now going
on. The social man of our time is brought by life itself to the
necessity of renouncing the pagan conception of life, which is no
longer proper for the present age of humanity, and of submitting
to the demands of the Christian teaching, the truths of which, no
matter how distorted and misinterpreted they may be, are still known
to him and alone furnish a solution to those contradictions in which
he is losing himself.

If the demands of the Christian teaching seem strange and even
perilous to the man of the social life-conception, the demands of
the social teaching anciently seemed just as incomprehensible and
perilous to a savage, when he did not yet fully comprehend them and
was unable to foresee their consequences.

"It is irrational for me to sacrifice my peace or even my life,"
says the savage, "in order to defend something incomprehensible,
intangible, conventional,--the family, the race, the country,
and, above all else, it is dangerous to give myself over to the
disposition of a foreign power."

But the time came when the savage, on the one hand, comprehended,
however dimly, the significance of the social life, the significance
of its prime mover,--the public approval or condemnation,--glory;
on the other hand, when the sufferings of his personal life became
so great that he no longer continued to believe in the truth of his
former conception of life, and accepted the social, the political
teaching and submitted to it.

The same now takes place with the social, the political man.

"It is irrational for me," says the social man, "to sacrifice
my good, the good of my family, my country, for the fulfilment
of the conditions of some higher law, which demands from me the
renunciation of the most natural and the best sentiments of love
for myself, my family, my country, and, above all, it is dangerous
to reject the security of life, which is given by the political
structure."

But the time comes when, on the one hand, the dim consciousness in
his soul of a higher law of love for God and for his neighbour, and,
on the other, the sufferings which arise from the contradictions of
life, compel him to reject the social life-conception and to accept
the new, Christian conception of life, which is offered to him, and
which solves all the contradictions and removes the sufferings of
his life. And this time has now come.

To us, who thousands of years ago experienced the transition from
the animal, personal life-conception to the social one, it seems
that that transition was necessary and natural, and this, the one
through which we have been passing these eighteen hundred years,
is arbitrary, unnatural, and terrible. But that only seems so to
us, because the other transition is already accomplished, and its
activity has already passed into the subconscious, while the present
transition is not yet accomplished, and we have to accomplish it
consciously.

The social life-conception entered into the consciousness of men
through centuries and millenniums, passed through several forms, and
has now passed for humanity into the sphere of the subconscious,
which is transmitted through heredity, education, and habit, and so
it seems natural to us. But five thousand years ago it seemed to
men just as unnatural and terrible as now the Christian teaching
seems to us in its true meaning.

It now seems to us that the demands of the Christian teaching
for a universal brotherhood, abolition of nationalities, absence
of property, the apparently so strange non-resistance to evil,
are impossible demands. But just so strange, thousands of years
ago, seemed the demands, not only of the state, but also of the
family, as, for example, the demand that the parents should support
their children, and the young--the old, and that husband and wife
should be true to one another. Still more strange, even senseless,
seemed the political demands,--that the citizens should submit to
the powers that be, pay taxes, go to war in the defence of their
country, and so forth. It now seems to us that all such demands are
simple, intelligible, natural, and have nothing mystical or even
strange about them; but five or three thousand years ago, these
demands seemed impossible.

The social life-conception served as a basis for religions for the
very reason that, when it manifested itself to men, it seemed to
them quite unintelligible, mystical, and supernatural. Now, since we
have outlived this phase of the life of humanity, we understand the
rational causes of the union of men in families, communes, states;
but in antiquity the demands for such a union were manifested in the
name of the supernatural, and were confirmed by it.

The patriarchal religion deified the families, races, nations: the
political religions deified kings and states. Even now the majority
of the men of little culture, such as our peasants, who call the
Tsar an earthly God, submit to the social laws, not from a rational
consciousness of their necessity, not because they have a conception
of the idea of the state, but from a religious sentiment.

Even so now the Christian teaching represents itself to the men
of the social, or pagan, world-conception in the form of a
supernatural religion, whereas in reality there is in it nothing
mysterious, or mystical, or supernatural; it is nothing but the
teaching about life, which corresponds to that stage of the material
development, to that age, in which humanity is, and which must
therefore inevitably be accepted by it.

The time will come, and is already at hand, when the Christian
foundations of life, equality, brotherhood of men, community of
possession, non-resistance to evil, will become as natural and
as simple as the foundations of the family, the social, and the
political life now appear to us.

Neither man nor humanity can in their motion turn back. The
social, family, and political life-conceptions have been outlived
by men, and it is necessary to go ahead and accept the higher
life-conception, which indeed is being done now.

This motion takes place from two sides, consciously, in consequence
of spiritual causes, and unconsciously, in consequence of material
causes.

Just as the individual seldom changes his life merely in accordance
with the indications of reason, but as a rule, in spite of the new
meaning and the new aims indicated by reason, continues to live
his former life and changes it only when his life becomes entirely
contradictory to his consciousness, and, therefore, agonizing, so
also humanity, having come through its religious guides to know the
new meaning of life, the new aims, toward which it must tend, even
after this knowledge continues for a long time, in the case of the
majority of men, to live the previous life, and is guided to the
acceptance of a new life-conception only through the impossibility
of continuing the former life.

In spite of the demands for the change of life, as cognized and
expressed by the religious guides and accepted by the wisest men,
the majority of men, in spite of the religious relation to these
guides, that is, the faith in their teaching, continue in the more
complex life to be guided by the previous teaching, just as a man of
a family would act, if, knowing how he ought to live at his age, he
should from habit and frivolity continue to live a child's life.

It is this that takes place in the matter of the transition of
humanity from one age to another, such as is now going on. Humanity
has outgrown its social, political age, and has entered upon a new
one. It knows the teaching which ought to be put at the foundation
of the life of this new age, but from inertia continues to hold on
to the previous forms of life. From this lack of correspondence
between the life-conception and the practice of life there arises a
series of contradictions and sufferings, which poison our life and
demand its change.

We need only to compare the practice of life with its theory, in
order that we may be frightened at the crying contradiction of the
conditions of life and of our consciousness, in which we live.

Our whole life is one solid contradiction to everything we know
and consider necessary and right. This contradiction is in
everything,--in the economic, the political, the international life.
As though forgetting what we know, and for a time putting aside what
we believe in (we cannot help but believe, because this constitutes
our only foundations of life), we do everything contrary to what our
conscience and our common sense demand of us.

In economic, political, and international relations we are guided by
those foundations which were useful to men three and five thousand
years ago, and which directly contradict our present consciousness
and those conditions of life in which we now are.

It was well enough for a man of antiquity to live amidst a division
of men into slaves and masters, when he believed that this division
was from God, and that it could not be otherwise. But is a similar
division possible in our day?

A man of the ancient world could consider himself in the right to
use the benefits of this world to the disadvantage of other men,
causing them to suffer for generations, because he believed that men
are born of various breeds, noble and base, of the generation of
Japheth and of Ham. Not only the greatest sages of the world, the
teachers of humanity, Plato, Aristotle, justified the existence of
slaves and proved the legality of it, but even three centuries ago
men who wrote of the imaginary society of the future, of Utopia,
could not imagine it without slaves.

The men of antiquity, and even of the Middle Ages, believed,
believed firmly, that men are not equal, that only the Persians,
only the Greeks, only the Romans, only the French were real men. But
those men who in our time champion aristocratism and patriotism do
not believe, cannot believe, in what they say.

We all know, and we cannot help but know, even if we have never
heard or read this thought clearly expressed and have never
expressed it ourselves, we, having imbibed this consciousness, which
is borne in the Christian atmosphere, know with our whole heart, and
we cannot help but know, that fundamental truth of the Christian
teaching, that we all are the sons of one Father, all of us, no
matter where we may live or what language we may speak,--that we are
all brothers and are subject only to the law of love, which by our
common Father is implanted in our hearts.

No matter what the manner of thought and degree of culture of a
man of our time may be, be he a cultured liberal of any shade
whatever, be he a philosopher of any camp, be he a scientific man,
an economist, of any school, be he an uncultured, even a religious
man of any confession of faith,--every man of our time knows that
all men have the same right to life and to the benefits of this
world, that no man is better or worse than any one else, that all
men are equal. Everybody knows this with absolute certainty and
with his whole being, and at the same time not only sees all about
him the division of men into two castes: one, which is working, is
oppressed, in need, in suffering, and the other, idle, oppressing,
and living in luxury and pleasure,--he not only sees this, but
involuntarily from one side or another takes part in this division
of men, which his reason rejects, and he cannot help but suffer from
the consciousness of such a contradiction and from participation in
it.

Be he master or slave, a man of our time cannot help but experience
a constant agonizing contradiction between his consciousness and
reality, and sufferings which arise from it.

The working masses, the great majority of people, suffering from
the constant, all-absorbing, senseless, dawnless labour and
sufferings, suffer most of all from the consciousness of the crying
contradiction between what exists and what ought to be, as the
result of everything which is professed by them and by those who
have placed them in this position and maintain them in it.

They know that they are in slavery, and are perishing in want and
darkness, in order to serve the lust of the minority, which keeps
them in slavery. They know this and give expression to it. And this
consciousness not only increases their sufferings, but even forms
the essence of their sufferings.

The ancient slave knew that he was a slave by nature, but our
workman, feeling himself to be a slave, knows that he should not
be a slave, and so experiences the torments of Tantalus, eternally
wishing for and not receiving what not only could, but even should
be. The sufferings of the working classes which result from the
contradiction between what is and what ought to be, are increased
tenfold by the envy and hatred which result from them.

A workman of our time, even though his work may be lighter than
that of an ancient slave and he may have attained an eight-hour
work-day and a wage of three dollars per day, will not cease
suffering, because, in manufacturing articles which he will not make
use of, and working, not for himself and at his pleasure, but from
necessity, for whims of luxurious and idle people in general and for
the enrichment of one man, the rich owner of the factory or plant,
in particular, he knows that all this is taking place in a world in
which not only they have accepted the scientific proposition that
only work is wealth, that the exploitation of other men's labour
is unjust, illegal, amenable to punishment by law, but also they
profess Christ's teaching, according to which all are brothers, and
a man's worth and merit consists only in serving his neighbour, and
not in making use of him.

He knows all this, and he cannot help but suffer torments from this
crying contradiction between what ought to be and what actually
exists. "From all the data and from everything which I know all
men profess," the labouring man says to himself, "I ought to be
free, equal to all other men, and loved; but I am a slave,--I am
humiliated and hated." And he himself hates and seeks for means
to save himself from this position, to throw off his foe, who is
pressing down on him, and himself to get on top of him. They say,
"The working men are not right in their desire to take the place of
the capitalists, nor the poor in their desire to take the place of
the rich." This is not true: the working men and the poor would be
in the wrong, if they wished for it in a world in which slaves and
masters, the rich and the poor, are established by God; but they
wish for it in a world in which is professed the Gospel teaching,
the first proposition of which is the filial relation of men to God,
and so the brotherhood and equality of all men. And no matter how
much men may try, it is impossible to conceal the fact that one of
the first conditions of a Christian life is love, not in words, but
in work.

In a still greater contradiction and in still greater sufferings
lives the man of the so-called cultured class. Every such man, if he
believes in anything, believes, if not in the brotherhood of men,
at least in humanitarianism; if not in humanitarianism, at least in
justice; if not in justice, at least in science,--and with all that
knows that his whole life is built on conditions which are quite
the reverse of all that, of all the tenets of Christianity, and
humanity, and justice, and science.

He knows that all the habits in which he is brought up, and the
deprivation of which would be a torment for him, can be gratified
only by the painful, often perilous labour of oppressed working men,
that is, by the most palpable, coarse violation of those principles
of Christianity, humanitarianism, justice, and even science (I
mean the demands of political economy), which he professes. He
professes the principles of brotherhood, humanitarianism, justice,
science, and yet lives in such a way that he needs that oppression
of the labouring men which he denies, and even in such a way that
his whole life is an exploitation of this oppression, and not only
does he live in this way, but also he directs his activity to the
maintenance of this order of things, which is directly opposed to
everything in which he believes.

We are all brothers, and yet every morning my brother or my sister
carries out my vessel. We are all brothers, and I need every morning
my cigar, sugar, a mirror, and so forth, objects in the manufacture
of which my brothers and my sisters, who are my equals, have been
losing their health, and I employ these articles and even demand
them. We are all brothers, and I live by working in a bank, or in
a business house, or a shop, in order to make all the wares which
my brothers need more expensive for them. We are all brothers,
and yet I live by receiving a salary for arraigning, judging, and
punishing a thief or a prostitute, whose existence is conditioned
by the whole composition of my life, and who, I know myself, ought
not to be punished, but corrected. We are all brothers, and I live
by receiving a salary for collecting the taxes from poor working
men, to be used for the luxury of the idle and the rich. We are all
brothers, and I receive a salary for preaching to people what is
supposed to be the Christian religion, in which I do not believe
myself, and which deprives them of the possibility of finding out
the real faith. I receive a salary as a priest, a bishop, for
deceiving people in what is the most important matter for them. We
are all brothers, but I give to the poor my pedagogical, medical,
literary labours for money only. We are all brothers, but I receive
a salary for preparing myself to commit murder, studying how to
kill, or making a gun, powder, fortresses.

The whole life of our higher classes is one solid contradiction,
which is the more agonizing, the more sensitive man's conscience is.

The man with a sensitive conscience cannot help but suffer, if he
lives this life. There is one means by which he can free himself
from this suffering,--it consists in drowning his conscience; but
even if such men succeed in drowning their conscience, they cannot
drown their terror.

Insensitive people of the higher, the oppressing classes, and those
who have drowned their consciences, if they do not suffer from
their consciences, suffer from fear and hatred. Nor can they help
but suffer. They know of that hatred against them which exists,
and cannot help but exist, among the labouring classes; and they
know that the working men know that they are deceived and outraged,
and they are beginning to organize for the purpose of throwing off
the oppression and retaliating upon the oppressors. The higher
classes see the unions, strikes, the First of May, and they feel the
calamity which is threatening them, and this terror poisons their
life. They feel the calamity which is threatening them, and the
terror which they experience passes into a feeling of self-defence
and hatred. They know that if they weaken for a moment in their
struggle with the slaves oppressed by them, they will themselves
perish, because the slaves are enraged, and this rage is growing
with every day of the oppression. The oppressors cannot stop
oppressing, even if they should wish to do so. They know that they
themselves will perish, the moment they stop or even weaken in their
oppressions. And they do oppress, in spite of their seeming concern
for the welfare of the labouring people, for an eight-hour day,
for the prohibition to employ children and women, for pensions and
rewards. All this is a deception or a provision for eliciting work
from the slave; but the slave remains a slave, and the master, who
could not live without the slave, is less than ever prepared to free
him.

The ruling classes are, in relation to the workingmen, in the
position of a man who is astride a man whom he holds down and does
not let go of, not so much because he does not want to let go of
him, as because he knows that he need but for a moment let go of the
subdued man, and the subdued man will cut his throat, because the
subdued man is enraged and has a knife in his hand. And so, whether
they be sensitive or not, our wealthy classes cannot enjoy the good
things which they have taken from the poor, as the ancients did, who
believed in their right. Their whole life and all their pleasures
are poisoned by rebukes of conscience or by terror.

Such is the economical contradiction. More striking still is the
political contradiction.

All men are above all else educated in the habits of obedience to
the laws of the state. The whole life of the men of our time is
determined by the law of the state. A man marries or gets a divorce,
educates his children, even professes a faith (in many states) in
accordance with the law. What is this law, which determines the
whole life of men? Do the men believe in this law? Do they consider
it to be true? Not in the least. In the majority of cases, the men
of our time do not believe in the justice of this law, despise it,
and yet obey it. It was all very well for the men of antiquity to
carry out their laws. They believed firmly that their law (which for
the most part was also religious) was the one true law which all men
must obey. But we? We know, and we cannot help but know, that the
law of our state is not only not the one eternal law, but that it
is only one of many laws of various countries, equally imperfect,
and frequently and palpably false and unjust, and widely discussed
in the newspapers. It was all very well for a Jew to submit to his
laws, when he had no doubt but that they were written by God's
finger; or, for a Roman, when he thought that the nymph Egeria had
written his laws; or even when they believed that the kings who gave
the laws were the anointed of the Lord, or even that the legislative
bodies had a desire to find the best laws, and were able to do so.
But we know how laws are made; we have all been behind the scenes;
we all know that laws are the results of greed, deception, the
struggle of parties,--that in them there is and there can be no true
justice. And so the men of our time cannot believe that obedience to
civil or political laws would satisfy the demands of the rationality
of human nature. Men have known for a long time that it is not
sensible to obey a law of the correctness of which there can be any
doubt, and so they cannot help but suffer, if they obey a law the
rationality and obligatoriness of which they do not acknowledge.

A man cannot help but suffer, when his whole life is determined in
advance by laws which he must obey under the menace of punishment,
and in the rationality and justice of which he does not believe,
and the unnaturalness, cruelty, injustice of which he clearly
recognizes. We recognize the uselessness of custom-houses and
import duties, and we must pay the duties; we recognize the
uselessness of the expenses for the support of royal courts and
many governmental offices; we recognize the harmfulness of the
church propaganda, and we must contribute to the support of these
institutions; we recognize the cruelty and unscrupulousness of
the penalties imposed by courts of justice, and we must take part
in them; we recognize the irregularity and harmfulness of the
distribution of land-ownership, and we must submit to it; we do not
recognize the indispensableness of armies and of war, and must bear
terrible burdens for the maintenance of armies and the waging of
wars, and so forth.

But these contradictions are as nothing in comparison with the
contradiction which has now arisen among men in their international
relations, and which, under threat of ruining both human reason and
human life, demands a solution. This is the contradiction between
the Christian conscience and war.

We are all Christian nations, who live the same spiritual life, so
that every good, fruitful thought, which springs up in one corner
of the earth, is at once communicated to the whole Christian world,
evoking similar sensations of joy and pride, independently of
nationality; we, who not only love the thinkers, benefactors, poets,
scholars of other nations, but also pride ourselves on the exploit
of a Damien, as though it were our own; we, who just love the men of
other nationalities,--the French, the Germans, the Americans, the
English; we, who not only respect their qualities, but rejoice when
we meet them, who give them a smile of recognition, who not only
could not regard a war with them as something to be proud of, but
who could not even think without horror that any disagreement may
arise between these men and us,--we are all called to take part in
murder, which must inevitably take place, to-morrow, if not to-day.

It was all very well for a Jew, a Greek, a Roman not only to
defend the independence of his nation by means of murder, but by
the means of murder also to cause other nations to submit to him,
for he believed firmly that his nation was the one true, good, kind
nation, which was loved by God, and that all the other nations were
Philistines, barbarians. Even the men of the Middle Ages and the men
of the end of the last and the beginning of this century could have
believed so. But we, no matter how much we may be teased to do so,
can no longer believe in this, and this contradiction is so terrible
for the men of our time that it is impossible to live, if we do not
destroy it.

"We live in a time which is full of contradictions," Count
Komárovski, professor of international law, writes in his learned
treatise. "In the press of all countries there is constantly shown
a universal tendency toward peace, toward its necessity for all
nations. In the same sense express themselves the representatives
of governments, as private individuals and as official organs,
in parliamentary debates, in diplomatic exchanges of opinion,
and even in international treaties. At the same time, however,
the governments annually increase the military forces of their
countries, impose new taxes, make loans, and leave to future
generations, as a legacy, the obligation to bear the blunders of
the present senseless politics. What a crying contradiction between
words and deeds!

"Of course, the governments, to justify these measures, point to
the exclusively defensive character of all these expenditures
and armaments, but none the less it remains a puzzle for every
unbiassed man, whence we are to expect attacks, since all the
great powers unanimously in their politics pursue the one aim of
defence. In reality this looks as though each of these powers
waited every moment to be attacked by another, and these are the
consequences,--universal distrust and a preternatural endeavour of
one power to surpass the force of the others. Such an emulation
in itself increases the danger of war: the nations cannot for any
length of time stand the intensified arming, and sooner or later
will prefer war to all the disadvantages of the present condition
and constant menace. Thus the most insignificant cause will be
sufficient to make the fire of a universal war flame up in the
whole of Europe. It is incorrect to think that such a crisis can
cure us of the political and economical calamities which oppress
us. Experience from the wars which have been waged in recent years
teaches us that every war has only sharpened the hostility of
the nations, increased the burden and the unendurableness of the
pressure of militarism, and made the politico-economic condition of
Europe more hopeless and complex."

"Modern Europe keeps under arms an active army of nine millions
of men," writes Enrico Ferri, "and fifteen millions of reserves,
expending on them four milliards of francs per year. By arming
itself more and more, it paralyzes the sources of the social and
the individual welfare, and may easily be compared to a man who, to
provide himself with a gun, condemns himself to anæmia, at the same
time wasting all his strength for the purpose of making use of the
very gun with which he is providing himself, and under the burden of
which he will finally fall."

The same was said by Charles Butt,[11] in his speech which he
delivered in London before the Association for the Reform and
Codification of the Law of Nations, July 26, 1887. After pointing
out the same nine millions and over of the active armies and
seventeen millions of reserves, and the enormous expenses of the
governments for the support of these armies and equipments, he says:
"But this forms only a small part of the actual cost, for besides
the figures mentioned, which constitute merely the war budgets of
the nations, we have to take into account the enormous loss to
society by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men ... from the
occupations of productive industry, together with the prodigious
capital invested in all warlike preparations and appliances, and
which is absolutely unproductive.... One necessary result of the
expenditure on wars and preparations for war is the steady growth of
national debts.... The aggregate national debts of Europe, by far
the larger proportion of which has been contracted for war purposes,
amount at the present time to £4,680,000,000."

  [11] Not Charles Butt, but Henry Richard.

The same Komárovski says in another place: "We are living in a
hard time. Everywhere do we hear complaints as to the slackness
of business and industry and in general as to the bad economic
conditions: people point out the hard conditions of the life of the
labouring classes and the universal impoverishment of the masses.
But, in spite of it, the governments, in their endeavour to maintain
their independence, reach the extreme limits of madness. Everywhere
they invent new taxes and imposts, and the financial oppression
of the nations knows no limits. If we look at the budgets of the
European states for the last one hundred years, we shall first of
all be struck by their constantly progressive and rapid growth. How
can we explain this extraordinary phenomenon, which sooner or later
threatens us with inevitable bankruptcy?

"This is incontestably due to the expenditures caused by the
maintenance of an army, which swallow one-third and even one-half
of the budgets of the European states. What is most lamentable in
connection with it is this, that no end can be foreseen to this
increase of the budgets and impoverishment of the masses. What is
socialism, if not a protest against this abnormal condition, in
which the greater part of the population of our part of the world
finds itself?"

"We ruin ourselves," says Frederic Passy, in a note read at the
last Congress (1890) of Universal Peace, at London, "in preparing
the means for taking part in the mad butcheries of the future, or
in paying the interests of debts bequeathed to us by the mad and
culpable butcheries of the past. We die of starvation, in order to
be able to kill one another off."

Farther on, speaking of how France looks upon this subject, he says:
"We believe that one hundred years after the _Declaration of the
rights of man and of a citizen_ it is time to recognize the rights
of nations and to renounce for ever all these enterprises of force
and violence, which, under the name of conquests, are real crimes
against humanity, and which, whatever the ambition of the sovereigns
or the pride of the races ... weaken even those who seem to profit
from them."

"I am always very much surprised at the way religion is carried on
in this country," says Sir Wilfrid Lawson, at the same Congress.
"You send a boy to the Sunday school, and you tell him, 'My dear
boy, you must love your enemies; if any boy strikes you, don't
strike him again; try to reform him by loving him.' Well, the boy
stays in the Sunday school till he is fourteen or fifteen years
of age, and then his friends say, 'Put him in the army.' What has
he to do in the army? Why, not to love his enemies, but whenever
he sees an enemy to run him through the body with a bayonet. That
is the nature of all religious teaching in this country. I do not
think that that is a very good way of carrying out the precepts of
religion. I think if it is a good thing for the boy to love his
enemy, it is a good thing for the man to love his enemy."

And farther: "The nations of Europe ... keep somewhere about
twenty-eight millions of armed men to settle quarrels by killing one
another, instead of by arguing. That is what the Christian nations
of the world are doing at this moment. It is a very expensive way
also; for this publication which I saw made out that since the
year 1872 these nations had spent the almost incredible amount of
£1,500,000,000 of money in preparing, and settling their quarrels
by killing one another. Now it seems to me that with that state
of things one of two positions must be accepted: either that
Christianity is a failure or, that those who profess to expound
Christianity have failed in expounding it properly."

"Until our ironclads are withdrawn, and our army disbanded, we are
not entitled to call ourselves a Christian nation," says Mr. J.
Jowet Wilson.

In a discussion which arose in connection with the question of the
obligatoriness of Christian pastors to preach against war, Mr. G. D.
Bartlett said, among other things: "If I understand the Scriptures,
I say that men are only playing with Christianity when they ignore
this question," that is, say nothing about war. "I have lived a
longish life, I have heard many sermons, and I can say without any
exaggeration that I never heard universal peace recommended from
the pulpit half a dozen times in my life.... Some twenty years
ago I happened to stand in a drawing-room where there were forty
or fifty people, and I dared to moot the proposition that war was
incompatible with Christianity. They looked upon me as an arrant
fanatic. The idea that we could get on without war was regarded as
unmitigated weakness and folly."

In the same sense spoke the Catholic Abbé Defourny: "One of the
first precepts of this eternal law which burns in the consciences of
men is the one which forbids taking the life of one's like, shedding
human blood without just cause, and without being constrained by
necessity. It is one of those laws which are most indelibly engraved
in the human heart.... But if it is a question of war, that is, of
the shedding of human blood in torrents, the men of the present
do not trouble themselves about a just cause. Those who take part
in it do not think of asking themselves whether these innumerable
murders are justifed or not, that is, if the wars, or what goes by
that name, are just or iniquitous, legal or illegal, permissible or
criminal ... whether they violate, or not, the primordial law which
prohibits homicide and murder ... without just cause. But their
conscience is mute in this matter.

"War has ceased for them to be an act which has anything to do with
morality. They have no other joy, in the fatigue and perils of the
camp, than that of being victorious, and no other sadness than
that of being vanquished.... Do not tell me that they serve their
country. A long time ago a great genius told you these words, which
have become proverbial, 'Reject justice, and what are the empires
but great societies of brigands?' And are not a band of brigands
themselves small empires? Brigands themselves have certain laws or
conventions by which they are ruled. There, too, they fight for the
conquest of booty and for the honour of the band.... The principle
of the institution" (he is talking of the establishment of an
international tribunal) "is this, that the European nations should
stop being a nation of thieves, and the armies gangs of brigands and
of pirates, and, I must add, of slaves. Yes, the armies are gangs of
slaves, slaves of one or two rulers, or one or two ministers, who
dispose of them tyrannically, without any other guarantee, we know,
than a nominal one.

"What characterizes the slave is this, that he is in the hands of
his master like a chattel, a tool, and no longer a man. Just so it
is with a soldier, an officer, a general, who march to murder and
to death without any care as to justice, by the arbitrary will of
ministers.... Thus military slavery exists, and it is the worst of
slaveries, particularly now, when by means of enforced military
service it puts the chain about the necks of all free and strong men
of the nations, in order to make of them tools of murder, killers
by profession, butchers of human flesh, for this is the only _opus
servile_ for which they are chained up and trained....

"Rulers, to the number of two or three ... united into a secret
cabinet, deliberate without control and without minutes which are
intended for publicity ... consequently without any guarantee for
the conscience of those whom they send out to be killed."

"The protests against the heavy arming do not date from our day,"
says Signor E. T. Moneta. "Listen to what Montesquieu wrote in his
time.

"'France' (you may substitute the word 'Europe') 'will be ruined
by the military. A new malady has spread through Europe; it has
infected our princes and has made them keep a disproportionate
number of troops. It has its exacerbations, and it necessarily
becomes contagious, because, as soon as one state increases what
it calls its troops, the others suddenly increase theirs, so that
nothing is gained by it but the common ruin.

"'Every monarch keeps on a war footing all the troops which he might
need in case his people were in danger of being exterminated, and
this state of tension, of all against all, is called peace. As a
result, Europe is so ruined that if private individuals were in the
condition in which the powers are in this part of the world, the
richest of them would not have anything to live on. We are poor with
the riches and the commerce of the whole universe.'

"This was written almost 150 years ago; the picture seems to be
made for to-day. One single thing has changed,--the system of
government. In the time of Montesquieu, and also afterward, they
used to say that the cause for the maintenance of great armies lay
in the absolute kings, who waged war in the hope of finding in the
conquests the means for enriching their private budgets and passing
down to history in the aureole of glory.

"Then they said, 'Oh, if the peoples could choose themselves those
who have the right to refuse the governments soldiers and money, for
then the politics of war would come to an end.'

"We have to-day representative governments in nearly all of Europe,
and none the less the expenditures for war and for its preparation
are increased in a frightful proportion.

"Evidently the folly of the princes has passed down to the governing
classes. At the present time they no longer make war because a
prince was disrespectful to a courtesan, as such things happened
in the time of Louis XIV., but by exaggerating the respectable
sentiments, like that of the national dignity and of patriotism, by
exciting public opinion against a neighbouring nation, there will
come a day when it will be sufficient to say, though the information
may not be true, that the ambassador of your government was not
received by the chief of a state, in order to make break forth the
most terrible and disastrous of wars ever seen.

"At the present time Europe keeps under arms more soldiers than
there were in the time of Napoleon's great wars. All citizens,
with few exceptions, are obliged on our continent to pass several
years in the barracks. They build fortresses, construct arsenals
and ships, constantly manufacture arms, which after awhile have to
be replaced by others, because science, which ought always to be
directed toward the well-being of men, unfortunately lends its aid
to works of destruction, invents at every instant new engines for
killing great masses of men as rapidly as possible.

"And in order to maintain so many soldiers and to make such vast
preparations for murder, they spend yearly hundreds of millions,
that is, what would be sufficient for the education of the people,
for the execution of the greatest works of public utility, and would
furnish the means for solving pacifically the social question.

"Europe, therefore, finds itself, in spite of the scientific
conquests, in a condition as though it were still living in the
worst times of the ferocious Middle Ages. All men complain of
this situation, which is not yet war, but which is not peace
either, and everybody would like to get out of it. The chiefs of
governments protest that they want peace, and it is a matter of
emulation between them as to who will make the most solemn pacific
declarations. But on the same day, or the day following, they
present to the legislative chambers propositions for increasing
the standing army, and they say that it is for the purpose of
maintaining and assuring peace that they take so many precautions.

"But it is not the kind of peace we like; nor are the nations
deceived. True peace has reciprocal confidence for its basis, while
these enormous preparations betray a profound distrust, if not a
concealed hostility, between the states. What would we say of a
man who, wishing to prove his sentiments of friendship for his
neighbour, should invite him to discuss some question with him,
while he himself is holding a revolver in his hand? It is this
flagrant contradiction between the pacific declarations and the
warlike policy of the governments that all good citizens want to see
stopped at any price and as quickly as possible."

They marvel why annually sixty thousand suicides are committed in
Europe, and those only the ones that are recorded, which excludes
Russia and Turkey; but what we ought to marvel at is not that there
are so many suicides, but so few. Every man of our time, if he
grasps the contradiction between his consciousness and his life,
is in a very desperate condition. To say nothing of all the other
contradictions between life and consciousness, which fill the life
of a man of our time, the contradiction between this last military
condition, in which Europe is, and the Christian profession of
Europe is enough to make a man despair, doubt the rationality of
human nature, and put an end to his life in this mad and beastly
world. This contradiction, the military contradiction, which is the
quintessence of all others, is so terrible that a man can live and
take part in it only by not thinking of it, by being able to forget
it.

How is this? We are all Christians,--we not only profess love of
one another, but actually live one common life, the pulse of our
life beats with the same beats, we aid one another, learn from one
another, more and more approach one another, for a common joy!
In this closer union lies the meaning of the whole of life,--and
to-morrow some maddened head of a government will say something
foolish, another man like him will answer him, and I shall go,
making myself liable to be killed, to kill men who not only have
done me no harm, but whom I love. And this is not a distant
accident, but what we are preparing ourselves for, and it is not
only a possible, but even an inevitable event.

It is enough to understand this clearly, in order to lose our mind
and shoot ourselves. And it is precisely what happens with especial
frequency among the military. We need but think for a moment, in
order that we may come to the necessity of such an ending. It is
only thus that we can explain that terrible tension with which the
men of our time incline to intoxicate themselves with wine, tobacco,
opium, cards, the reading of newspapers, travelling, all kinds of
spectacles, and amusements. All these things are done like serious,
important affairs. They are indeed important affairs. If there
existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of
the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to
one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time
are in such a state. All men of our time live in a constant crying
contradiction between consciousness and life. These contradictions
are expressed in the economic and political relations, but most
startling is this contradiction between the recognition of the law
of the brotherhood of men, as professed by Christians, and the
necessity, in which all men are placed by the universal military
service, of being prepared for hostility, for murder,--of being at
the same time a Christian and a gladiator.


VI.

The removal of the contradiction between life and consciousness
is possible in two ways,--by a change of life or by a change of
consciousness, and in the choice of one of the two there can be no
doubt.

A man may stop doing what he considers bad, but he cannot stop
considering bad what is bad.

Even so the whole of humanity may stop doing what it considers bad,
but is powerless, not only to change, but even for a time to retard
the all-elucidating and expanding consciousness of what is bad and
what, therefore, ought not to be. It would seem that the choice
between the change of life and that of the consciousness ought to be
clear and above doubt.

And so, it would seem, it is indispensable for the Christian
humanity of our time to renounce the pagan forms of life, which it
condemns, and to build up its life on the Christian foundations,
which it professes.

But so it would be, if there did not exist the law of inertia, which
is as invariable in the lives of men and nations as in inanimate
bodies, and which is for men expressed by the psychological law, so
well stated in the Gospel with the words, "and did not walk toward
the light, because their deeds were evil." This law consists in
this, that the majority of men do not think in order to know the
truth, but in order to assure themselves that the life which they
lead, and which is agreeable and habitual to them, is the one which
coincides with the truth.

Slavery was contrary to all the moral principles which were preached
by Plato and Aristotle, and yet neither the one nor the other saw
this, because the negation of slavery destroyed all that life which
they lived. The same happens in our world.

The division of men into two castes, like the violence of the state
and of the army, is repugnant to all those moral principles by which
our world lives, and at the same time the leading men of culture of
our time do not seem to see it.

The majority, if not all, of the cultured people of our time
unconsciously try to maintain the previous social concept of life
which justifies their position, and to conceal from themselves
and from men its inadequacy, and, above all, the necessity of the
condition of the Christian life-conception, which destroys the whole
structure of the existing life. They strive to maintain the orders
that are based on the social life-conception, but themselves do
not believe in it, because it is obsolete, and it is impossible to
believe in it any longer.

All literature, the philosophic, the political, and that of the
_belles-lettres_, of our time is striking in this respect. What a
wealth of ideas, forms, colours, what erudition, elegance, abundance
of thoughts, and what total absence of serious contents, and even
what fear of every definiteness of thought and of its expression!
Circumlocutions, allegories, jests, general, extremely broad
reflections, and nothing simple, clear, pertinent to the matter,
that is, to the question of life.

But it is not enough that they write and say graceful vapidities;
they even write and say abominable, vile things, they in the most
refined manner adduce reflections which take men back to primeval
savagery, to the foundations, not only of pagan, but even of animal
life, which we outlived as far back as five thousand years ago.

It can, indeed, not be otherwise. In keeping shy of the Christian
life-conception, which for some impairs only the habitual order, and
for others both the habitual and the advantageous order, men cannot
help but return to the pagan concept of life, and to the teachings
which are based on them. In our time they not only preach patriotism
and aristocratism, as it was preached two thousand years ago, but
they even preach the coarsest epicurism, animality, with this one
difference, that the men who then preached it believed in what they
preached, while now the preachers themselves do not believe in what
they say, and they cannot believe, because what they preach no
longer has any meaning. It is impossible to remain in one place,
when the soil is in motion. If you do not go ahead, you fall behind.
And, though it is strange and terrible to say so, the cultured
people of our time, the leaders, with their refined reflections, in
reality are dragging society back, not even to the pagan state, but
to the state of primeval savagery.

In nothing may this direction of the activity of the leading men of
our time be seen so clearly as in their relation to the phenomenon
in which in our time the whole inadequacy of the social concept of
life has been expressed in a concentrated form,--in their relation
to war, to universal armaments, and to universal military service.

The indefiniteness, if not the insincerity, of the relation of
the cultured men of our time to this phenomenon is striking. The
relation to this matter in our cultured society is threefold: some
look upon this phenomenon as something accidental, which arose
from the peculiar political condition of Europe, and consider it
corrigible, without the change of the whole structure of life, by
means of external, diplomatic, international measures; others look
upon this phenomenon as upon something terrible and cruel, but
inevitable and fatal, like a disease or death; others again calmly
and coolly look upon war as an indispensable, beneficent, and
therefore desirable phenomenon.

These people look differently at the matter, but all of them
discuss war as an incident which is quite independent of the will
of men who take part in it, and so do not even admit that natural
question, which presents itself to every simple man, "Must I take
part in it?" According to the opinion of all these men, these
questions do not even exist, and every person, no matter how he
himself may look upon war, must in this respect slavishly submit to
the demands of the government.

The relation of the first, of those who see a salvation from wars in
diplomatic, international measures, is beautifully expressed in the
result of the last Congress of Peace in London, and in an article
and letters concerning war by prominent authors in No. 8 of the
_Revue des Revues_ for 1891.

Here are the results of the Congress: having collected the personal
or written opinions from learned men all over the world, the
Congress began by a Te Deum in the Cathedral, and ended with a
dinner with speeches, having for the period of five days listened
to a large number of speeches, and having arrived at the following
resolutions:

1. "The Congress affirms its belief that the brotherhood of man
involves as a necessary consequence a brotherhood of nations, in
which the true interests of all are acknowledged to be identical.

2. "The Congress recognizes the important influence which
Christianity exercises upon the moral and political progress of
mankind, and earnestly urges upon ministers of the Gospel, and other
teachers of religion and morality, the duty of setting forth the
principles of Peace and Good-will, and recommends that the third
Sunday in December in each year be set apart for that purpose.

3. "This Congress expresses its opinion that all teachers of history
should call the attention of the young to the grave evils inflicted
on mankind in all ages by war, and to the fact that such war has
been waged, as a rule, for most inadequate causes.

4. "The Congress protests against the use of military exercises
in connection with the physical exercises of school, and suggests
the formation of brigades for saving life rather than any of
a quasi-military character; and it urges the desirability of
impressing on the Board of Examiners, who formulate the questions
for examination, the propriety of guiding the minds of children into
the principles of Peace.

5. "The Congress holds that the doctrine of the universal rights
of man requires that aboriginal and weaker races shall be guarded
from injustice and fraud when brought into contact with civilized
peoples, alike as to their territories, their liberties, and their
property, and that they shall be shielded from the vices which are
so prevalent among the so-called advanced races of men. It further
expresses its conviction that there should be concert of action
among the nations for the accomplishment of these ends. The Congress
desires to express its hearty appreciation of the conclusions
arrived at by the late Anti-Slavery Conference, held in Brussels,
for the amelioration of the condition of the peoples of Africa.

6. "The Congress believes that the warlike prejudices and traditions
which are still fostered in the various nationalities, and the
misrepresentations by leaders of public opinion in legislative
assemblies, or through the press, are not infrequently indirect
causes of war. The Congress is therefore of opinion that these evils
should be counteracted by the publication of accurate statements
and information that would tend to the removal of misunderstanding
among nations, and recommends to the Inter-Parliamentary Committee
the importance of considering the question of commencing an
international newspaper, which should have such a purpose as one of
its primary objects.

7. "The Congress proposes to the Inter-Parliamentary Conference
that the utmost support should be given to every project for the
unification of weights and measures, of coinage, tariffs, postal
and telegraphic arrangements, means of transport, etc., which would
assist in constituting a commercial, industrial, and scientific
union of the peoples.

8. "The Congress, in view of the vast moral and social influence
of woman, urges upon every woman throughout the world to sustain
the things that make for peace; as otherwise she incurs grave
responsibilities for the continuance of the systems of war and
militarism.

9. "This Congress expresses the hope that the Financial Reform
Association, and other Similar Societies in Europe and America,
should unite in convoking at an early date a Conference to consider
the best means of establishing equitable commercial relations
between states by the reduction of import duties. The Congress feels
that it can affirm that the whole of Europe desires Peace, and is
impatiently waiting for the moment when it shall see the end of
those crushing armaments which, under the plea of defence, become in
their turn a danger, by keeping alive mutual distrust, and are at
the same time the cause of that economic disturbance which stands in
the way of settling in a satisfactory manner the problems of labour
and poverty, which should take precedence of all others.

10. "The Congress, recognizing that a general disarmament would be
the best guarantee of Peace, and would lead to the solution, in the
general interest, of those questions which must now divide states,
expresses the wish that a Congress of Representatives of all the
states of Europe may be assembled as soon as possible, to consider
the means of accepting a gradual general disarmament.

11. "The Congress, considering the timidity of the single Powers
or other causes might delay indefinitely the convocation of the
above-mentioned Congress, is of opinion that the Government which
should first dismiss any considerable number of soldiers would
confer a signal benefit on Europe and mankind, because it would
oblige other Governments, urged on by public opinion, to follow its
example, and by the moral force of this accomplished fact, would
have increased rather than diminished the condition of its national
defence.

12. "This Congress, considering the question of disarmament, as
well as the Peace question generally, depends upon public opinion,
recommends the Peace Societies here represented, and all friends of
Peace, to carry on an active propaganda among the people, especially
at the time of Parliamentary elections, in order that the electors
should give their vote to those candidates who have included in
their programme Peace, Disarmament, and Arbitration.

13. "The Congress congratulates the friends of Peace on the
resolution adopted by the International American Conference
at Washington in April last, by which it was recommended that
arbitration should be obligatory in all controversies concerning
diplomatic and consular privileges, boundaries, territories,
indemnities, right of navigation, and the validity, construction,
and enforcement of treaties, and in all other cases, whatever
their origin, nature, or occasion, except only those which, in the
judgment of any of the nations involved in the controversy, may
imperil its independence.

14. "The Congress respectfully recommends this resolution to the
attention of the statesmen of Europe, and expresses the ardent
desire that treaties in similar terms be speedily entered into
between the other nations of the world.

15. "The Congress expresses its satisfaction at the adoption
by the Spanish Senate, on June 16th last, of a project of law
authorizing the Government to negotiate general or special treaties
of arbitration for the settlement of all disputes, except those
relating to the independence and internal government of the state
affected; also at the adoption of resolutions to a like effect by
the Norwegian Storthing, and by the Italian Chamber, on July 11th.

16. "The Congress addresses official communications to the principal
religious, political, commercial, labour, and peace organizations
in civilized countries, requesting them to send petitions to
governmental authorities of their respective countries, praying
that measures be taken for the formation of suitable tribunals for
the adjudicature of any international questions, so as to avoid the
resort to war.

17. "Seeing (_a_) that the object pursued by all Peace Societies is
the establishment of juridical order between nations; (_b_) that
neutralization by international treaties constitutes a step toward
this juridical state, and lessens the number of districts in which
war can be carried on; the Congress recommends a larger extension
of the rule of neutralization, and expresses the wish: (_a_) that
all treaties which at present assure to a certain state the benefit
of neutrality remain in force, or, if necessary, be amended in a
manner to render the neutrality more effective, either by extending
neutralization to the whole of the state, of which a part only may
be neutralized, or by ordering the demolition of fortresses which
constitute rather a peril than a guarantee of neutrality; (_b_) that
new treaties, provided they are in harmony with the wishes of the
population, be concluded for the establishment of the neutralization
of other states.

18. "The Sub-Committee of the Congress recommends:

"I. That the next Congress be held immediately before or immediately
after the next session of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference, and at
the same place.

"II. That the question of an international Peace Emblem be postponed
_sine die_.

"III. The adoption of the following resolution:

"(_a_) Resolved, that we express our satisfaction at the formal and
official overtures of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
of America, addressed to the highest representatives of each church
organization in Christendom, inviting the same to unite with itself
in a general conference, the object of which shall be to promote
the substitution of international arbitration for war; (_b_) that
this Congress, assembled in London from the 14th to the 19th July,
desires to express its profound reverence for the memory of Aurelio
Saffi, the great Italian jurist, a member of the Committee of the
International League of Peace and Liberty.

"IV. That the Memorial to the various Heads of Civilized States,
adopted by this Congress and signed by the President, should so
far as practicable be presented to each power, by an influential
deputation.

"V. That the Organization Committee be empowered to make the needful
verbal emendations in the papers and resolutions presented.

"VI. That the following resolutions be adopted:

"(_a_) A resolution of thanks to the Presidents of the various
sittings of the Congress; (_b_) a resolution of thanks to the
Chairman, the Secretary, and the Members of the Bureau of the
Congress; (_c_) a resolution of thanks to the conveners and members
of Sectional Committees; (_d_) a resolution of thanks to Rev.
Cannon Scott Holland, Rev. Doctor Reuen, and Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon,
for their pulpit addresses before the Congress, and that they be
requested to furnish copies of the same for publication; and also
to the Authorities of St. Paul's Cathedral, the City Temple, and
Stamford Hill Congregational Church for the use of those buildings
for public services; (_e_) a letter of thanks to Her Majesty for
permission to visit Windsor Castle; (_f_) and also a resolution of
thanks to the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, to Mr. Passmore Edwards,
and other friends, who had extended their hospitality to the members
of the Congress.

19. "This Congress places on record a heartfelt expression of
gratitude to Almighty God for the remarkable harmony and concord
which have characterized the meetings of the Assembly, in which so
many men and women of varied nations, creeds, tongues, and races
have gathered in closest coöperation, and in the conclusion of the
labours of the Congress; it expresses its firm and unshaken belief
in the ultimate triumph of the cause of Peace and of the principles
which have been advocated at these meetings."

The fundamental idea of the Congress is this, that it is necessary,
in the first place, to diffuse by all means possible the conviction
among men that war is very unprofitable for people and that peace
is a great good, and in the second, to act upon the governments,
impressing them with the superiority of the international tribunal
over wars, and, therefore, the advantages and the necessity of
disarmament. To attain the first end, the Congress turns to the
teachers of history, to the women, and to the clergy with the advice
that the evil of war and the good of peace be preached to men on
every third Sunday in December; to attain the second end, the
Congress addresses the governments, proposing that they disarm and
substitute arbitration for war.

To preach the evil of war and the good of peace to men! But the evil
of war and the good of peace are so well known to men that, so long
as we have known men, the best greeting has been, "Peace be with
you." What need is there, then, in preaching?

Not only the Christians, but all the pagans thousands of years ago
knew the evil of war and the good of peace,--consequently the advice
given to the preachers of the Gospel to preach on the evil of war
and the good of peace on every third Sunday in December is quite
superfluous.

A Christian cannot help but preach this at all times, on all the
days of his life. If Christians and preachers of Christianity do not
do so, there must be causes for this, and so long as these causes
are not removed, no advice will be effective. Still less effective
can be the advice given to the governments, to dismiss the armies
and substitute international tribunals for them. The governments
themselves know very well all the difficulty and burdensomeness of
collecting and maintaining armies, and if, in spite of it, they
continue with terrible efforts and tension to collect and maintain
armies, they obviously cannot do otherwise, and the advice of the
Congress cannot change anything. But the learned do not want to see
this, and all hope to find a combination by which the governments,
who produce the wars, will limit themselves.

"Is it possible to be freed from war?" writes a learned man in the
_Revue des Revues_. "All admit that when it breaks loose in Europe,
its consequences will be like a great incursion of the barbarians.
In a forthcoming war the existence of whole nationalities will be at
stake, and so it will be sanguinary, desperate, cruel.

"It is these considerations, combined with those terrible implements
of war which are at the disposal of modern science, that are
retarding the moment of the declaration of war and are maintaining
the existing temporary order of things, which might be prolonged for
an indefinite time, if it were not for those terrible expenses that
oppress the European nations and threaten to bring them to no lesser
calamities than those which are produced by war.

"Startled by this idea, the men of the various countries have sought
for a means for stopping or at least mitigating the consequences of
the terrible slaughter which is menacing us.

"Such are the questions that are propounded by the Congress soon to
be held in Rome and in pamphlets dealing with disarmament.

"Unfortunately it is certain that with the present structure of the
majority of the European states, which are removed from one another
and are guided by various interests, the complete cessation of war
is a dream with which it would be dangerous to console ourselves.
Still, some more reasonable laws and regulations, accepted by all,
in these duels of the nations might considerably reduce the horrors
of war.

"Similarly Utopian would be the hope of disarmament, which is almost
impossible, from considerations of a national character, which are
intelligible to our readers." (This, no doubt, means that France
cannot disarm previous to avenging its wrongs.) "Public opinion
is not prepared for the adoption of projects of disarmament, and,
besides, the international relations are not such as to make their
adoption possible.

"Disarmament, demanded by one nation of another, is tantamount to a
declaration of war.

"It must, however, be admitted that the exchange of views between
the interested nations will to a certain extent aid in the
international agreement and will make possible a considerable
diminution of the military expenses, which now oppress the European
nations at the expense of the solution of social questions, the
necessity of which is felt by every state individually, threatening
to provoke an internal war in the effort to avert one from without.

"It is possible at least to assume a diminution of the enormous
expenses which are needed in connection with the present business
of war, which aims at the possibility of seizing the adversary's
possessions within twenty-four hours and giving a decisive battle a
week after the declaration of war."

What is needed is, that states should not be able to attack other
states and in twenty-four hours to seize the possessions of others.

This practical idea was expressed by Maxime du Camp, and to this the
conclusion of the article is reduced.

M. du Camp's propositions are these:

"(1) A diplomatic congress ought to meet every year.

"(2) No war can be declared sooner than two months after the
incident provoking it. (The difficulty will be to determine which
incident it is that provokes the war, because with every war there
are a very large number of such incidents, and it would be necessary
to decide from which incident the two months are to be counted.)

"(3) War cannot be declared before it is submitted to the vote of
the nations preparing for it.

"Military action cannot begin sooner than a month after the
declaration of war."

"War cannot be begun ... must ..." and so forth.

But who will see to it that war cannot be begun? Who will see to
it that men must do so and so? Who will compel the power to wait
until the proper time? All the other powers need just as much to
be moderated and placed within bounds and compelled. Who will do
the compelling? and how?--Public opinion.--But if there is a public
opinion which can compel a power to wait for a given time, the same
public opinion can compel the power not to begin the war at all.

But, they reply to all this, we can have such a balance of forces,
_ponderation des forces_, that the powers will support one another.
This has been tried and is being tried even now. Such were the Holy
Alliance, the League of Peace, and so forth.

"But if all should agree to it?" we are told. If all should agree to
it, there would be no war, and there would be no need for supreme
tribunals and courts of arbitration.

"Arbitration will take the place of war. The questions will be
decided by a court of arbitration. The _Alabama_ question was
decided by a court of arbitration, it was proposed to have the
question about the Caroline Islands submitted to the arbitration of
the Pope. Switzerland, and Belgium, and Denmark, and Holland,--all
have declared that they prefer the decisions of a court of
arbitration to war." Monaco, it seems, also declared itself in this
way. What is a pity is, that Germany, Russia, Austria, France have
not yet made such declarations.

It is wonderful how men can deceive themselves.

The governments will decide to submit their differences to a court
of arbitration and so will disband their armies. The differences
between Russia and Poland, between England and Ireland, between
Austria and Bohemia, between Turkey and the Slavs, between France
and Germany will be decided by voluntary consent.

This is the same as though it should be proposed that merchants and
bankers should not sell anything at a higher price than at what
they have bought the articles, should busy themselves with the
distribution of wealth without profit, and should abolish the money
which has thus become useless.

But commerce and the banking industry consist in nothing but selling
at a higher price than that at which the purchases are made, and
so the proposition that articles should not be sold except at a
purchase price, and that money should be abolished, is tantamount to
a proposition that they should abolish themselves. The same is true
of the governments. The proposition made to the governments that
no violence be used, and that the differences be decided on their
merits, is a proposition that the government as such should abolish
itself, and to this no government can consent.

Learned men gather in societies (there are many such societies,
more than a hundred of them), congresses are called (lately such
met at Paris and London, and one will soon meet at Rome), speeches
are made, people dine, make toasts, publish periodicals, which
are devoted to the cause, and in all of them it is proved that
the tension of the nations, who are compelled to support millions
of troops, has reached the utmost limit, and that this armament
contradicts all the aims, properties, and desires of all the
nations, but that, if a lot of paper is covered with writing, and a
lot of speeches are made, it is possible to make all people agree
and to cause them not to have any opposing interests, and then there
will be no war.

When I was a little fellow, I was assured that to catch a bird it
was just necessary to pour some salt on its tail. I went out with
the salt to the birds, and immediately convinced myself that, if I
could get near enough to pour the salt on a bird's tail, I could
catch it, and I understood that they were making fun of me.

It is the same that must be understood by those who read books and
pamphlets on courts of arbitration and disarmament.

If it is possible to pour salt on a bird's tail, this means that it
does not fly, and that there is no need of catching it. But if a
bird has wings and does not want to be caught, it does not allow any
one to pour salt on its tail, because it is the property of a bird
to fly. Even so the property of a government does not consist in
being subjected, but in subjecting, and a government is a government
only in so far as it is able, not to be subjected, but to subject,
and so it strives to do so, and can never voluntarily renounce its
power; but the power gives it the army, and so it will never give up
the army and its use for purposes of war.

The mistake is based on this, that learned jurists, deceiving
themselves and others, assert in their books that the government
is not what it is,--a collection of one set of men, doing violence
to another,--but, as science makes it out to be, a representation
of the aggregate of citizens. The learned have for so long a time
assured others of this fact that they have come themselves to
believe in it, and they often think seriously that justice can be
obligatory for the governments. But history shows that from Cæsar
to Napoleon, both the first and the third, and Bismarck, the
government has by its essence always been a justice-impairing force,
as, indeed, it cannot be otherwise. Justice cannot be obligatory
for a man or for men, who keep in hand deceived men, drilled for
violence,--the soldiers,--and by means of them rule others. And so
the governments cannot agree to the diminution of the number of
these drilled men, who obey them and who form all their strength and
significance.

Such is the relation of one set of learned men to the contradiction
which weighs heavily on our world, and such are the means for its
solution. Tell these men that the question is only in the personal
relation of every man to the moral, religious question, now standing
before all, of the legitimacy and illegitimacy of his participation
in the universal military service, and these savants will only shrug
their shoulders, and will not even deign to give you an answer,
or pay attention to you. The solution of the question for them
consists in reading addresses, writing books, choosing presidents,
vice-presidents, secretaries, and meeting and talking, now in this
city, and now in that. From these talks and writings there will, in
their opinion, come this result, that the governments will cease
drafting soldiers, on whom their whole power is based, but will
listen to their speeches and will dismiss their soldiers, will
remain defenceless, not only against their neighbours, but even
against their subjects,--like robbers who, having bound defenceless
men, for the purpose of robbing them, upon hearing speeches about
the pain caused to the bound men by the rope, should immediately set
them free.

But there are people who believe in it, who busy themselves with
peace congresses, deliver addresses, write little books; and the
governments, of course, express their sympathy with this, let it
appear that they are supporting this, just as they make it appear
that they are supporting a temperance society, whereas they for the
most part live by the drunkenness of the masses; just as they make
it appear that they are supporting education, whereas their strength
is based on ignorance; just as they make it appear that they are
supporting the liberty of the constitution, whereas their strength
is based only on the absence of a constitution; just as they make it
appear that they are concerned about the betterment of the labouring
classes, whereas it is on the oppression of the labourer that their
existence is; just as they make it appear that they are supporting
Christianity, whereas Christianity destroys every government.

To be able to do this, they have long ago worked out such provisions
for temperance, that drunkenness is not impaired; such provisions
for education, that ignorance is not only not interfered with,
but is even strengthened; such provisions for liberty and for the
constitution, that despotism is not impeded; such provisions for the
labourers, that they are not freed from slavery; such Christianity
as does not destroy, but maintains the governments.

Now they have also added their concern about peace. The governments,
simply the kings, who travel about with their ministers, of their
own accord deciding the questions as to whether they shall begin
the slaughter of millions this year or next, know full well that
their talks about peace will not keep them, whenever they feel like
it, from sending millions to slaughter. The kings even listen with
pleasure to these talks, encourage them, and take part in them.

All this is not only harmless, but even useful to the governments,
in that it takes people's minds away from the most essential
question, as to whether each individual man, who is called to become
a soldier, should perform the universal military service or not.

"Peace will soon be established, thanks to alliances and congresses
and in consequence of books and pamphlets, but in the meantime go,
put on uniforms, and be prepared to oppress and torture yourselves
for our advantage," say the governments. And the learned authors of
congresses and of writings fully agree to this.

This is one relation, the most advantageous one for the governments,
and so it is encouraged by all wise governments.

Another relation is the tragic relation of the men who assert that
the contradiction between the striving and love for peace and the
necessity of war is terrible, but that such is the fate of men.
These for the most part sensitive, gifted men see and comprehend the
whole terror and the whole madness and cruelty of war, but by some
strange turn of mind do not see and do not look for any issue from
this condition, and, as though irritating their wound, enjoy the
desperate plight of humanity.

Here is a remarkable specimen of such a relation to war, by a famous
French author (Maupassant). As he looks from his yacht at the
exercises and target-shooting of the French soldiers, the following
ideas come to him:

"War! When I but think of this word, I feel bewildered, as though
they were speaking to me of sorcery, of the Inquisition, of a
distant, finished, abominable, monstrous, unnatural thing.

"When they speak to us of cannibals, we smile proudly, as we
proclaim our superiority to these savages. Who are the savages, the
real savages? Those who struggle in order to eat those whom they
vanquish, or those who struggle to kill, merely to kill?

"The little soldiers of the rank and file who are running down there
are destined for death, like flocks of sheep, whom a butcher drives
before him on the highway. They will fall in a plain, their heads
cut open by a sword-stroke, or their chests pierced by bullets; and
these are young men who might have worked, produced, been useful.
Their fathers are old and poor; their mothers, who have loved them
for twenty years and adored them as only mothers can, will learn in
six months or, perhaps, in a year that their son, their child, their
grandchild, who had been reared with so much love, was thrown into
a hole, like a dead dog, after he had been eviscerated by a ball,
trampled underfoot, crushed, mashed into pulp by the charges of
cavalry. Why did they kill her boy, her fine boy, her only hope, her
pride, her life? She does not know. Yes, why?

"War! To fight! To butcher! To massacre people! And to-day, at our
period of the world, with our civilization, with the expansion of
science and the degree of philosophy which we deem the human genius
to have attained, we have schools in which they teach how to kill;
to kill at a great distance, with perfection, a lot of people at the
same time,--to kill poor innocent fellows, who have the care of a
family and are under no judicial sentence.

"And what is most startling is the fact that the people do not rise
against the governments! What difference is there really between the
monarchies and the republics? It is most startling that society does
not rise in a body and revolt at the very mention of the word 'war.'

"Oh, we shall always live under the burden of the ancient and odious
customs, criminal prejudices, and savage ideas of our barbarous
ancestors, because we are beasts, and shall remain beasts, who are
dominated by instinct and do not change.

"Would not any other man than Victor Hugo have been disgraced, if he
sent forth this cry of deliverance and truth?

"'To-day force is called violence and is about to be judged; war is
summoned to court. Civilization, at the instigation of the human
race, institutes proceedings and prepares the great criminal brief
of the conquerors and captains. The nations are coming to understand
that the increase of an offence cannot be its diminution; that
if it is a crime to kill, killing much cannot be an extenuating
circumstance; that if stealing is a disgrace, forcible seizing
cannot be a glory. Oh, let us proclaim these absolute verities,--let
us disgrace war!'

"Vain fury and indignation of a poet! War is honoured more than ever.

"A versatile artist in these matters, a gifted butcher of men, Mr.
von Moltke, one day spoke the following words to some delegates of
peace:

"'War is sacred and divinely instituted; it is one of the sacred
laws of the world; it nurtures in men all the great and noble
sentiments,--honour, disinterestedness, virtue, courage,--and, to be
short, keeps men from falling into the most hideous materialism.'

"Thus, uniting into herds of four hundred thousand men, marching
day and night without any rest, not thinking of anything, nor
studying anything, nor learning anything, nor reading anything, not
being useful to a single person, rotting from dirt, sleeping in
the mire, living like the brutes in a constant stupor, pillaging
cities, burning villages, ruining peoples, then meeting another
conglomeration of human flesh, rushing against it, making lakes
of blood and fields of battered flesh, mingled with muddy and
blood-stained earth and mounds of corpses, being deprived of arms
or legs, or having the skull crushed without profit to any one, and
dying in the corner of a field, while your old parents, your wife,
and your children are starving,--that's what is called not to fall
into the most hideous materialism.

"The men of war are the scourges of the world. We struggle against
Nature, against ignorance, against obstacles of every sort, in order
to make our miserable life less hard. Men, benefactors, savants
use their existence in order to work, to find what may help, may
succour, may ease their brothers. They go with vim about their
useful business, accumulate discovery upon discovery, increasing
the human spirit, expanding science, giving every day a sum of new
knowledge to the intelligence of man, giving every day well-being,
ease, and force to their country.

"War arrives. In six months the generals destroy twenty years of
effort, of patience, and of genius.

"This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous
materialism.

"We have seen what war is. We have seen men turned into brutes,
maddened, killing for the sake of pleasure, of terror, of bravado,
of ostentation. Then, when law no longer exists, when law is dead,
when every notion of right has disappeared, we have seen men shoot
innocent people who are found on the road and who have roused
suspicion only because they showed fear. We have seen dogs chained
near the doors of their masters killed, just to try new revolvers on
them; we have seen cows lying in the field shot to pieces, for the
sake of pleasure, only to try a gun on them, to have something to
laugh at.

"This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous
materialism.

"To enter a country, to kill a man who is defending his home, simply
because he wears a blouse and has no cap on his head, to burn the
habitations of wretched people who have no bread, to smash the
furniture, to steal some of it, to drink the wine which is found
in the cellars, to rape the women who are found in the streets, to
burn millions of dollars' worth of powder, and to leave behind them
misery and the cholera,--this is what is called not to fall into the
most hideous materialism.

"What have the men of war done to give evidence of even a little
intelligence? Nothing. What have they invented? Cannon and guns.
That is all.

"What has Greece left to us? Books, marbles. Is she great because
she has conquered, or because she has produced?

"Is it the invasion of the Persians that kept her from falling into
the most hideous materialism?

"Is it the invasions of the barbarians that saved Rome and
regenerated her?

"Was it Napoleon I. who continued the great intellectual movement
which was begun by the philosophers at the end of the last century?

"Oh, well, if the governments arrogate to themselves the right to
kill the nations, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the
nations now and then take upon themselves the right to do away with
the governments.

"They defend themselves. They are right. Nobody has the absolute
right to govern others. This can be done only for the good of the
governed. Whoever rules is as much obliged to avoid war as a captain
of a boat is obliged to avoid a shipwreck.

"When a captain has lost his boat, he is judged and condemned, if he
is found guilty of negligence or even of incapacity.

"Why should not the governments be judged after the declaration of
a war? If the nations understood this, if they themselves sat in
judgment over the death-dealing powers, if they refused to allow
themselves to be killed without reason, if they made use of their
weapons against those who gave them to them for the purpose of
massacring, war would be dead at once! But this day will not come!"
(_Sur l'Eau_, pp. 71-80.)

The author sees all the horror of war; he sees that its cause is
in this, that the governments, deceiving people, compel them to
go out to kill and die without any need; he sees also that the
men composing the armies might turn their weapons against the
governments and demand accounts from them. But the author thinks
that this will never happen, and that, therefore, there is no
way out of this situation. He thinks that the business of war is
terrible, but that it is inevitable and that the demands of the
governments that the soldiers shall go and fight are as inevitable
as death, and that, since the governments will always demand it,
there will always exist wars.

Thus writes a talented, sincere author, who is endowed with that
penetration into the essence of the matter which forms the essence
of the poetical genius. He presents to us all the cruelty of the
contradiction between men's conscience and their activity, and,
without solving it, seems to recognize that this contradiction must
exist and that in it consists the tragedy of life.

Another, not less gifted author (E. Rod), describes the cruelty and
madness of the present situation in still more glaring colours, and
similarly, recognizing the tragical element in it, does not offer or
foresee any way out of it.

"What good is there in doing anything? What good is there in
undertaking anything?" he says. "How can we love men in these
troubled times, when the morrow is but a menace? Everything we have
begun, our maturing ideas, our incepted works, the little good which
we shall have been able to do,--will it not all be carried away by
the coming hurricane? Everywhere the earth is trembling under our
feet, and the clouds that are gathering upon our horizon will not
pass by us.

"Oh, if it were only the Revolution, with which we are frightened,
that we had to fear! As I am incapable of imagining a more
detestable society than is ours, I have more mistrust than fear
for the one which will succeed it. If I were to suffer from the
transformation, I should console myself with the thought that
the executioners of to-day are the victims of yesterday, and the
expectation of what is better would make me put up with what is
worse. But it is not this distant peril that frightens me,--I see
another, nearer, above all, a more cruel peril, more cruel, because
it has no excuse, because it is absurd, because no good can result
from it. Every day men weigh the chances of war for the morrow, and
every day they are more merciless.

"Thought staggers before the catastrophe which appears at the end of
the century as the limit of the progress of our era,--but we must
get used to it: for twenty years all the forces of science have
been exhausting themselves to invent engines of destruction, and
soon a few cannon-shots will suffice to annihilate a whole army;
they no longer arm, as formerly, a few thousands of poor devils,
whose blood was paid for, but whole nations, who go out to cut each
others' throats; they steal their time, in order later more surely
to steal their lives; to prepare them for the massacre, their hatred
is fanned, by pretending that they are hated. And good people are
tricked, and we shall see furious masses of peaceful citizens,
into whose hands the guns will be placed by a stupid order, rush
against one another with the ferocity of wild animals, God knows
for the sake of what ridiculous incident of the border or of what
mercantile colonial interests! They will march, like sheep, to the
slaughter,--but knowing whither they are going, knowing that they
are leaving their wives, knowing that their children will be hungry,
and they will go with anxious fear, but none the less intoxicated
by the sonorous, deceptive words that will be trumpeted into their
ears. They will go without revolt, passive and resigned, though they
are the mass and the force, and could be the power, if they wished
and if they knew how to establish common sense and brotherhood in
the place of the savage trickeries of diplomacy. They will go, so
deceived, so duped, that they will believe the carnage to be a duty,
and will ask God to bless their sanguinary appetites. They will go,
trampling on the crops which they have sown, burning the cities
which they have built, with enthusiastic songs, joyous cries, and
festive music. And their sons will erect statues to those who shall
have massacred them better than any one else!

"The fate of a whole generation depends on the hour at which some
sombre politician will give the signal, which will be followed. We
know that the best among us will be mowed down and that our work
will be destroyed in the germ. We know this, and we tremble from
anger, and we are unable to do anything. We are caught in the net
of offices and red tape, which it would take too violent an effort
to break. We belong to the laws which we have called into life
to protect us, but which oppress us. We are only things of this
Antinomian abstraction, the state, which makes every individual a
slave in the name of the will of all, who, taken separately, would
want the very opposite of what they are compelled to do.

"If it were only one generation that is to be sacrificed! But there
are other interests as well.

"All these salaried shouters, these ambitious exploiters of the evil
passions of the masses and the poor in spirit, who are deceived by
the sonority of words, have to such an extent envenomed the national
hatreds that the war of to-morrow will stake the existence of a
race: one of the elements which have constituted the modern world is
menaced,--he who will be vanquished must disappear morally,--and,
whatever it be, we shall see a force annihilated, as if there were
one too many for the good! We shall see a new Europe formed, on
bases that are so unjust, so brutal, so bloody, so soiled with a
monstrous blotch, that it cannot help but be worse than that of
to-day,--more iniquitous, more barbarous, more violent.

"One feels oneself oppressed by a terrible discouragement. We are
tossing about in a blind alley, with guns trained on us from all
the roofs. Our work is that of sailors going through their last
exercise before the ship goes down. Our pleasures are those of the
condemned criminal, who fifteen minutes before his execution is
offered a choice morsel. Anguish paralyzes our thought, and the
best effort of which it is capable is to calculate--by spelling out
the vague discourses of ministers, by twisting the sense of the
words uttered by sovereigns, by contorting the words ascribed to
diplomats and reported by the newspapers at the uncertain risk of
their information--whether it is to-morrow or the day after, this
year or next year, that we shall be crushed. We should, indeed, seek
in vain in history for a more uncertain epoch, one which is so full
of anxieties" (E. Rod, _Le Sens de la Vie_, pp. 208-213).

It is pointed out that the power is in the hands of those who are
ruining themselves, in the hands of the separate individuals forming
the mass; it is pointed out that the source of evil is in the state.
It would seem clear that the contradiction of the consciousness and
of life has reached the limit beyond which it is impossible to go
and after which its solution must ensue.

But the author does not think so. He sees in this the tragedy of
human life, and, having pointed out all the terror of the situation,
concludes that human life must take place in this terror.

Such is the second relation to war of those men who see something
fatal and tragical in it.

The third relation is that of men who have lost their conscience,
and so their common sense and human feeling.

To this class belong Moltke, whose opinion is quoted by Maupassant,
and the majority of military men, who are educated in this cruel
superstition, who live by it, and so are often naïvely convinced
that war is not only an inevitable, but even a useful matter. Thus,
judge also non-military, so-called learned, cultured, refined people.

Here is what the famous Academician, Dousset, writes in the number
of the _Revue des Revues_ in which the letters about war are
collected, in reply to the editor's inquiry as to his views on war:

     "DEAR SIR:--When you ask the most peaceable of Academicians
     whether he is an advocate of war, his answer is ready in
     advance: unfortunately, dear sir, you yourself regard as a dream
     the peaceful thoughts which at the present time inspire our
     magnanimous countrymen.

     "Ever since I have been living in the world, I have heard many
     private people express their indignation against this terrifying
     habit of international slaughter. All men recognize and deplore
     this evil; but how is it to be mended? People have very often
     tried to abolish duels,--this seemed so easy! But no! All the
     efforts made for the attainment of this end have done no good
     and never will do any good.

     "No matter how much may be said against war and against duelling
     at all the congresses of the world, above all arbitrations,
     above all treaties, above all legislations, will eternally stand
     man's honour, which has ever demanded duelling, and the national
     advantages, which will eternally demand war.

     "I none the less with all my heart hope that the Congress
     of Universal Peace will succeed in its very grave and very
     honourable problem.

     "Receive the assurance, etc.

     "K. DOUSSET."

The meaning is this, that men's honour demands that people should
fight, and the advantages of the nations demand that they should
ruin and destroy one another, and that the attempts at stopping war
are only worthy of smiles.

Similar is the opinion of another famous man, Jules Claretie:

     "Dear Sir," he writes: "For an intelligent man there can exist
     but one opinion in respect to the question of peace and war.

     "Humanity was created that it should live, being free to
     perfect and better (its fate) its condition by means of peaceful
     labour. The universal agreement, for which the Universal
     Congress of Peace is asking and which it preaches, may present
     but a beautiful dream, but it is in any case the most beautiful
     dream of all. Man has always before him the promised land of
     the future,--the harvest will mature, without fear of harm from
     grenades and cannon-wheels.

     "But.... Yes, but! Since the world is not ruled by philosophers
     and benefactors, it is fortunate that our soldiers protect our
     borders and our hearths, and that their arms, correctly aimed,
     appear to us, perhaps, as the very best guarantee of this peace,
     which is so fervently loved by all of us.

     "Peace is given only to the strong and the determined.

     "Receive the assurance, etc.

     "J. CLARETIE."

The meaning of this is, that it does no harm to talk of what no one
intends to do, and what ought not to be done at all. But when it
comes to business, we must fight.

Here is another recent expression of opinion concerning war, by the
most popular novelist of Europe, E. Zola:

"I consider war a fatal necessity, which appears inevitable to us
in view of its close connection with human nature and the whole
world-structure. I wish war could be removed for the longest
possible time; none the less the moment will arrive when we shall
be compelled to fight. I, at the present moment, am placing myself
on the universal point of view, and in no way have any reference
to our difference with Germany, which presents itself only as an
insignificant incident in the history of humanity. I say that war
is indispensable and useful, because it appears to humanity as one
of the conditions of its existence. We everywhere meet with war,
not only among various tribes and nations, but also in domestic
and private life. It appears as one of the chief elements of
progress, and every step forward, which humanity has taken, has been
accompanied by bloodshed.

"People used to speak, and even now speak, of disarmament, but
disarmament is something impossible, and even if it were possible,
we should be obliged to reject it. Only an armed nation appears
powerful and great. I am convinced that a universal disarmament
would bring with it something like a moral fall, which would find
its expression in universal impotence, and would be in the way of
a progressive advancement of humanity. A martial nation has always
enjoyed virile strength. Military art has brought with it the
development of all the other arts. History testifies to that. Thus,
in Athens and in Rome, commerce, industry, and literature never
reached such development as at the time when these cities ruled
over the then known world by force of arms. To take an example from
times nearer to us, let us recall the age of Louis XIV. The wars
of the great king not only did not retard the progress of the arts
and sciences, but, on the contrary, seemed to aid and foster their
development."

War is a useful thing!

But best of all in this sense is the opinion of the most talented
writer of this camp, the opinion of the Academician Vogüé. Here is
what he writes in an article about the exhibition, in visiting the
military department:

"In the Esplanade des Invalides, amidst exotic and colonial
buildings, one structure of a more severe style rises in the
picturesque bazaar; all these representatives of the terrestrial
globe adjoin the Palace of War. A superb subject of antitheses for
humanitarian rhetorics! Indeed, it does not let pass an occasion
for deploring such juxtaposition and for asserting that this will
kill that (_ceci tuera cela_),[12] that the union of the nations
through science and labour will conquer the martial instincts. We
shall not keep it from fondling the hope of the chimera of a golden
age, which, if it should be realized, would soon become an age of
mire. All history teaches us that blood is needed to speed and
confirm the union of the nations. The natural sciences have in our
time confirmed the mysterious law which was revealed to Joseph de
Maistre by the inspiration of his genius and the consideration of
primitive dogmas; he saw how the world redeems its hereditary falls
by a sacrifice; the sciences show us how the world is perfected by
struggle and by compulsory selection; this is the assertion from two
sides of the same decree, written out in different expressions. The
assertion is naturally not a pleasant one; but the laws of the world
are not established for our pleasure,--they are established for our
perfection. Let us, then, enter into this unavoidable, indispensable
Palace of War; and we shall have occasion to observe in what manner
the most stubborn of our instincts, without losing anything of its
force, is transformed, in submitting to the different demands of
historic moments."

  [12] Words from Victor Hugo's novel, _Notre Dame_, in regard to
  printing, which will kill architecture.--_Author's Note._

This idea, that the proof of the necessity of war is to be found in
two expressions of Maistre and Darwin, two great thinkers according
to his opinion, pleases Vogüé so much that he repeats it.

     "Dear Sir," he writes to the editor of the _Revue des Revues:_
     "You ask for my opinion in regard to the success of the
     Universal Congress of Peace. I believe, with Darwin, that a
     violent struggle is a law of Nature, by which all beings are
     ruled.

     "Like Joseph de Maistre, I believe that it is a divine law,--two
     different appellations for one and the same thing. If, past all
     expectation, some particle of humanity, say the whole civilized
     West, succeeded in arresting the action of this law, other,
     more primitive nations would apply it against us. In these
     nations the voice of Nature would vanquish the voice of human
     reason, and they would act with success, because the assurance
     of peace--I do not say 'peace' itself, but the 'full assurance
     of peace'--would evoke in men corruption and fall, which act
     more destructively than the most terrible war. I find that for
     that criminal law, war, it is necessary to do the same as for
     all the other criminal laws,--to mitigate them, to try to make
     them unnecessary, and to apply them as rarely as possible. But
     the whole of history teaches us that it is impossible to abolish
     these laws, so long as there are left in the world two men,
     money, and a woman between them.

     "I should be very happy, if the Congress could prove the
     contrary to me. But I doubt whether it will be able to overthrow
     history, the law of Nature, and the law of God.

     "Accept the assurance, etc.

     "E. M. VOGÜÉ."

The idea is this, that history, man's nature, and God show us that,
so long as there shall be two men and between them bread, money, and
a woman, there will be war; that is, that no progress will bring men
to get away from the one conception of life, where it is impossible
without quarrelling to divide the bread, the money (the money is
very good here), and the woman.

How strange the people are that assemble in congresses, to talk
about how to catch birds by throwing salt on their tails, though
they cannot help but know that it is impossible to do so; queer
are those who, like Maupassant, Rod, and many others, see clearly
the whole horror of war, the whole contradiction which arises from
this, that men do not do what they ought to do, what is advantageous
and necessary for them to do, deplore the tragedy of life, and do
not see that all this tragedy will stop as soon as men will cease
to discuss what they ought not to discuss, and will begin not to
do what is painful for them to do, what displeases and disgusts
them. These people are queer, but those who, like Vogüé and
others, professing the law of evolution, recognize war not only as
unavoidable, but even as useful, and so as desirable, are strange
and terrible with their moral perversion. The others at least
say that they hate the evil and love the good, but these simply
recognize that there is no good and no evil.

All the talk about establishing peace, in the place of eternal war,
is a harmful sentimental rodomontade of babblers. There is a law of
evolution, from which it follows that I must live and act badly.
What is to be done? I am an educated man, and I know the law of
evolution, and so I will act badly.

"_Entrons au palais de la guerre._" There is a law of evolution, and
so there is nothing bad, nor good, and we must live for nothing but
our personal life, leaving everything else to the law of evolution.
This is the last expression of refined culture, and at the same time
of that obscuration of consciousness with which all the cultured
classes of our time are occupied.

The desire of the cultured classes in one way or another to maintain
their favourite ideas and their life, which is based upon them, has
reached its utmost limits. They lie, deceive themselves and others
in the most refined way, if only they can in some way obscure and
drown their consciences.

Instead of changing the life in accord with the consciousness,
they try in every manner possible to obscure and drown their
consciousness. But the light shines even in the dark, and so it is
beginning to shine in our time.


VII.

The cultured people of the higher classes try to drown the
consciousness of the necessity of changing the present order of
things, which is becoming all the time clearer and clearer; but
life, continuing to develop and to become more complex in the former
direction and intensifying the contradictions and sufferings of men,
brings them to that last limit, beyond which it is impossible to
go. Such a last limit, beyond which it is impossible to go, is the
universal military service.

People generally think that universal military service and the ever
increased arming, which is connected with it, and the consequent
increase of taxation and of state debts among all the nations, are
an accidental phenomenon, due to some political condition of Europe,
and may also be removed by some political considerations, without an
internal change of life.

This is quite erroneous. Universal military service is nothing but
an inner contradiction which, having been carried to its utmost
limits and having at a certain stage of material development become
obvious, has stolen its way into the social concept of life.

The social concept of life consists in this very fact, that the
meaning of life is transferred from the individual to the aggregate,
and its consequence is transferred to the tribe, the family, the
race, or the state.

From the social concept of life it follows that, in so far as the
meaning of life is contained in the aggregate of individuals, the
individuals themselves voluntarily sacrifice their interests for
the interests of the aggregate. Thus it has always been in reality
in the case of certain forms of the aggregate, in the family or the
tribe, independently of which preceded, or in the race, or even
in the patriarchal state. In consequence of the habit, which is
transmitted by education and confirmed by religious influences, the
individuals have without compulsion blended their interests with the
interests of the aggregate and have sacrificed their own interests
for the common interest.

But the more societies became complex, the greater they grew,
especially the more frequently conquests were the causes why men
united into societies, the more frequently did individuals strive
after attaining their ends to the disadvantage of the common good,
and the more frequently was there felt the need of the exercise
of power, that is, of violence, for the sake of curbing these
insubmissive individuals.

The defenders of the social concept of life generally try to mix up
the concept of power, that is, of violence, with that of spiritual
influence, but this admixture is quite impossible.

A spiritual influence is an action upon a man, such that in
consequence of it the very desires of a man are changed and coincide
with what is demanded of him. A man who submits to a spiritual
influence acts in accordance with his desires. But power, as this
word is generally understood, is a means for compelling a man to
act contrary to his wishes. A man who submits to power does not act
as he would wish, but as the power compels him to act. Now what
can compel a man to do, not what he wishes, but what he does not
wish, is physical violence, or a threat of using such, that is, the
deprivation of liberty, beating, maiming, or executable menaces that
such actions will be carried out. In this has power always consisted.

In spite of the unceasing efforts made by men in power to conceal
this and to ascribe a different meaning to power, power is the
application of a rope, a chain, by which a man will be bound and
dragged along, or of a whip, with which he will be flogged, or of a
knife, an axe, with which they will cut off his hands, feet, ears,
head,--an application of these means, or a threat that they will be
used. Thus it was in the time of Nero and of Dzhingis-Khan, and thus
it is even now, in the most liberal of governments, in the republic
of America and in that of France. If men submit to power, they do
so only because they are afraid that in case they do not submit
these actions will be applied to them. All governmental demands,
the payment of taxes, the execution of public works, the submission
to punishments imposed upon one, exile, penalties, and so forth,
to which men seem voluntarily to submit, have always had bodily
violence, or a threat that such will be used, for their base.

The basis of power is bodily violence.

The possibility of exerting bodily violence against people is first
of all given by an organization of armed men in which all the armed
men act in agreement, submitting to one will. Such assemblies of
armed men, who submit to one will, are formed by the army. The army
has always stood at the base of power. Power is always found in
the hands of those who command an army, and all potentates--from
the Roman Cæsars to the Russian and German emperors--are more than
anything else concerned about the army, knowing that if the army is
with them, the power will remain in their hands.

It is this formation and increase of the army, which is necessary
for the support of power, that has introduced a decomposing
principle into the social concept of life.

The end of power and its justification consists in the limitation
of those men who might wish to attain their interests to the
disadvantage of the interests of the aggregate. But whether the
power has been acquired by the formation of a new power, by
inheritance, or by election, men who possess power by means of an
army have in no way differed from other men, and so have, like
other men, been prone not to subordinate their interests to those
of the aggregate, but, on the contrary, having in their hands the
possibility of doing so, have been more prone than any one else to
subordinate the common interests to their own. No matter how much
men have devised means for depriving men in power of the possibility
of subordinating the common interests to their own, or for
entrusting the power only into the hands of infallible men, there
have so far been discovered no means for doing either.

All methods employed, either of divine sanction, or of election, or
of heredity, or of suffrage, or of assemblies, or of parliaments, or
of senates, have proved ineffective. All men know that not one of
these methods attains the aim of entrusting the power into none but
infallible hands, or of preventing its being misused. All know that,
on the contrary, men in power, be they emperors, ministers, chiefs
of police, policemen, become, by the very fact of having power, more
prone to commit immoralities, that is, to subordinate the common
interests to their own, than men who have no power, as indeed it
could not be otherwise.

The social concept of life justified itself only so long as all men
voluntarily sacrificed their interests to the common interests; but
the moment there appeared men who did not voluntarily sacrifice
their interests, and power was needed, that is, violence, for the
purpose of limiting these individuals, the decomposing principle
of power, that is, violence exerted by one set of people against
another, entered into the social concept of life and the structure
which is based upon it.

For the power of one set of men over another to attain its end of
limiting men who strove after their individual interests to the
disadvantage of those of the aggregate, it was necessary to have
the power vested in the hands of infallible men, as is assumed to
be the case by the Chinese, and as has been assumed in the Middle
Ages and at the present time by men who believe in the sanctity
of anointment. It was only under this condition that the social
structure received its justification.

But since this does not exist, and men in power, on the contrary,
by the very fact of their possession of power, are never saintly,
the social structure, which is based on power, should not have any
justification.

Even if there was a time when, with a certain low level of morality
and with the universal tendency of men to exert violence against
each other, the existence of the power which limited this violence
was advantageous, that is, when the violence of the state was not
so great as that exerted by individuals against each other, it is
impossible to overlook the fact that such a superiority of the state
over its absence could not be permanent. The more the tendency of
individuals to exert violence was diminished, the more the manners
were softened, and the more the power was corrupted in consequence
of its unrestraint, the more did this superiority grow less and less.

In this change of the relation between the moral development of the
masses and the corruption of the governments does the whole history
of the last two thousand years consist.

In the simplest form the case was like this: men lived by tribes,
families, races, and waged war, committed acts of violence, and
destroyed and killed one another. These cases of violence took
place on a small and on a large scale: individual struggled with
individual, tribe with tribe, family with family, race with race,
nation with nation. Larger, more powerful aggregates conquered the
weaker, and the larger and the more powerful the aggregate of people
became, the less internal violence took place in it, and the more
secure did the continuance of the life of the aggregate seem to be.

The members of the tribe or of the family, uniting into one
aggregate, war less among themselves, and the tribe and the family
do not die, like one man, but continue their existence; between the
members of one state, who are subject to one power, the struggle
seems even weaker, and the life of the state seems even more secure.

These unions into greater and ever greater aggregates did not
take place because men consciously recognized such unions as more
advantageous to themselves, as is described in the story about the
calling of the Varangians, but in consequence, on the one hand, of
natural growth, and on the other, of struggle and conquests.

When the conquest is accomplished, the power of the conqueror
actually puts an end to internecine strife, and the social concept
of life receives its justification. But this confirmation is only
temporary. Internal strifes cease only in proportion as the pressure
of the power is exerted upon individuals who heretofore have been
warring against one another. The violence of internal struggle,
which is destroyed by the power, is conceived in the power itself.
The power is in the hands of just such people as all men are, that
is, of such as are always or frequently prepared to sacrifice the
common good for the sake of their personal good, with this one
difference, that these men do not have the tempering force of the
counter-action of the violated, and are subjected to the full
corrupting influence of power. Thus the evil of violence, passing
over into the hands of power, keeps growing more and more, and
in time comes to be greater than the one which it is supposed to
destroy, whereas in the members of society the proneness to violence
keeps weakening more and more, and the violence of power grows less
and less necessary.

The governmental power, even if it destroys inner violence,
invariably introduces new forms of violence into the lives of
men, and this grows greater and greater in proportion with its
continuance and intensification.

Thus, although the violence is less perceptible in the state than
the violence of the members of society against one another, since it
is not expressed by struggle, but by submission, the violence none
the less exists and for the most part in a much more powerful degree
than before.

This cannot be otherwise, because the possession of power not only
corrupts men, but the purpose or even unconscious tendency of the
violators will consist in bringing the violated to the greatest
degree of weakening, since, the weaker the violated man is, the less
effort will it take to suppress him.

For this reason the violence which is exerted against him who is
violated keeps growing to the farthest limit which it can attain
without killing the hen that is laying the golden eggs. But if
this hen does not lay, as in the case of the American Indians,
the Fijians, the Negroes, it is killed, in spite of the sincere
protestations of the philanthropists against such a mode of action.

The best confirmation of this is found in the condition of the
labouring classes of our time, who in reality are nothing but
subjugated people.

In spite of all the hypocritical endeavours of the higher classes
to alleviate the condition of the working people, all the working
people of our world are subject to an invariable iron law, according
to which they have only as much as they need to be always incited
by necessity to work and to have the strength for working for their
masters, that is, for the conquerors.

Thus it has always been. In proportion with the duration and
increase of power, its advantages have always been lost for those
who subjected themselves to it, and its disadvantages have been
increased.

Thus it has been independently of those forms of government under
which the nations have lived. The only difference is this, that
in a despotic form of government the power is concentrated in a
small number of violators, and the form of the violence is more
pronounced; in the constitutional monarchies and republics, as in
France and in America, the power is distributed among a larger
number of violators, and its forms are less pronounced; but the
matter of violence, with which the disadvantages of the power are
greater than its advantages, and its process, which brings the
violated to the extreme limit of weakening to which they can be
brought for the advantage of the violators, are always one and the
same.

Such has been the condition of all the violated, but before this
they did not know it, and in the majority of cases they believed
naïvely that governments existed for their good; that without
government they would perish; that the thought that men could live
without governments was a blasphemy which ought not even be uttered;
that this was for some reason a terrible doctrine of anarchism, with
which is connected the conception of everything terrible.

Men believed, as in something absolutely proved and so needing no
further proofs, that, since until now all the nations have developed
in a governmental form, this form was for ever an indispensable
condition of the development of humanity.

Thus it went on for hundreds and for thousands of years, and the
governments, that is, men in power, have tried, and now try more and
more, to keep the nations in this error.

Thus it was in the time of the Roman emperors, and thus it is at
present. In spite of the fact that the idea of the uselessness
and even harm of the governmental violence more and more enters
into the consciousness of men, this would last for ever, if the
governments were not obliged to increase the armies for the purpose
of maintaining their power.

People generally think that the armies are increased by the
governments for the purpose of defending the states against
other states, forgetting the fact that armies are needed by the
governments for the purpose of protecting themselves against their
own crushed and enslaved subjects.

This has always been indispensable, and has become more and more
necessary in proportion as culture has been developed among the
nations, in proportion as the intercourse among the men of the same
and of different nations has been increased, and it has become
particularly indispensable now in connection with the communistic,
socialistic, anarchistic, and universal movements among the
labouring classes. The governments feel this, and so increase their
main force of the disciplined army.[13]

  [13] The fact that in America there exist abuses of power, in spite
  of the small number of troops, not only does not contradict, but
  even supports this proposition. In America there is a smaller army
  than in other countries, and so there is nowhere a lesser oppression
  of the oppressed classes, and nowhere can we foresee so soon the
  abolition of the abuses of power and of the power itself. But in
  America itself there have of late, in proportion as the labouring
  classes become more unified, been heard voices asking more and more
  frequently for an increase of the army, although America is not
  threatened by any external attack. The higher ruling classes know
  that fifty thousand soldiers will soon be insufficient, and, no
  longer depending on Pinkerton's army, they feel that the security
  of their position lies only in an increase of the army.--_Author's
  Note._

Answering lately to a question why money was needed for the increase
of the wages of under-officers, the German chancellor declared
frankly in the German Reichstag that there was a need of reliable
under-officers, in order to fight against socialism. Caprivi only
said in the hearing of all what everybody knows, though it is
carefully concealed from the nations; he explained why guards of
Swiss and Scotchmen were hired out to French kings and Popes, and
why in Russia they carefully shuffle up the recruits in such a
way that the regiments which are located in the centre are made up
of recruits from the outlying districts, while the regiments in
the outlying districts are completed by soldiers from the centre
of Russia. The meaning of Caprivi's speech, translated into simple
language, is this, that money was not needed for counteracting the
foreign enemies, but for bribing the under-officers, so as to make
them willing to act against the oppressed labouring masses.

Caprivi accidentally gave utterance to what everybody knows, or
feels, if he does not know, namely, that the existing structure
of life is such as it is, not because it naturally must be such,
because the nation wants it to be such, but because it is maintained
as such by the violence of the governments, by the army with its
bribed under-officers, officers, and generals.

If a labouring man has no land, no chance of making use of the
right, so natural for every man, to obtain from the land his own
means of support and those of his family, this is not so because
the nation wants it to be so, but because certain men, the owners
of land, are granted the right to admit, or not to admit, the
labouring people to it. And this unnatural order of things is
maintained by means of the army. If the immense wealth, accumulated
by the labouring people, is not considered as belonging to all men,
but to an exclusive number of men; if the power to collect taxes
from labour and to use the money for anything they may see fit is
entrusted to a few men; if a few men are permitted to select the
method of the religious and civil instruction and education of the
children; if strikes of the labourers are opposed and strikes of the
capitalists are encouraged; if a few men are granted the right to
compose laws, which all must obey, and to dispose of men's property
and life,--all this does not take place because the nation wants it
so, but because the governments and the ruling classes want it so,
and by means of bodily violence establish it so.

Every person who does not know this will find it out in every
attempt at not conforming or at changing this order of things.
Therefore armies are first of all indispensable to the governments
and the ruling classes, in order to maintain the order of things
which not only does not result from the necessity of the nation,
but is frequently opposed to it and is advantageous only to the
government and to the ruling classes.

Every government needs armies, first of all, in order to keep its
subjects in submission, and to exploit their labours. But the
government is not alone; side by side with it there is another
government, which exploits its subjects by means of the same
violence, and which is always ready to take away from another
government the labours of its already enslaved subjects. And so
every government needs an army, not only for internal use, but also
for the protection of its booty against neighbouring ravishers.
Every government is in consequence of this involuntarily led to
the necessity of increasing its army in emulation with the other
governments; but the increasing of armies is contagious, as
Montesquieu remarked 150 years ago.

Every increase of an army in a state, directed against its subjects,
becomes dangerous even for its neighbours, and evokes an increase in
the neighbouring states.

The armies have reached their present millions not merely because
the neighbours threatened the states; this resulted above all from
the necessity of crushing all attempts at revolt on the part of
the subjects. The increase of armies arises simultaneously from
two causes, which provoke one another: armies are needed against
domestic enemies and for the purpose of defending one's position
against one's neighbours. One conditions the other. The despotism of
a government always increases with the increase and strengthening of
armies and external successes, and the aggressiveness of governments
is increased with the intensification of the internal despotism.

In consequence of this, the European governments, in emulating
one another in the greater and ever greater increase of the army,
arrived at the inevitable necessity of the universal military
service, since the universal military service was a means for
obtaining in time of war the greatest quantity of soldiers at the
least expense. Germany was the first to hit upon this plan, and
the moment one government did it, all the others were obliged to
do the same. The moment this happened, it happened that all the
citizens were put under arms for the purpose of maintaining all that
injustice which was committed against them; what happened was that
all the citizens became oppressors of themselves.

The universal military service was an inevitable logical necessity,
at which it was impossible not to arrive; at the same time it is the
last expression of the inner contradiction of the social concept of
life, which arose at a time when violence was needed in order to
maintain it. In the universal military service this contradiction
became obvious. Indeed, the meaning of the social concept of life
consists in this, that a man, recognizing the cruelty of the
struggle of individuals among themselves and the perishableness of
the individual himself, transfers the meaning of his life to the
aggregate of individuals; but in the universal military service it
turns out that men, having brought all the sacrifices demanded of
them, in order to free themselves from the cruelty of the struggle
and the insecurity of life, are, after all the sacrifices which they
have made, again called to bear all those dangers from which they
thought they had freed themselves, and, besides, that aggregate,
the state, in the name of which the individuals renounced their
advantages, is again subjected to the same danger of destruction to
which the individual himself was subjected before.

The governments were to have freed men from the cruelty of the
struggle of individuals and to have given them the assurance of the
inviolability of the order of the state life; but, instead, they
impose upon the individuals the necessity of the same struggle,
except that the struggle with the nearest individuals is transferred
to the struggle with the individuals of other states, and they leave
the same danger of the destruction of the individual and of the
state.

The establishment of the universal military service is like what
would happen if a man were to brace up a dilapidated house: the
walls bend inwards--supports are put up; the ceiling is sagging
down--other supports are put up; boards hang down between the
supports--some more supports are put up. A point is finally reached
when the supports indeed hold the house together, but it is
impossible to live in the house because there are so many supports.

The same is true of the universal military service. It destroys all
those advantages of the social life which it is called to preserve.

The advantages of the social life consist in the security of
property and labour and in the coöperation in the aggregate
perfection of life,--the universal military service destroys all
that.

The taxes which are collected from the masses for war preparations
swallow the greater share of the production of labour which the army
is supposed to protect.

The tearing away of the men from the habitual course of life impairs
the possibility of the work itself.

The menaces of a war that is likely to break out at any time make
all the perfections of the social life useless and in vain.

If a man was formerly told that if he did not submit to the power
of the state he would be subjected to the attacks of evil men, of
external and internal enemies; that he would be compelled himself
to struggle with them and to subject himself to being killed;
that therefore it would be advantageous for him to bear certain
privations, in order to free himself from these calamities,--he was
able to believe it all, because the sacrifices which he made for
the state were only private sacrifices and gave him the hope for
a peaceful life in an imperishable state, in the name of which he
made these sacrifices. But now, when these sacrifices have not only
increased tenfold, but the advantages promised to him are absent, it
is natural for any one to imagine that his submission to power is
quite useless.

But not in this alone lies the fatal significance of the universal
military service, as a manifestation of that contradiction which
is contained in the social concept of life. The main manifestation
of this contradiction consists in the fact that with the universal
military service every citizen, upon becoming a soldier, becomes a
supporter of the state structure, and a participant in everything
which the government does and the legality of which he does not
recognize.

The governments assert that the armies are needed mainly for the
purpose of external defence; but that is not true. They are needed
first of all against their subjects, and every man who does military
service involuntarily becomes a participant in all the violence
which the state exerts over its own subjects.

To convince himself that every man who does his military service
becomes a participant in such deeds of the government as he does
not acknowledge and cannot acknowledge, let a man only remember
what is being done in every state in the name of order and of the
good of the nation, things which the army appears as the executor
of. All the struggles of dynasties and of the various parties, all
the executions, which are connected with these disturbances, all
the suppressions of revolts, all the employment of military force
for the dispersion of popular crowds, the suppression of strikes,
all the extortions of taxes, all the injustice of the distribution
of the ownership of land, all the oppressions of labour,--all this
is produced, if not directly by the armies, at least by the police,
which is supported by the armies. He who does military service
becomes a participant in all these matters, which in some cases
are doubtful to him and in many cases are directly opposed to his
conscience. Some people do not wish to leave the land which they
have been working for generations; people do not wish to disperse,
as they are commanded to do by the government; people do not want
to pay the taxes which are exacted of them; people do not wish to
recognize the obligatoriness for them of laws which they have not
made; people do not wish to be deprived of their nationality,--and
I, by doing military service, am obliged to come and beat these
people. Being a participant in these deeds, I cannot help but
ask myself whether these deeds are good, and whether I ought to
contribute to their execution.

Universal military service is for the government the last degree of
violence, which is necessary for the support of the whole structure;
and for the subjects it is the extreme limit of the possibility of
their obedience. It is that keystone which holds the walls and the
extraction of which causes the building to cave in.

The time came when the growing abuses of the governments and their
strifes among themselves had this effect, that from every subject
there were demanded, not only material, but also moral sacrifices,
when every man had to stop and ask himself, "Can I make these
sacrifices? And in the name of what must I make these sacrifices?
These sacrifices are demanded in the name of the state. In the name
of the state they demand of me the renunciation of everything which
may be dear to man, of peace, of family, of security, of human
dignity. What is that state in the name of which such terrible
sacrifices are demanded of me? And why is it so indispensably
necessary?"

"The state," we are told, "is indispensably necessary, in the first
place, because without the state, I and all of us would not be
protected against violence and the attack of evil men; in the second
place, without the state all of us would be savages, and would have
no religious, nor educational, nor mercantile institutions, nor
roads of communication, nor any other public establishments; and, in
the third place, because without the state we should be subject to
enslavement by neighbouring nations."

"Without the state," we are told, "we should be subject to violence
and to the attacks of evil men in our own country."

But who among us are these evil men, from the violence and attacks
of whom the state and its army save us? If three, four centuries
ago, when men boasted of their military art and their accoutrements,
when it was considered a virtue to kill men, there existed such
men, there are none now, for no men of the present time use or
carry weapons, and all, professing the rules of philanthropy and
of compassion for their neighbours, wish the same as we,--the
possibility of a calm and peaceful life. There now are no longer
those particular violators against whom the state should defend us.
But if, by the people, from whose attack the state saves us, we are
to understand those men who commit crimes, we know that they are
not some especial beings, like rapacious animals among the sheep,
but just such people as we are, who are just as disinclined to
commit crimes as those against whom they commit them. We know now
that threats and punishments cannot diminish the number of such
men, and that it is only the change of surroundings and the moral
influence upon people that diminish it. Thus the explanation of the
necessity of governmental violence for the purpose of defending men
against violators may have had a basis three or four centuries ago,
but has none at the present time. Now the contrary would be more
correct, namely, that the activity of the governments, with their
morality which has fallen behind the common level, with their cruel
methods of punishments, of prisons, of hard labour, of gallows,
of guillotines, rather contributes to the brutalization of the
masses than to the softening of their manners, and so rather to the
increase than to the diminution of the number of violators.

"Without the state," they also say, "there would not be all those
institutions of education, of learning, of religion, of roads of
communication, and others. Without the state men would not be able
to establish the public things which are indispensable for all men."
But this argument, too, could have a basis only several centuries
ago.

If there was a time when men were so disunited among themselves
and the means for a closer union and for the transmission of
thought were so little worked out that they could not come to any
understanding nor agree upon any common mercantile, or economical,
or cultural matter without the medium of the state, there now no
longer exists such a disunion. The widely developed means for
communion and for the transmission of thought have had this effect,
that, for the formation of societies, assemblies, corporations,
congresses, learned, economic, or political institutions, the men of
our time can get along without any government, and the governments
in the majority of cases are more likely to interfere with the
attainment of these ends than to coöperate with it.

Beginning with the end of the last century, almost every forward
step of humanity has not only not been encouraged by the government,
but has always been retarded by it. Thus it was with the abolition
of corporal punishment, of torture, of slavery, and with the
establishment of the freedom of the press and of assemblies. In
our time the power of the state and the governments not only fail
to coöperate with, but are distinctly opposed to, all that activity
by means of which men work out new forms of life. The solutions of
labouring, agronomic, political, religious questions are not only
not encouraged, but directly interfered with by the power of the
state.

"Without the state and the government, the nations would be enslaved
by their neighbours."

It is hardly necessary to retort to this last argument. The retort
is found in itself.

The governments, so we are told, are necessary with their armies
for the purpose of defending us against our neighbours, who might
enslave us. But this is what all the governments say of one another,
and at the same time we know that all the European nations profess
the same principles of freedom and of brotherhood, and so are in no
need of defending themselves against one another. But if protection
against barbarians is meant, then one-thousandth of all the armies
now under arms would suffice. Thus the contrary to what is asserted
is what actually happens: the power of the state, far from saving
us from the attacks of our neighbours, on the contrary causes the
danger of the attacks.

Thus a man, who by means of his military service is placed under
the necessity of thinking about the significance of the state, in
the name of which the sacrifice of his peace, his security, and his
life is demanded of him, cannot help but see clearly that for these
sacrifices there no longer exists any basis in our time.

But it is not only by theoretical reflections that any man may see
that the sacrifices demanded of him by the state have no foundation
whatever; even by reflecting practically, that is, by weighing all
those hard conditions in which a man is placed by the state, no
one can fail to see that for him personally the fulfilment of the
demands of the state and his submission to military service is in
the majority of cases more disadvantageous than a refusal to do
military service.

If the majority of men prefer submission to insubmission, this is
not due to any sober weighing of the advantages and disadvantages,
but because the men are attracted to submission by means of the
hypnotization to which they are subjected in the matter. In
submitting, men only surrender themselves to those demands which are
made upon them, without reflection, and without making any effort of
the will; for insubmission there is a need of independent reflection
and of effort, of which not every man is capable. But if, excluding
the moral significance of submission and insubmission, we should
consider nothing but the advantages, insubmission would in general
always be more advantageous to us than submission.

No matter who I may be, whether I belong to the well-to-do,
oppressing classes, or to the oppressed labouring classes, the
disadvantages of insubmission are less than the disadvantages of
submission, and the advantages of insubmission are greater than the
advantages of submission.

If I belong to the minority of oppressors, the disadvantages of
insubmission to the demands of the government will consist in this,
that I, refusing to comply with the demands of the government,
shall be tried and at best shall be discharged or, as they do
with the Mennonites, shall be compelled to serve out my time at
some unmilitary work; in the worst case I shall be condemned to
deportation or imprisonment for two or three years (I speak from
examples that have happened in Russia), or, perhaps, to a longer
term of incarceration, or to death, though the probability of such a
penalty is very small.

Such are the disadvantages of insubmission; but the disadvantages
of submission will consist in this: at best I shall not be sent
out to kill men, and I myself shall not be subjected to any great
probability of crippling or death, but shall only be enlisted as a
military slave,--I shall be dressed up in a fool's garments; I shall
be at the mercy of every man above me in rank, from a corporal to
a field-marshal; I shall be compelled to contort my body according
to their desire, and, after being kept from one to five years, I
shall be left for ten years in a condition of readiness to appear
at any moment for the purpose of going through all these things
again. In the worst case I shall, in addition to all those previous
conditions of slavery, be sent to war, where I shall be compelled
to kill men of other nations, who have done me no harm, where I
may be crippled and killed, and where I may get into a place, as
happened at Sevastopol and as happens in every war, where men are
sent to certain death; and, what is most agonizing, I may be sent
out against my own countrymen, when I shall be compelled to kill my
brothers for dynastic or other reasons, which are entirely alien to
me. Such are the comparative disadvantages.

The comparative advantages of submission and of insubmission are
these:

For him who has not refused, the advantages will consist in this,
that, having submitted to all the humiliations and having executed
all the cruelties demanded of him, he may, if he is not killed,
receive red, golden, tin-foil decorations over his fool's garments,
and he may at best command hundreds of thousands of just such
bestialized men as himself, and be called a field-marshal, and
receive a lot of money.

But the advantages of him who refuses will consist in this, that he
will retain his human dignity, will earn the respect of good men,
and, above all else, will know without fail that he is doing God's
work, and so an incontestable good to men.

Such are the advantages and the disadvantages on both sides for
a man from the wealthy classes, for an oppressor; for a man of
the poor, working classes the advantages and disadvantages will
be the same, but with an important addition of disadvantages. The
disadvantages for a man of the labouring classes, who has not
refused to do military service, will also consist in this, that, by
entering upon military service, he by his participation and seeming
consent confirms the very oppression under which he is suffering.

But it is not the reflections as to how much the state which men
are called upon to support by their participation in the military
service is necessary and useful to men, much less the reflections
as to the advantages or disadvantages accruing to each man from his
submission or insubmission to the demands of the government, that
decide the question as to the necessity of the existence or the
abolition of the state. What irrevocably and without appeal decides
this question is the religious consciousness or conscience of every
individual man, before whom, in connection with the universal
military service, involuntarily rises the question as to the
existence or non-existence of the state.


VIII.

People frequently say that if Christianity is a truth, it ought to
have been accepted by all men at its very appearance, and ought at
that very moment to have changed the lives of men and made them
better. But to say this is the same as saying that if the seed is
fertile, it must immediately produce a sprout, a flower, and a fruit.

The Christian teaching is no legislation which, being introduced
by violence, can at once change the lives of men. Christianity is
another, newer, higher concept of life, which is different from the
previous one. But the new concept of life cannot be prescribed; it
can only be freely adopted.

Now the new life-conception can be acquired only in two ways: in a
spiritual (internal) and an experimental (external) way.

Some people--the minority--immediately, at once, by a prophetic
feeling divine the truth of the teaching, abandon themselves to it,
and execute it. Others--the majority--are led only through a long
path of errors, experiences, and sufferings to the recognition of
the truth of the teaching and the necessity of acquiring it.

It is to this necessity of acquiring the teaching in an experimental
external way that the whole mass of the men of the Christian world
have now been brought.

Sometimes we think: what need was there for that corruption of
Christianity which even now more than anything else interferes
with its adoption in its real sense? And yet this corruption of
Christianity, having brought men to the condition in which they now
are, was a necessary condition for the majority of men to be able
to receive it in its real significance.

If Christianity had been offered to men in its real, and not its
corrupted, form, it would not have been accepted by the majority
of men, and the majority of men would have remained alien to it,
as the nations of Asia are alien to it at the present time. But,
having received it in its corrupted form, the nations who received
it were subjected to its certain, though slow, action, and by a long
experimental road of errors and of sufferings resulting therefrom
are now brought to the necessity of acquiring it in its true sense.

The corruption of Christianity and its acceptance in its corrupted
form by the majority of men was as indispensable as that a seed, to
sprout, should be for a time concealed by the earth.

The Christian teaching is a teaching of the truth and at the same
time a prophecy.

Eighteen hundred years ago the Christian teaching revealed to men
the truth of how they should live, and at the same time predicted
what human life would be if men would not live thus, but would
continue to live by those principles by which they had lived
heretofore, and what it would be if they should accept the Christian
teaching and should carry it out in life.

In imparting in the Sermon on the Mount the teaching which was to
guide the lives of men, Christ said:

"Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them,
I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew,
and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon
a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth
them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house
upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the
winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was
the fall of it" (Matt. vii. 24-27).

Now, after eighteen hundred years, the prophecy has been fulfilled.
By not following Christ's teaching in general and its manifestation
in public life as non-resistance to evil, men involuntarily came to
that position of inevitable ruin which was promised by Christ to
those who would not follow His teaching.

People frequently think that the question of non-resistance to
evil is an invented question, a question which it is possible to
circumvent. It is, however, a question which life itself puts before
all men and before every thinking man, and which invariably demands
a solution. For men in their public life this question has, ever
since the Christian teaching has been preached, been the same as
the question for a traveller which road to take, when he comes to
a fork on the highway on which he has been walking. He must go on,
and he cannot say, "I will not think, and I will continue to walk
as before." Before this there was one road, and now there are two
of them, and it is impossible to walk as before, and one of the two
roads must inevitably be chosen.

Even so it has been impossible to say, ever since Christ's teaching
was made known to men, "I will continue to live as I lived before,
without solving the question as to resisting or not resisting evil
by means of violence." It is inevitably necessary at the appearance
of every struggle to solve the question, "Shall I with violence
resist that which I consider to be an evil and violence, or not?"

The question as to resisting or not resisting evil by means of
violence appeared when there arose the first struggle among men,
since every struggle is nothing but a resistance by means of
violence to what each of the contending parties considers to be an
evil. But the men before Christ did not see that the resistance by
means of violence to what each considers to be an evil, only because
he regards as an evil what another regards as a good, is only
one of the means of solving the struggle, and that another means
consists in not at all resisting evil by means of violence.

Previous to Christ's teaching it appeared to men that there was but
one way of solving a struggle, and that was by resisting evil with
violence, and so they did, each of the contending parties trying to
convince himself and others that what each of them considered to be
an evil was a real, absolute evil.

And so since most remote times men have endeavoured to discover
such definitions of evil as would be obligatory for all men, and as
such were given out the statutes of law which, it was assumed, were
received in a supernatural manner, or the injunctions of men or of
assemblies of men, to whom is ascribed the quality of infallibility.
Men have employed violence against other men and have assured
themselves and others that they have employed this violence against
the evil, which was acknowledged by all men.

This means has been employed since remote antiquity, especially by
those men who usurped the power, and men for a long time did not see
the irrationality of this means.

But the longer men lived, the more complex their relations became,
the more obvious did it become that it was irrational by means of
violence to resist that which is by every one regarded as an evil,
that the struggle was not diminished by doing so, and that no human
definitions could succeed in making that which was considered to be
evil by one set of men considered such by others.

Even at the time of the appearance of Christianity, in the place
where it made its appearance, in the Roman Empire, it was clear for
the majority of men that what by Nero and Caligula was considered
to be an evil which ought to be resisted with violence could not be
considered an evil by other men. Even then men began to understand
that human laws which were given out as being divine had been
written by men, that men could not be infallible, no matter with
what external grandeur they might be vested, and that erring men
could not become infallible simply because they came together and
called themselves a senate or some such name. This was even then
felt and understood by many, and it was then that Christ preached
His teaching, which did not consist simply in this, that evil ought
not to be resisted by means of violence, but in the teaching of the
new comprehension of life, a part, or rather an application of which
to public life was the teaching about the means for abolishing the
struggle among all men, not by obliging only one part of men without
a struggle to submit to what would be prescribed to them by certain
authorities, but by having no one, consequently even not those (and
preëminently not those) who rule, employ violence against any one,
and under no consideration.

The teaching was at that time accepted by but a small number of
disciples; but the majority of men, especially all those who ruled
over men, continued after the nominal acceptance of Christianity to
hold to the rule of violently resisting that which they considered
to be evil. Thus it was in the time of the Roman and the Byzantine
emperors, and so it continued even afterward.

The inadequacy of the principle of defining with authority what is
evil and resisting it with violence, which was already obvious in
the first centuries of Christianity, became even more obvious during
the decomposition of the Roman Empire into many states of equal
right, with their mutual hostilities and the inner struggles which
took place in the separate states.

But men were not prepared to receive the solution which was given by
Christ, and the former means for the definition of the evil, which
had to be resisted by establishing laws which, being obligatory for
all, were carried out by the use of force, continued to be applied.
The arbiter of what was to be considered an evil and what was to be
resisted by means of force was now the Pope, now the emperor, now
the king, now an assembly of the elect, now the whole nation. But
both inside and outside the state there always existed some men who
did not recognize the obligatoriness for themselves either of the
injunctions which were given out to be the commands of the divinity,
or of the decrees of men who were vested with sanctity, or of the
institutions which purported to represent the will of the people,
and these men, who considered to be good what the existing powers
regarded as evil, fought against the powers, using the same violence
which was directed against themselves.

Men who were vested with sanctity regarded as evil what men and
institutions that were vested with civil power considered to be
good, and vice versa, and the struggle became ever more acute. And
the more such people held to this method for solving their struggle,
the more obvious did it become that this method was useless, because
there is and there can be no such external authority for the
definition of evil as would be recognized by all men.

Thus it lasted for eighteen hundred years, and it reached the
present point,--the complete obviousness of the fact that there
is and there can be no external definition of evil which would be
obligatory for all men. It reached such a point that men ceased
to believe in the possibility of finding this common definition
which would be obligatory for all men, and even in the necessity of
putting forward such a definition. It came to such a pass that the
men in power stopped proving that that which they considered to be
an evil was an evil, and said outright that they considered that an
evil which did not please them; and the men who obeyed the power
began to obey it, not because they believed that the definitions
of evil given by this power were correct, but only because they
could not help but obey. Nice is added to France, Lorraine to
Germany, Bohemia to Austria; Poland is divided; Ireland and India
are subjected to English rule; war is waged against China and the
Africans; the Americans expel the Chinese, and the Russians oppress
the Jews; the landowners use the land which they do not work, and
the capitalists make use of the labours of others, not because
this is good, useful, and needful to men and because the contrary
is evil, but because those who are in power want it to be so. What
has happened is what happens now: one set of men commit acts of
violence, no longer in the name of resisting evil, but in the name
of their advantage or whim, while another set submit to violence,
not because they assume, as was the case formerly, that violence is
exerted against them in the name of freeing them from evil and for
their good, but only because they cannot free themselves from this
violence.

If a Roman, a man of the Middle Ages, a Russian, as I remember him
to have been fifty years ago, was incontestably convinced that the
existing violence of the power was necessary in order to free him
from evil, that taxes, levies, serf law, prisons, whips, knouts,
hard labour, capital punishment, militarism, wars, must exist,--it
will be hard now to find a man who either believes that all acts of
violence free any one from anything, or even does not see clearly
that the majority of all those cases of violence to which he is
subject and in which he partly shares are in themselves a great and
useless evil.

There is now no such a man who does not see, not only the
uselessness, but even the insipidity, of collecting taxes from the
labouring classes for the purpose of enriching idle officials; or
the senselessness of imposing punishments upon corrupt and weak
people in the shape of deportation from one place to another, or
in the form of imprisonment in jails, where they live in security
and idleness and become more corrupted and weakened; or, not the
uselessness and insipidity, but simply the madness and cruelty of
military preparations and wars, which ruin and destroy the masses
and have no explanation and justification,--and yet these cases of
violence are continued and even maintained by the very men who see
their uselessness, insipidity, and cruelty, and suffer from them.

If fifty years ago a rich idle man and an ignorant labouring man
were both equally convinced that their condition of an eternal
holiday for the one and of eternal labour for the other was ordained
by God Himself, it is now, not only in Europe, but even in Russia,
thanks to the migration of the populace, and the dissemination of
culture and printing, hard to find either a rich or a poor man who,
from one side or another, has not been assailed by doubts of the
justice of such an order of things. Not only do the rich know that
they are guilty even because they are rich, and try to redeem their
guilt by offering contributions to art and science, as formerly they
redeemed their sins by means of contributions to the churches, but
even the greater half of the working people recognize the present
order as being false and subject to destruction or change. One set
of religious people, of whom there are millions in Russia, the
so-called sectarians, recognize this order as false and subject to
destruction on the basis of the Gospel teaching as taken in its real
meaning; others consider it to be false on the basis of socialistic,
communistic, anarchistic theories, which now have penetrated into
the lower strata of the working people.

Violence is now no longer maintained on the ground that it is
necessary, but only that it has existed for a long time, and has
been so organized by men to whom it is advantageous, that is, by
governments and the ruling classes, that the men who are in their
power cannot tear themselves away from it.

The governments in our time--all governments, the most despotic
and the most liberal--have become what Herzen so aptly called
Dzhingis-Khans with telegraphs, that is, organizations of violence,
which have nothing at their base but the coarsest arbitrary will,
and yet use all those means which science has worked out for the
aggregate social peaceful activity of free and equal men, and which
they now employ for the enslavement and oppression of men.

The governments and the ruling classes do not now lean on the
right, not even on the semblance of justice, but on an artificial
organization which, with the aid of the perfections of science,
encloses all men in the circle of violence, from which there is no
possibility of tearing themselves away. This circle is now composed
of four means of influencing men. All those means are connected and
sustain one another, as the links in the ring of a united chain.

The first, the oldest, means is the means of intimidation. This
means consists in representing the existing state structure (no
matter what it may be,--whether a free republic or the wildest
despotism) as something sacred and invariable, and so in inflicting
the severest penalties for any attempt at changing it. This means,
having been used before, is even now used in an unchanged form
wherever there are governments: in Russia--against the so-called
nihilists; in America--against the anarchists; in France--against
the imperialists, monarchists, communists, and anarchists. The
railways, telegraphs, photographs, and the perfected method of
removing people, without killing them, into eternal solitary
confinement, where, hidden from men, they perish and are forgotten,
and many other modern inventions, which governments employ more
freely than any one else, give them such strength that as soon
as the power has fallen into certain hands, and the visible and
the secret police, and the administration, and all kinds of
prosecutors, and jailers, and executioners are earnestly at work,
there is no possibility of overthrowing the government, no matter
how senseless or cruel it may be.

The second means is that of bribery. It consists in taking the
wealth away from the labouring classes in the shape of monetary
taxes, and distributing this wealth among the officials, who for
this remuneration are obliged to maintain and strengthen the
enslavement of the masses.

These bribed officials, from the highest ministers to the lowest
scribes, who, forming one continuous chain of men, are united by the
same interest of supporting themselves by the labours of the masses,
and grow wealthier in proportion as they more humbly do the will of
their governments, always and everywhere, stopping short before no
means, in all branches of activity, in word and deed, defend the
governmental violence, upon which their very well-being is based.

The third means is what I cannot call by any other name than the
hypnotization of the people. This means consists in retarding the
spiritual development of men and maintaining them with all kinds
of suggestions in a concept of life which humanity has already
outlived, and on which the power of the governments is based. This
hypnotization is at the present time organized in the most complex
manner, and, beginning its action in childhood, continues over
men to their death. This hypnotization begins at early youth in
compulsory schools which are established for the purpose, and in
which the children are instilled with world-conceptions which were
peculiar to their ancestors and are directly opposed to the modern
consciousness of humanity. In countries in which there is a state
religion, the children are taught the senseless blasphemies of
ecclesiastical catechisms, in which the necessity of obeying the
powers is pointed out; in republican governments they are taught
the savage superstition of patriotism, and the same imaginary
obligation of obeying the authorities. At a more advanced age, this
hypnotization is continued by encouraging the religious and the
patriotic superstitions.

The religious superstition is encouraged by means of the institution
of churches, processions, monuments, festivities, from the money
collected from the masses, and these, with the aid of painting,
architecture, music, incense, but chiefly by the maintenance of the
so-called clergy, stupefy the masses: their duty consists in this,
that with their representations, the pathos of the services, their
sermons, their interference in the private lives of the people,--at
births, marriages, deaths,--they bedim the people and keep them in
an eternal condition of stupefaction. The patriotic superstition is
encouraged by means of public celebrations, spectacles, monuments,
festivities, which are arranged by the governments and the ruling
classes on the money collected from the masses, and which make
people prone to recognize the exclusive importance of their own
nation and the grandeur of their own state and rulers, and to
be ill inclined toward all other nations and even hate them. In
connection with this, the despotic governments directly prohibit the
printing and dissemination of books and the utterance of speeches
which enlighten the masses, and deport or incarcerate all men who
are likely to rouse the masses from their lethargy; besides, all
governments without exception conceal from the masses everything
which could free them, and encourage everything which could corrupt
them, such as the authorship of books which maintain the masses
in the savagery of their religious and patriotic superstitions,
all kinds of sensuous amusements, spectacles, circuses, theatres,
and even all kinds of physical intoxications, such as tobacco,
and brandy, which furnish the chief income of states; they even
encourage prostitution, which is not only acknowledged, but even
organized by the majority of governments. Such is the third means.

The fourth means consists in this, that with the aid of the three
preceding means there is segregated, from the men so fettered
and stupefied, a certain small number of men, who are subjected
to intensified methods of stupefaction and brutalization, and
are turned into involuntary tools of all those cruelties and
bestialities which the governments may need. This stupefaction and
brutalization is accomplished by taking the men at that youthful
age when they have not yet had time to form any firm convictions
in regard to morality, and, having removed them from all natural
conditions of human life, from home, family, native district,
rational labour, locking them all up together in narrow barracks,
dressing them up in peculiar garments, and making them, under the
influence of shouts, drums, music, glittering objects, perform daily
exercises specially invented for the purpose, and thus inducing
such a state of hypnosis in them that they cease to be men, and
become unthinking machines, which are obedient to the command of the
hypnotizer. These hypnotized, physically strong young men (all young
men, on account of the present universal military service), who are
provided with instruments of murder, and who are always obedient to
the power of the governments and are prepared to commit any act of
violence at their command, form the fourth and chief means for the
enslavement of men.

With this means the circle of violence is closed.

Intimidation, bribery, hypnotization, make men desirous to become
soldiers; but it is the soldiers who give the power and the
possibility for punishing people, and picking them clean (and
bribing the officials with the money thus obtained), and for
hypnotizing and enlisting them again as soldiers, who in turn afford
the possibility for doing all this.

The circle is closed, and there is no way of tearing oneself away
from it by means of force.

If some men affirm that the liberation from violence, or even its
weakening, may be effected, should the oppressed people overthrow
the oppressing government by force and substitute a new one for
it, a government in which such violence and enslavement would not
be necessary, and if some men actually try to do so, they only
deceive themselves and others by it, and thus fail to improve men's
condition, and even make it worse. The activity of these men only
intensifies the despotism of the governments. The attempts of these
men at freeing themselves only give the governments a convenient
excuse for strengthening their power, and actually provoke its
strengthening.

Even if we admit that, in consequence of an unfortunate concurrence
of events in the government, as, for example, in France in the year
1870, some governments may be overthrown by force and the power pass
into other hands, this power would in no case be less oppressive
than the former one, and, defending itself against the infuriated
deposed enemies, would always be more despotic and cruel than the
former, as indeed has been the case in every revolution.

If the socialists and communists consider the individualistic,
capitalistic structure of society to be an evil, and the
anarchists consider the government itself to be an evil, there are
also monarchists, conservatives, capitalists, who consider the
socialistic, communistic, and anarchistic order to be evil; and all
these parties have no other means than force for the purpose of
uniting men. No matter which of these parties may triumph, it will
be compelled, for the materialization of its tenets, as well as
for the maintenance of its power, not only to make use of all the
existing means of violence, but also to invent new ones. Other men
will be enslaved, and men will be compelled to do something else;
but there will be, not only the same, but even a more cruel form of
violence and enslavement, because, in consequence of the struggle,
the hatred of men toward one another will be intensified, and at the
same time new means of enslavement will be worked out and confirmed.

Thus it has always been after every revolution, every attempt at a
revolution, every plot, every violent change of government. Every
struggle only strengthens the means of the enslavement of those who
at a given time are in power.

The condition of the men of our Christian world, and especially the
current ideals themselves prove this in a striking manner.

There is left but one sphere of human activity which is not usurped
by the governmental power,--the domestic, economic sphere, the
sphere of the private life and of labour. But even this sphere,
thanks to the struggle of the communists and socialists, is slowly
being usurped by the governments, so that labour and rest, the
domicile, the attire, the food of men will by degrees be determined
and directed by the governments, if the wishes of the reformers are
to be fulfilled.

The whole long, eighteen-centuries-old course of the life of
the Christian nations has inevitably brought them back to the
necessity of solving the question, so long evaded by them, as to the
acceptance or non-acceptance of Christ's teaching, and the solution
of the question resulting from it as regards the social life,
whether to resist or not to resist evil with violence, but with
this difference, that formerly men could accept the solution which
Christianity offered, or not accept it, while now the solution has
become imperative, because it alone frees them from that condition
of slavery in which they have become entangled as in a snare.

But it is not merely the wretchedness of men's condition that brings
them to this necessity.

Side by side with the negative proof of the falseness of the
pagan structure, there went the positive proof of the truth of the
Christian teaching.

There was a good reason why, in the course of eighteen centuries,
the best men of the whole Christian world, having recognized the
truths of the teaching by means of an inner, spiritual method,
should have borne witness to them before men, in spite of all
threats, privations, calamities, and torments. With this their
martyrdom these best men have put the stamp of truthfulness upon the
teaching and have transmitted it to the masses.

Christianity penetrated into the consciousness of humanity, not
merely by the one negative way of proving the impossibility
of continuing the pagan life, but also by its simplification,
elucidation, liberation from the dross of superstitions, and
dissemination among all the classes of people.

Eighteen hundred years of the profession of Christianity did not
pass in vain for the men who accepted it, even though only in an
external manner. These eighteen centuries have had this effect that,
continuing to live a pagan life, which does not correspond to the
age of humanity, men have not only come to see clearly the whole
wretchedness of the condition in which they are, but believe in the
depth of their hearts (they live only because they believe) in this,
that the salvation from this condition is only in the fulfilment
of the Christian teaching in its true significance. As to when and
how this salvation will take place, all men think differently, in
accordance with their mental development and the current prejudices
of their circle; but every man of our world recognizes the fact that
our salvation lies in the fulfilment of the Christian teaching.
Some believers, recognizing the Christian teaching as divine, think
that the salvation will come when all men shall believe in Christ,
and the second advent shall approach; others, who also recognize
the divinity of Christ's teaching, think that this salvation will
come through the church, which, subjecting all men to itself, will
educate in them Christian virtues and will change their lives.
Others again, who do not recognize Christ as God, think that the
salvation of men will come through a slow, gradual progress, when
the foundations of the pagan life will slowly give way to the
foundations of liberty, equality, fraternity, that is, to Christian
principles; others again, who preach a social transformation, think
that the salvation will come when men by a violent revolution
shall be compelled to adopt community of possession, absence of
government, and collective, not individual, labour, that is, the
materialization of one of the sides of the Christian teaching.

In one way or another, all men of our time in their consciousness
not only reject the present obsolete pagan order of life, but
recognize, frequently not knowing it themselves and regarding
themselves as enemies of Christianity, that our salvation lies only
in the application of the Christian teaching, or of a part of it, in
its true meaning, to life.

For the majority of men, as its teacher has said, Christianity could
not be realized at once, but had to grow, like an immense tree, from
a small seed. And so it grew and has spread, if not in reality, at
least in the consciousness of the men of our time.

Now it is not merely the minority of men, who always comprehended
Christianity internally, that recognizes it in its true meaning, but
also that vast majority of men which on account of its social life
seems to be so far removed from Christianity.

Look at the private life of separate individuals; listen to those
valuations of acts, which men make in judging one another; listen,
not only to the public sermons and lectures, but also to those
instructions which parents and educators give to their charges, and
you will see that, no matter how far the political, social life of
men, which is united through violence, is from the realization of
Christian truths in private life, it is only the Christian virtues
that are by all and for all, without exception and indubitably,
considered to be good, and that the anti-Christian vices are by all
and for all, without exception and indubitably, considered to be
bad. Those are considered to be the best of men who renounce and
sacrifice their lives in the service of humanity and who sacrifice
themselves for others; those are considered to be the worst who are
selfish, who exploit the misery of their neighbours for their own
personal advantage.

If by some, who have not yet been touched by Christianity, are
recognized the non-Christian ideals, force, valour, wealth, these
are ideals which are not experienced and shared by all men, and
certainly not by men who are considered to be the best.

The condition of our Christian humanity, if viewed from without,
with its cruelty and its slavery, is really terrible. But if we look
upon it from the side of its consciousness, an entirely different
spectacle is presented to us.

The whole evil of our life seems to exist for no other reason than
that it was done long ago, and the men who have done it have not yet
had time to learn how not to do it, though none of them wish to do
it.

All this evil seems to exist for some other reason, which is
independent of the consciousness of men.

No matter how strange and contradictory this may seem, all the men
of our time despise the very order of things which they help to
maintain.

I think it is Max Müller who tells of the surprise of an Indian
converted to Christianity, who, having grasped the essence of the
Christian teaching, arrived in Europe and saw the life of the
Christians. He could not recover from his astonishment in the
presence of the reality, which was the very opposite of what he had
expected to find among the Christian nations.

If we are not surprised at the contradiction between our beliefs,
convictions, and acts, this is due only to the fact that the
influences which conceal this contradiction from men act also
upon us. We need only look upon our life from the standpoint of
the Indian, who understood Christianity in its real significance,
without any compromises and adaptations, and upon those savage
bestialities, with which our life is filled, in order that we may be
frightened at the contradictions amidst which we live, frequently
without noticing them.

We need but think of warlike preparations, mitrailleuses,
silver-plated bullets, torpedoes,--and the Red Cross; of the
construction of prisons with solitary cells, of the experiments at
electrocution,--and of the benevolent cares for the imprisoned; of
the philanthropic activity of rich men,--and of their lives, which
are productive of those very poor whom they benefit. And these
contradictions do not result, as may appear, because people pretend
to be Christians, when in reality they are pagans, but, on the
contrary, because people lack something, or because there is some
force which keeps them from being what they already feel themselves
to be in their consciousness and what they actually wish to be.
The men of our time do not pretend to hate oppression, inequality,
the division of men, and all kinds of cruelty, not only toward
men, but also toward animals,--they actually do hate all this,
but they do not know how to destroy it all, and they have not the
courage to part with what maintains all this and seems to them to be
indispensable.

Indeed, ask any man of our time privately, whether he considers
it laudable or even worthy of a man of our time to busy himself
with collecting taxes from the masses, who frequently are
poverty-stricken, receiving for this work a salary which is entirely
out of proportion with his labour, this money to be used for the
construction of cannon, torpedoes, and implements for murdering
men, with whom we wish to be at peace, and who wish to be at peace
with us; or for a salary to devote all his life to the construction
of these implements of murder; or to prepare himself and others to
commit murder. And ask him whether it is laudable and worthy of a
man, and proper for a Christian, to busy himself, again for money,
with catching unfortunate, erring, frequently ignorant, drunken men
for appropriating to themselves other people's possessions in much
smaller quantities than we appropriate things to ourselves, and for
killing men differently from what we are accustomed to kill men, and
for this to put them in prisons, and torment, and kill them, and
whether it is laudable and worthy of a man and a Christian, again
for money, to preach to the masses, instead of Christianity, what is
well known to be insipid and harmful superstitions; and whether it
is laudable and worthy of a man to take from his neighbour, for the
sake of his own lust, what his neighbour needs for the gratification
of his prime necessities, as is done by the large landowners; or
to compel him to perform labour above his strength, which ruins
his life, in order to increase his own wealth, as is done by
manufacturers, by owners of factories; or to exploit men's want for
the purpose of increasing his wealth, as is done by merchants. And
each of them taken privately, especially in speaking of another,
will tell you that it is not. And yet this same man, who sees all
the execrableness of these acts, who is himself not urged by any
one, will himself voluntarily, and frequently without the monetary
advantage of a salary, for the sake of childish vanity, for the
sake of a porcelain trinket, a ribbon, a piece of lace, which he is
permitted to put on, go into military service, become an examining
magistrate, a justice of the peace, a minister, a rural officer, a
bishop, a sexton, that is, he will take an office in which he is
obliged to do things the disgrace and execrableness of which he
cannot help but know.

I know many of these men will self-conceitedly prove that
they consider their positions not only legitimate, but even
indispensable; they will say in their defence that the power is from
God, that political offices are necessary for the good of humanity,
that wealth is not contrary to Christianity, that the rich young
man was told to give up his wealth only if he wished to be perfect,
that the now existing distribution of wealth and commerce must be so
and is advantageous for everybody, and so forth. But, no matter how
they may try to deceive themselves and others, all these men know
that what they do is contrary to everything they believe in, and in
the name of which they live, and in the depth of their hearts, when
they are left alone with their consciences, they think with shame
and pain of what they are doing, especially if the execrableness
of their activity has been pointed out to them. A man of our time,
whether he professes the divinity of Christ or not, cannot help but
know that to take part, whether as a king, a minister, a governor,
or a rural officer, in the sale of a poor family's last cow for
taxes, with which to pay for cannon or the salaries and pensions
of luxuriating, idle, and harmful officials; or to have a share in
putting the provider of a family into prison, because we ourselves
have corrupted him, and let his family go a-begging; or to take
part in the plunders and murders of war; or to help substitute
savage and idolatrous superstitions for Christ's law; or to detain
a trespassing cow of a man who has no land of his own; or to deduct
a sum from the wages of a factory hand for an article which he
accidentally ruined; or to extort a double price from a poor fellow,
only because he is in need,--a man of our time cannot help but know
that all these things are disgraceful and execrable, and that they
should not be done. They all know it: they know that what they do is
bad, and they would not be doing it under any consideration, if they
were able to withstand those forces which, closing their eyes to
the criminality of their acts, draw them on to committing them.

In nothing is the degree of the contradiction which the lives of
the men of our time have reached so striking, as in that phenomenon
which forms the last means and expression of violence,--in the
universal military service.

Only because this condition of universal arming and military
service has come step by step and imperceptibly, and because for
its maintenance the governments employ all means in their power for
intimidating, bribing, stupefying, and ravishing men, we do not see
the crying contradiction between this condition and those Christian
feelings and thoughts, with which all the men of our time are really
permeated.

This contradiction has become so habitual to us that we do not even
see all the terrifying senselessness and immorality of the acts, not
only of the men who voluntarily choose the profession of killing
as something honourable, but even of those unfortunate men who
agree to perform military duty, or even of those who in countries
where military service is not introduced, voluntarily give up
their labours to hire soldiers and prepare them to commit murder.
All these men, be they Christians or men who profess humanity and
liberalism, certainly know that, in committing these crimes, they
become the participants, and, in personal military service, the
actors, in the most senseless, aimless, cruel of murders, and yet
they commit them.

But more than this: in Germany, whence comes the universal military
service, Caprivi said openly, what before was carefully concealed,
that the men who had to be killed were not merely the foreigners,
but the working people, from whom come the majority of the soldiers.
And this confession did not open men's eyes, did not frighten them.
Even after this, as before, they continue to go like sheep to the
enlistment and to submit to everything demanded of them.

And this is not enough: lately the German Emperor stated more
definitely the significance and the calling of a soldier, when
distinguishing, thanking, and rewarding a soldier for having shot a
defenceless prisoner, who had attempted to run away. In thanking and
rewarding the man for an act which has always been regarded as the
lowest and basest by men who stand on the lowest stage of morality,
William showed that the chief duty of a soldier, the one most valued
by the authorities, consisted in being an executioner, not one like
the professional executioners, who kill only condemned criminals,
but one who kills all those innocent men whom he is ordered by his
superiors to kill.

But more than this: in 1891 this same William, the _enfant terrible_
of the political power, who expresses what others think, in speaking
with some soldiers, said the following in public, and the next day
thousands of newspapers reprinted these words:

"Recruits! In the sight of the altar and the servant of God you
swore allegiance to me. You are still too young to understand the
true meaning of everything which is said here, but see to this, that
you first of all follow the commands and instructions given you.
You have sworn allegiance to me; this, children of my guard, means
that you are now my soldiers, that you have surrendered your souls
and bodies to me. For you there now exists but one enemy, namely,
the one who is my enemy. With the present socialistic propaganda it
may happen that I will command you to shoot at your own relatives,
your brothers, even parents,--which God forfend,--and then you are
obliged without murmuring to do my commands."

This man expresses what all wise men know, but carefully conceal.
He says frankly that men who serve in the army serve him and his
advantage, and must be prepared for his advantage to kill their
brothers and fathers.

He expresses frankly and with the coarsest of words all the horror
of the crime for which the men who enter into military service are
prepared, all that abyss of degradation which they reach, when they
promise obedience. Like a bold hypnotizer, he tests the degree of
the hypnotized man's sleep: he puts the glowing iron to his body,
the body sizzles and smokes, but the hypnotized man does not wake.

This miserable, ill man, who has lost his mind from the exercise of
power, with these words offends everything which can be holy for a
man of our time, and men,--Christians, liberals, cultured men of our
time,--all of them, are not only not provoked by this insult, but
even do not notice it. The last, extreme trial, in its coarsest,
most glaring form, is offered to men, and men do not even seem to
notice that this is a trial, that they have a choice. It looks as
though it seemed to them that there was not even any choice, and
that there was but the one path of slavish obedience. One would
think that these senseless words, which offend everything which
a man of our time considers to be sacred, ought to have provoked
people, but nothing of the kind took place. All the young men of
all Europe are year after year subjected to this trial, and with
the rarest exceptions they all renounce everything which is and can
be sacred to a man, they all express their readiness to kill their
brothers, even their fathers, at the command of the first erring man
who is clad in a red livery embroidered with gold, and all they ask
is when and whom to kill. And they are ready.

Every savage has something sacred for which he is prepared to
suffer and for which he will make no concessions. But where is this
sacredness for a man of our time? He is told, "Go into slavery to
me, into a slavery in which you have to kill your own father," and
he, who very frequently is a learned man, who has studied all
the sciences in a university, submissively puts his neck into the
yoke. He is dressed up in a fool's attire, is commanded to jump,
to contort his body, to bow, to kill,--and he does everything
submissively. And when he is let out, he returns briskly to his
former life and continues to talk of man's dignity, liberty,
equality, and fraternity.

"Yes, but what is to be done?" people frequently ask, in sincere
perplexity. "If all should refuse, it would be well; otherwise I
alone shall suffer, and no one will be helped by it."

And, indeed, a man of the social concept of life cannot refuse. The
meaning of his life is the good of his personality. For the sake of
his personality it is better for him to submit, and he submits.

No matter what may be done to him, no matter how he may be tortured
and degraded, he will submit, because he can do nothing himself,
because he has not that foundation in the name of which he could
by himself withstand the violence; but those who govern men will
never give them a chance to unite. It is frequently said that the
invention of terrible implements of murder will abolish war and
that war will abolish itself. That is not true. As it is possible
to increase the means for the slaughter of men, so it is possible
to increase the means for subjugating the men of the social concept
of life. Let them be killed by the thousand, by the million, and be
torn to pieces,--they will none the less go to the slaughter like
senseless cattle, because they are driven with a goad; others will
go, because for this they will be permitted to put on ribbons and
galloons, and they will even be proud of it.

And it is in connection with such a contingent of men, who are so
stupefied that they promise to kill their parents, that the public
leaders--the conservatives, liberals, socialists, anarchists--talk
of building up a rational and moral society. What rational
and moral society can be built up with such men? Just as it is
impossible to build a house with rotten and crooked logs, no matter
how one may transpose them, so it is impossible with such people to
construct a rational and moral society. Such people can only form
a herd of animals which is directed by the shouts and goads of the
shepherds. And so it is.

And so, on the one hand, Christians by name, who profess liberty,
equality, and fraternity, are side by side with that prepared in the
name of liberty for the most slavish and degraded submission, in the
name of equality for the most glaring and senseless divisions of men
by external signs alone into superiors and inferiors, their allies
and their enemies, and in the name of fraternity for the murder of
these brothers.[14]

  [14] The fact that some nations, the English and the Americans, have
  not yet any universal military service (though voices in its favour
  are already heard), but only the enlistment and hire of soldiers,
  does in no way change the condition of slavery in which the citizens
  stand relative to the governments. Here everybody has to go himself
  to kill and be killed; there everybody has to give his labours for
  the hire and preparation of murderers.--_Author's Note._

The contradictions of consciousness and the resulting wretchedness
of life have reached the extremest point, beyond which it is
impossible to go. The life which is built up on the principles of
violence has reached the negation of those very principles in the
name of which it was built up. The establishment of society on the
principles of violence, which had for its aim the security of the
personal, domestic, and social good, has led men to a complete
negation and destruction of this good.

The first part of the prophecy has been fulfilled in respect to men
and their generations, who did not accept the teaching, and their
descendants have now been brought to the necessity of experiencing
the justice of its second part.


IX.

The condition of the Christian nations in our time has remained
as cruel as it was in the times of paganism. In many relations,
especially in the enslavement of men, it has become even more cruel
than in the times of paganism.

But between the condition of the men of that time and of our time
there is the same difference that there is for the plants between
the last days of autumn and the first days of spring. There, in
the autumnal Nature, the external lifelessness corresponds to the
internal condition of decay; but here, in the spring, the external
lifelessness is in the sharpest contradiction to the condition of
the internal restoration and the change to a new form of life.

The same is true of the external resemblance between the previous
pagan life and the present one: the external condition of men in the
times of paganism and in our time is quite different.

There the external condition of cruelty and slavery was in full
agreement with the internal consciousness of men, and every
forward movement increased this agreement; but here the external
condition of cruelty and slavery is in complete disagreement with
the Christian consciousness of men, and every forward step only
increases this disagreement.

What is taking place is, as it were, useless sufferings,--something
resembling childbirth. Everything is prepared for the new life, but
the life itself has not made its appearance.

The situation seems to be without an issue, and it would be so, if
the individual man, and so all men, were not given the possibility
of another, higher conception of life, which at once frees him from
all those fetters which, it seemed, bound him indissolubly.

Such is the Christian concept of life, which was pointed out to
humanity eighteen hundred years ago.

A man need only make this life-concept his own, in order that
the chains which seemed to have fettered him so indissolubly may
fall off of themselves, and that he may feel himself quite free,
something the way a bird would feel free when it expanded its wings
in a place which is fenced in all around.

People speak of the liberation of the Christian church from the
state, of granting or not granting liberty to Christians. In these
thoughts and expressions there is some terrible misconception.
Liberty cannot be granted to a Christian or to Christians, or taken
from them. Liberty is a Christian's inalienable property.

When people speak of granting liberty to Christians, or taking
it from them, it is evident that they are not speaking of real
Christians, but of men who call themselves Christians. A Christian
cannot be anything else but free, because the attainment of the end
which he has set before himself cannot be retarded or detained by
any one or anything.

A man need but understand his life as Christianity teaches him to
understand it, that is, understand that life does not belong to him,
his personality, or the family, or the state, but to Him who sent
him into this life; that, therefore, he must not fulfil the law of
his personality, his family, or the state, but the unlimited law of
Him from whom he has come, in order that he may feel himself quite
free from every human power and may even stop seeing this power as
something which may be oppressive for any one.

A man need but understand that the aim of his life is the
fulfilment of God's law, in order that this law, taking for him the
place of all other laws and subjugating him to itself, by this very
subjugation may deprive all the human laws in his eyes of all their
obligatoriness and oppression.

A Christian is freed from every human power in that he considers
for his life and for the lives of others the divine law of love,
which is implanted in the soul of every man and is brought into
consciousness by Christ, as the only guide of his life and of that
of other men.

A Christian may submit to external violence, may be deprived of his
bodily freedom, may not be free from his passions (he who commits a
sin is a slave of sin), but he cannot help but be free, in the sense
of not being compelled by some danger or external threat to commit
an act which is contrary to his consciousness.

He cannot be compelled to do this, because the privations and
sufferings which are produced by violence, and which form a mighty
tool against the men of the social concept of life, have no
compulsory force with him. The privations and sufferings which take
from the men of the social concept of life the good for which they
live, cannot impair the Christian's good, which consists in the
fulfilment of God's will; they can only strengthen him, when they
assail him in the performance of this will.

And so a Christian, in submitting to the internal, divine law,
cannot only not perform the prescription of the external law, when
it is not in accord with the divine law of love as recognized by
him, as is the case in the demands set forth by the government,
but cannot even recognize the obligation of obeying any one or
anything,--he cannot recognize what is called the subject's
allegiance. For a Christian the promise of allegiance to any
government--that very act which is regarded as the foundation of the
political life--is a direct renunciation of Christianity, because a
man who unconditionally promises in advance to submit to laws which
are made and will be made by men, by this very promise in a very
definite manner renounces Christianity, which consists in this, that
in all problems of life he is to submit only to the divine law of
love, of which he is conscious in himself.

It was possible with the pagan world-conception to promise to do
the will of the civil authorities, without violating the will of
God, which consisted in circumcision, the Sabbath, praying at set
times, abstaining from a certain kind of food, and so forth. One did
not contradict the other. But the Christian profession differs in
this very thing from the pagan, in that it does not demand of a man
certain external negative acts, but places him in another relation
to man from what he was in before, a relation from which may result
the most varied acts, which cannot be ascertained in advance, and
so a Christian cannot promise to do another person's will, without
knowing in what the demands of this will may consist, and cannot
obey the variable human laws; he cannot even promise to do anything
definite at a certain time or to abstain from anything at a certain
time, because he cannot know what at any time that Christian law of
love, the submission to which forms the meaning of his life, may
demand of him. In promising in advance unconditionally to fulfil the
laws of men, a Christian would by this very promise indicate that
the inner law of God does not form for him the only law of his life.

For a Christian to promise that he will obey men or human laws is
the same as for a labourer who has hired out to a master to promise
at the same time that he will do everything which other men may
command him to do. It is impossible to serve two masters.

A Christian frees himself from human power by recognizing over
himself nothing but God's power, the law of which, revealed to him
by Christ, he recognizes in himself, and to which alone he submits.

And this liberation is not accomplished by means of a struggle, not
by the destruction of existing forms of life, but only by means of
the changed comprehension of life. The liberation takes place in
consequence of this, in the first place, that a Christian recognizes
the law of love, which was revealed to him by his teacher, as
quite sufficient for human relations, and so regards all violence
as superfluous and illegal, and, in the second place, that those
privations, sufferings, threats of sufferings and privations, with
which the public man is brought to the necessity of obeying, present
themselves to a Christian, with his different concept of life, only
as inevitable conditions of existence, which he, without struggling
against them by exercising violence, bears patiently, like diseases,
hunger, and all other calamities, but which by no means can serve as
a guide for his acts. What serves as a guide for a Christian's acts
is only the divine principle that lives within him and that cannot
be oppressed or directed by anything.

A Christian acts according to the word of the prophecy applied to
his teacher, "He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man
hear His voice in the streets; a bruised reed shall He not break,
and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment
unto victory" (Matt. xii. 19-20).

A Christian does not quarrel with any one, does not attack any one,
nor use violence against one; on the contrary, he himself without
murmuring bears violence; but by this very relation to violence he
not only frees himself, but also the world from external power.

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free"
(John viii. 32). If there were any doubt as to Christianity being
truth, that complete freedom, which cannot be oppressed by anything,
and which a man experiences the moment he makes the Christian
life-conception his own, would be an undoubted proof of its truth.

In their present condition men are like bees which have just swarmed
and are hanging down a limb in a cluster. The position of the bees
on the limb is temporary, and must inevitably be changed. They
must rise and find a new home for themselves. Every one of the
bees knows that and wishes to change its position and that of the
others, but not one is able to do so before the others are going to
do so. They cannot rise all at once, because one hangs down from
the other, keeping it from separating itself from the swarm, and so
all continue to hang. It would seem that the bees could not get out
of this state, just as it seems to worldly men who are entangled in
the snare of the social world-conception. But there would be no way
out for the bees, if each of the bees were not separately a living
being, endowed with wings. So there would also be no way out for
men, if each of them were not a separate living being, endowed with
the ability of acquiring the Christian concept of life.

If every bee which can fly did not fly, the rest, too, would not
move, and the swarm would never change its position. And as one
bee need but open its wings, rise up, and fly away, and after it a
second, third, tenth, hundredth, in order that the immovable cluster
may become a freely flying swarm of bees, so one man need but
understand life as Christianity teaches him to understand it, and
begin to live accordingly, and a second, third, hundredth, to do so
after him, in order that the magic circle of the social life, from
which there seemed to be no way out, be destroyed.

But people think that the liberation of all men in this manner is
too slow, and that it is necessary to find and use another such
a means, so as to free all at once; something like what the bees
would do, if, wishing to rise and fly away, they should find that
it was too long for them to wait for the whole swarm to rise one
after another, and should try to find a way where every individual
bee would not have to unfold its wings and fly away, but the whole
swarm could fly at once wherever it wanted. But that is impossible:
so long as the first, second, third, hundredth bee does not unfold
its wings and fly, the swarm, too, will not fly away or find the new
life. So long as every individual man does not make the Christian
life-conception his own, and does not live in accordance with it,
the contradiction of the human life will not be solved and the new
form of life will not be established.

One of the striking phenomena of our time is that preaching of
slavery which is disseminated among the masses, not only by the
governments, which need it, but also by those men who, preaching
socialistic theories, imagine that they are the champions of liberty.

These people preach that the improvement of life, the bringing of
reality in agreement with consciousness, will not take place in
consequence of personal efforts of separate men, but of itself, in
consequence of a certain violent transformation of society, which
will be inaugurated by somebody. What is preached is that men do
not have to go with their own feet whither they want and have to
go, but that some kind of a floor will be put under their feet, so
that, without walking, they will get whither they have to go. And
so all their efforts must not be directed toward going according to
one's strength whither one has to go, but toward constructing this
imaginary floor while standing in one spot.

In the economic relation they preach a theory, the essence of which
consists in this, that the worse it is, the better it is, that the
more there shall be an accumulation of capital, and so an oppression
of the labourer, the nearer will the liberation be, and so every
personal effort of a man to free himself from the oppression of
capital is useless; in the relation of the state, they preach that
the greater the power of the state, which according to this theory
has to take in the still unoccupied field of the private life, the
better it will be, and that, therefore, the interference of the
governments in the private life has to be invoked; in the political
and international relations they preach that the increase of the
means of destruction, the increase of the armies, will lead to the
necessity of disarmament by means of congresses, arbitrations, and
so forth. And, strange to say, the obstinacy of men is so great that
they believe in these theories, although the whole course of life,
every step in advance, betrays its incorrectness.

Men suffer from oppression, and to save themselves from this
oppression, they are advised to invent common means for the
improvement of their situation, to be applied by the authorities,
while they themselves continue to submit to them. Obviously, nothing
results from it but a strengthening of the power, and consequently
the intensification of the oppression.

Not one of the errors of men removes them so much from the end which
they have set for themselves as this one. In order to attain the end
which they have set before themselves, men do all kinds of things,
only not the one, simple thing which all have to do. They invent
the most cunning of ways for changing the situation which oppresses
them, except the one, simple one that none of them should do that
which produces this situation.

I was told of an incident which happened with a brave rural judge
who, upon arriving at a village where the peasants had been riotous
and whither the army had been called out, undertook to settle the
riot in the spirit of Nicholas I., all by himself, through his
personal influence. He sent for several wagon-loads of switches,
and, collecting all the peasants in the corn-kiln, locked himself
up with them, and so intimidated the peasants with his shouts, that
they, obeying him, began at his command to flog one another. They
continued flogging one another until there was found a little fool
who did not submit and shouted to his companions to stop flogging
one another. It was only then that the flogging stopped, and the
rural judge ran away from the kiln. It is this advice of the fool
that the men of the social order do not know how to follow, for
they flog one another without cessation, and men teach this mutual
flogging as the last word of human wisdom.

Indeed, can we imagine a more striking example of how men flog
themselves than the humbleness with which the men of our time carry
out the very obligations which are imposed upon them and which lead
them into servitude, especially the military service? Men obviously
enslave themselves, suffer from this slavery, and believe that it
must be so, that it is all right and does not interfere with the
liberation of men, which is being prepared somewhere and somehow, in
spite of the ever increasing and increasing slavery.

Indeed, let us take a man of our time, whoever he be (I am not
speaking of a true Christian, but of a man of the rank and file of
our time), cultured or uncultured, a believer or unbeliever, rich
or poor, a man of a family or a single man. Such a man of our time
lives, doing his work or enjoying himself, employing the fruits of
his own labour or those of others for his own sake or for the sake
of those who are near to him, like any other man, despising all
kinds of oppressions and privations, hostility, and sufferings. The
man lives peacefully; suddenly people come to him, who say: "In the
first place, promise and swear to us that you will slavishly obey us
in everything which we shall prescribe to you, and that everything
we shall invent, determine, and call a law you will consider an
indubitable truth and will submit to; in the second place, give
part of your earnings into our keeping: we shall use this money for
keeping you in slavery and preventing you from forcibly opposing
our decrees; in the third place, choose yourself and others as
imaginary participants in the government, knowing full well that the
government will take place entirely independently of those stupid
speeches which you will utter to your like, and that it will take
place according to our will, in whose hands is the army; in the
fourth place, appear at a set time in court and take part in all
those senseless cruelties which we commit against the erring men,
whom we ourselves have corrupted, in the shape of imprisonments,
exiles, solitary confinements, and capital punishments. And finally,
in the fifth place, besides all this, though you may be in the
most friendly relations with people belonging to other nations, be
prepared at once, when we command you, to consider such of these
men as we shall point out to you your enemies, and to coöperate
personally or by hiring others in the ruin, pillage, and murder
of their men, women, children, old people, and, perhaps, your own
countrymen, even your parents, if we want it."

What could any man of our time who is not stupefied answer to such
demands?

"Why should I do all this?" every spiritually healthy man, we should
think, ought to say. "Why should I promise to do all that which I
am commanded to do, to-day by Salisbury, to-morrow by Gladstone,
to-day by Boulanger, to-morrow by a Chamber of just such Boulangers,
to-day by Peter III., to-morrow by Catherine, day after to-morrow
by Pugachév, to-day by the crazy King of Bavaria, to-morrow by
William? Why should I promise to obey them, since I know them to
be bad or trifling men, or do not know them at all? Why should I
in the shape of taxes give them the fruits of my labours, knowing
that the money will be used for bribing the officials, for prisons,
churches, armies, for bad things and my own enslavement? Why should
I flog myself? Why should I go, losing my time and pulling the
wool over my eyes, and ascribing to the violators a semblance of
legality, and take part in the government, when I know full well
that the government of the state is in the hands of those in whose
hands is the army? Why should I go into courts and take part in the
torture and punishments of men for having erred, since I know, if
I am a Christian, that the law of revenge has given way to the law
of love, and, if I am a cultured man, that punishments do not make
men who are subjected to them better, but worse? And why should I,
above all, simply because the keys of the temple at Jerusalem will
be in the hands of this bishop and not of that, because in Bulgaria
this and not that German will be prince, and because English and not
American merchants will catch seals, recognize as enemies the men of
a neighbouring nation, with whom I have heretofore lived at peace
and wish to live in love and concord, and why should I hire soldiers
or myself go and kill and destroy them, and myself be subjected to
their attack? And why, above all else, should I coöperate personally
or by the hiring of a military force in the enslavement and murder
of my own brothers and fathers? Why should I flog myself? All this
I do not need, and all this is harmful for me, and all this on all
sides of me is immoral, abominable. So why should I do it all? If
you tell me that without it I shall fare ill at somebody's hands,
I, in the first place, do not foresee anything so bad as that which
you cause me if I listen to you; in the second place, it is quite
clear to me that, if you do not flog yourself, nobody is going to
flog us. The government is the kings, the ministers, the officials
with their pens, who cannot compel me to do anything like what the
rural judge compelled the peasants to do: those who will take me
forcibly to court, to prison, to the execution are not the kings
and the officials with their pens, but those very people who are in
the same condition in which I am. It is just as useless and harmful
and disagreeable for them to be flogged as it is for me, and so in
all probability, if I open their eyes, they not only must do me no
violence, but must even do as I do.

"In the third place, even if it should happen that I must suffer for
it, it still is more advantageous for me to be exiled or shut up in
a prison, while defending common sense and the good, which shall
triumph, if not to-day, certainly to-morrow, or in a very short
time, than to suffer for a foolish thing and an evil, which sooner
or later must come to an end. And so it is even in this case more
advantageous for me to risk being deported, locked up in a prison,
or even executed, than through my own fault to pass my whole life
as a slave to other bad men, than to be ruined by an enemy making
an incursion and stupidly to be maimed or killed by him, while
defending a cannon, or a useless piece of land, or a stupid rag
which they call a flag.

"I do not want to flog myself, and I won't. There is no reason why I
should. Do it yourselves, if you are so minded, but I won't."

It would seem that not only the religious or moral feeling, but
the simplest reflection and calculation would make a man of our
time answer and act in this manner. But no: the men of the social
life-conception find that it is not right to act in this manner, and
that it is even harmful to act thus if we wish to obtain the end of
the liberation of men from slavery, and that it is necessary for
us, as in the case of the rural judge and the peasants, to continue
to flog one another, consoling ourselves with the thought that the
fact that we prattle in Chambers and assemblies, form labour-unions,
parade the streets on the first of May, form plots, and secretly
tease the government which flogs us,--that all this will have the
effect of freeing us very soon, though we are enslaving ourselves
more and more.

Nothing so much impedes the liberation of men as this remarkable
delusion. Instead of directing all his forces to the liberation of
himself, to the change of his world-conception, every man seeks for
an external aggregate means for freeing himself, and thus fetters
himself more and more.

It is as though men should affirm that, in order to fan a fire, it
is not necessary to make every coal catch fire, but to place the
coals in a certain order.

In the meantime it has been getting more and more obvious of late
that the liberation of all men will take place only through the
liberation of the individual men. The liberation of individual
persons in the name of the Christian life-conception from the
enslavement of the state, which used to be an exclusive and
imperceptible phenomenon, has of late received a significance which
is menacing to the power of state.

If formerly, in the days of Rome, in the Middle Ages, it happened
that a Christian, professing his teaching, refused to take part in
sacrifices, to worship the emperors and gods, or in the Middle Ages
refused to worship the images, to recognize the papal power, these
refusals were, in the first place, accidental; a man might have been
put to the necessity of professing his faith, and he might have
lived a life without being placed in this necessity. But now all
men without exception are subject to these trials. Every man of our
time is put to the necessity of recognizing his participation in the
cruelties of the pagan life, or rejecting it. And, in the second
place, in those days the refusals to worship the gods, the images,
the Pope, did not present any essential phenomena for the state: no
matter how many men worshipped the gods, the images, or the Pope,
the state remained as strong as ever. But now the refusal to comply
with the non-Christian demands of governments undermines the power
of state to the root, because all the power of the state is based on
these non-Christian demands.

The worldly powers were led by the course of life to the proposition
that for their own preservation they had to demand from all men
such acts as could not be performed by those who professed true
Christianity.

And so in our time every profession of true Christianity by a
separate individual most materially undermines the power of the
government and inevitably leads to the emancipation of all men.

What importance can there be in such phenomena as the refusals of
a few dozens of madmen, as they are called, who do not wish to
swear to the government, or pay taxes, or take part in courts and
military service? These men are punished and removed, and life
continues as of old. It would seem that there is nothing important
in these phenomena, and yet it is these very phenomena that more
than anything else undermine the power of the state and prepare the
emancipation of men. They are those individual bees which begin
to separate from the swarm and fly about, awaiting what cannot be
delayed,--the rising of the whole swarm after them. The governments
know this, and are afraid of these phenomena more than of all
socialists, communists, anarchists, and their plots with their
dynamite bombs.

A new reign begins: according to the general rule and customary
order all the subjects are ordered to swear allegiance to the new
government. A general order is sent out, and everybody is called
to the cathedral to swear. Suddenly one man in Perm, another in
Túla, a third in Moscow, a fourth in Kalúga declare that they will
not swear, and they base their refusal, every one of them, without
having plotted together, on one and the same reason, which is, that
the oath is prohibited by the Christian law, and that, even if it
were not prohibited, they could not, according to the spirit of the
Christian law, promise to commit the evil acts which are demanded of
them in the oath, such as denouncing all those who will violate the
interests of the government, defending their government with weapons
in their hands, or attacking its enemies. They are summoned before
the rural judges or chiefs, priests, or governors, are admonished,
implored, threatened, and punished, but they stick to their
determination and do not swear. Among millions of those who swear,
there are a few dozens who do not. And they are asked:

"So you have not sworn?"

"We have not."

"Well, nothing happened?"

"Nothing."

All the subjects of a state are obliged to pay taxes. And all pay;
but one man in Khárkov, another in Tver, a third in Samára, refuse
to pay their taxes, all of them repeating, as though by agreement,
one and the same thing. One says that he will pay only when he is
told what the money taken from him will be used for: if for good
things, he says, he will himself give more than is asked of him;
but if for bad things, he will not give anything voluntarily,
because, according to Christ's teaching, which he follows, he cannot
contribute to evil deeds. The same, though with different words, is
said by the others, who do not voluntarily pay their taxes. From
those who possess anything, the property is taken by force, but
those who have nothing to give are left alone.

"Well, you did not pay the taxes?"

"I did not."

"Well, and nothing happened to you?"

"Nothing."

Passports are established. All who remove themselves from their
place of abode are obliged to take them and pay a revenue for them.
Suddenly on all sides appear men who say that it is not necessary
to take passports and that it is not right to recognize one's
dependence on a government which lives by violence, and they take
no passports and pay no revenue. Again it is impossible to make
these people carry out what is demanded of them. They are locked
up in prisons and let out again, and they continue to live without
passports.

All the peasants are obliged to serve as hundred-men, ten-men, and
so forth. Suddenly a peasant refuses in Khárkov to perform this
office, explaining his refusal by this, that, according to the
Christian law which he professes, he cannot bind, lock up, and lead
a man from one place to another. The same is asserted by a peasant
in Tver, in Támbov. The peasants are cursed, beaten, locked up, but
they stick to their determination and do not do what is contrary to
their faith. And they are no longer chosen as hundred-men, and that
is the end of it.

All the citizens must take part in court proceedings in the capacity
of jurymen. Suddenly the greatest variety of men, wheelwrights,
professors, merchants, peasants, gentlemen, as though by agreement,
all refuse to serve, not for causes which are recognized by the law,
but because the court itself, according to their conviction, is an
illegal, non-Christian thing, which ought not to exist. These men
are fined, without being allowed publicly to express the motives of
their refusal, and others are put in their places. The same is done
to those who on the same grounds refuse to be witnesses at court.
And nothing more happens.

All men of twenty-one years of age are obliged to draw lots.
Suddenly one young man in Moscow, another in Tver, a third in
Khárkov, a fourth in Kiev, appear, as though by previous agreement,
in court, and declare that they will neither swear nor serve,
because they are Christians. Here are the details of one of the
first cases (since then these refusals have become more and more
frequent), with which I am acquainted.[15] In all the other cases
approximately the same was done. A young man of medium culture
refuses in the Moscow Council to serve. No attention is paid to his
words, and he is ordered to pronounce the words of the oath, just
like the rest. He refuses, pointing out the definite place in the
Gospel where taking an oath is prohibited. No attention is paid to
his arguments, and they demand that he fulfil their command, but
he does not do so. Then it is assumed that he is a sectarian and
so understands Christianity incorrectly, that is, not in the way
the clergy in the government pay understand it, and so the young
man is sent under convoy to the priests, to be admonished. The
priests begin to admonish the young man, but their admonitions in
the name of Christ to renounce Christ have apparently no effect
upon the young man, and he is sent back to the army, having been
declared incorrigible. The young man still refuses to take the oath
and openly declines to fulfil his military duties. This case is
not provided for in the laws. It is impossible to admit a refusal
to do the will of the authorities, and it is equally impossible to
rate this as a case of simple disobedience. In a consultation the
military authorities determine to get rid of the troublesome young
man by declaring him to be a revolutionist, and send him under guard
into the office of the secret police. The police and the gendarmes
examine the young man, but nothing of what he says fits in with the
crimes dealt with in their departments, and there is absolutely no
way of accusing him of revolutionary acts, or of plotting, since
he declares that he does not wish to destroy anything, but, on the
contrary, rejects all violence, and conceals nothing, but seeks
an opportunity for saying and doing in a most open manner what he
says and does. And the gendarmes, though no laws are binding on
them, like the clergy, find no cause for an accusation and return
the young man to the army. Again the chiefs confer and decide to
enlist the young man in the army, though he refuses to take the
oath. He is dressed up, entered on the lists, and sent under guard
to the place where the troops are distributed. Here the chief of
the section into which he enters again demands of the young man the
fulfilment of military duties, and he again refuses to obey, and
in the presence of other soldiers gives the cause for his refusal,
saying that, as a Christian, he cannot voluntarily prepare himself
to commit murder, which was prohibited even by the laws of Moses.

  [15] All the details of this and the preceding cases are
  authentic.--_Author's Note._

The case takes place in a provincial city. It evokes interest and
even sympathy, not only among outsiders, but also among officers,
and so the superiors do not dare to apply the usual disciplinary
measures for a refusal to serve. However, for decency's sake the
young man is locked up in prison, and an inquiry is sent to the
higher military authority, requesting it to say what is to be done.
From the official point of view a refusal to take part in military
service, in which the Tsar himself serves and which is blessed by
the church, presents itself as madness, and so they write from St.
Petersburg that, since the young man is, no doubt, out of his mind,
no severe measures are to be used against him, but he is to be sent
to an insane asylum, where his mental health is to be investigated
and he is to be cured. He is sent there in the hope that he will
stay there, just as happened ten years before with another young
man, who in Tver refused to do military service and who was tortured
in an insane asylum until he gave in. But even this measure does not
save the military authorities from the inconvenient young man. The
doctors examine him, are very much interested in him, and, finding
in him no symptoms whatever of any mental trouble, naturally return
him to the army. He is received, and, pretending that his refusal
and motives are forgotten, they again propose to him that he go to
the exercises; but he again, in the presence of other soldiers,
refuses, and gives the cause for his refusal. This case more and
more attracts the attention of the soldiers and the inhabitants of
the town. Again they write to St. Petersburg, and from there comes
the decision that the young man be transferred to the army at the
frontier, where it is in a state of siege, and where he may be shot
for refusing to serve, and where the matter may pass unnoticed,
since in that distant country there are few Russians and Christians,
and mostly natives and Mohammedans. And so they do. The young man
is attached to the troops located in the Transcaspian Territory,
and with criminals he is despatched to a chief who is known for his
determination and severity.

During all this time, with all these transportations from one place
to another, the young man is treated rudely: he is kept cold,
hungry, and dirty, and his life in general is made a burden for him.
But all these tortures do not make him change his determination. In
the Transcaspian Territory, when told to stand sentry with his gun,
he again refuses to obey. He does not refuse to go and stand near
some haystacks, whither he is sent, but he refuses to take his gun,
declaring that under no condition would he use violence against any
one. All this takes place in the presence of other soldiers. It is
impossible to let such a case go unpunished, and the young man is
tried for violation of discipline. The trial takes place, and the
young man is sentenced to incarceration in a military prison for
two years. He is again sent by étapes with other criminals to the
Caucasus and is shut up in a prison, where he falls a prey to the
uncontrolled power of the jailer. There he is tormented for one year
and six months, but he still refuses to change his decision about
taking up arms, and he explains to all those with whom he comes in
contact why he does not do so, and at the end of his second year
he is discharged before the expiration of his term, by counting,
contrary to the law, his time in prison as part of his service, only
to get rid of him as quickly as possible.

Just like this man, as though having plotted together, act other men
in various parts of Russia, and in all those cases the mode of the
government's action is as timid, indefinite, and secretive. Some of
these men are sent to insane asylums, others are enlisted as scribes
and are transferred to service in Siberia, others are made to serve
in the forestry department, others are locked up in prisons, and
others are fined. Even now a few such men who have refused are
sitting in prisons, not for the essential point in the case, the
rejection of the legality of the government's action, but for the
non-fulfilment of the private demands of the government. Thus an
officer of the reserve, who did not keep the authorities informed
of his residence and who declared that he would not again serve as
a military man, was lately, for not fulfilling the commands of the
authorities, fined thirty roubles, which, too, he refused to pay
voluntarily. Thus several peasants and soldiers, who lately refused
to take part in military exercises and take up arms, were locked up
for disobedience and contempt.

And such cases of refusing to comply with the government demands
which are contrary to Christianity, especially refusals to do
military service, have of late occurred not in Russia alone, but
even elsewhere. Thus, I know that in Servia men of the so-called
sect of Nazarenes constantly refuse to do military service, and the
Austrian government has for several years been vainly struggling
with them, subjecting them to imprisonment. In the year 1885 there
were 130 such refusals. In Switzerland, I know men were incarcerated
in the Chillon Fortress in the year 1890 for refusing to do military
service, and they did not change their determination in consequence
of their imprisonment. Such refusals have also happened in Prussia.
I know of an under-officer of the Guard, who in 1891 declared to the
authorities in Berlin that as a Christian he would not continue to
serve, and, in spite of all admonitions, threats, and punishments,
he stuck to his decision. In France there has of late arisen in the
south a community of men, who bear the name of Hinschists (this
information is received from the _Peace Herald_, July, 1891), the
members of which on the basis of the Christian profession refuse to
do military service, and at first were inscribed in hospitals, but
now, having increased in numbers, are subjected to punishments for
disobedience, but still refuse to take up arms.

The socialists, communists, anarchists, with their bombs, riots,
and revolutions, are by no means so terrible to the governments
as these scattered people, who from various sides refuse to do
military service,--all of them on the basis of the same well-known
teaching. Every government knows how and why to defend itself
against revolutionists, and they have means for it, and so are not
afraid of these external enemies. But what are the governments to do
against those men who point out the uselessness, superfluity, and
harmfulness of all governments, and do not struggle with them, but
only have no use for them, get along without them, and do not wish
to take part in them?

The revolutionists say, "The governmental structure is bad for this
and that reason,--it is necessary to put this or that in its place."
But a Christian says, "I know nothing of the governmental structure,
about its being good or bad, and do not wish to destroy it for the
very reason that I do not know whether it is good or bad, but for
the same reason I do not wish to sustain it. I not only do not
wish to, but even cannot do so, because what is demanded of me is
contrary to my conscience."

What is contrary to a Christian's conscience is all obligations of
state,--the oath, the taxes, the courts, the army. But on all these
obligations the state is founded.

The revolutionary enemies struggle with the state from without; but
Christianity does not struggle at all,--it inwardly destroys all the
foundations of government.

Among the Russian people, where, especially since the time of Peter
I., the protest of Christianity against the government has never
ceased, where the structure of life is such that men have gone
away by whole communities to Turkey, to China, to uninhabitable
lands, and not only are in no need of the government, but always
look upon it as an unnecessary burden, and only bear it as a
calamity, be it Turkish, Russian, or Chinese,--among the Russian
people there have of late been occurring more and more frequently
cases of the Christian conscious emancipation of separate
individuals from submission to the government. And now especially
these manifestations are very terrible to the government, because
those who refuse frequently do not belong to the so-called lower
uncultured classes, but to the people with a medium or higher
education, and because these men no longer base their refusals on
some mystical exclusive beliefs, as was the case formerly, nor
connect them with some superstition or savage practices, as is the
case with the Self-Consumers and Runners, but put forth the simplest
and clearest truths, which are accessible to all men and recognized
by them all.

Thus they refuse to pay their taxes voluntarily, because the taxes
are used for acts of violence, for salaries to violators and
military men, for the construction of prisons, fortresses, cannon,
while they, as Christians, consider it sinful and immoral to take
part in these things. Those who refuse to take the common oath
do so because to promise to obey the authorities, that is, men
who are given to acts of violence, is contrary to the Christian
teaching; they refuse to take their oath in courts, because the
oath is directly forbidden in the Gospel. They decline to serve
in the police, because in connection with these duties they
have to use force against their own brothers and torment them,
whereas a Christian may not do so. They decline to take part in
court proceedings, because they consider every court proceeding a
fulfilment of the law of revenge, which is incompatible with the
Christian law of forgiveness and love. They decline to take part
in all military preparations and in the army, because they do not
wish to be and cannot be executioners, and do not want to prepare
themselves for the office of executioner.

All the motives of these refusals are such that, no matter how
despotic a government may be, it cannot punish them openly.
To punish them for such refusals, a government must itself
irretrievably renounce reason and the good; whereas it assures men
that it serves only in the name of reason and of the good.

What are the governments to do against these men?

Indeed, the governments can kill off, for ever shut up in prisons
and at hard labour their enemies, who wish by the exercise of
violence to overthrow them; they can bury in gold half of the
men, such as they may need, and bribe them; they can subject to
themselves millions of armed men, who will be ready to destroy all
the enemies of the governments. But what can they do with men who,
not wishing to destroy anything, nor to establish anything, wish
only for their own sakes, for the sake of their lives, to do nothing
which is contrary to the Christian law, and so refuse to fulfil
the most common obligations, which are most indispensable to the
governments?

If they were revolutionists, who preach violence and murder, and
who practise all these things, it would be easy to oppose them:
part of them would be bribed, part deceived, part frightened into
subjection; and those who could not be bribed, or deceived, or
frightened, would be declared malefactors and enemies of society,
would be executed or locked up, and the crowd would applaud the
action of the government. If they were some horrible sectarians who
preached a peculiar faith, it would be possible, thanks to those
superstitions of falsehood, which by them are mixed in with their
doctrine, to overthrow whatever truth there is in their faith. But
what is to be done with men who preach neither revolution, nor any
special religious dogmas, but only, because they do not wish to harm
any one, refuse to take the oath of allegiance, to pay taxes, to
take part in court proceedings, in military service, and in duties
on which the whole structure of the government is based? What is
to be done with such men? It is impossible to bribe them: the very
risk which they take shows their unselfishness. Nor can they be
deceived by claiming that God wants it so, because their refusal
is based on the explicit, undoubted law of God, which is professed
by the very men who wish to make them act contrary to it. Still
less is it possible to intimidate them with threats, because the
privations and sufferings to which they are subjected for their
faith only strengthen their desire, and because it says distinctly
in their law that God must be obeyed more than men, and that they
should not fear those who may ruin their bodies, but that which may
ruin both their bodies and their souls. Nor can they be executed or
locked up for ever. These men have a past, and friends, and their
manner of thinking and acting is known; all know them as meek, good,
peaceful men, and it is impossible to declare them to be malefactors
who ought to be removed for the safety of society. The execution of
men who by all men are recognized to be good will only call forth
defenders of the refusal and commentators on it; and the causes of
the refusal need but be made clear, in order that it may become
clear to all men that the causes which make these Christians refuse
to comply with the demands of the state are the same for all other
men, and that all men ought to have done so long ago.

In the presence of the refusals of the Christians the governments
are in a desperate plight. They see that the prophecy of
Christianity is being fulfilled,--it tears asunder the fetters of
the fettered and sets free the men who lived in slavery, and they
see that this liberation will inevitably destroy those who keep
others in slavery. The governments see this; they know that their
hours are numbered, and are unable to do anything. All they can do
for their salvation is to defer the hour of their ruin. This they
do, but their situation is none the less desperate.

The situation of the governments is like the situation of a
conqueror who wants to save the city that is fired by its own
inhabitants. He no sooner puts out the fire in one place than it
begins to burn in two other places; he no sooner gives way to the
fire and breaks off what is burning in a large building, than even
this building begins to burn from two sides. These individual fires
are still rare, but having started with a spark, they will not stop
until everything is consumed.

And just as the governments find themselves in such unprotected
straits in the presence of men who profess Christianity, and when
but very little is wanting for this force, which seems so powerful
and which was reared through so many centuries, to fall to pieces,
the public leaders preach that it is not only unnecessary, but even
harmful and immoral, for every individual to try and free himself
from slavery. It is as though some people, to free a dammed up
river, should have all but cut through a ditch, when nothing but an
opening is necessary for the water to flow into this ditch and do
the rest, and there should appear some people who would persuade
them that, rather than let off the water, they should construct
above the river a machine with buckets, which, drawing the water up
on one side, would drop it into the same river from the other side.

But the matter has gone too far: the governments feel their
indefensibleness and weakness, and the men of the Christian
consciousness are awakening from their lethargy and are beginning to
feel their strength.

"I brought the fire upon earth," said Christ, "and how I long for it
to burn up!"

And this fire is beginning to burn up.


X.

Christianity in its true meaning destroys the state. Thus it was
understood from the very beginning, and Christ was crucified for
this very reason, and thus it has always been understood by men who
are not fettered by the necessity of proving the justification of
the Christian state. Only when the heads of the states accepted the
external nominal Christianity did they begin to invent all those
impossible finely spun theories, according to which Christianity was
compatible with the state. But for every sincere and serious man of
our time it is quite obvious that true Christianity--the teaching of
humility, of forgiveness of offences, of love--is incompatible with
the state, with its magnificence, its violence, its executions, and
its wars. The profession of true Christianity not only excludes the
possibility of recognizing the state, but even destroys its very
foundations.

But if this is so, and it is true that Christianity is incompatible
with the state, there naturally arises the question: "What is more
necessary for the good of humanity, what more permanently secures
the good of men, the political form of life, or its destruction and
the substitution of Christianity in its place?"

Some men say that the state is most necessary for humanity, that
the destruction of the political form would lead to the destruction
of everything worked out by humanity, that the state has been and
continues to be the only form of the development of humanity, and
that all that evil which we see among the nations who live in the
political form is not due to this form, but to the abuses, which
can be mended without destruction, and that humanity, without
impairing the political form, can develop and reach a high degree
of well-being. And the men who think so adduce in confirmation of
their opinion philosophic, historic, and even religious arguments,
which to them seem incontrovertible. But there are men who assume
the opposite, namely, that, as there was a time when humanity
lived without a political form, this form is only temporary, and
the time must arrive when men shall need a new form, and that this
time has arrived even now. And the men who think so also adduce
in confirmation of their opinion philosophic, and historic, and
religious arguments, which also seem incontrovertible to them.

It is possible to write volumes in the defence of the first opinion
(they have been written long ago, and there is still no end to
them), and there can be written much against it (though but lately
begun, many a brilliant thing has been written against it).

It is impossible to prove, as the defenders of the state claim, that
the destruction of the state will lead to a social chaos, mutual
rapine, murder, and the destruction of all public institutions, and
the return of humanity to barbarism; nor can it be proved, as the
opponents of the state claim, that men have already become so wise
and good that they do not rob or kill one another, that they prefer
peace to hostility, that they will themselves without the aid of the
state arrange everything they need, and that therefore the state
not only does not contribute to all this, but, on the contrary,
under the guise of defending men, exerts a harmful and bestializing
influence upon them. It is impossible to prove either the one or
the other by means of abstract reflections. Still less can it be
proved by experience, since the question consists in this, whether
the experiment is to be made or not. The question as to whether the
time has come for abolishing the state, or not, would be insoluble,
if there did not exist another vital method for an incontestable
solution of the same.

Quite independently of anybody's reflections as to whether the
chicks are sufficiently matured for him to drive the hen away from
the nest and let the chicks out of their eggs, or whether they are
not yet sufficiently matured, the incontestable judges of the case
will be the chicks themselves, when, unable to find enough room in
their eggs, they will begin to pick them with their bills, and will
themselves come out of them.

The same is true of the question whether the time for destroying the
political form and for substituting another form has come, or not.
If a man, in consequence of the higher consciousness matured in him,
is no longer able to comply with the demands of the state, no longer
finds room in it, and at the same time no longer is in need of the
preservation of the political form, the question as to whether
men have matured for the change of the political form, or not, is
decided from an entirely different side, and just as incontestably
as for the chick that has picked its shell, into which no power
in the world can again return it, by the men themselves who have
outgrown the state and who cannot be returned to it by any power in
the world.

"It is very likely that the state was necessary and even now is
necessary for all those purposes which you ascribe to it," says the
man who has made the Christian life-conception his own, "but all I
know is that, on the one hand, I no longer need the state, and, on
the other, I can no longer perform those acts which are necessary
for the existence of the state. Arrange for yourselves what you need
for your lives: I cannot prove either the common necessity, or the
common harm of the state; all I know is what I need and what not,
what I may do and what not. I know for myself that I do not need any
separation from the other nations, and so I cannot recognize my
exclusive belonging to some one nation or state, and my subjection
to any government; I know in my own case that I do not need all
those government offices and courts, which are the product of
violence, and so I cannot take part in any of them; I know in my own
case that I do not need to attack other nations and kill them, nor
defend myself by taking up arms, and so I cannot take part in wars
and in preparations for them. It is very likely that there are some
people who cannot regard all that as necessary and indispensable. I
cannot dispute with them,--all I know concerning myself, but that
I know incontestably, is that I do not need it all and am not able
to do it. I do not need it, and I cannot do it, not because I, my
personality, do not want it, but because He who has sent me into
life, and has given me the incontestable law for guidance in my
life, does not want it."

No matter what arguments men may adduce in proof of the danger
of abolishing the power of the state and that this abolition may
beget calamities, the men who have outgrown the political form can
no longer find their place in it. And, no matter what arguments
may be adduced to a man who has outgrown the political form, about
its indispensableness, he cannot return to it, cannot take part
in the affairs which are denied by his consciousness, just as the
full-grown chicks can no longer return into the shell which they
have outgrown.

"But even if this is so," say the defenders of the existing order,
"the abolition of the violence of state would be possible and
desirable only if all men became Christians. So long as this is not
the case, so long as among men who only call themselves Christians
there are men who are no Christians, evil men, who for the sake
of their personal lust are prepared to do harm to others, the
abolition of the power of state would not only fail to be a good
for all the rest, but would even increase their wretchedness. The
abolition of the political form of life is undesirable, not only
when there is a small proportion of true Christians, but even when
all shall be Christians, while in their midst or all about them,
among other nations, there shall remain non-Christians, because the
non-Christians will with impunity rob, violate, kill the Christians
and make their life miserable. What will happen will be that the
evil men will with impunity rule the good and do violence to them.
And so the power of state must not be abolished until all the bad,
rapacious men in the world are destroyed. And as this will not
happen for a long time to come, if at all, this power, in spite of
the attempts of individual Christians at emancipating themselves
from the power of state, must be maintained for the sake of the
majority of men." Thus speak the defenders of the state. "Without
the state the evil men do violence to the good and rule over them,
but the power of state makes it possible for the good to keep the
evil in check," they say.

But, in asserting this, the defenders of the existing order of
things decide in advance the justice of the position which it is
for them to prove. In saying that without the power of state the
evil men would rule over the good, they take it for granted that
the good are precisely those who at the present time have power,
and the bad the same who are now subjugated. But it is precisely
this that has to be proved. This would be true only if in our world
took place what really does not take place, but is supposed to take
place, in China, namely, that the good are always in power, and
that, as soon as at the helm of the government stand men who are
not better than those over whom they rule, the citizens are obliged
to depose them. Thus it is supposed to be in China, but in reality
this is not so, and cannot be so, because, in order to overthrow
the power of the violating government, it is not enough to have the
right to do so,--one must also have the force. Consequently this
is only assumed to be so even in China; but in our Christian world
this has never even been assumed. In our world there is not even any
foundation for assuming that better men or the best should rule, and
not those who have seized the power and retain it for themselves and
for their descendants. Better men are absolutely unable to seize the
power and to retain it.

In order to get the power and retain it, it is necessary to love
power; but love of power is not connected with goodness, but with
qualities which are the opposite of goodness, such as pride,
cunning, cruelty.

Without self-aggrandizement and debasement of others, without
hypocrisy, deceit, prisons, fortresses, executions, murders, a power
can neither arise nor maintain itself.

"If the power of state be abolished, the more evil men will rule
over the less evil ones," say the defenders of the state. But if
the Egyptians subjugated the Jews, the Persians the Egyptians, the
Macedonians the Persians, the Romans the Greeks, the barbarians
the Romans, is it possible that all those who have subjugated were
better than those whom they subjugated?

And similarly, in the transference of the power in one state from
one set of persons to another, has the power always passed into the
hands of those who were better? When Louis XVI. was deposed, and
Robespierre and later Napoleon ruled, who did rule? Better or worse
men? And when did better men rule, when men from Versailles or from
the Commune were in power? or when Charles I. or Cromwell was at the
head of the government? or when Peter III. was Tsar or when he was
killed, and the sovereign was Catherine for one part of Russia and
Pugachév for the other? Who was then evil and who good?

All men in power assert that their power is necessary in order that
the evil men may not do violence to the good, meaning by this that
they are those same good men, who protect others against the evil
men.

But to rule means to do violence, and to do violence means to do
what the other man, on whom the violence is exerted, does not wish
to have done to him, and what, no doubt, he who exerts the violence
would not wish to have done to himself; consequently, to rule means
to do to another what we do not wish to have done to ourselves, that
is, to do evil.

To submit means to prefer suffering to violence. But to prefer
suffering to violence means to be good, or at least less evil than
those who do to another what they do not wish to have done to
themselves.

And so all the probabilities are in favour of the fact that not
those who are better than those over whom they rule, but, on the
contrary, those who are worse, have always been and even now are in
power. There may also be worse men among those who submit to the
power, but it cannot be that better men should rule over worse men.

This was impossible to assume in case of the pagan inexact
definition of goodness; but with the Christian lucid and exact
definition of goodness and evil, it is impossible to think so. If
more or less good men, more or less bad men, cannot be distinguished
in the pagan world, the Christian conception of good and evil has
so clearly defined the symptoms of the good and the evil, that they
can no longer be mistaken. According to Christ's teaching the good
are those who humble themselves, suffer, do not resist evil with
force, forgive offences, love their enemies; the evil are those who
exalt themselves, rule, struggle, and do violence to people, and
so, according to Christ's teaching, there is no doubt as to where
the good are among the ruling and the subjugated. It even sounds
ridiculous to speak of ruling Christians.

The non-Christians, that is, those who base their lives on the
worldly good, must always rule over Christians, over those who
assume that their lives consist in the renunciation of this good.

Thus it has always been and it has become more and more definite,
in proportion as the Christian teaching has been disseminated and
elucidated.

The more the true Christianity spread and entered into the
consciousness of men, the less it was possible for Christians to be
among the rulers, and the easier it grew for non-Christians to rule
over Christians.

"The abolition of the violence of state at a time when not all men
in society have become true Christians would have this effect, that
the bad would rule over the good and would with impunity do violence
to them," say the defenders of the existing order of life.

"The bad will rule over the good and will do violence to them."

But it has never been different, and it never can be. Thus it has
always been since the beginning of the world, and thus it is now.
The bad always rule over the good and always do violence to them.
Cain did violence to Abel, cunning Jacob to trustful Esau, deceitful
Laban to Jacob; Caiaphas and Pilate ruled over Christ, the Roman
emperors ruled over a Seneca, an Epictetus, and good Romans who
lived in their time. John IV. with his opríchniks, the drunken
syphilitic Peter with his fools, the harlot Catherine with her
lovers, ruled over the industrious religious Russians of their time
and did violence to them. William rules over the Germans, Stambulov
over the Bulgarians, Russian officials over the Russian people. The
Germans ruled over the Italians, now they rule over Hungarians and
Slavs; the Turks have ruled over Greeks and Slavs; the English rule
over Hindoos; the Mongolians rule over the Chinese.

Thus, whether the political violence be abolished or not, the
condition of the good men who are violated by the bad will not be
changed thereby.

It is absolutely impossible to frighten men with this, that the bad
will rule over the good, because what they are frightened with is
precisely what has always been and cannot be otherwise.

The whole pagan history of humanity consists of only those cases
when the worse seized the power over the less bad, and, having
seized it, maintained it by cruelties and cunning, and, proclaiming
themselves as guardians of justice and defenders of the good against
the bad, ruled over the good. As to the rulers' saying that, if it
were not for their power, the worse would do violence to the good,
it means only this, that the violators in power do not wish to cede
this power to other violators, who may wish to take it from them.
But, in saying this, the rulers only give themselves away. They say
that their power, that is, violence, is necessary for the defence of
men against some other violators, or such as may still appear.[16]

  [16] Comically striking in this respect is the naïve assertion of
  the Russian authorities in doing violence to other nationalities,
  the Poles, Baltic Germans, Jews. The Russian government practises
  extortion on its subjects, for centuries has not troubled itself
  about the Little Russians in Poland, nor about the Letts in the
  Baltic provinces, nor about the Russian peasants who have been
  exploited by all manner of men, and suddenly it becomes a defender
  of the oppressed against the oppressors, those very oppressors whom
  it oppresses.--_Author's Note._

The exercise of violence is dangerous for the very reason that, as
soon as it is exercised, all the arguments adduced by the violators
can, not only with the same, but even with greater force, be applied
against them. They speak of the past, and more frequently of the
imaginary future of violence, but themselves without cessation
commit acts of violence. "You say that men used to rob and kill
others, and you are afraid that men will rob and kill one another,
if your power does not exist. That may be so or not, but your
ruining thousands of men in prisons, at hard labour, in fortresses,
in exile; your ruining millions of families with your militarism,
and destroying millions of people physically and morally, is not
imaginary, but real violence, against which, according to your
own statement, people ought to fight by exercising violence.
Consequently, those evil men, against whom, according to your own
reflection, it is absolutely necessary to exercise violence, are you
yourselves," is what the violated ought to say to the violators, and
the non-Christians have always spoken and thought and acted in this
manner. If the violated are worse than those who exercise violence,
they attack them and try to overthrow them, and, under favourable
conditions, do overthrow them, or, what is most usual, enter the
ranks of the violators and take part in their acts of violence.

Thus the very thing with which the defenders of the state frighten
men, that, if there did not exist a violating power, the bad
would be ruling over the good, is what without cessation has been
accomplished in the life of humanity, and so the abolition of
political violence can in no case be the cause of the increase of
the violence of the bad over the good.

When the violence of the government is destroyed, acts of violence
will, probably, be committed by other men than before; but the sum
of the violence will in no case be increased, simply because the
power will pass from the hands of one set of men into those of
another.

"The violence of state will be stopped only when the bad men in
society shall be destroyed," say the defenders of the existing
order, meaning by this that, since there will always be bad men,
violence will never come to a stop. That would be true only if what
they assume actually existed, namely, that the violators are better,
and that the only means for the emancipation of men from evil is
violence. In that case violence could, indeed, never be stopped.
But as this is not the case, and the very opposite is true, namely,
that it is not the better men who exercise violence against the
bad, but the bad who do violence to the good, and that outside of
violence, which never puts a stop to evil, there is another means
for the abolition of violence, the assertion that violence will
never stop is not correct. Violence grows less and less, and must
evidently stop, but not, as the defenders of the existing order
imagine, because men who are subject to violence will in consequence
of the influence exerted upon them by the governments become better
and better (in consequence of this they will, on the contrary,
always become worse), but because, since all men are constantly
growing better and better, even the worst men in power, growing less
and less evil, will become sufficiently good to be incapable of
exercising violence.

The forward movement of humanity takes place, not in this way, that
the best elements of society, seizing the power and using violence
against those men who are in their power, make them better, as the
conservatives and revolutionists think, but, in the first and chief
place, in that all men in general unswervingly and without cessation
more and more consciously acquire the Christian life-conception, and
in the second place, in that, even independently of the conscious
spiritual activity of men, men unconsciously, in consequence of the
very process of seizure of power by one set of men and transference
to another set, and involuntarily are brought to a more Christian
relation to life. This process takes place in the following manner:
the worst elements of society, having seized the power and being in
possession of it, under the influence of the sobering quality which
always accompanies it, become less and less cruel and less able to
make use of the cruel forms of violence, and, in consequence of
this, give place to others, in whom again goes on the process of
softening and, so to speak, unconscious Christianization.

What takes place in men is something like the process of boiling.
All the men of the majority of the non-Christian life-conception
strive after power and struggle to obtain it. In this struggle the
most cruel and coarse, and the least Christian elements of society,
by doing violence to the meeker, more Christian people, who are more
sensible to the good, rise to the higher strata of society. And
here with the men in this condition there takes place what Christ
predicted, saying: "Woe unto you that are rich, that are full now,
and when all are glorified." What happens is that men in power,
who are in possession of the consequences of power,--of glory and
wealth,--having reached certain different aims, which they have set
to themselves in their desires, recognize their vanity and return to
the position which they left. Charles V., John IV., Alexander I.,
having recognized all the vanity and evil of power, renounced it,
because they saw all its evil and were no longer able calmly to make
use of violence as of a good deed, as they had done before.

But it is not only a Charles and an Alexander who travel on this
road and recognize the vanity and evil of power: through this
unconscious process of softening of manners passes every man who has
acquired the power toward which he has been striving, not only every
minister, general, millionaire, merchant, but also every head of an
office, who has obtained the place he has been ten years waiting
for, every well-to-do peasant, who has laid by a hundred or two
hundred roubles.

Through this process pass not only separate individuals, but also
aggregates of men, whole nations.

The temptations of power and of everything which it gives, of
wealth, honours, luxurious life, present themselves as a worthy aim
for the activity of men only so long as the power is not attained;
but the moment a man attains it, they reveal their emptiness and
slowly lose their force of attraction, like clouds, which have form
and beauty only from a distance: one needs but enter them, in order
that that which seemed beautiful in them should disappear.

Men who have attained power and wealth, frequently the very men who
have gained them, more frequently their descendants, stop being so
anxious for power and so cruel in attaining it.

Having through experience, under the influence of Christianity,
learned the vanity of the fruits of violence, men, at times in
one, at others in a few generations, lose those vices which are
evoked by the passion for power and wealth, and, becoming less
cruel, do not hold their position, and are pushed out of power
by other, less Christian, more evil men, and return to strata of
society lower in position, but higher in morality, increasing the
average of the Christian consciousness of all men. But immediately
after them other, worse, coarser, less Christian elements of
society rise to the top, again are subjected to the same process as
their predecessors, and again in one or a few generations, having
experienced the vanity of the fruits of violence and being permeated
by Christianity, descend to the level of the violated, and again
make place for new, less coarse violators than the preceding ones,
but coarser than those whom they oppress. Thus, despite the fact
that the power remains externally the same that it was, there is
with every change of men in power a greater increase in the number
of men who by experience are brought to the necessity of accepting
the Christian life-conception, and with every change the coarsest,
most cruel, and least Christian of all enter into the possession of
the power, but they are such as are constantly less coarse and cruel
and more Christian than their predecessors.

Violence selects and attracts the worst elements of society, works
them over, and, improving and softening them, returns them to
society.

Such is the process by means of which Christianity, in spite of
the violence which is exercised by the power of the state and which
impedes the forward movement of humanity, takes possession of men
more and more. Christianity is penetrating into the consciousness of
men, not only despite the violence exerted by the power, but even by
means of it.

And thus the assertion of the defenders of the political structure
that, if the violence of the state be abolished, the evil men will
rule over the good, not only does not prove that this (the ruling
of the bad over the good) is dangerous, for it is precisely what is
taking place now, but, on the contrary, proves that the violence
of the state, which gives the bad a chance to rule over the good,
is the very evil which it is desirable to destroy, and which is
continuously destroyed by life itself.

"But even if it were true that the violence of the state will come
to an end when those who are in power shall become Christian enough
to renounce the power of their own choice, and there shall no longer
be found any men who are prepared to take their places, and if it is
true that this process is taking place," say the defenders of the
existing order, "when will that be? If eighteen hundred years have
passed and there are still so many volunteers who are ready to rule,
and so few who are ready to submit, there is no probability that
this will happen very soon, or ever at all.

"If there are, as there have been among all men, such as prefer to
refuse power rather than to use it, the supply of men who prefer
ruling to submitting is so great that it is hard to imagine the time
when it shall be exhausted.

"For this process of the Christianization of all men to take place,
for all men one after another to pass over from the pagan concept of
life to the Christian, and voluntarily renounce power and wealth,
and for no one to desire to make use of them, it is necessary that
not only all those rude, semisavage men, who are entirely incapable
of adopting Christianity and following it, and of whom there are
always such a great number amidst every Christian society, but also
all savage and non-Christian nations in general, of whom there are
so many outside the Christian society, should be made Christian. And
so, even if we admit that the process of Christianization will some
day be accomplished in the case of all men, we must assume, judging
from how much the matter has advanced in eighteen hundred years,
that this will happen in several times eighteen hundred years,--and
so it is impossible and useless to think now of the impossible
abolition of power, and all we should think of is that the power
should be vested in the best of hands."

Thus retort the defenders of the existing order. And this reflection
would be quite correct if the transition of men from one concept of
life to another took place only by force of the one process where
every man learns individually and one after another by experience
the vanity of power, and by an inner way reaches the Christian
truths.

This process takes place without cessation, and by this way men one
after another pass over to the side of Christianity.

But men pass over to the side of Christianity not by this inner path
alone; there is also an external method, with which the gradualness
of this transition is destroyed.

The transition of men from one structure of life to another does not
always take place in the manner in which the sand is poured out from
an hour-glass,--one kernel of sand after another, from the first
to the last,--but rather like water pouring into a vessel that is
immerged in the water, when it at first admits the water evenly and
slowly at one side, and then, from the weight of the water already
taken in, suddenly dips down fast and almost all at once receives
all the water which it can hold.

The same occurs with societies of men at the transition from one
concept, and so from one structure of life, to another. It is only
at first that one after another slowly and gradually receives the
new truth by an inner way and follows it through life; but after a
certain diffusion it is no longer received in an internal manner,
nor gradually, but all at once, almost involuntarily.

And so there is no truth in the reflection of the defenders of the
existing order that, if in the course of eighteen hundred years only
a small part of mankind has passed over to the side of Christianity,
it will take several times eighteen hundred years before the rest
of humanity will pass over to its side; there is no truth in it,
because with this reflection no attention is paid to any other than
the internal attainment of the truth, and the transition from one
form of life to another.

This other method of attaining a newly revealed truth and transition
to a new structure of life consists in this, that men do not attain
the truth simply because they perceive it with a prophetic feeling
or experience of life, but also because at a certain stage of the
dissemination of the truth all men who stand on a lower stage of
development accept it all at once, out of confidence in those who
have accepted it in an internal way, and apply it to life.

Every new truth, which changes the composition of human life and
moves humanity forward, is at first accepted by only a very small
number of men, who understand it in an internal way. The rest, who
out of confidence had accepted the previous truth, on which the
existing order is based, always oppose the dissemination of the new
truth.

But since, in the first place, men do not stand still, but
incessantly move forward, comprehending the truth more and more,
and approaching it with their lives, and, in the second place, all
of them, through their age, education, and race, are predisposed to
a gradation of men, from those who are most capable to comprehend
newly revealed truths in an internal way to those who are least
capable to do so, the men who stand nearest to those who have
attained the truth in an internal way one after another, at first
after long periods of time, and then more and more frequently,
pass over to the side of the new truth, and the number of men who
recognize the new truth grows larger and larger, and the truth grows
all the time more and more comprehensible.

The greater the number of men who attain the truth and the more the
truth is comprehensible, the more confidence is evoked in the rest
of the men, who in their ability to comprehend stand on a lower
stage, and the easier does the attainment of the truth grow for
them, and the greater is the number who make the truth their own.
Thus the movement keeps accelerating and accelerating, expanding and
expanding, like a snowball, until there germinates a public opinion
which is in accord with the new truth, and the remaining mass of men
no longer singly, but in a body, under the pressure of this force,
passes over to the side of the new truth, and a new structure of
life is established, which is in agreement with this truth.

Men who pass over to the side of a new truth which has reached a
certain degree of dissemination always do so all at once, in a mass,
and they are like that ballast with which every vessel is laden all
at once for its stable equilibrium and regular course. If there
were no ballast, the vessel would not stay in the water, and would
be changing its course with the least change in conditions. This
ballast, though at first it seems to be superfluous and even to
retard the ship's motion, is a necessary condition of its regular
motion.

The same is true of that mass of men who, not one by one, but
always all together, under the influence of a new public opinion,
pass over from one concept of life to another. By its inertia this
mass always retards the rapid, frequent transitions, unverified by
human wisdom, from one structure of life to another, and for a long
time retains every truth which, verified by a long experience of a
struggle, has entered into the consciousness of humanity.

And so there is no truth in the reflection that, if only a small,
a very small, part of humanity has attained the Christian truth in
the course of eighteen centuries, the whole of humanity will attain
it only in many, many times eighteen hundred years, that is, that
it is so far away that we of the present time need not even think
of it. It is untrue, because the men who stand on a lower stage of
development, those very nations and people whom the defenders of the
existing order represent as a hindrance for the realization of the
Christian structure of life, are the same people who always at once,
in a mass, pass over to the side of a truth which is accepted by
public opinion.

Therefore the change in the life of humanity, the one in consequence
of which men in power will renounce the power and among the men
who submit to power there will not be found such as are desirous
of seizing it, will not arrive when all men one after another
to the very last shall have consciously attained the Christian
life-conception, but when there arises a definite, easily
comprehensible Christian public opinion which will conquer all that
inert mass that is unable by an internal way to attain the truths
and so is always subject to the effect of public opinion.

But public opinion to arise and be diffused does not need hundreds
and thousands of years, and has the property of acting infectiously
upon people and with great rapidity embracing large numbers of men.

"But if it is even true," the defenders of the existing order will
say, "that public opinion, at a certain stage of its definiteness
and lucidity, is able to make the inert mass of men outside the
Christian societies,--the non-Christian nations,--and corrupt and
coarse men, who live within the societies, submit to it, what are
the symptoms that this Christian public opinion has arisen and may
take the place of violence?

"It is not right for us to take the risk and reject violence,
by which the existing order is maintained, and to depend on the
impalpable and indefinite force of public opinion, leaving it to the
savage men outside and inside the societies with impunity to rob,
kill, and in every way violate the Christians.

"If with the aid of the power we with difficulty eddy away from the
non-Christian elements, which are ever ready to inundate us and
destroy all the progress of the Christian civilization, is there,
in the first place, a probability that public opinion can take the
part of this force and make us secure, and, in the second, how are
we to find that moment when public opinion has become so strong
that it can take the place of the power? To remove the power and to
depend for our self-defence on nothing but public opinion means to
act as senselessly as would a man who in a menagerie would throw
away his weapons and let out all the lions and tigers from their
cages, depending on the fact that the animals in the cages and in
the presence of heated rods appeared tame.

"And so the men who have the power, who by fate or by God are placed
in the position of the ruling, have no right to risk the ruin of all
the progress of civilization, only because they would like to make
an experiment as to whether public opinion can take the place of the
protection of power, and so must not give up their power."

The French writer, Alphonse Karr, now forgotten, has said
somewhere, when speaking of the impossibility of abolishing capital
punishment, "_Que Messieurs les assassins commencent par nous donner
l'exemple_," and many times after that have I heard the repetition
of this joke by men who thought that with these words they gave a
conclusive and clever argument against the abolition of capital
punishment. And yet it is impossible more lucidly to express
all that falseness of the argument of those who think that the
governments cannot give up their power so long as men are capable of
it, than by this very joke.

"Let the assassins," say the defenders of the violence of state,
"set us the example, by abolishing murder, and then we shall abolish
it." But the assassins say the same, only with greater right. The
assassins say, "Let those who have undertaken to teach and guide us
set us the example of abolishing murder, and then we will follow
them." And they do not say so for a joke, but in all seriousness,
because such indeed is the state of affairs.

"We cannot desist from violence, because we are on all sides
surrounded by violators."

Nothing in our day interferes more than this false consideration
with the forward motion of humanity and the establishment among it
of that structure of life which is already proper for its present
consciousness.

The men in power are convinced that it is only violence that moves
and guides men, and so they boldly use violence for the maintenance
of the present order of things. But the existing order is not
maintained through violence, but through public opinion, the effect
of which is impaired by violence.

Thus the activity of violence weakens and impairs precisely what it
intends to maintain.

Violence, in the best case, if it does not pursue only the personal
ends of men in power, always denies and condemns by the one
immovable form of the law what for the most part has been denied and
condemned before by public opinion, but with this difference, that,
while public opinion denies and condemns all acts which are contrary
to the moral law, embracing in its condemnation the most varied
propositions, the law which is supported by violence condemns and
persecutes only a certain, very narrow order of acts, thus, as it
were, justifying all the acts of the same order which have not
entered into its definition. Public opinion has ever since the time
of Moses considered avarice, debauchery, and cruelty to be evil,
and has condemned them; and this public opinion denies and condemns
every kind of a manifestation of avarice,--not only the acquisition
of another man's property by means of violence, deceit, and cunning,
but also a cruel usufruct of the same; it condemns every kind of
debauchery, be it fornication with a concubine, or a slave, a
divorced wife, or even one's own wife; it condemns every cruelty
which is expressed in assaults, in bad treatment, in the murder, not
only of men, but also of animals. But the law, which is based on
violence, prosecutes only certain forms of avarice, such as theft,
rascality, and certain forms of debauchery and cruelty, such as the
violation of marital fidelity, murders, crippling,--therefore, as
it were, permitting all those phases of avarice, debauchery, and
cruelty which do not fit in with the narrow definition, which is
subject to misinterpretations.

But not only does violence distort public opinion,--it also
produces in men that pernicious conviction that men are not moved
by spiritual force, which is the source of every forward movement
of humanity, but by violence,--that very action which not only does
not bring people nearer to truth, but always removes them from it.
This delusion is pernicious in that it compels men to neglect the
fundamental force of their life,--their spiritual activity,--and to
transfer all their attention and energy to the superficial, idle,
and for the most part harmful, activity of violence.

This delusion is like the one men would be in if they wished to make
a locomotive move by turning its wheels with their hands, forgetting
entirely that the prime cause of its motion is the expansion of
steam and not the motion of the wheels. Men who would turn the
wheels with their hands and with levers would produce nothing but
a semblance of motion, in the meantime bending the wheels and
interfering with the possibility of the locomotive's real motion.

It is this that men do when they want to move men by means of
external violence.

Men say that a Christian life without violence cannot be
established, because there are savage nations outside of Christian
society,--in Africa, in Asia (some people represent the Chinese as
such a peril for our civilization),--and there are such savage,
corrupt, and, according to the new theory of heredity, confirmed
criminals amidst Christian societies; and that violence is needed
for the purpose of keeping either from destroying our civilization.

But those savage men, outside and within the societies, with whom we
frighten ourselves and others, have never submitted to violence, and
are not even now conquered by it.

Nations have never subjugated other nations by violence alone.
If a nation which subjugated another stood on a lower stage of
development, there was always repeated the phenomenon that it did
not introduce its structure of life by means of violence, but,
on the contrary, always submitted to the structure of life which
existed in the conquered nation. If a nation, crushed by force, is
subjugated or close to subjugation, it is so only through public
opinion, and by no means through violence, which, on the contrary,
provokes the nation more and more.

If men have ever been subjugated by whole nations to a new religious
confession, and by whole nations have been baptized or have passed
over to Mohammedanism, these transformations did not take place
because men in power compelled them to do so (violence has, on the
contrary, more frequently encouraged the movements in the opposite
direction), but because public opinion compelled them to do so; but
the nations that were compelled by force to accept the faiths of
their conquerors have never accepted them.

The same is true in respect to those savage elements which exist
within the societies: it is not the increase nor the decrease of the
severity of punishments, nor the change of prisons, nor the increase
of the police, that diminish or increase the number of crimes,--it
is changed only in consequence of the change in public opinion. No
severities have eradicated duels and vendettas in some countries.
No matter how much the Circassians may be punished for theft, they
continue to steal out of bravado, because not one maiden will marry
a man who has not shown his daring, by stealing a horse, or at least
a sheep. If men shall stop fighting duels and Circassians shall stop
stealing, this will not be so because they are afraid of punishment
(the fear of being punished only increases the charm of the daring),
but because public opinion will be changed. The same is true in all
other crimes. Violence can never destroy what is accepted by public
opinion. On the contrary, public opinion need only be diametrically
opposed to violence to destroy its every action, as has always been
the case with every martyrdom.

We do not know what would happen if no violence were exerted against
hostile nations and criminal elements of society. But that the
employment of violence at the present time does not subjugate either
of them, that we know from protracted experience.

Indeed, how can we subjugate by force the nations whose whole
education, all whose traditions, even religious teaching, leads
them to see the highest virtue in a struggle with their enslavers
and in striving after liberty? And how are we forcibly to eradicate
crimes in the midst of our societies, when what by the governments
are considered to be crimes are considered to be virtues by public
opinion. It is possible by means of violence to destroy such
nations and such men, as is indeed done, but it is impossible to
subjugate them.

The judge of everything, the fundamental force which moves men and
nations, has always been the one invisible, impalpable force,--the
resultant of all the spiritual forces of a certain aggregate of men
and of all humanity, which is expressed in public opinion.

Violence only weakens this force, retards, and distorts it, and puts
in its place another activity, which is not only not useful, but
even harmful for the forward movement of humanity.

To subjugate to Christianity all the wild people outside the
Christian world,--all the Zulus, Manchurians, and Chinese, whom
many consider to be wild,--and the savages within the Christian
world, there is one, only one means,--the dissemination among these
nations of a Christian public opinion, which is established only
through a Christian life, Christian acts, Christian examples. And so
in order to conquer the nations which have remained unconquered by
Christianity, the men of our time, who possess one, and only one,
means for this purpose, do precisely the opposite of what might
attain their end.

To conquer to Christianity the wild nations, who do not touch us
and who do not in any way provoke us to oppress them, we--instead
of leaving them first of all alone, and, in case of necessity or
of a wish to get in closer relations with them, acting upon them
only through a Christian relation to them, through the Christian
teaching as proved by truly Christian acts of suffering, humility,
abstinence, purity, brotherhood, love--begin by this, that we open
among them new markets for our commerce, with nothing but our
advantage in view, seize their land, that is, rob them, sell them
wine, tobacco, opium, that is, corrupt them, and establish among
them our order, teach them violence and all its methods, that is,
the following of nothing but the animal law of struggle, below
which no man can descend, and we do everything which can be done
in order to conceal from them whatever of Christianity there is in
us. And after that we send to them about two dozen missionaries,
who prattle some hypocritical ecclesiastic absurdities and, in the
shape of incontrovertible proofs of the impossibility of applying
the Christian truths to life, adduce these our experiments at the
Christianization of the savages.

The same is true of the so-called criminals, who live within our
societies. To subjugate these men to Christianity, there is but
one, the only way,--the Christian public opinion, which can be
established among these men only by means of the true Christian
teaching, confirmed by a true, Christian example of life.

And so, to preach this Christian teaching and confirm it by a
Christian example, we establish among these people agonizing
prisons, guillotines, gallows, capital punishments, preparations
for murder, for which we use all our strength; we establish for
the common people idolatrous doctrines, which are to stupefy them;
we establish the governmental sale of intoxicants,--wine, tobacco,
opium; we establish even prostitution; we give the land to those who
do not need it; we establish spectacles of senseless luxury amidst
wretchedness; we destroy every possibility of every semblance of
a Christian public opinion; we cautiously destroy the established
Christian public opinion,--and then we quote these very men, who
have carefully been corrupted by ourselves, and whom we lock up,
like wild beasts, in places from which they cannot get away, and in
which they grow more bestial still, or whom we kill, as examples
of the impossibility of acting upon them otherwise than through
violence.

What takes place is like what happens when conscientious ignorant
physicians place a patient who has been cured by the force of Nature
under most unhygienic conditions and stuff him full of poisonous
medicines, and then claim that it was only thanks to their hygiene
and care that the patient did not die, whereas the sick man would
have been well long ago, if they had left him alone.

Violence, which is put forth as the instrument for maintaining the
Christian structure of life, not only does not produce this effect,
but, on the contrary, prevents the social structure from being what
it could and should be. The social structure is such as it is, not
thanks to violence, but in spite of it.

And so there is no truth in the assertion of the defenders of
the existing order, that, if violence barely keeps the evil
non-Christian elements of humanity from attacking us, the abolition
of violence and the substitution of public opinion for it will
not protect humanity. It is not true, because violence does not
protect humanity, but, on the contrary, deprives humanity of the
one possibility of a true protection through the establishment and
diffusion of the Christian public opinion as regards the existing
order of life. Only with the abolition of violence will Christian
public opinion cease to be corrupt, and receive the possibility
of an unimpeded diffusion, and men will not direct their strength
toward what they do not need, but toward the one spiritual force
which moves them.

"But how can we reject the visible, palpable protection of the
policeman with his revolver, and depend on something invisible,
impalpable,--the public opinion? Does it still exist, or not? Above
all else, we know the order of things in which we live. Be it good
or bad, we know its defects and are used to it; we know how to act,
what to do under present conditions; but what will happen when we
reject them and depend on something invisible, impalpable, and
entirely unknown?" And the uncertainty upon which men enter, when
rejecting the known order of things, seems terrible to them.

It is all very well to be afraid of the uncertainty, when our
position is firm and secure; but our position is not only not
secure,--we know for certain that we are standing on the brink of
perdition.

If we have to be afraid of something, let us be afraid of what is
really terrible, and not of what we only imagine to be terrible.

In our fear to make an effort to tear ourselves away from the
conditions which ruin us, only because the future is not quite
certain to us, we resemble the passengers of a sinking ship, who,
for fear of stepping into a boat which is to take them to the shore,
retreat to their cabins and refuse to come out from them; or those
sheep which, out of fear of the fire which has enveloped the whole
yard, press close under the penthouses and do not walk through the
open gates.

How can we, who are standing on the threshold of a war of
inner revolutions, which is terrifying by its wretchedness and
destructiveness, and in comparison with which, as those who are
preparing it say, the terrors of the year '93 will be play, speak
of a danger which is threatened us by the Dahomeans, the Zulus,
etc., who live far, far away, and do not think of attacking us, and
by those few thousands of robbers, thieves, and murderers, whom we
ourselves have stupefied and corrupted, and whose number is not
at all diminishing as the result of all our courts, prisons, and
capital punishments?

Besides, this fear of the abolition of the visible protection of
the policeman is preëminently a fear of city people, that is, of
people who live under abnormal and artificial conditions. Men who
live under normal conditions of life, not amidst cities, but amidst
Nature, struggling with it, live without this protection and know
how little violence can protect them against the actual dangers with
which they are surrounded. In this fear there is something morbid,
which depends mainly on those false conditions under which many of
us live and have grown up.

An alienist told me how one summer day he was accompanied by his
insane patients as far as the gate of the hospital which he was
leaving. "Come with me to the city," the doctor proposed to them.
The patients agreed to it, and a small crowd followed the doctor.
But the farther they proceeded along the street, where took place
the free motion of sound men, the more did they feel timid, and
the more did they press close to the doctor, retarding his walk.
Finally, they all began to ask him to take them back to the
hospital, to their senseless, but habitual mode of life, to their
guards, their blows, their long sleeves, their solitary cells.

Even thus men press close and hanker after their senseless structure
of life, their factories, courts, prisons, capital punishments,
wars, though Christianity calls them to freedom, to the free,
rational life of the future, the imminent age.

Men say, "By what shall we be made secure, when the existing order
is destroyed? What will the new orders be which will take the place
of those of the present time, and in what will they consist? So long
as we do not know how our life will be composed, we shall not move
on or budge from our place."

This demand is what the explorer of new countries might put forth,
in demanding a detailed description of the country into which he is
entering.

If the life of the individual man, in passing from one age to
another, were fully known to him, he would have no reason for
living. The same is true of the life of humanity: if it had a
programme of the life which awaits it as it enters upon its new age,
this would be the surest symptom that it is not living, does not
move on, but is whirling about in one spot.

The conditions of the new structure of life cannot be known to us,
because they have to be worked out by ourselves. In this alone does
life consist, namely, in recognizing the unknown and conforming our
activity to this new cognition.

In this does the life of every individual and the life of human
societies and of humanity consist.


XI.

The condition of Christian humanity, with its prisons, hard labour,
gallows, with its factories, accumulations of capital, with
its taxes, churches, saloons, houses of ill fame, ever growing
armaments, and millions of stupefied men, who are ready, like
chained dogs, to thrust themselves upon those the masters may set
them on, would be terrible if it were the product of violence,
whereas it is above all the product of public opinion. But what is
established by public opinion not only can be, but actually is,
destroyed by it.

Hundreds of millions in money, tens of millions of disciplined men,
implements of destruction of wonderful power, with an organization
which of late has been carried to the highest degree of perfection,
with a whole army of men whose calling it is to deceive and
hypnotize the masses, and all this, by means of electricity, which
annihilates space, subjected to men, who not only consider such a
structure of society to be advantageous for them, but even such
that without it they would inevitably perish, and who, therefore,
use every effort of their minds in order to maintain it,--what an
invincible force, one would think!

And yet, one needs but get a conception of what it all tends to and
what no one can keep back,--that among men there will be established
a Christian public opinion, with the same force and universality
as the pagan public opinion, and that it will take the place of
the pagan one, that the majority of men will be just as ashamed of
all participation in violence and its exploitation as men are now
ashamed of rascality, stealing, beggary, cowardice, and immediately
this complex and apparently powerful structure of life falls of its
own accord, without any struggle. It is not necessary for anything
new to enter into the consciousness of men, but only for the mist to
disappear, which conceals from men the true meaning of some acts of
violence, in order that this may happen and the growing Christian
public opinion should get the better of the obsolescent pagan public
opinion, which admitted and justified acts of violence. All that
is needed is that men should feel as much ashamed of doing acts of
violence, of taking part in them, and exploiting them, as it is now
a disgrace to pass for a rascal, a thief, a coward, a beggar. And it
is precisely this that is beginning to happen. We do not notice it,
just as men do not notice any motion, when they move together with
everything surrounding them.

It is true, the structure of life in its main features remains as
violent in nature as it was one hundred years ago, and not only the
same, but in some relations, especially in the preparations for war
and in the wars themselves, it appears to be even more cruel; but
the germinating Christian public opinion, which at a certain stage
of its development is to change the whole pagan structure of life,
is beginning to be active. The dried-up tree stands apparently as
firm as before,--it even looks firmer, because it is rougher,--but
it is already weakened at the pith and is getting ready to fall.
The same is true of the present structure of life, which is based
on violence. The external condition of men is the same: some are
the violators, as before, and others are the violated; but the view
of the violators and the violated upon the meaning and worth of the
position of either has changed.

The violating people, that is, those who take part in the
government, and those who make use of the violence, that is, the
rich, no longer represent, as formerly, the flower of society and
the ideal of human well-being and grandeur, toward which all the
violated used to strive. Now very frequently it is not so much the
violated who strive after the position of the violators and try to
imitate them, as the violators, who frequently of their own free
will renounce the advantages of their position, choose the condition
of the violated, and try in simplicity of life to emulate the
violated.

To say nothing of the now openly despised occupations and offices,
such as those of spies, agents of secret police, usurers,
saloon-keepers, a large number of occupations of violators,
which formerly used to be considered respectable, such as those
of policemen, courtiers, members of courts, the administration,
the clergy, the military, monopolists, bankers, not only are
not considered by all to be desirable, but are even condemned
by a certain most respectable circle of men. There are now men
who voluntarily renounce these positions, which heretofore were
considered to be above reproach, and who prefer less advantageous
positions, which are not connected with violence.

It is not only men of the state, but also rich men, who, not from a
religious feeling, as used to be the case, but only from a peculiar
sensitiveness for the germinating public opinion, refuse to receive
their inherited fortunes, considering it just to use only so much as
they earn by their own labour.

The conditions of the participant in the government and of the rich
man no longer present themselves, as they presented themselves
formerly and even now present themselves among the non-Christian
nations, as unquestionably honourable and worthy of respect and as
divine blessings. Very sensitive, moral men (they are for the most
part the most highly cultured) avoid these conditions and prefer
more modest ones, which are independent of violence.

The best young men, at an age when they are not yet corrupted
by life and when they choose a career, prefer the activities of
physicians, technologists, teachers, artists, writers, even simply
of agriculturists, who live by their own labour, to positions in
courts, in the administration, in the church, and in the army, which
are paid by the government, or the positions of men who live on
their own incomes.

The majority of monuments which are now erected are no longer in
commemoration of men of state, of generals, and less certainly not
of the rich, but of the learned, of artists, of inventors, of men
who have not only had nothing in common with the governments, or
with the authorities, but who frequently have struggled against
them. It is not so much men of state and rich men, as learned men
and artists, who are extolled in poetry, represented in plastic art,
and honoured with festive jubilees.

The best men of our time tend toward these most honoured positions,
and so the circle from which the men of state and the rich come is
growing smaller and smaller, so that in intellect, culture, and
especially in moral qualities, the men who now stand at the head of
governments, and the rich no longer represent, as in olden times,
the flower of society, but, on the contrary, stand below the average.

As in Russia and in Turkey, so in America and in France, no matter
how much the governments may change their officials, the majority
of them are selfish and venal men, who stand on so low a level of
morality that they do not satisfy even those low demands of simple
integrity which the governments make upon them. We now frequently
get to hear the naïve regrets of men of state, because the best men
by some strange accident, as they think, are always in the hostile
camp. It is as though men should complain that by a strange accident
it is always men with little refinement, who are not particularly
good, that become hangmen.

The majority of rich men, similarly, in our time are no longer
composed of the most refined and cultured men of society, as used
to be the case, but of coarse accumulators of wealth, who are
interested only in their enrichment, for the most part by dishonest
means, or of degenerating descendants of these accumulators, who not
only do not play any prominent part in society, but in the majority
of cases are subject to universal contempt.

Not only is the circle of men, from which the servants of the
government and the rich men are chosen, growing all the time
smaller and smaller, and more and more debased, but these men
themselves no longer ascribe to the positions which they hold their
former significance, and frequently, being ashamed of them, to
the disadvantage of the cause which they serve, neglect to carry
out what by their position they are called upon to do. Kings and
emperors have the management of hardly anything, hardly ever have
the courage to make internal changes and to enter into new external
political conditions, but for the most part leave the solution of
these questions to state institutions or to public opinion. All
their duties reduce themselves to being the representatives of state
unity and supremacy. But even this duty they are performing worse
and worse. The majority of them not only do not keep themselves
in their former inaccessible grandeur, but, on the contrary, are
becoming more and more democratized, and even keep low company,
throwing off their last external prestige, that is, violating
precisely what they are called upon to maintain.

The same takes place among the military. The military men of the
higher ranks, instead of encouraging the coarseness and cruelty of
the soldiers, which are necessary for their business, themselves
disseminate culture among the military, preach humanitarianism,
and frequently themselves share the socialistic convictions of
the masses, and reject war. In the late plots against the Russian
government, many of those mixed up with them were army men. The
number of these military plotters is growing larger and larger. Very
frequently it happens, as was the case lately, that the soldiers,
who are called upon to pacify the inhabitants, refuse to shoot at
them. Military bravado is directly condemned by army men themselves,
and frequently serves as a subject for ridicule.

The same is true of judges and prosecuting attorneys: judges,
whose duty it is to judge and sentence criminals, manage the
proceedings in such a way as to discharge them, so that the Russian
government, to have men sentenced that it wants to have sentenced,
never subjects them to common courts, but turns them over to
so-called military courts, which represent but a semblance of
courts. The same is true of prosecuting attorneys, who frequently
refuse to prosecute, and, instead of prosecuting, circumvent the
law, defending those whom they should prosecute. Learned jurists,
who are obliged to justify the violence of power, more and more
deny the right to punish, and in its place introduce theories of
irresponsibility, and even not of the correction, but of the cure of
those whom they call criminals.

Jailers and superintendents of hard-labour convicts for the most
part become defenders of those whom they are supposed to torture.
Gendarmes and spies constantly save those whom they are supposed to
ruin. Clerical persons preach toleration, often also the negation
of violence, and the more cultured among them try in their sermons
to avoid the lie which forms the whole meaning of their position
and which they are called upon to preach. Executioners refuse to
carry out their duties, so that in Russia capital punishment can
frequently not be carried out for want of executioners, since, in
spite of the advantages held out to make hard-labour convicts become
executioners, there is an ever decreasing number of such as are
willing to take up the duty. Governors, rural judges and officers,
collectors of taxes, publicans, pitying the people, frequently
try to find excuses for not collecting the taxes from them. Rich
men cannot make up their minds to use their wealth for themselves
alone, but distribute it for public purposes. Landowners erect on
their lands hospitals and schools, and some of them even renounce
the ownership of land and transfer it to the agriculturists, or
establish communes on it. Manufacturers build hospitals, schools,
houses for their workmen, and establish savings-banks and pensions;
some establish companies, in which they take an equal share with
other shareholders. Capitalists give part of their capital for
public, educational, artistic, philanthropic institutions. Unable to
part from their wealth during their lifetime, many of them will it
away after their death in favour of public institutions.

All these phenomena might appear accidental, if they did not all
reduce themselves to one common cause, just as it might seem
accidental that the buds should swell on some of the trees in
spring, if we did not know that the cause of it is the common
spring, and that, if the buds have begun to swell on some of the
trees, the same no doubt will happen with all of the trees.

The same is true in the manifestation of the Christian public
opinion as regards the significance of violence and of what is
based upon it. If this public opinion is already influencing some
very sensitive men, and causes them, each in his own business, to
renounce the privileges which violence grants, or not to use them,
it will continue to act on others, and will act until it will change
the whole activity of men and will bring them in agreement with that
Christian consciousness which is already living among the leading
men of humanity.

And if there now are rulers who do not have the courage to undertake
anything in the name of their own power, and who try as much as
possible to resemble, not monarchs, but the simplest mortals, and
who show their readiness to renounce their prerogatives and to
become the first citizens of their republics; and if there are now
army men who understand all the evil and sinfulness of war and do
not wish to shoot at men belonging to another nation, or to their
own; and judges and prosecuting attorneys, who do not wish to
prosecute and condemn criminals; and clergymen, who renounce their
lie; and publicans, who try as little as possible to perform what
they are called upon to perform; and rich men, who give up their
wealth,--the same will inevitably happen with other governments,
other army men, other members of the court, clergymen, publicans,
and rich men. And when there shall be no men to hold these
positions, there will be none of these positions and no violence.

But it is not by this road alone that public opinion leads men to
the abolition of the existing order and the substitution of another
for it. In proportion as the positions of violence become less and
less attractive, and there are fewer and fewer men willing to occupy
them, their uselessness becomes more and more apparent.

In the Christian world there are the same rulers and governments,
the same courts, the same publicans, the same clergy, the same rich
men, landowners, manufacturers, and capitalists, as before, but
there is an entirely different relation of men toward men and of the
men themselves toward their positions.

It is still the same rulers, the same meetings, and chases, and
feasts, and balls, and uniforms, and the same diplomats, and talks
about alliances and wars; the same parliaments, in which they
still discuss Eastern and African questions, and alliances, and
breaches of relations, and Home Rule, and an eight-hour day. And
the ministries give way to one another in the same way, and there
are the same speeches, the same incidents. But men who see how one
article in a newspaper changes the state of affairs more than
dozens of meetings of monarchs and sessions of parliaments, see more
and more clearly that it is not the meetings and rendezvous and the
discussions in the parliaments that guide the affairs of men, but
something independent of all this, which is not centred anywhere.

There are the same generals, and officers, and soldiers, and guns,
and fortresses, and parades, and manœuvres, but there has been
no war for a year, ten, twenty years, and, besides, one can depend
less on the military for the suppression of riots, and it is getting
clearer and clearer that, therefore, generals, and officers, and
soldiers are only members of festive processions,--objects of
amusement for rulers, large, rather expensive corps-de-ballet.

There are the same prosecutors and judges, and the same proceedings,
but it is getting clearer and clearer that, since civil cases are
decided on the basis of all kinds of considerations except that of
justice, and since criminal cases have no sense, because punishments
attain no purpose admitted even by the judges, these institutions
have no other significance than that of serving as a means for
supporting men who are not fit for anything more useful.

There are the same clergymen, and bishops, and churches, and
synods, but it is becoming clearer and clearer to all men that
these men have long ago ceased to believe in what they preach, and
that, therefore, they cannot convince any one of the necessity of
believing in what they themselves do not believe.

There are the same collectors of taxes, but they are becoming less
and less capable of taking away by force people's property, and it
is becoming clearer and clearer that people can without collectors
of taxes collect all that is necessary by subscribing it voluntarily.

There are the same rich men, but it is becoming clearer and clearer
that they can be useful only in proportion as they cease to be
personal managers of their wealth and give to society all, or at
least a part, of their fortunes.

When all this shall become completely clear to all, it will be
natural for men to ask themselves, "But why should we feed and
maintain all these kings, emperors, presidents, and members of all
kinds of Chambers and ministries, if nothing results from all their
meetings and discussions? Would it not be better, as some jester
said, to make a queen out of rubber?"

"And what good to us are the armies, with their generals, and music,
and cavalry, and drums? What good are they when there is no war
and no one wants to conquer any one, and when, even if there is a
war, the other nations do not let us profit from it, and the troops
refuse to shoot at their own people?"

"And what good are judges and prosecutors who in civil cases do not
decide according to justice and in criminal cases know themselves
that all punishments are useless?"

"And of what use are collectors of taxes who unwillingly collect the
taxes, while what is needed is collected without them?"

"And of what use is the clergy, which has long ago ceased to believe
in what it preaches?"

"And of what use is capital in private hands, when it can be of use
only by becoming the common possession?"

And having once asked themselves this, people cannot help but come
to the conclusion that they ought not to support all these useless
institutions.

But not only will the men who support these institutions arrive at
the necessity of abolishing them,--the men themselves who occupy
these positions will simultaneously or even earlier be brought to
the necessity of giving up their positions.

Public opinion more and more condemns violence, and so men, more
and more submitting to public opinion, are less and less desirous
of holding their positions, which are maintained by violence, and
those who hold these positions are less and less able to make use of
violence.

But by not using violence, and yet remaining in positions which are
conditioned by violence, the men who occupy these positions become
more and more useless. And this uselessness, which is more and
more felt by those who maintain these positions and by those who
hold them, will finally be such that there will be found no men to
maintain them and none who would be willing to hold them.

Once I was present in Moscow at some discussions about faith, which,
as usual, took place during Quasimodo week near a church in Hunter's
Row. About twenty men were gathered on the sidewalk, and a serious
discussion on religion was going on. At the same time there was
some kind of a concert in the adjoining building of the Assembly
of Noblemen, and an officer of police, noticing a crowd of people
gathered near the church, sent a mounted gendarme to order them to
disperse. The officer had personally no desire that they should
disperse. The crowd of twenty men were in nobody's way, but the
officer had been standing there the whole morning, and he had to do
something. The gendarme, a young lad, with his right arm jauntily
akimbo and clattering sword, rode up to us and shouted commandingly,
"Scatter! What are you doing there?" Everybody looked at the
gendarme, and one of the speakers, a modest man in a long coat, said
calmly and kindly: "We are talking about something important, and
there is no reason why we should scatter. Young man, you had better
get down and listen to what we are talking about,--it will do you
good," and turning away, he continued his discourse. The gendarme
made no reply, wheeled his horse around, and rode off.

The same thing must happen in all matters of violence. The officer
feels ennui, he has nothing to do; the poor fellow is placed in a
position where he must command. He is deprived of all human life,
and all he can do is to look and command, to command and look,
though his commands and his watching are of no earthly use. In
such a condition all those unfortunate rulers, ministers, members
of parliaments, governors, generals, officers, bishops, clergymen,
even rich men are now partly and soon will be completely. They
can do nothing else but command, and they command and send their
messengers, as the officer sends his gendarme, to be in people's
way, and since the people whom they trouble turn to them with
the request that they be left alone, they imagine that they are
indispensable.

But the time is coming, and will soon be here, when it shall be
quite clear for all men that they are not any good and are only in
the way of people, and the people whom they bother will say to them
kindly and meekly, as that man in the long overcoat, "Please, do not
bother us." And all the messengers and senders will have to follow
that good advice, that is, stop riding with arms akimbo among the
people, bothering them, and get down from their hobbies, take off
their attire, listen to what people have to say, and, joining them,
take hold with them of the true human work.

The time is coming, and will inevitably come, when all the
institutions of violence of our time will be destroyed in
consequence of their too obvious uselessness, silliness, and even
indecency.

The time must come, when with the men of our world, who hold
positions that are given by violence, will happen what happened with
the king in Andersen's fable, "The New Royal Garment," when a small
child, seeing the naked king, naïvely called out, "Behold, he is
naked!" and all those who had seen it before, but had not expressed
it, could no longer conceal it.

The point of the fable is this, that to the king, a lover of new
garments, there come some tailors who promise to make him an
extraordinary garment. The king hires the tailors, and they begin to
sew, having informed him that the peculiarity of their garment is
this, that he who is useless in his office cannot see the garments.

The courtiers come to see the work of the tailors, but they see
nothing, as the tailors stick their needles into empty space. But,
mindful of the condition, all the courtiers say that they see the
garment, and they praise it. The king does the same. The time
arrives for the procession, when the king is to appear in his new
garment. The king undresses himself and puts on his new garments,
that is, he remains naked, and goes naked through the city. But,
mindful of the condition, no one dares to say that there are no
garments, until a small child calls out, "Behold, he is naked!"

The same thing must happen with all those who from inertia hold
offices which have long ago become useless, when the first man who
is not interested (as the proverb has it, "One hand washes the
other"), in concealing the uselessness of these institutions, will
point out their uselessness and will naïvely call out, "But, good
people, they have long ago ceased to be good for anything."

The condition of Christian humanity, with its fortresses, guns,
dynamite, cannon, torpedoes, prisons, gallows, churches, factories,
custom-houses, palaces, is indeed terrible; but neither fortresses,
nor cannon, nor guns shoot themselves at any one, prisons do not
themselves lock any one up, the gallows does not hang any one, the
churches do not of themselves deceive any one, the custom-houses
hold no one back, palaces and factories do not erect and maintain
themselves, but everything is done by men. But when men understand
that this ought not to be done, there will be none of these things.

Men are already beginning to understand this. If not all men
understand it as yet, the leaders among men do, those after whom
follow all other men. And what the leaders have once come to
understand, they can never stop understanding, and what the leaders
have come to understand, all other men not only can, but inevitably
must understand.

Thus the prediction that the time will come when all men shall be
instructed by God, shall stop warring, shall forge the swords into
ploughshares and the spears into pruning-hooks, that is, translating
into our language, when all the prisons, fortresses, barracks,
palaces, churches, shall remain empty, and all the gallows, guns,
cannon, shall remain unused, is no longer a dream, but a definite,
new form of life, toward which humanity is moving with ever
increasing rapidity.

But when shall this be?

Eighteen hundred years ago Christ answered this question by saying
that the end of the present world, that is, of the pagan structure
of the world, would come when the calamities of men should be
increased to their farthest limit and at the same time the gospel of
the kingdom of God, that is, the possibility of a new, violenceless
structure of the world, should be preached in all the world (Matt.
xxiv. 3-28).

"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, but my Father only" (Matt.
xxiv. 36), is what Christ says, for it may come any time, at any
moment, even when we do not expect it.

In reply to the question when this hour shall arrive, Christ says
that we cannot know it; but for the very reason that we do not know
the time of its coming, we should not only be at all times prepared
to meet it, as must be the goodman watching the house, and the
virgins with their lamps going forth to meet the bridegroom, but
also we should work with all our strength for the coming of that
hour, as the servants had to work for the talents given to them
(Matt. xxiv. 43; xxv. 1-30). In reply to the question when this
hour should come, Christ admonished all men to work with all their
strength for its quicker coming.

There can be no other answer. People can nowise know when the day
and the hour of the kingdom of God shall arrive, because the coming
of that hour depends on no one but the men themselves.

The answer is the same as that of the sage, who in reply to the
question of a passer-by, how far it was to the city, answered, "Go."

How can we know how far it is to the goal toward which humanity
is moving, since we do not know how humanity, on whom it depends
whether to go or not, to stop, to temper the motion, or to
accelerate it, will move toward that goal?

All we can know is, what we, who compose humanity, must do, and what
not, in order that the kingdom of God may come. That we all know.
And every one need but begin to do what we must do, and stop doing
what we must not do; every one of us need only live by all that
light which is within us, in order that the promised kingdom of God,
toward which the heart of every man is drawn, may come at once.


XII.

CONCLUSION

                                   1

I had ended this two years' labour, when, on the ninth of September,
I happened to travel on a train to a locality in the Governments
of Túla and Ryazán, where the peasants had been starving the year
before, and were starving still more in the present year. At one of
the stations the train in which I was travelling met a special train
which, under the leadership of the governor, was transporting troops
with guns, cartridges, and rods for the torture and killing of those
very famine-stricken peasants.

The torturing of the peasants with rods for the purpose of enforcing
the decision of the authorities, although corporal punishment was
abolished by law thirty years ago, has of late been applied more and
more freely in Russia.

I had heard of it, had even read in newspapers of the terrible
tortures of which the Governor of Nízhni-Nóvgorod, Baránov, is said
to have boasted, of the tortures which had taken place in Chernígov,
Tambóv, Sarátov, Astrakhán, Orél, but not once had I had a chance to
see men in the process of executing these deeds.

Here I saw with my own eyes good Russians, men who are permeated
with the Christian spirit, travelling with guns and rods, to kill
and torture their starving brothers.

The cause that brought them out was the following:

In one of the estates of a wealthy landowner the peasants had
raised a forest on a pasture which they owned in common with the
proprietor (had raised, that is, had watched it during its growth),
and had always made use of it, and so regarded this forest as
their own, at least as a common possession; but the proprietor,
appropriating to himself this forest, began to cut it down. The
peasants handed in a complaint. The judge of the first instance
irregularly (I say "irregularly," using the word employed by the
prosecuting attorney and the governor, men who ought to know the
case) decided the case in favour of the proprietor. All the higher
courts, among them the senate, though they could see that the case
had been decided irregularly, confirmed the decision, and the forest
was adjudged to the proprietor. The proprietor began to cut down the
forest, but the peasants, unable to believe that such an obvious
injustice could be done them by a higher court, did not submit to
the decree, and drove away the workmen who were sent to cut down the
forest, declaring that the forest belonged to them, and that they
would petition the Tsar, but would not allow the proprietor to cut
down the forest.

The case was reported to St. Petersburg, whence the governor was
ordered to enforce the decree of the court. The governor asked for
troops, and now the soldiers, armed with bayonets, ball-cartridges,
and, besides, a supply of rods, purposely prepared for this occasion
and carried in a separate car, were travelling to enforce this
decree of the higher authorities.

The enforcement of the decree of the higher authorities is
accomplished by means of killing, of torturing men, or by means of
a threat of doing one or the other, according as to whether any
opposition is shown or not.

In the first case, if the peasants show any opposition, the
following takes place in Russia (the same things happen wherever
there are a state structure and property rights): the chief makes a
speech and demands submission. The excited crowd, generally deceived
by its leaders, does not understand a word that the representative
of the power says in official book language, and continues to be
agitated. Then the chief declares that if they do not submit and
disperse, he will be compelled to have recourse to arms. If the
crowd does not submit even then, the chief commands his men to load
their guns and shoot above the heads of the crowd. If the crowd does
not disperse even then, he commands the soldiers to shoot straight
into the crowd, at haphazard, and the soldiers shoot, and in the
street fall wounded and killed men, and then the crowd generally
runs away, and the troops at the command of the chiefs seize those
who present themselves to them as the main rioters, and lead them
away under guard.

After that they pick up the blood-stained, dying, maimed, killed,
and wounded men, frequently also women and children; the dead are
buried, and the maimed are sent to the hospital. But those who are
considered to be the plotters are taken to the city and tried by a
special military court. If on their part there was any violence,
they are sentenced to be hanged. Then they put up a gallows and with
the help of ropes choke to death a few defenceless people, as has
many times been done in Russia and as is being done, and must be
done where the public structure is based on violence. Thus they do
in case of opposition.

In the second case, when the peasants submit, there takes place
something special and peculiarly Russian. What happens is this:
the governor arrives at the place of action, makes a speech to the
people, rebuking them for their disobedience, and either stations
troops in the farms of the village, where the soldiers, quartering
at times as much as a month at a time, ruin the peasants, or,
satisfied with threatening them, graciously pardons the people and
returns home, or, which happens more frequently than anything else,
announces to them that the instigators ought to be punished, and
arbitrarily, without trial, selects a certain number of men, who are
declared to be the instigators and in his presence are subjected to
tortures.

In order to give an idea as to how these things are done, I will
describe an affair which took place at Orél and received the
approval of the higher authorities.

What happened in Orél was this: just as here, in the Government of
Túla, a proprietor wanted to take away some property from certain
peasants, and the peasants opposed him, just as they did here. The
point was that the landed proprietor wanted without the consent
of the peasants to keep the water in his mill-pond at so high a
level that their fields were inundated. The peasants objected. The
proprietor entered a complaint before the County Council chief. The
County Council chief illegally (as was later declared by the court)
decided the case in favour of the proprietor, by permitting him to
raise the water. The proprietor sent his workmen to raise the ditch
through which the water ran down. The peasants were provoked by
this irregular decision, and called out their wives, to prevent the
proprietor's workmen from raising the ditch. The women went to the
dam, overturned the carts, and drove off the workmen. The proprietor
entered a complaint against the women for taking the law into their
hands. The County Council chief ordered one woman from each peasant
farm in the whole village to be locked up ("in the cold room"). The
decision could not well be carried out; since there were several
women on each farm, it was impossible to determine which of them was
liable to arrest, and so the police did not carry out the decree.
The proprietor complained to the governor of the inactivity of the
police, and the governor, without looking into the matter, gave the
rural chief the strict order immediately to enforce the decision
of the County Council chief. Obeying the higher authorities, the
rural chief arrived in the village and, with a disrespect for men
which is characteristic of the Russian authorities, commanded the
policemen to seize one woman from each house. But since there
was more than one woman in each house, and it was impossible to
tell which one of them was subject to incarceration, there began
quarrels, and opposition was shown. In spite of these quarrels
and this opposition, the rural chief commanded that one woman, no
matter who she be, be seized in each house and led to a place of
confinement. The peasants began to defend their wives and mothers,
did not give them up, and upon this occasion beat the police and the
rural chief. There appeared the first terrible crime,--an assault
on the authorities,--and this new crime was reported to the city.
And so the governor, like the Governor of Túla, arrived on a special
train with a battalion of soldiers, with guns and rods, having made
use of the telegraph, of telephones, and of the railway, and brought
with him a learned doctor, who was to watch the hygienic conditions
of the flogging, thus fully personifying Dzhingis Khan with the
telegraphs, as predicted by Herzen.

Near the township office stood the troops, a squad of policemen
with red cords, to which is attached the revolver, official persons
from among the peasants, and the accused. Round about stood a crowd
of one thousand people or more. Upon driving up to the township
office, the governor alighted from his carriage, delivered a speech
previously prepared, and called for the guilty and for a bench.
This command was not understood at first. But a policeman, whom the
governor always took with him, and who attended to the preparation
of the tortures, which had more than once been employed in the
Government, explained that what was meant was a bench for flogging.
A bench was brought, the rods, which had been carried on the train,
were piled up, and the executioners were called for. These had
been previously chosen from among the horse-thieves of the village,
because the soldiers refused to perform this duty.

When everything was ready, the governor commanded the first of the
twelve men pointed out by the proprietor as the most guilty to
step forward. The one that came out was the father of a family, a
respected member of society of about forty years of age, who had
bravely defended the rights of society and so enjoyed the respect of
the inhabitants. He was led up to the bench, his body was bared, and
he was ordered to lie down.

The peasant tried to beg for mercy, but when he saw that this was
useless, he made the sign of the cross and lay down. Two policemen
rushed forward to hold him down. The learned doctor stood near
by, ready to offer learned medical aid. The prisoners, spitting
into their hands, swished the rods and began to strike. However,
it turned out that the bench was too narrow and that it was too
difficult to keep the writhing, tortured man upon it. Then the
governor ordered another bench to be brought and to be cleated
to the first. Putting their hands to their visors and muttering:
"Yes, your Excellency," some men hurriedly and humbly fulfilled the
commands; meanwhile the half-naked, pale, tortured man, frowning
and looking earthward, waited with trembling jaws and bared legs.
When the second bench was attached, he was again put down, and
the horse-thieves began to beat him again. The back, hips, and
thighs, and even the sides of the tortured man began more and more
to be covered with wales and bloody streaks, and with every blow
there were heard dull sounds, which the tortured man was unable to
repress. In the surrounding crowd were heard the sobs of the wives,
mothers, children, relatives of the tortured man and of all those
who were selected for the punishment.

The unfortunate governor, intoxicated by his power, thought that
he could not do otherwise, and, bending his fingers, counted the
blows, and without stopping smoked cigarettes, to light which
several officious persons hastened every time to hand him a lighted
match. When fifty blows had been dealt, the peasant stopped crying
and stirring, and the doctor, who had been educated in a Crown
institution for the purpose of serving his Tsar and country with
his scientific knowledge, walked over to the tortured man, felt his
pulse, listened to the beating of his heart, and announced to the
representative of power that the punished man had lost consciousness
and that according to the data of science it might be dangerous to
his life to continue the punishment. But the unfortunate governor,
who was now completely intoxicated by the sight of blood, commanded
the men to go on, and the torture lasted until they had dealt
seventy blows, to which number it for some reason seemed to him
necessary to carry the number of the blows. When the seventieth blow
was dealt, the governor said, "Enough! The next!" And the disfigured
man, with his swollen back, was lifted up and carried away in a
swoon, and another was taken up. The sobs and groans of the crowd
became louder; but the representative of the governmental power
continued the torture.

Thus they flogged the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth man,--each man receiving
seventy blows. All of them begged for mercy, groaned, cried.
The sobs and groans of the mass of women grew louder and more
heartrending, and the faces of the men grew gloomier and gloomier;
but the troops stood all about them, and the torture did not stop
until the work was accomplished in the measure which for some
reason appeared indispensable to the caprice of the unfortunate,
half-drunken, deluded man, called a governor.

Not only were officials, officers, soldiers present, but with their
presence they took part in this matter and kept this order of the
fulfilment of the state act from being impaired on the part of the
crowd.

When I asked one of the governors why these tortures are committed
on men, when they have already submitted and troops are stationed in
the village, he replied to me, with the significant look of a man
who has come to know all the intricacies of state wisdom, that this
is done because experience has shown that if the peasants are not
subjected to torture they will again counteract the decrees of the
power, while the performance of the torture in the case of a few men
for ever confirms the decrees of the authorities.

And so now the Governor of Túla was travelling with his officials,
officers, and soldiers, in order to perform just such a work. In
just the same manner, that is, by means of murder or torture, were
to be carried out the decree of the higher authorities, which
consisted in this, that a young fellow, a landed proprietor, who had
an income of one hundred thousand roubles per year, was to receive
another three thousand roubles, for a forest which he had in a
rascally manner taken away from a whole society of hungry and cold
peasants, and be able to spend this money in two or three weeks in
the restaurants of Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Paris. It was to do
such a deed that the men whom I met were travelling.

Fate, as though on purpose, after my two years' tension of thought
in one and the same direction, for the first time in my life brought
me in contact with this phenomenon, which showed me with absolute
obviousness in practice what had become clear to me in theory,
namely, that the whole structure of our life is not based, as men
who enjoy an advantageous position in the existing order of things
are fond of imagining, on any juridical principles, but on the
simplest, coarsest violence, on the murder and torture of men.

Men who own large tracts of land or have large capitals, or who
receive large salaries, which are collected from the working people,
who are in need of the simplest necessities, as also those who,
as merchants, doctors, artists, clerks, savants, coachmen, cooks,
authors, lackeys, lawyers, live parasitically about these rich
people, are fond of believing that those prerogatives which they
enjoy are not due to violence, but to an absolutely free and regular
exchange of services, and that these prerogatives are not only not
the result of assault upon people, and the murder of them, like what
took place this year in Orél and in many other places in Russia, and
continually takes place in all of Europe and of America, but has
even no connection whatsoever with these cases of violence. They
are fond of believing that the privileges which they enjoy exist in
themselves and take place and are due to a voluntary agreement among
people, while the violence exerted against people also exists in
itself and is due to some universal and higher juridical, political,
and economical laws. These men try not to see that they enjoy the
privileges which they enjoy only by dint of the same thing which now
would force the peasants, who raised the forest and who were very
much in need of it, to give it up to the rich proprietor, who took
no part in the preservation of the forest and had no need of it,
that is, that they would be flogged or killed if they did not give
up this forest.

And yet, if it is quite clear that the Orél mill began to bring
greater returns to the proprietor, and that the forest, which
the peasants raised, is turned over to the proprietor, only in
consequence of assaults or murders, or the threat of them, it must
be just as clear that all the other exclusive rights of the rich,
which deprive the poor of their prime necessities, are based on the
same thing. If the peasants, who are in need of the land for the
support of their families, do not plough the land which adjoins
their very farms, while this land, which is capable of supporting
something like one thousand families, is in the hands of one man,--a
Russian, Englishman, Austrian, or some large landed proprietor,--who
does not work on this land, and if the merchant, buying up the corn
from the needy agriculturists, can securely keep this corn in his
granaries, amidst starving people, and sell it at three times its
price to the same agriculturists from whom he bought it at one-third
its present worth, it is evident that this takes place from the same
causes. And if one man cannot buy cheap goods, which are sold to
him from beyond a conventional line called a border, without paying
customs dues to people who had no share whatsoever in the production
of the goods; and if people cannot help but give up their last cow
for taxes, which are distributed by the government to officials and
are used for the maintenance of soldiers who will kill these very
taxpayers, it would seem to be obvious that even this does not take
place in consequence of some abstract rights, but in consequence
of the same that happened in Orél and that now may happen in the
Government of Túla, and periodically in one form or another takes
place in the whole world, wherever there is a state structure and
there are the rich and the poor.

Because not all human relations of violence are accompanied by
tortures and murders, the men who enjoy the exclusive prerogatives
of the ruling classes assure themselves and others that the
privileges which they enjoy are not due to any tortures or murders,
but to other mysterious common causes, abstract rights, and so
forth. And yet, it would seem, it is clear that, if people, though
they consider this to be an injustice (all working people now do),
give the main portion of their work to the capitalist, the landed
proprietor, and pay taxes, though they know that bad use is made
of them, they do so first of all, not because they recognize any
abstract rights, of which they have never heard, but only because
they know that they will be flogged and killed, if they do not do so.

But if there is no occasion to imprison, flog, and kill men, every
time the rent for the land is collected by the landed proprietor,
and the man in need of corn pays to the merchant who has cheated him
a threefold price, and the factory hand is satisfied with a wage
which represents proportionately half the master's income, and if a
poor man gives up his last rouble for customs dues and taxes, this
is due to the fact that so many men have been beaten and killed for
their attempts to avoid doing what is demanded of them, that they
keep this well in mind. As the trained tiger in the cage does not
take the meat which is placed under his mouth, and does not lie
quiet, but jumps over a stick, whenever he is ordered to do so,
not because he wants to do so, but because he remembers the heated
iron rod or the hunger to which he was subjected every time he did
not obey,--even so men who submit to what is not advantageous for
them, what even is ruinous to them, do so because they remember what
happened to them for their disobedience.

But the men who enjoy prerogatives which are the result of old
violence, frequently forget, and like to forget, how these
prerogatives were obtained. We need, however, only think of history,
not the history of the successes of various dynasties of rulers, but
real history, the history of the oppression of the majority by a
small number of men, to see that the bases of all the prerogatives
of the rich over the poor have originated from nothing but switches,
prisons, hard labour, murders.

We need but think of that constant, stubborn tendency of men to
increase their well-being, which guides the men of our time, to
become convinced that the prerogatives of the rich over the poor
could not and cannot be maintained in any other way.

There may be oppressions, assaults, prisons, executions, which
have not for their purpose the preservation of the prerogatives of
the wealthy classes (though this is very rare), but we may boldly
say that in our society, for each well-to-do, comfortably living
man, there are ten who are exhausted by labour, who are envious and
greedy, and who frequently suffer with their whole families,--all
the prerogatives of the rich, all their luxury, all that superfluity
which the rich enjoy above the average labourer, all that is
acquired and supported only by tortures, incarcerations, and
executions.

                                   2

The train which I came across the ninth of September, and which
carried soldiers, with their guns, cartridges, and rods, to the
starving peasants, in order to secure to the rich proprietor the
small forest, which he had taken from the peasants and which the
peasants were in dire need of, showed me with striking obviousness
to what extent men have worked out the ability of committing
acts which are most revolting to their convictions and to their
conscience, without seeing that they are doing so.

The special train with which I fell in consisted of one car of the
first class for the governor, the officials, and the officers, and
of several freight-cars, which were cram-full of soldiers.

The dashing young soldiers, in their clean new uniforms, stood
crowding or sat with dangling legs in the wide-open doors of the
freight-cars. Some smoked, others jostled one another, jested,
laughed, displaying their teeth; others again cracked pumpkin seeds,
spitting out the shells with an air of self-confidence. Some of them
were running up and down the platform, toward the water-barrel, in
order to get a drink, and, upon meeting an officer, tempered their
gait, went through the stupid gesture of putting their hands to
their brows, and with serious faces, as though they were doing
not only something sensible, but even important, walked past them,
seeing them off with their eyes, and then raced more merrily,
thumping with their feet on the planks of the platform, laughing,
and chattering, as is characteristic of healthy, good lads, who in
good company travel from one place to another.

They were travelling to slay their hungry fathers and grandfathers,
as though going to some very jolly, or at least very usual, piece of
work.

The same impression was conveyed by the officials and officers in
gala-uniform, who were scattered on the platform and in the hall
of the first class. At the table, which was covered with bottles,
dressed in his semi-military uniform, sat the governor, the chief
of the expedition, eating something, and speaking calmly about the
weather with an acquaintance whom he had met, as though the matter
which he was about to attend to were so simple and so common that
it could not impair his calm and his interest in the change of the
weather.

At some distance away from the table, not partaking of any food,
sat a general of gendarmes, with an impenetrable, but gloomy look,
as though annoyed by the tedious formality. On all sides moved and
chattered officers, in their beautiful, gold-bedecked uniforms:
one, sitting at the table, was finishing a bottle of beer; another,
standing at the buffet, munched at an appetizing patty, shaking
off the crumbs, which had lodged on the breast of his uniform, and
throwing the money on the table with a self-confident gesture; a
third, vibrating both legs, was walking past the cars of our train,
ogling the feminine faces.

All these men, who were on their way to torture or kill hungry,
defenceless men, the same that fed them, had the appearance of men
who know conclusively that they are doing what is right, and even
are proud, "stuck up," at what they are doing.

What is this?

All these men are one half-hour's ride away from the place where, to
secure to a rich fellow some three thousand useless roubles, which
he has taken away from a whole community of starving peasants, they
may be compelled to perform the most terrible acts that one can
imagine, may begin, just as in Orél, to kill or to torture innocent
men, their brothers, and they calmly approach the place and time
where and when this may happen.

It is impossible to say that these men, all these officials,
officers, and soldiers, do not know what awaits them, because they
prepared themselves for it. The governor had to give his orders
concerning the rods, the officials had to purchase birch switches,
to haggle for them, and to enter this item as an expense. The
military gave and received and executed commands concerning the
ball-cartridges. All of them know that they are on the way to
torture and, perhaps, to kill their famished brothers, and that they
will begin to do this, perhaps, within an hour.

It would be incorrect to say that they do this from conviction,--as
is frequently said and as they themselves repeat,--from the
conviction that they do this because it is necessary to maintain
the state structure, in the first place, because all these men
have hardly ever even thought of the state structure and of its
necessity; in the second place, they can in no way be convinced that
the business in which they take part maintains the state, instead
of destroying it, and, in the third place, in reality the majority
of these men, if not all, will not only never sacrifice their peace
and pleasure for the purpose of supporting the state, but will even
never miss a chance of making use, for their peace and pleasure, of
everything they can, even though it be to the disadvantage of the
state. Consequently they do not do so for the sake of the abstract
principle of the state.

What is it, then?

I know all these men. If I do not know them personally, I know
approximately their characters, their past, their manner of thought.
All of them have mothers, and some have wives and children. They
are, for the most part, good-hearted, meek, frequently tender
men, who despise every cruelty, to say nothing of the murder of
men, and many of them would be incapable of killing or torturing
animals; besides, they are all people who profess Christianity
and consider violence exerted against defenceless men a low and
disgraceful matter. Not one of these men would be able for the sake
of his smallest advantage to do even one-hundredth part of what the
Governor of Orél did to those people; and any of them would even be
offended, if it were assumed that in his private life he would be
capable of doing anything like it.

And yet, here they are, within half an hour's ride from the place,
where they may be led inevitably to the necessity of doing it.

What is it, then?

But, besides these people who are travelling on the train, and who
are ready to commit murder and tortures, how could those people with
whom the whole matter began,--the proprietor, the superintendent,
the judges, and those who from St. Petersburg prescribed this matter
and by their commands are taking part in it,--how could these
men, the minister, the emperor, also good men, who are professing
the Christian religion, have undertaken and ordered such a thing,
knowing its consequences? How can even those who do not take part
in this matter, the spectators, who are provoked at every special
case of violence or at the torture of a horse, admit the performance
of so terrible a deed? How can they help being provoked at it,
standing on the road, and shouting, "No, we shall not allow hungry
people to be killed and flogged for not giving up their property,
which has been seized from them by force"? But not only does no one
do so,--the majority of men, even those who were the instigators
of the whole thing, like the superintendent, the proprietor, the
judges, and those who were the participants in it and who gave the
orders, like the governor, the minister, the emperor, are calm,
and do not even feel any pangs of conscience. Just as calm are
apparently all those men who are travelling to commit this evil deed.

The spectators, too, it seemed, who were not in any way interested
in the matter, for the most part looked with sympathy, rather than
with disapproval, upon the men who were getting ready for this
execrable deed. In the same car with me there was travelling a
merchant, a lumber dealer from the peasant class, and he loudly
proclaimed his sympathy for those tortures to which the peasants
were about to be subjected: "It is not right not to obey the
authorities," he said; "that's what the authorities are for. Just
wait, they will have their fleas driven out of them,--they won't
think of rioting after that. Serves them right."

What is it, then?

It is equally impossible to say that all these men--the instigators,
participants, abettors of this matter--are such rascals that,
knowing all the baseness of what they are doing, they, either for a
salary, or for an advantage, or out of fear of being punished, do
a thing which is contrary to their convictions. All these men know
how, in certain situations, to defend their convictions. Not one
of these officials would steal a purse, or read another person's
letter, or bear an insult without demanding satisfaction from the
insulter. Not one of these officers would have the courage to cheat
at cards, not to pay his card debts, to betray a friend, to run away
from the field of battle, or to abandon his flag. Not one of these
soldiers would have the courage to spit out the sacrament or to eat
meat on Good Friday. All these men are prepared to bear all kinds
of privations, sufferings, and dangers, rather than do something
which they consider to be bad. Consequently, there is in these men
a counteracting force, whenever they have to do something which is
contrary to their convictions.

Still less is it possible to say that all these men are such beasts
that it is proper and not at all painful for them to do such things.
We need but have a talk with these men, to see that all of them, the
proprietor, the judges, the minister, the Tsar, the governor, the
officers, and the soldiers not only in the depth of their hearts do
not approve of such deeds, but even suffer from the consciousness of
their part in them, when they are reminded of the significance of
this matter. They simply try not to think of it.

We need but have a talk with them, with all the participants in this
matter, from the proprietor to the last policeman and soldier, to
see that all of them in the depth of their hearts know that this is
a bad thing and that it would be better not to take part in it, and
that they suffer from it.

A lady of liberal tendencies, who was travelling on the same train
with us, upon noticing the governor and the officers in the hall of
the first class, and learning of the purpose of their journey, began
on purpose in a loud voice, so as to be heard, to curse the orders
of our time and to put to shame the men who were taking part in this
matter. All persons present felt ill at ease. Nobody knew whither
to look, but no one dared to answer her. The passengers looked as
though it were not worth while to reply to such empty talk. But it
was evident from the faces and fugitive eyes that all felt ashamed.
This also I noticed in the case of the soldiers. They, too, knew
that the business for which they were travelling was a bad one, but
they did not wish to think of what awaited them.

When the lumber dealer began insincerely, as I thought, merely to
show his culture, to speak of how necessary such measures were, the
soldiers who heard it turned away from him, as though they did not
hear him, and frowned.

All these men, both those who, like the proprietor, the
superintendent, the minister, the Tsar, participated in the
performance of this act, and those who are just now travelling on
the train, and even those who, without taking part in this matter,
look on at the accomplishment of it, know every one of them that
this is a bad business, and are ashamed of the part which they are
taking in it and even of their presence during its execution.

Why, then, have they been doing and tolerating it?

Ask those who, like the proprietor, started this matter, and those
who, like the judges, handed down a formally legal, but obviously
unjust decision, and those who ordered the enforcement of the
decree, and those who, like the soldiers, the policemen, and the
peasants, will with their own hands carry it into execution,--who
will beat and kill their brothers,--all of them, the instigators,
and the accomplices, and the executors, and the abettors of these
crimes, and all will give you essentially the same answer.

The men in authority, who provoked the matter and coöperated in
it and directed it, will say that they are doing what they are
doing because such matters are necessary for the maintenance of
the existing order; and the maintenance of the existing order is
necessary for the good of the country and of humanity, for the
possibility of a social life and a forward movement of progress.

The men from the lower spheres, the peasants and the soldiers,
those who will be compelled with their own hands to exercise the
violence, will say that they are doing what they are doing because
this is prescribed by the higher authorities, and that the higher
authorities know what they are doing. That the authorities consist
of the very men who ought to be the authorities and that they know
what they are doing, presents itself to them as an incontestable
truth. If these lower executors even admit the possibility of an
error or delusion, they admit it only in the case of the lower
authorities; but the highest power, from whom all this proceeds,
seems to them to be unquestionably infallible.

Though explaining the motives for their activities in a different
manner, both the rulers and the ruled agree in this, that they do
what they do because the existing order is precisely the one which
is indispensable and which must exist at the present time, and
which, therefore, it is the sacred duty of every person to maintain.

On this recognition of the necessity, and so of the unchangeableness
of the existing order, is based the reflection, which has always
been adduced by all the participants in state violence in their
justification, that, since the present order is unchangeable, the
refusal of a single individual to perform the duties imposed upon
him will not change the essence of the matter, and will have no
other effect than that in place of the person refusing there will
be another man, who may perform the duty less well, that is, more
cruelly, more harmfully for those men against whom the violence is
practised.

This conviction that the existing order is indispensable, and
so unchangeable, and that it is the sacred duty of every man to
maintain it, is what gives to good people and, in private life, to
moral people the possibility of participating with a more or less
calm conscience in such affairs as the one which took place in Orél
and the one which the people who were travelling in the Túla train
were getting ready to act in.

But on what is this conviction based?

It is naturally agreeable and desirable for the proprietor to
believe that the existing order is indispensable and unchangeable,
because it is this very existing order which secures for him the
income from his hundreds and thousands of desyatínas, thanks to
which he leads his habitual idle and luxurious life.

Naturally enough, the judge, too, readily believes in the necessity
of the order in consequence of which he receives fifty times as much
as the most industrious labourer. This is just as comprehensible
in the case of the supreme judge, who receives a salary of six or
more thousand, and in the case of all the higher officials. Only
with the present order can he, as a governor, prosecutor, senator,
member of various councils, receive his salary of several thousands,
without which he would at once perish with all his family, because,
except by the position which he holds, he would not be able, with
his ability, industry, and knowledge, to earn one hundredth part
of what he is getting. In the same situation are the minister, the
emperor, and every higher authority, but with this difference,
that, the higher they are and the more exclusive their position is,
the more indispensable it is for them to believe that the existing
order is the only possible order, because outside of it they not
only cannot get an equal position, but will have to stand much
lower than the rest of mankind. A man who voluntarily hires himself
out as a policeman at a salary of ten roubles, which he can easily
get in any other position, has little need of the preservation of
the existing order, and so can get along without believing in its
unchangeableness. But a king or an emperor, who in his position
receives millions; who knows that all around him there are thousands
of men who are willing to depose him and take his place; who knows
that in no other position will he get such an income and such
honours; who in the majority of cases, with a more or less despotic
rule, knows even this, that, if he should be deposed, he would
be tried for everything he did while in possession of his power,
cannot help but believe in the unchangeableness and sacredness of
the existing order. The higher the position which a man occupies,
the more advantageous and, therefore, the more unstable it is, and
the more terrible and dangerous a fall from it is, the more does a
man who holds that position believe in the unchangeableness of the
existing order, and with so much greater peace of mind can such a
man, as though not for himself, but for the support of the existing
order, do bad and cruel deeds.

Thus it is in the case of all the men of the ruling classes who hold
positions that are more advantageous than those which they could
hold without the existing order,--beginning with the lowest police
officials and ending with the highest authorities. All these men
more or less believe in the unchangeableness of the existing order,
because, above all else, it is advantageous for them.

But what is it that compels the peasants, the soldiers, who stand on
the lowest rung of the ladder, who have no profit from the existing
order, who are in a condition of the most abject submission and
humiliation, to believe that the existing order, in consequence of
which they are in a most disadvantageous and humble state, is the
very order which must be, and which, therefore, must be maintained,
even by performing the basest and most unconscionable acts for it.

What is it that compels these men to make the false reflection that
the existing order is invariable and, therefore, must be maintained,
whereas it is evident that, on the contrary, it is unchangeable only
because it is maintained as such?

What is it that compels the men who were but yesterday taken from
the plough, and who are dressed up in these monstrous, indecent
garments with blue collars and gilt buttons, to travel with guns and
swords, in order to kill their hungry fathers and brothers? They
certainly have no advantages, and are in no danger of losing the
position which they hold, because their condition is worse than the
one from which they are taken.

The men of the higher ruling classes, the proprietors, ministers,
kings, officers, take part in these matters, thus supporting the
existing order, because it is advantageous for them. Besides, these
frequently good, meek men feel themselves able to take part in these
things for this other reason, that their participation is limited to
instigations, decrees, and commands. None of these men in authority
do themselves those things which they instigate, determine upon, and
order to be done. For the most part they do not even see how all
those terrible things which they provoke and prescribe are carried
out.

But the unfortunate people of the lower classes, who derive no
advantage from the existing order, who, on the contrary, in
consequence of this order are held in the greatest contempt, why do
they, who, for the maintenance of this order, with their own hands
tear people away from their families, who bind them, who lock them
up in prisons and at hard labour, who watch and shoot them, do all
these things?

What is it that compels these men to believe that the existing order
is unchangeable and that it is necessary to maintain it?

All violence is based only on them, on those men who with their own
hands beat, bind, lock up, kill. If these men did not exist,--these
soldiers and policemen,--the armed men in general, who are prepared
on command to commit violence and to kill all those whom they are
commanded to kill, not one of the men who sign the decrees for
executions, life imprisonment, hard labour, would ever have the
courage himself to hang, lock up, torture to death one thousandth
part of those whom now, sitting quietly in their studies, they order
to be hung and to be tortured in every way, only because they do
not see it and it is not done by them, but somewhere far away by
obedient executors.

All those injustices and cruelties which have entered into the
curriculum of the existing life, have entered there only because
there exist these people, who are always prepared to maintain these
injustices and cruelties. If these men did not exist, there would
not be any one to offer violence to all these enormous masses of
violated people, and those who give orders would never even dare
either to command or even to dream of what they now command with so
much self-assurance. If there were no people who would be ready at
the command of those whom they obey to torture or to kill him who
is pointed out to them, no one would ever dare to affirm, what is
with so much self-confidence asserted by the non-working landowners,
that the land which surrounds the peasants, who are dying for lack
of land, is the property of a man who does not work on it, and that
the supply of corn, which has been garnered in a rascally manner,
ought to be kept intact amidst a starving population, because the
merchant needs some profit, and so forth. If there were no men who
would be ready at the will of the authorities to torture and kill
every person pointed out to them, it could never occur to a landed
proprietor to take away from the peasants a forest which had been
raised by them, nor to the officials to consider legal the payment
to them of salaries, which are collected from the hungry masses,
for oppressing them, to say nothing of executing men, or locking
them up, or exiling them, because they overthrow the lie and preach
the truth. All this is demanded and done only because these ruling
people are firmly convinced that they have always at hand submissive
people, who will be ready to carry any of their demands into
execution by means of tortures and murders.

The only reason why they commit deeds like those committed by all
the tyrants from Napoleon down to the last commander of a company,
who shoots into a crowd, is because they are stupefied by the power
behind them, consisting of subservient men who are ready to do
anything they are commanded. The whole strength, therefore, lies in
the men who with their hands do acts of violence, in the men who
serve with the police, among the soldiers, more especially among the
soldiers, because the police do their work only when they have an
army behind them.

What is it, then, that has led these good men, who derive no
advantage from it, who are compelled with their hands to do all
these terrible things, men on whom the whole matter depends, into
that remarkable delusion that assures them that the existing
disadvantageous, pernicious, and for them painful order is the one
which must be?

Who has led them into this remarkable delusion?

They have certainly not assured themselves that they must do what is
not only painful, disadvantageous, and pernicious to them and their
whole class, which forms nine-tenths of the whole population, and
what is even contrary to their conscience.

"How are you going to kill men, when in God's law it says, 'Thou
shalt not kill'?" I frequently asked soldiers, and, by reminding
them of what they did not like to think about, I always made them
feel awkward and embarrassed. Such a soldier knew that there was
an obligatory law of God, "Thou shalt not kill," and he knew that
there was an obligatory military service, but it had never occurred
to him that there was any contradiction there. The sense of the
timid answers that I always received to this question consisted
approximately in this, that murder in war and the execution of
criminals at the command of the government were not included in
the common prohibition of murders. But when I told them that no
such limitation was made in God's law, and reminded them of the
doctrine of brotherhood, of the forgiveness of offences, of love,
which are obligatory for all Christians and which could in no way be
harmonized with murder, the men of the people generally agreed with
me, and on their side put the question to me as to how it happened
that the government, which, according to their ideas, could not
err, commanded the armies, when necessary, to go to war, and ordered
the execution of prisoners. When I answered them that the government
acted incorrectly when it commanded these things to be done, my
interlocutors became even more embarrassed, and either broke off the
conversation or grew provoked at me.

"There must be such a law. I guess the bishops know better than we,"
I was told by a Russian soldier. And, having said this, the soldier
apparently felt his conscience eased, being fully convinced that
his guides had found a law, the same under which his ancestors had
served, and the kings and the kings' heirs, and millions of people,
and he himself served, and that what I was telling him was some
piece of cunning or cleverness, like a riddle.

All the men of our Christian world know, know firmly, from
tradition, and from revelation, and from the irrefutable voice of
conscience, that murder is one of the most terrible crimes which
a man can commit, as the Gospel says, and that this sin cannot be
limited to certain men, that is, that it is a sin to kill some men,
but not a sin to kill others. All know that if the sin of murder is
a sin, it is always a sin, independently of what men are the victims
of it, just like the sin of adultery and thieving and any other;
at the same time men have seen, since childhood, since youth, that
murder is not only admitted, but even blessed by all those whom
they are accustomed to respect as their spiritual guides, ordained
by God; they see that their worldly guides with calm assurance
institute murders, bear arms of murder, of which they are proud, and
demand of all, in the name of the civil and even the divine law,
that they shall take part in murder. Men see that there is here some
contradiction, and, being unable to solve it, they involuntarily
assume that this contradiction is due only to their ignorance. The
very coarseness and obviousness of the contradiction sustains them
in this conviction. They cannot imagine that their enlighteners,
learned men, should be able with such confidence to preach two such
seemingly contradictory propositions,--the obligatoriness for every
one of the law and of murder. A simple, innocent child, and later
a youth, cannot imagine that men who stand so high in his opinion,
whom he considers to be either holy or learned, should for any
reason be deceiving him so unscrupulously. But it is precisely this
that has been done to him all the time. This is accomplished, in the
first place, by impressing all the labouring people, who have not
themselves any time to solve moral and religious questions, from
childhood, and up to old age, by example and direct teaching, with
the idea that tortures and murders are compatible with Christianity,
and that, for certain purposes of state, tortures and murders are
not only admissible, but even peremptory; in the second place, by
impressing some of them, who are chosen by enlistment or levy, with
the idea that the performance of tortures and murders with their
own hands forms a sacred duty and even an act which is valorous and
worthy of praise and of reward.

The common deception, which is disseminated among all men, consists
in this, that in all the catechisms, or the books which have taken
their place and which are now the subject of obligatory instruction
for the children, it says that violence, that is, tortures,
imprisonments, and executions, as also murders in civil or external
wars for the purpose of maintaining and defending the existing order
of the state (whatever it be, autocratic, monarchical, a convention,
a consulship, an empire of either Napoleon or of Boulanger, a
constitutional monarchy, a commune, or a republic), is quite
legitimate, and does not contradict either morality or Christianity.

This it says in all the catechisms or books used in the schools. And
men are so convinced of it that they grow up, live, and die in this
conviction, without doubting it even once.

This is one deception, a common deception, which is practised on
all men; there is another, a private deception, which is practised
on soldiers or policemen, who are chosen in one way or another and
who perform the tortures and the murders which are needed for the
support and the defence of the existing order.

In all the military codes it says in so many words what in the
Russian military code is expressed as follows: "(Art. 87) Precisely
and without discussion to carry out the commands of the authorities
means to carry out precisely the command given by the authorities,
without discussing whether it is good or bad, and whether it
is possible to carry it out. The chief himself answers for the
consequences of a command given out by him. (Art. 88) The subject
may refuse to carry out the commands of his superior only when he
sees clearly that by carrying out his superior's command he"--one
involuntarily imagines that what will follow is "when he sees
clearly that by carrying out his superior's command he violates the
law of God;" but that is not at all the case: "when he sees clearly
that he is violating the oath of allegiance and fidelity, and his
service to the emperor."

It says that a man, being a soldier, must carry out all the commands
of his chief without any exception whatever, which for a soldier
mainly means murder, and so must violate all divine and human laws,
except his fidelity and service to him who at the given moment
happens to be in power.

Thus it says in the Russian military code, and precisely the same,
though in different words, is said in all the military codes,
as indeed it cannot be otherwise, because in reality upon this
deception of emancipating men from their obedience to God or to
their conscience, and of substituting for this obedience the
obedience to the accidental superior, is all the power of the army
and the state based.

So it is this on which is founded that strange conviction of the
lower classes that the existing order, which is pernicious for them,
is as it ought to be, and that they are, therefore, obliged to
support it with tortures and murders.

This conviction is based on a conscious deception, which is
practised upon them by the upper classes.

Nor can it be otherwise. To compel the lower, most numerous classes
of men to oppress and torment themselves, committing with this
such acts as are contrary to their conscience, it was necessary to
deceive these lower, most numerous classes. And so it was done.

The other day I again saw an open practice of this shameless deceit,
and I was again surprised to see with what boldness and freedom it
was practised.

In the beginning of November, as I was passing through Túla, I again
saw at the gate of the County Council Office the familiar dense
crowd of people, from which proceeded drunken shouts and the pitiful
wail of mothers and of wives. This was a levy of recruits.

As upon other occasions, I was unable to drive past this spectacle:
it attracts me as by some evil charm. I again entered among the
crowd, stood, looked, asked questions, and marvelled at the freedom
with which this most terrible crime is perpetrated in broad daylight
and in a populous city.

As in former years, the elders in all the villages of Russia, with
its one hundred millions of inhabitants, on the first of November
selected from lists a given number of lads, frequently their own
sons, and took them to the city.

On the way the recruits went on an uninterrupted spree, in which
they were not interfered with by their elders, who felt that going
to such a mad business as the one to which the recruits were going,
abandoning their wives and mothers and renouncing everything
holy to them, in order to become somebody's senseless instruments
of murder, was too painful a matter, if they did not intoxicate
themselves with liquor.

And so they travelled, drinking, cursing, singing, fighting, and
maiming themselves. The nights they passed in inns. In the morning
they again became drunk and gathered in front of the County Council
Office.

One part of them, in new short fur coats, with knitted shawls about
their necks, with moist drunken eyes or with savage self-encouraging
shouts, or quiet and dejected, crowd at the gate amidst weeping
mothers and wives, waiting for their turns (I fell in with them
on the very day of the levy, that is, when those who were sent
up were to be examined); another part at this time crowds in the
waiting-room of the Office.

In the Office they are busy working. The door is opened, and the
janitor calls Peter Sídorov. Peter Sídorov is startled, makes the
sign of the cross, and enters into a small room with a glass door.
Here the prospective recruits undress themselves. A naked recruit, a
companion of Peter Sídorov, just accepted, comes in from the Office,
with trembling jaws, and puts on his clothes. Peter Sídorov has
heard and sees by his face that he is accepted. Peter Sídorov wants
to ask him something, but he is told to hurry and undress himself as
quickly as possible. He throws off his fur coat, pulls off his boots
with his feet, takes off his vest, draws his shirt over his head,
and with protruding ribs, naked, with shivering body, and emitting
an odour of liquor, tobacco, and perspiration, with bare feet,
enters into the Office, without knowing what to do with his bared
muscular arms.

In the Office there hangs in full sight and in a large gilt frame
the portrait of the emperor in a uniform with a sash, and in the
corner a small portrait of Christ in a shirt and a crown of thorns.
In the middle of the room there stands a table covered with green
cloth, upon which lie papers and stands a triangular thing with an
eagle, which is called the Mirror of Laws. Around the table sit the
chiefs, with confident, calm looks. One of them smokes, another
examines some papers. The moment Sídorov has entered, a janitor
comes up to him, and he is put on the measuring-scale, receives
a knock under his chin, and has his legs straightened out. There
walks up a man with a cigarette. It is the doctor, and he, without
looking into the recruit's face, but somewhere past him, loathingly
touches his body, and measures and feels, and tells the janitor to
open the recruit's mouth wide, and commands him to breathe and to
say something. Somebody makes some notes. Finally, without looking
once into his eyes, the doctor says, "Able-bodied! Next!" and with a
fatigued expression again seats himself at the table. Again soldiers
push the lad and hurry him off. He somehow manages in his hurry to
pull the shirt over him, after missing the sleeves, somehow puts on
his trousers and leg-rags, draws on his boots, looks for his shawl
and cap, grasps his fur coat, and is led into the hall, where he
is placed behind a bench. Beyond this bench wait all the accepted
recruits. A village lad, like him, but from a distant Government, a
full-fledged soldier with a gun, with a sharp bayonet attached to
it, keeps watch on him, ready to run the bayonet through him, if he
should think of running away.

Meanwhile the crowd of fathers, mothers, wives, pushed by the
policemen, press close to the gate, to find out who is accepted,
and who not. There appears one of the rejected, and he announces
that Peter has been accepted, and there is heard the wail of
Peter's wife, for whom the word "accepted" means a separation of
four or five years, and the life of a soldier's wife as a cook, in
debauchery.

But just then a long-haired man in a special attire, which
distinguishes him from all other men, drives up and, getting down
from the carriage, walks up to the house of the County Council
Office. The policemen clear a path for him through the crowd. "The
father has come to administer the oath." And this father, who has
been assured that he is a special, exclusive servant of Christ, who
for the most part does not himself see the deception under which he
is, enters into the room where the accepted recruits are waiting,
puts on a gold-embroidered apron, draws his hair out from underneath
it, opens the very Gospel in which taking an oath is prohibited,
lifts up a cross, the very cross on which Christ was crucified for
not doing what this His imaginary servant orders to be done, and
puts it on the pulpit, and all these defenceless and deceived lads
repeat after him the lie which he pronounces boldly and by habit.
He reads, and they repeat after him: "I promise and swear by the
Almighty God, before His holy Gospel ... etc., to defend, that is,
to kill all those whom I am commanded to kill, and to do everything
I am ordered to do by those people whom I do not know, and who need
me for nothing else but that I should commit the evil deeds by which
they are kept in their positions, and by which they oppress my
brothers." All the accepted recruits senselessly repeat these wild
words, and the so-called "father" drives away with the consciousness
of having correctly and scrupulously done his duty, and all these
deceived lads think that all those insipid, incomprehensible words,
which they have just pronounced, have now, for the whole time of
their military service, freed them from their human obligations and
have bound them to new, more obligatory military obligations.

And this is done publicly, and no one will shout to the deceivers
and to the deceived: "Bethink yourselves and scatter, for this is
the basest and meanest lie, which ruins not only our bodies, but
also our souls."

No one does so; on the contrary, when all are accepted, and it
becomes necessary to let them out, the military chief, as though to
scorn them, enters with self-confident, majestic mien into the hall
where the deceived, drunken lads are locked up, and boldly exclaims
to them in military fashion, "Your health, boys! I congratulate
you on your Tsar's service." And the poor fellows (somebody has
instructed them what to do) babble something with an unaccustomed,
half-intoxicated tongue to the effect that they are glad of it.

In the meantime, the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives stand
at the door and wait. The women look with tearful, arrested eyes
through the door. And the door opens, and out come, staggering,
and with a look of bravado, the accepted recruits,--Petrúkha, and
Vanyúkha, and Makár,--trying not to look at their relatives. The
wail of the mothers and wives is heard. Some embrace one another
and weep; others try to look brave; others again console their
people. Mothers and wives, knowing that now they will be orphaned
for three, four, or five years, without a supporter, wail and lament
at the top of their voices. The fathers do not speak much, and only
pitifully smack their tongues and sigh, knowing that now they will
no longer see their helpers, whom they have raised and instructed,
and that there will return to them, not those peaceful, industrious
agriculturists that they have been, but generally debauched,
dandyish soldiers, who are no longer used to a simple life.

And now the whole crowd take up seats in their sleighs and start
down the street, in the direction of inns and restaurants, and
still louder are heard, interfering with one another, songs, sobs,
drunken shouts, the laments of the mothers and wives, the sounds of
the accordion, and curses. All make for saloons and restaurants,
the revenue from which goes to the government, and they abandon
themselves to intoxication, which drowns in them the percepted
consciousness of the illegality of what is being done to them.

For two or three weeks they live at home, and for the most part are
having a good time, that is, are out on a spree.

On a set day they are collected, and driven like cattle to one
place, and are taught military methods and exercises. They are
instructed by just such deceived and bestialized men as they, who
entered the service two or three years ago. The means of instruction
are deception, stupefaction, kicks, vódka. And not a year passes but
that spiritually sound, bright, good fellows are turned into just
such wild beings as their teachers.

"Well, and if the prisoner, your father, runs away?" I asked a young
soldier.

"I can run the bayonet through him," he replied, in the peculiar,
senseless voice of a soldier. "And if he 'removes himself,' I must
shoot," he added, apparently proud of his knowledge of what to do
when his father "removes himself."

When he, the good young man, is brought to a condition lower than
an animal, he is such as those who use him as an instrument of
violence want him to be. He is all ready: the man is lost, and a new
instrument of violence has been created.

And all this takes place every year, every autumn, everywhere, in
the whole of Russia, in broad daylight, in a populous city, in the
sight of all men, and the deception is so clever, so cunning, that
all see it and in the depth of their hearts know all its baseness,
all its terrible consequences, and are unable to free themselves
from it.

                                   3

When the eyes shall be opened to this terrible deception which is
practised on men, one must marvel how preachers of the religion
of Christianity and morality, educators of youth, simply good,
intelligent parents, who always exist in every society, can preach
any doctrine of morality amidst a society in which all the churches
and governments openly acknowledge that tortures and murders form an
indispensable condition of the life of all men, and that amidst all
men there must always be some special men, who are prepared to kill
their brothers, and that every one of us may be such.

How can children and youths be taught and men in general be
enlightened, to say nothing of the enlightenment in the Christian
spirit, how can they be taught any morality by the side of the
doctrine that murder is indispensable for the maintenance of the
common, consequently of our own, well-being, and so is legitimate,
and that there are men (any of us may be these men) whose duty it
is to torture and kill our neighbours and to commit all kinds of
crime at the will of those who have the power in their hands? If
it is possible and right to torture and kill and commit all kinds
of crimes by the will of those who have the power in their hands,
there is, and there can be, no moral teaching, but there is only the
right of the stronger. And so it is. In reality, such a teaching,
which for some men is theoretically justified by the theory of the
struggle for existence, does exist in our society.

Really, what kind of a moral teaching can there be, which would
admit murder for any purposes whatsoever? This is as impossible as
any mathematical doctrine, which would admit that two is equal to
three.

With the admission of the fact that two is equal to three there may
be a semblance of mathematics, but there can be no real mathematical
knowledge. With the admission of murder in the form of executions,
wars, self-defence, there may be a semblance of morality, but no
real morality. The recognition of the sacredness of every man's life
is the first and only foundation of all morality.

The doctrine of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for
a life was put aside by Christianity for the very reason that this
doctrine is only a justification of immorality, only a semblance
of justice, and is devoid of sense. Life is a quantity which has no
weight and no measure and which cannot be equalized to any other,
and so the destruction of one life for another can have no meaning.
Besides, every social law is a law which has for its purpose the
improvement of human life. But in what way can the destruction
of the lives of a few individuals improve the lives of men? The
destruction of life is not like its improvement, but an act of
suicide.

The destruction of another man's life for the purpose of preserving
justice is like what a man would do who, to mend the calamity which
consists in his having lost one arm, should for the sake of justice
cut off his other arm.

But, to say nothing of the sin of deception, with which the most
terrible crime presents itself to men as their duty; to say nothing
of the terrible crime of using Christ's name and authority for the
purpose of legalizing what is most denied by this same Christ, as is
done in the case of the oath; to say nothing of the offence by means
of which not only the bodies, but even the souls of "these little
ones" are ruined; to say nothing of all that, how can men, even in
view of their personal security, men who think highly of their forms
of life, their progress, admit the formation among them of that
terrible, senseless, cruel, pernicious force which is established by
every organized government that rests on the army? The most cruel
and terrible of robber bands is not so terrible as such a state
organization. Every leader of robbers is none the less limited in
his power, because the men who form his band retain at least a
small part of their human liberty and may oppose the performance
of acts contrary to their conscience. But for men forming a part
of a regularly organized government with an army, with discipline
carried to the point to which it is at the present time, there are
no barriers whatsoever. There are no crimes so terrible that they
would not be committed by men forming a part of the government
and of the army, by the will of him who accidentally (Boulanger,
Pugachév, Napoleon) may stand at its head.

Frequently, when I see, not only the levies of recruits, the
military exercises, the manœuvres, but also the policemen with
loaded revolvers, the sentries standing with guns and adjusted
bayonets; when I hear (as I do in the Khamóvniki, where I live) for
whole days the whistling and the pinging of bullets striking the
target; and when I see, in the very city where every attempt at
self-help and violence is prohibited, where there is a prohibition
against the sale of powder, medicines, fast driving, unlicensed
medical practice, and so forth, when I see in this same city
thousands of disciplined men, who have been taught to commit murder
and who are subject to one man,--I ask myself: "How can the men who
think so highly of their security bear all this?" To say nothing of
the harmfulness and immorality, nothing can be more dangerous than
this. How can all men, I do not say Christians, Christian pastors,
but all philanthropists, moralists, all those men who value their
lives, their security, their well-being, quietly look on? This
organization will certainly act in the same way, no matter in whose
hands it may be: to-day, let us say, this power is in the hands of
an endurable ruler; to-morrow a Biron, an Elizabeth, a Catherine, a
Pugachév, a Napoleon the First, a Napoleon the Third may usurp it.
And again, the man in whose hands is the power, and who to-day may
be endurable, may to-morrow turn into a beast, or his place may be
taken by an insane or half-witted heir of his, as was the case with
the King of Bavaria and Paul.

And not only these higher rulers, but also all those minor
satraps, who are distributed everywhere like so many Baránovs,
chiefs of police, even rural officers, commanders of companies,
under-officers, may commit terrible crimes before there has been
time to depose them, as happens constantly.

Involuntarily one asks himself: "How can men permit such things to
happen, if not for the sake of higher considerations of state, at
least for the sake of their security?"

The answer to this question is this, that it is not all men who
permit this to happen (one part of them,--the great majority of
men,--the deceived and the subjected, cannot help but permit
anything to be done), but those who with such an organization hold
an advantageous position; they permit it, because for them the
risk of suffering, because at the head of the government or the
army there may be a senseless or cruel man, is always less than
the disadvantages to which they would be subjected in case of the
destruction of the organization itself.

The judge, policeman, governor, officer will hold his position
equally under Boulanger, or a republic, or Pugachév or Catherine;
but he will certainly lose his position, if the existing order,
which secures for him his advantageous position, falls to pieces.
And so all these men are not afraid of who will stand at the
head of the organization of violence,--they adapt themselves to
anybody,--but only of the destruction of the organization itself,
and so they always support it, often unconsciously.

One often marvels why free men, who are not urged to it by anything,
the so-called flower of society, enter the army, in Russia, in
England, Germany, Austria, even France, and why they seek an
opportunity for becoming murderers. Why do parents, moral men, send
their children to institutions which prepare them for military
matters? Why do mothers buy their children helmets, guns, swords as
their favourite toys? (The children of peasants never play soldier.)
Why do good men, and even women, who are in no way connected
with military affairs, go into ecstasies over the exploits of a
Skobelévski and of others, and why do they take so much pains to
praise them? Why do men, who are not urged to do so, who do not
receive any salary for it, like the marshals of nobility in Russia,
devote whole months of assiduous work to performing a physically
hard and morally agonizing piece of business,--the reception of
recruits? Why do all the emperors and kings wear military costumes,
attend manœuvres and parades, distribute rewards to soldiers,
erect monuments to generals and conquerors? Why do free, wealthy men
consider it an honour to perform lackeys' duties to crowned heads,
why do they humble themselves, and flatter them, and pretend that
they believe in the special grandeur of these persons? Why do men,
who have long ago stopped believing in the mediæval superstitions
of the church, and who are unable to believe in them, seriously and
invariably pretend that they believe, thus maintaining the offensive
and blasphemous religious institution? Why is the ignorance of the
masses so zealously guarded, not only by the governments, but also
by the free men from the higher classes? Why do they with such fury
attack every attempt at destroying the religious superstitions, and
every true enlightenment of the masses? Why do men,--historians,
novelists, poets,--who can certainly receive nothing for their
flattery, describe as heroes long deceased emperors, kings, or
generals? Why do men who call themselves learned devote their whole
lives to the formation of theories, from which it follows that
violence which is exerted by the power against the nation is not
violence, but some especial right?

One often marvels why, for what reason a lady of the world or an
artist, who, it would seem, is interested neither in social, nor in
military questions, condemns labour strikes and preaches war, and
always definitely attacks one side and defends the other?

But one marvels at this only so long as one does not know that
this is all done so because all the men of the ruling classes feel
instinctively what it is that maintains and what destroys the
organization under which they can enjoy the privileges they are
enjoying.

The lady of the world has not even made the reflection that, if
there are no capitalists, and no armies to defend them, her husband
will have no money, and she will have no salon and no costumes; and
the artist has not made the reflection as to this, that he needs the
capitalists, who are protected by the armies, to buy his pictures;
but the instinct, which in this case takes the place of reason,
guides them unerringly. It is precisely the same instinct that with
few exceptions guides all those men who support all those political,
religious, economic establishments, which are advantageous to them.

But can the men of the upper classes maintain this order of things,
only because it is advantageous for them? These men cannot help but
see that this order of things is in itself irrational, no longer
corresponds to the degree of men's consciousness, not even to public
opinion, and is full of dangers. The men of the ruling classes--the
honest, good, clever men among them--cannot help but suffer from
these internal contradictions, and cannot help but see the dangers
with which this order threatens them. Is it possible the men of
the lower classes, all the millions of these people, can with a
calm conscience perform all these obviously bad acts, tortures, and
murders, which they are compelled to perform, only because they are
afraid of punishment? Indeed, that could not have been, and neither
the men of the one class nor of the other could help but see the
irrationality of their activity, if the peculiarity of the state
structure did not conceal from them the whole unnaturalness and
irrationality of the acts committed by them.

This irrationality is concealed by the fact that in the commission
of each of these acts there are so many instigators, accomplices,
abettors, that not one of the men taking part in it feels himself to
be morally responsible.

Murderers compel all the persons who are present at a murder
to strike the dead victim, so that the responsibility may be
distributed among the largest possible number of men. The same
thing, having assumed definite forms, has established itself in
the structure of the state in the commission of all those crimes,
without the constant commission of which no state organization is
thinkable. The rulers of the state always try to draw as large
a number of citizens as possible into the greatest possible
participation in all the crimes committed by them and indispensable
for them.

Of late this has found a most lucid expression in the drafting of
the citizens into the courts in the form of jurors, into the armies
in the form of soldiers, and into the local government and into the
legislative assembly in the form of electors and representatives.

In the structure of the state, in which, as in a basket made of
rods, all the ends are so concealed that it is not possible to find
them, the responsibility for crimes committed is so concealed from
men that they, in committing the most awful deeds, do not see their
own responsibility in them.

In olden times the tyrants were blamed for the commission of evil
deeds, but in our time most awful crimes, unthinkable even in the
time of a Nero, are committed, and there is no one to blame.

Some men demanded, others decreed, others again confirmed, others
proposed, others reported, others prescribed, others executed.
Women, old men, innocent people, are killed, hanged, flogged to
death, as lately happened in Russia in the Yúzov Plant, and as
happens everywhere in Europe and in America, in the struggle with
anarchists and all kinds of violators of the existing order;
hundreds, thousands of men will be shot to death, killed, and
hanged, or, as is done in wars, millions of men will be killed or
ruined, or, as is constantly done, the souls of men are ruined in
solitary confinement, in the debauched condition of militarism,--and
no one is to blame.

On the lowest stage of the social ladder, soldiers with guns,
pistols, swords, torture and kill men, and with the same tortures
and murders compel men to enter the army, and are fully convinced
that the responsibility for these acts is taken from them by those
authorities who prescribe these acts to them.

On the highest stage, kings, presidents, ministers, Chambers,
prescribe these tortures and murders and the enlistment of soldiers,
and are fully convinced that, since they are put into their places
by God, or since the society which they rule over demands from them
precisely what they prescribe, they cannot be blamed.

In the middle between the two are the intermediate persons, who
order the tortures and murders and the enlistment of soldiers, and
they are fully convinced that their responsibility has been taken
from them, partly by the commands from above, and partly because the
same orders are demanded of them by all those who stand on the lower
stages.

The administrative and the executive powers, which lie at the two
extremes of the structure of the state, meet like two ends that are
united into a ring, and one conditions and maintains the other and
all the intervening links.

Without the conviction that there exists such a person, or such a
number of persons, who take upon themselves the responsibility for
the acts committed, not one soldier would be able to raise his hands
for the purpose of torturing or killing. Without the conviction
that this is demanded by the whole nation, not one emperor, king,
president, not one assembly would be able to prescribe these same
tortures and murders. Without the conviction that there are persons
who stand above him and take upon themselves the responsibility for
his act, and men who stand below him and demand the fulfilment of
such acts for their own good, not one of the men who stand on the
stages intermediate between the ruler and the soldier would be able
to commit those acts which he is committing.

The structure of the state is such that, no matter on what rung of
the social ladder a man may stand, his degree of irresponsibility
is always one and the same: the higher he stands, the more is he
subjected to the influence of the demand for orders from below and
the less he is subjected to the influence of the prescriptions from
above, and vice versa.

Thus, in the case before me, every one who had taken part in the
matter was the more under the influence of the demand for orders
from below and the less under the influence of prescriptions from
above, the higher his position was, and vice versa.

But not only do all men who are connected with the structure of
the state shift their responsibility for deeds committed upon
others: the peasant who is drafted into the army, upon the nobleman
or merchant who has become an officer; and the officer, upon the
nobleman who holds the position of governor; and the governor, upon
the son of an official or nobleman who occupies the position of
minister; and the minister, upon a member of the imperial house who
holds the position of emperor; and the emperor again, upon all these
officials, noblemen, merchants, and peasants; not only do men in
this manner free themselves from the consciousness of responsibility
for acts committed by them,--they even lose the moral consciousness
of their responsibility for this other reason, that, uniting into a
political structure, they so constantly, continuously, and tensely
convince themselves and others that they are not all identical men,
but men who differ from one another as does "one star from another,"
that they begin themselves sincerely to believe so. Thus they
convince one set of men that they are not simple men, identical with
others, but a special kind of men, who have to be honoured, while
they impress others with the idea that they stand beneath all other
men and so must unflinchingly submit to what they are commanded to
do by their superiors.

On this inequality and exaltation of one class of men and the
annihilation of the other is mainly based the inability of men to
see the irrationality of the existing order and its cruelty and
criminality, and of that deception which is practised by some and to
which the others submit.

Some, those who are impressed with the idea that they are
vested with some supernatural significance and grandeur, are so
intoxicated by this imaginary grandeur that they stop seeing
their responsibility in the acts committed by them; the other
men, who, on the contrary, are impressed with the idea that they
are insignificant creatures, who must in everything submit to the
higher, in consequence of this constant condition of humiliation
fall into a strange condition of intoxication of servility, and
under the influence of their intoxication also fail to see the
significance of their acts, and lose the consciousness of their
responsibility for them. The intermediate people, who, partly
submitting to the higher, and partly considering themselves to
be superior, succumb simultaneously to the intoxication of power
and that of servility, and so lose the consciousness of their
responsibility.

We need but look in any country at a superior chief, intoxicated by
his grandeur, accompanied by his staff, all of them on magnificently
caparisoned horses, in special uniforms and signs of distinction, as
he, to the sound of the harmonious and festive music produced by
wind-instruments, rides past a line of soldiers stiffened up from a
sense of servility and presenting arms,--we need but look at him, in
order that we may understand that at these moments the highest chief
and the soldier and all the intermediate persons, being in a state
of intoxication, are equally capable of committing acts which they
would not think of committing under other circumstances.

But the intoxication experienced by men under such phenomena as
are parades, imperial receptions, church solemnities, coronations,
is a temporary and acute condition; there are also other, chronic,
constant conditions of intoxication, which are equally experienced
by all men who have any power, from the power of the emperor to that
of a policeman in the street, and by men who submit to power and who
are in a condition of intoxication through servility, and who in
justification of this their condition always ascribe, as has always
shown itself in the case of slaves, the greatest significance and
dignity to him whom they obey.

On this deception of the inequality of men and the resulting
intoxication of power and of servility is pre-eminently based the
ability of men united into a political structure to commit, without
experiencing any pangs of conscience, acts which are contrary to
their conscience.

Under the influence of such an intoxication, both of power and of
servility, men present themselves to themselves and to others, not
as what they are in reality,--men,--but as especial, conventional
beings,--noblemen, merchants, governors, judges, officers,
kings, ministers, soldiers, who no longer are subject to common
human obligations, but, above all else, and before all human, to
nobiliary, commercial, gubernatorial, judicial, military, royal,
ministerial obligations.

Thus, the proprietor who litigated concerning the forest did what he
did only because he did not present himself to himself as a simple
man, like any of the peasants who were living by his side, but as a
large landed proprietor and a member of the gentry, and so, under
the influence of the intoxication of power, he felt himself insulted
by the pretensions of the peasants. It was only for this reason
that, without paying any attention to the consequences which might
arise from his demand, he handed in the petition requesting the
restitution of his imaginary right.

Similarly, the judges who irregularly adjudged the forest to the
proprietor did so only because they do not imagine themselves to
be simple men, just like all other men, and so under obligation in
all cases to be guided only by what is the truth, but under the
intoxication of power they imagine themselves to be the guardians of
justice, who cannot err; but under the influence of the intoxication
of servility they imagine themselves to be men who are obliged to
carry out certain words which are written in a certain book and
are called the law. As just such conventional persons, and not as
what they are in reality, present themselves, under the influence
of the intoxication of power and of servility, to themselves and to
others, all the other participants in this matter, from the highest
representatives of power, who sign their approval on documents, from
the marshal, who drafts recruits at the levy of soldiers, and the
priest, who deceives them, to the last soldier, who is now getting
ready to shoot at his brothers. They all did what they did, and
are preparing themselves to do what awaits them, only because they
present themselves to themselves and to others, not as what they are
in reality,--men who are confronted with the question as to whether
they should take part in a matter which is condemned by their
conscience, or not,--but as different conventional persons,--one,
as an anointed king, a special being, who is called upon to care
for the well-being of one hundred million men; another, as a
representative of nobility; a third, as a priest, who with his
ordainment has received a special grace; a fourth, as a soldier,
who is obliged by his oath to fulfil without reflection what he is
commanded to do.

Only under the influence of the intoxication of power and servility,
which result from their imaginary positions, can all these men do
what they do.

If all these men did not have a firm conviction that the callings of
kings, ministers, governors, judges, noblemen, landed proprietors,
marshals, officers, soldiers, are something actually in existence
and very important, not one of these men would think without terror
and disgust of participating in the acts which he is committing now.

The conventional positions, which were established hundreds of years
ago, which have been recognized through the ages, and which are now
recognized by all men about us, and which are designated by especial
names and particular attires, and which, besides, are maintained by
means of every kind of magnificence and effects on the outer senses,
are to such a degree instilled in people that they, forgetting the
habitual conditions of life, common to all, begin to look upon
themselves and upon all men only from this conventional point of
view, and are guided by nothing but this conventional point of view
in the valuation of other men's acts.

Thus a mentally sound old man, for no other reason than that some
trinket or fool's dress is put over him, some keys on his buttocks,
or a blue ribbon, which is proper only for a dressed-up little girl,
and that he is on that occasion impressed with the idea that he is
a general, a chamberlain, a Cavalier of St. Andrews, or some such
silliness, suddenly becomes self-confident, proud, and even happy;
or, on the contrary, because he loses or does not receive a desired
trinket or name, becomes so sad and unhappy that he even grows
sick. Or, what is even more startling, an otherwise mentally sound,
free, and even well-to-do young man, for no other reason than that
he calls himself, and others call him, an investigating magistrate
or County Council chief, seizes an unfortunate widow away from her
minor children, and locks her up, or has her locked up in a prison,
leaving her children without a mother, and all that because this
unfortunate woman secretly trafficked in liquor and thus deprived
the Crown of twenty-five roubles of revenue, and he does not feel
the least compunction about it. Or, what is even more startling, an
otherwise intelligent and meek man, only because a brass plate or
a uniform is put on him and he is told that he is a watchman or a
customs soldier, begins to shoot with bullets at men, and neither
he nor those who surround him consider him blameworthy for it, and
would even blame him if he did not shoot; I do not even speak of the
judges and jurors, who sentence to executions, and of the military,
who kill thousands without the least compunction, only because they
have been impressed with the idea that they are not simply men, but
jurors, judges, generals, soldiers.

Such a constant, unnatural, and strange condition of men in the
life of the state is generally expressed in words as follows: "As a
man I pity him, but as a watchman, judge, general, governor, king,
soldier, I must kill or torture him," as though there can exist a
given position, acknowledged by men, which can make void duties
which are imposed upon each of us by a man's position.

Thus, for example, in the present case, men are travelling to commit
murder and tortures on hungry people, and they recognize that in the
dispute between the peasants and the proprietor the peasants are
in the right (all men in authority told me so), and know that the
peasants are unfortunate, poor, and hungry; the proprietor is rich
and does not inspire sympathy, and all these men none the less are
on their way to kill the peasants, in order thus to secure three
thousand roubles to the proprietor, for no other reason than that
these men at this moment do not consider themselves to be men, but
a governor, a general of gendarmes, an officer, a soldier, and
think that not the eternal demands of their consciences, but the
accidental, temporary demands of their positions as officers and
soldiers are binding on them.

However strange this may seem, the only explanation for this
remarkable phenomenon is this, that these men are in the same
position as those hypnotized persons who are commanded to imagine
and feel themselves in certain conventional positions, and to act
like those beings whom they represent; thus, for example, when
a hypnotized person receives the suggestion that he is lame, he
begins to limp, or that he is blind, he does not see, or that he is
an animal, he begins to bite. In this state are not only the men
who are travelling on this train, but also all men who preferably
perform their social and their political duties, to the disadvantage
of their human duties.

The essence of this condition is this, that the men under the
influence of the one idea suggested to them are not able to reflect
upon their acts, and so do, without any reflection, what is
prescribed to them in correspondence with the suggested idea, and
what they are led up to through example, advice, or hints.

The difference between those who are hypnotized by artificial means
and those who are under the influence of the political suggestion
consists in this, that to the artificially hypnotized their
imaginary condition is suggested at once, by one person, and for
the briefest space of time, and so the suggestion presents itself
to us in a glaring form, which sets us to wondering, while to the
men who act under the political suggestion their imaginary position
is suggested by degrees, slowly, imperceptibly, from childhood,
at times not only in a certain number of years, but through whole
generations, and, besides, is not suggested by one person, but by
all those who surround them.

"But," I shall be told, "in all societies the majority of men,--all
the children, all the women, who are absorbed in the labour of
pregnancy, child-bearing, and nursing, all the enormous masses of
the working people, who are placed under the necessity of tense
and assiduous physical labour, all the mentally weak by nature,
all abnormal men with a weakened spiritual activity in consequence
of nicotine, alcohol, and opium poisoning, or for some other
reason,--all these men are always in such a condition that, not
being able to reason independently, they submit either to those men
who stand on a higher stage of rational consciousness, or to family
and political traditions, to what is called public opinion, and in
this submission there is nothing unnatural or contradictory."

And, indeed, there is nothing unnatural in it, and the ability of
unthinking people to submit to the indications of men standing on
a higher stage of consciousness is a constant property of men,
that property in consequence of which men, submitting to the same
rational principles, are able to live in societies: some,--the
minority,--by consciously submitting to the same rational
principles, on account of their agreement with the demands of their
reason; the others,--the majority,--by submitting unconsciously
to the same principles, only because these demands have become
the public opinion. Such a subjection of the unthinking to public
opinion presents nothing unnatural so long as the public opinion is
not split up.

But there are times when the higher truth, as compared with the
former degree of the consciousness of the truth, which at first
is revealed to a few men, in passing by degrees from one set to
another, embraces such a large number of men that the former public
opinion, which is based on a lower stage of consciousness, begins
to waver, and the new is ready to establish itself, but is not
yet established. There are times, resembling spring, when the old
public opinion has not yet been destroyed and the new is not yet
established, and when men begin to criticize their own acts and
those of others on the basis of the new consciousness, and yet in
life, from inertia, from tradition, continue to submit to principles
which only in former times formed the higher degree of rational
consciousness, but which now are already in an obvious contradiction
to it. And then the men, feeling, on the one hand, the necessity of
submitting to the new public opinion, and not daring, on the other,
to depart from the former, find themselves in an unnatural, wavering
state. It is in such a condition that, in relation to the Christian
truths, are not only the men on this train, but also the majority of
the men of our time.

In the same condition are equally the men of the higher classes, who
enjoy exclusive, advantageous positions, and the men of the lower
classes, who without opposition obey what they are commanded to obey.

Some, the men of the ruling classes, who no longer possess any
rational explanation for the advantageous positions held by them,
are put to the necessity, for the purpose of maintaining these
positions, of suppressing in themselves the higher rational
faculties of love and of impressing upon themselves the necessity
for their exclusive position; the others, the lower classes, who are
oppressed by labour and purposely stupefied, are in a constant state
of suggestion, which is unflinchingly and constantly produced on
them by the men of the higher classes.

Only thus can be explained those remarkable phenomena with which our
life is filled, and as a striking example of which there presented
themselves to me my good, peaceful acquaintances, whom I met on
September 9th, and who with peace of mind were travelling to commit
a most beastly, senseless, and base crime. If the consciences of
these men had not been in some way put to sleep, not one of them
would be able to do one hundredth part of what they are getting
ready to do, and, in all probability, will do.

It cannot be said that they do not have the conscience which
forbids them to do what they are about to do, as there was no such
conscience in men four hundred, three hundred, two hundred, one
hundred years ago, when they burned people at the stake, tortured
people, and flogged them to death; it exists in all these men, but
it is put to sleep in them,--in some, the ruling men, who are in
exclusive, advantageous positions, by means of auto-suggestion, as
the psychiaters call it; in the others, the executors, the soldiers
by a direct, conscious suggestion, hypnotization, produced by the
upper classes.

The conscience is in these men put to sleep, but it exists in them,
and through the auto-suggestion and suggestion, which hold sway over
them, it already speaks in them and may awaken any moment.

All these men are in a condition resembling the one a hypnotized
man would be in, if it were suggested to him and he were commanded
to do an act which is contrary to everything which he considers
rational and good,--to kill his mother or child. The hypnotized man
feels himself bound by the suggestion induced in him, and it seems
to him that he cannot stop; at the same time, the nearer he comes to
the time and the place of the commission of the crime, the stronger
does the drowned voice of the conscience rise in him, and he begins
to show more and more opposition and to writhe, and wants to wake
up. And it is impossible to say in advance whether he will do the
suggested act, or not, and what it is that will win, the rational
consciousness or the irrational suggestion. Everything depends on
the relative strength of the two.

Precisely the same is now taking place in all the men on this train,
and in general in all the men who in our time commit political acts
of violence and exploit them.

There was a time when men, who went out for the purpose of torturing
and killing people, for the purpose of setting an example, did not
return otherwise than having performed the act for which they had
gone out, and, having performed the act, they were not tormented
by repentance and doubt, but, having flogged men to death, calmly
returned home to their family, and petted their children,--jested,
laughed, and abandoned themselves to quiet domestic pleasures.
It did not then occur even to those who gained by these acts of
violence, to the landed proprietors and the rich men, that the
advantages which they enjoyed had any direct connection with these
cruelties. But now it is not so: men know already, or are very near
to knowing, what they are doing, and for what purpose they are
doing what they are doing. They may shut their eyes and cause their
consciences to be inactive, but with eyes unshut and consciences
unimpaired they--both those who commit the acts and those who gain
by them--no longer can fail to see the significance which these acts
have. It happens that men understand the significance of what they
have done only after they have performed the act; or it happens
that they understand it before the very act. Thus the men who had
in charge the tortures in Nízhni-Nóvgorod, Sarátov, Orél, Yúzov
Plant, understood the significance of what they did only after
the commission of the act, and now they are tormented with shame
before public opinion and before their consciences. Both those who
ordered the tortures and those who executed them are tormented. I
have spoken with soldiers who have executed such acts, and they have
always cautiously evaded all conversation about it; when they spoke,
they did so with perplexity and terror. Cases happen when men come
to their senses immediately before the commission of the act. Thus
I know a case of a sergeant, who during a pacification was beaten
by two peasants, and who reported accordingly, but who the next
day, when he saw the tortures to which the peasants were subjected,
begged the commander of the company to tear up the report and to
discharge the peasants who had beaten him. I know a case when the
soldiers, who were commanded to shoot some men, declined to obey;
and I know many cases where the commanders refused to take charge
of tortures and murders. Thus it happens that the men who establish
violence and those who commit acts of violence at times come to
their senses long before the commission of the act suggested to
them, at others before the very act, and at others again after the
act.

The men who are travelling on this train have gone out to torture
and kill their brothers, but not one of them knows whether he will
do what he has set out to do, or not. No matter how hidden for each
of them is the responsibility in this matter, no matter how strong
the suggestion may be, in all these men, that they are not men,
but governors, rural judges, officers, soldiers, and that, as such
beings, they may violate their human obligations, the nearer they
approach the place of their destination, the stronger will the doubt
rise in them whether they should do what they have started out to
do, and this doubt will reach the highest degree when they reach the
very moment of the execution.

The governor, in spite of all the intoxication of the surrounding
circumstance, cannot help but reflect for a moment, when he has
to give his last decisive command concerning the murder or the
torture. He knows that the case of the Governor of Orél provoked
the indignation of the best men of society, and he himself, under
the influence of the public opinion of those circles to which he
belongs, has more than once expressed his disapproval of it; he
knows that the prosecutor, who was to have gone with them, refused
outright to take part in this business, because he considered it
disgraceful; he knows also that changes may take place in the
government at any time, and that in consequence of them that which
was a desert to-day may to-morrow be the cause of disfavour; he
knows, too, that there is a press, if not in Russia, at least
abroad, which may describe this matter and so disgrace him for life.
He already scents that new public opinion which is making void what
the former public opinion demanded. Besides, he cannot be absolutely
sure that at the last moment the executors will obey him. He wavers,
and it is impossible to foretell what he will do.

The same thing, in a greater or lesser measure, is experienced by
all the officials and officers who are travelling with him. They
all know in the depth of their hearts that the deed which is to be
done is disgraceful, that participation in it lowers and defiles
a man in the eyes of a few men, whose opinion they already value.
They know that it is a shame to appear after the torture or murder
of defenceless men in the presence of their fiancées or wives, whom
they treat with a show of tenderness. Besides, like the governor,
they are in doubt whether the soldiers are sure to obey them. And,
no matter how unlike it is to the self-confident look with which
all these ruling men now move in the station and up and down the
platform, they all in the depth of their hearts suffer and even
waver. It is for this very reason that they assume this confident
tone, in order to conceal their inner wavering. And this sensation
increases in proportion as they come nearer to the place of action.

However imperceptible this may be, and however strange it may
appear, all this mass of young soldiers, who seem so subservient, is
in the same state.

They are all of them no longer the soldiers of former days, men who
have renounced their natural life of labour, and who have devoted
their lives exclusively to dissipation, rapine, and murder, like
some Roman legionaries or the warriors of the Thirty-Years War, or
even the late soldiers of twenty-five years of service; they are,
for the most part, men who have but lately been taken away from
their families, all of them full of recollections of that good,
natural, and sensible life from which they have been taken away.

All these lads, who for the most part come from the country, know
what business is taking them out on the train; they know that the
proprietors always offend their brothers, the peasants, and that
therefore the same thing is taking place here. Besides, the greater
half of these men know how to read books, and not all books are
those in which the business of war is lauded,--there are also those
in which its immorality is pointed out. Amidst them frequently
serve freethinking companions,--volunteer soldiers,--and just such
liberal young officers, and into their midst has been thrown the
seed of doubt as to the unconditional legality and valour of their
activity. It is true, all of them have passed through that terrible,
artificial drill, worked out by ages, which kills all independence
in a man, and they are so accustomed to mechanical obedience that
at the words of command, "Fire by company! Company, fire!" and so
forth, their guns rise mechanically and the habitual motions take
place. But "Fire!" will not mean now having fun while shooting at a
target, but killing their tormented, offended fathers and brothers,
who--here they are--are standing in crowds, with their women and
children in the street, and shouting and waving their hands. Here
they are,--one of them, with a sparse beard, in a patched caftan and
in bast shoes, just like their own fathers at home in the Government
of Kazán or of Ryazán; another, with a gray beard and stooping
shoulders, carrying a large stick, just like their father's father,
their grandfather; another, a young lad in boots and red shirt,
exactly as the soldier who is now to shoot at him was a year ago.
And here is a woman in bast shoes and linen skirt, just like mother
at home----

Are they really going to shoot at them?

God knows what each soldier will do during this last moment. One
slightest indication as to its not being right, above all as to
the possibility of not doing it, one such word, one hint, will be
sufficient, in order to stop them.

All men who are travelling on this train will, when they proceed
to execute the deed for which they have set out, be in the same
position in which a hypnotized person would be, who has received the
suggestion to chop a log, and, having walked up to what has been
pointed out to him as a log and having raised the axe to strike,
suddenly sees or is told that it is not a log, but his sleeping
brother. He may perform the act suggested to him, and he may wake up
before its performance. Even so all these men may awaken, or not. If
they do not, as terrible a deed as the one in Orél will be done, and
in other men the auto-suggestion and the suggestion under which they
act will be increased; if they awaken, such a deed will not only not
be performed, but many others, upon finding out the turn which the
affair has taken, will be freed from that suggestion in which they
are, or at least will approach such a liberation.

But if not all men travelling on this train shall awaken and refrain
from doing the deed which has been begun, if only a few of them
shall do so and shall boldly express to other men the criminality
of this affair, these few men even may have the effect of awakening
all the other men from the suggestion, under which they are, and the
proposed evil deed will not take place.

More than that: if only a few men, who do not take part in this
affair, but are only present at the preparations for the same, or
who have heard of similar acts previously committed, will not remain
indifferent, but will frankly and boldly express their disgust with
the participants in these matters, and will point out to them their
whole senselessness, cruelty, and criminality, even that will not
pass unnoticed.

Even so it was in the present case. A few persons, participants and
non-participants in this affair, who were free from suggestion,
needed but at the time when they were getting ready for this affair
boldly to express their indignation with tortures administered in
other places, and their disgust and contempt for those men who
took part in them; in the present Túla affair a few persons needed
but to express their unwillingness to take part in it; the lady
passenger and a few other persons at the station needed but in the
presence of those who were travelling on the train to express their
indignation at the act which was about to be committed; one of the
regimental commanders, a part of whose troops were demanded for the
pacification, needed but to express his opinion that the military
cannot be executioners,--and thanks to these and certain other,
seemingly unimportant, private influences exerted against people
under suggestion, the affair would take a different turn, and the
troops, upon arriving on the spot, would not commit any tortures,
but would cut down the forest and give it to the proprietor. If
there should not be in certain men any clear consciousness as to
their doing wrong, and if there should be, in consequence of this,
no mutual influence of men in this sense, there would take place the
same as in Orél. But if this consciousness should be even stronger,
and so the amount of the interactions even greater than what it was,
it is very likely that the governor and his troops would not even
dare to cut down the forest, in order to give it to the proprietor.
If this consciousness had been even stronger and the amount of
interactions greater, it is very likely the governor would not even
have dared to travel to the place of action. If the consciousness
had been stronger still and the amount of interactions even
greater, it is very likely that the minister would not have made up
his mind to prescribe, and the emperor to confirm such a decree.

Everything, consequently, depends on the force with which the
Christian truth is cognized by every individual man.

And so, it would seem, the activity of all the men of our time, who
assert that they wish to continue to the welfare of humanity, should
be directed to the increase of the lucidity of the demands of the
Christian truth.

                                   4

But, strange to say, those very men, who in our time assert more
than any one else that they care for the amelioration of human life,
and who are regarded as the leaders in public opinion, affirm that
it is not necessary to do that, and that for the amelioration of
the condition of men there exist other, more efficacious means.
These men assert that the amelioration of human life does not take
place in consequence of the internal efforts of the consciousness
of individual men and the elucidation and profession of the truth,
but in consequence of the gradual change of the common external
conditions of life, and that the profession by every individual
man of the truth which is not in conformity with the existing
order is not only useless, but even harmful, because on the part
of the power it provokes oppressions, which keep these individuals
from continuing their useful activity in the service of society.
According to this doctrine, all the changes in human life take place
under the same laws under which they take place in the life of the
animals.

Thus, according to this doctrine, all the founders of religions,
such as Moses and the prophets, Confucius, Lao-tse, Buddha,
Christ, and others preached their teachings, and their followers
accepted them, not because they loved truth, elucidated it to
themselves, and professed it, but because the political, social,
and, above all, economic conditions of the nations among whom these
teachings appeared and were disseminated were favourable for their
manifestation and diffusion.

And so the chief activity of a man wishing to serve society and
ameliorate the condition of humanity must according to this
doctrine be directed, not to the elucidation of the truth and its
profession, but to the amelioration of the external political,
social, and, above all else, economic conditions. Now the change of
these political, social, and economic conditions is accomplished
partly by means of serving the government and of introducing into it
liberal and progressive principles, partly by contributing to the
development of industry and the dissemination of socialistic ideas,
and chiefly by the diffusion of scientific education.

According to this teaching it is not important for a man to profess
in life the truth that has been revealed to him, and so inevitably
be compelled to realize it in life, or at least not to do acts which
are contrary to the professed truth; not to serve the government
and not to increase its power, if he considers this power to be
deleterious; not to make use of the capitalistic structure, if he
considers this structure to be irregular; not to show any respect
for various ceremonies, if he considers them to be a dangerous
superstition; not to take part in the courts, if he considers
their establishment to be false; not to serve as a soldier; not
to swear; in general, not to lie, not to act as a scoundrel, but,
without changing the existing forms of life, and submitting to them,
contrary to his opinion, he should introduce liberalism into the
existing institutions; coöperate with industry, the propaganda of
socialism, the advancement of what is called the sciences, and the
diffusion of culture. According to this theory is it possible,
though remaining a landed proprietor, a merchant, a manufacturer,
a judge, an official, receiving a salary from the government, a
soldier, an officer, to be, withal, not only a humane man, but even
a socialist and revolutionist.

Hypocrisy, which formerly used to have a religious foundation in
the doctrine about the fall of the human race, about redemption,
and about the church, in this teaching received in our time a new
scientific foundation, and so has caught in its net all those men
who from the degree of their development can no longer fall back on
the religious hypocrisy. Thus, if formerly only a man who professed
the ecclesiastic religious doctrine could, considering himself with
it pure from every sin, take part in all kinds of crimes committed
by the government, and make use of them, so long as he at the same
time fulfilled the external demands of his profession, now all men,
who do not believe in the church Christianity, have the same kind of
a worldly scientific basis for recognizing themselves as pure, and
even highly moral men, in spite of their participation in the evil
deeds of the state and of their making use of them.

There lives--not in Russia alone, but anywhere you please, in
France, England, Germany, America--a rich landed proprietor, and
for the right which he gives to certain people living on his land,
to draw their sustenance from it, he fleeces these for the most
part hungry people to their fullest extent. This man's right to the
possession of the land is based on this, that at every attempt of
the oppressed people at making use of the lands which he considers
his own, without his consent, there arrive some troops which subject
the men who have seized the lands to tortures and extermination. One
would think that it is evident that a man who lives in this manner
is an egotistical being and in no way can call himself a Christian
or a liberal. It would seem to be obvious that the first thing
such a man ought to do, if he only wants in some way to come near
to Christianity or to liberalism, would be to stop plundering and
ruining men by means of his right to the land, which is supported
by murders and tortures practised by the government. Thus it would
be if there did not exist the metaphysics of hypocrisy, which says
that from a religious point of view the possession or non-possession
of the land is a matter of indifference as regards salvation, and
that from the scientific point of view the renunciation of the
ownership of land would be a useless personal effort, and that
the coöperation with the good of men is not accomplished in this
manner, but through the gradual change of external forms. And so
this man, without the least compunction, and without any misgivings
as to his being believed, arranges an agricultural exhibition, or a
temperance society, or through his wife and children sends jackets
and soup to three old women, and in his family, in drawing-rooms,
committees, the press, boldly preaches the Gospel or humane love of
one's neighbour in general, and of that working agricultural class
in particular which he constantly torments and oppresses. And the
men who are in the same condition with him believe him, praise him,
and with him solemnly discuss the questions as to what measures
should be used for the amelioration of the condition of the working
masses, on the spoliation of whom their life is based, inventing
for the purpose all kinds of means, except the one without which no
amelioration of the people's condition is possible, of ceasing to
take away from these people the land, which is necessary for their
maintenance.

A most striking example of such hypocrisy is to be found in the
measures taken last year by the Russian landed proprietors in the
struggle with the famine, which they themselves had produced, and
which they immediately set out to exploit, when they not only
sold the corn at the highest possible price, but even sold to the
freezing peasants as fuel the potato-tops at five roubles per
desyatína.

Or there lives a merchant, whose whole commerce, like any commerce,
is based on a series of rascalities, by means of which, exploiting
the ignorance and need of men, articles are bought of them below
their value, and, again exploiting the ignorance, need, and
temptation of men, are sold back at prices above their value. It
would seem to be obvious that a man whose activity is based on
what in his own language is called rascality, so long as these
same acts are performed under different conditions, ought to be
ashamed of his position, and is by no means able, continuing to be a
merchant, to represent himself as a Christian or a liberal. But the
metaphysics of hypocrisy says to him that he may pass for a virtuous
man, even though continuing his harmful activity: a religious man
need only be believed, but a liberal has only to coöperate with
the change of external conditions,--the progress of industry.
And so this merchant, who frequently, in addition, performs a
whole series of direct rascalities, by selling bad wares for good
ones, cheating in weights and measures, or trading exclusively in
articles which are pernicious to the people's health (such as wine
or opium), boldly considers himself, and is considered by others,
so long as he in business does not directly cheat his fellows in
deception, that is, his fellow merchants, to be a model of honesty
and conscientiousness. If he spends one-thousandth of the money
stolen by him on some public institution, a hospital, a museum, an
institution of learning, he is also regarded as a benefactor of
those very people on the deception and corruption of whom all his
fortune is based; but if he contributes part of his stolen money to
a church and for the poor, he is regarded even as a model Christian.

Or there lives a manufacturer, whose whole income consists of
the pay which is taken away from the workmen, and whose whole
activity is based on compulsory, unnatural labour, which ruins whole
generations of men; it would seem to be obvious that first of all,
if this man professes any Christian or liberal principles, he must
stop ruining human lives for the sake of his profit. But according
to the existing theory, he is contributing to industry, and he must
not--it would even be injurious to men and to society--stop his
activity. And here this man, the cruel slaveholder of thousands
of men, building for those who have been crippled while working
for him little houses with little gardens five feet square, and a
savings-bank, and a poorhouse, and a hospital, is fully convinced
that in this way he has more than paid for all those physically
and mentally ruined lives of men, for which he is responsible, and
quietly continues his activity, of which he is proud.

Or there lives a head of a department, or some civil, clerical,
military servant of the state, who serves for the purpose of
satisfying his ambition or love of power, or, what is most common,
for the purpose of receiving a salary, which is collected from the
masses that are emaciated and exhausted with labour (taxes, no
matter from whom they come, always originate in labour, that is, in
the labouring people), and if he, which is extremely rare, does not
directly steal the government's money in some unusual manner, he
considers himself and is considered by others like him to be a most
useful and virtuous member of society.

There lives some judge, prosecutor, head of a department, and he
knows that as the result of his sentence or decree hundreds and
thousands of unfortunate people, torn away from their families,
are lingering in solitary confinement, at hard labour, going mad
and killing themselves with glass, or starving to death; he knows
that these thousands of people have thousands of mothers, wives,
children, who are suffering from the separation, are deprived of
the possibility of meeting them, are disgraced, vainly implore
forgiveness or even alleviation of the fates of their fathers, sons,
husbands, brothers,--and the judge or head of a department is so
hardened in his hypocrisy that he himself and his like and their
wives and relatives are firmly convinced that he can with all this
be a very good and sensitive man. According to the metaphysics of
hypocrisy, it turns out that he is doing useful public work. And
this man, having ruined hundreds, thousands of men, who curse him,
and who are in despair, thanks to his activity, believing in the
good and in God, with a beaming, benevolent smile on his smooth
face, goes to mass, hears the Gospel, makes liberal speeches, pets
his children, preaches to them morality, and feels meek of spirit in
the presence of imaginary sufferings.

All these men and those who live on them, their wives, teachers,
children, cooks, actors, jockeys, and so forth, live by the blood
which in one way or another, by one class of leeches or by another,
is sucked out of the working people; thus they live, devouring each
day for their pleasures hundreds and thousands of work-days of the
exhausted labourers, who are driven to work by the threat of being
killed; they see the privations and sufferings of these labourers,
of their children, old men, women, sick people; they know of the
penalties to which the violators of this established spoliation are
subjected, and they not only do not diminish their luxury, do not
conceal it, but impudently display before these oppressed labourers,
who for the most part hate them, as though on purpose to provoke
them, their parks, castles, theatres, chases, races, and at the
same time assure themselves and one another that they are all very
much concerned about the good of the masses, whom they never stop
treading underfoot; and on Sundays they dress themselves in costly
attire and drive in expensive carriages into houses especially built
for the purpose of making fun of Christianity, and there listen to
men especially trained in this lie, who in every manner possible, in
vestments and without vestments, in white neckties, preach to one
another the love of men, which they all deny with their whole lives.
And, while doing all this, these men so enter into their parts that
they seriously believe that they actually are what they pretend to
be.

The universal hypocrisy, which has entered into the flesh and blood
of all the classes of our time, has reached such limits that nothing
of this kind ever fills any one with indignation. Hypocrisy with
good reason means the same as acting, and anybody can pretend,--act
a part. Nobody is amazed at such phenomena as that the successors
of Christ bless the murderers who are lined up and hold the guns
which are loaded for their brothers; that the priests, the pastors
of all kinds of Christian confessions, always, as inevitably as
the executioners, take part in executions, with their presence
recognizing the murder as compatible with Christianity (at an
electrocution in America, a preacher was present).

Lately there was an international prison exhibition in St.
Petersburg, where implements of torture were exhibited, such as
manacles, models of solitary cells, that is, worse implements of
torture than knouts and rods, and sensitive gentlemen and ladies
went to look at all this, and they enjoyed the sight.

Nor is any one surprised at the way the liberal science proves, by
the side of the assumption of equality, fraternity, liberty, the
necessity of an army, of executions, custom-houses, the censorship,
the regulation of prostitution, the expulsion of cheap labour,
and the prohibition of immigration, and the necessity and justice
of colonization, which is based on the poisoning, plundering, and
destruction of whole tribes of men who are called savage, and so
forth.

People talk of what will happen when all men shall profess what
is called Christianity (that is, various mutually hostile
professions); when all shall be well fed and well clothed; when all
shall be united with one another from one end of the world to the
other by means of telegraphs and telephones, and shall communicate
with one another by means of balloons; when all the labourers shall
be permeated with social teachings, and the labour-unions shall
have collected so many millions of members and of roubles; when all
men shall be cultured, and all shall read the papers and know the
sciences.

But of what use or good can all these improvements be, if people
shall not at the same time speak and do what they consider to be the
truth?

The calamities of men are certainly due to their disunion, and the
disunion is due to this, that men do not follow the truth, which
is one, but the lies, of which there are many. The only means for
the union of men into one is the union in truth; and so, the more
sincerely men strive toward the truth, the nearer they are to this
union.

But how can men be united in truth, or even approach it, if they not
only do not express the truth which they know, but even think that
it is unnecessary to do so, and pretend that they consider to be the
truth what they do not regard as the truth.

And so no amelioration of the condition of men is possible, so long
as men will pretend, that is, conceal the truth from themselves, so
long as they do not recognize that their union, and so their good,
is possible only in the truth, and so will not place the recognition
and profession of the truth, the one which has been revealed to
them, higher than anything else.

Let all those external improvements, of which religious and
scientific men may dream, be accomplished; let all men accept
Christianity, and let all those ameliorations, which all kinds of
Bellamys and Richets wish for, take place, with every imaginable
addition and correction--but let with all that the same hypocrisy
remain as before; let men not profess the truth which they know,
but continue to pretend that they believe in what they really do
not believe, and respect what they really do not respect, and the
condition of men will not only remain the same, but will even grow
worse and worse. The more people shall have to eat, the more there
shall be of telegraphs, telephones, books, newspapers, journals, the
more means will there be for the dissemination of discordant lies
and of hypocrisy, and the more will men be disunited and, therefore,
wretched, as is indeed the case at present.

Let all these external changes take place, and the condition of
humanity will not improve. But let each man at once in his life,
according to his strength, profess the truth, as he knows it, or let
him at least not defend the untruth, which he does, giving it out
as the truth, and there would at once, in this present year 1893,
take place such changes in the direction of the emancipation of men
and the establishment of truth upon earth as we do not dare even to
dream of for centuries to come.

For good reason Christ's only speech which is not meek, but
reproachful and cruel, was directed to the hypocrites and against
hypocrisy. What corrupts, angers, bestializes, and, therefore,
disunites men, is not thieving, nor spoliation, nor murder, nor
fornication, nor forgery, but the lie, that especial lie of
hypocrisy which in the consciousness of men destroys the distinction
between good and evil, deprives them of the possibility of avoiding
the evil and seeking the good, deprives them of what forms the
essence of the true human life, and so stands in the way of every
perfection of men.

Men who do not know the truth and who do evil, awakening in others
a sympathetic feeling for their victims and a contempt for their
acts, do evil only to those whom they injure; but the men who know
the truth and do the evil, which is concealed under hypocrisy, do
evil to themselves and to those whom they injure, and to thousands
of others who are offended by the lie, with which they attempt to
conceal the evil done by them.

Thieves, plunderers, murderers, cheats, who commit acts that are
recognized as evil by themselves and by all men, serve as an example
of what ought not to be done, and deter men from evil. But the
men who commit the same act of thieving, plundering, torturing,
killing, mantling themselves with religious and scientific liberal
justifications, as is done by all landed proprietors, merchants,
manufacturers, and all kinds of servants of the government of our
time, invite others to emulate their acts, and do evil, not only
to those who suffer from it, but also to thousands and millions of
men, whom they corrupt, by destroying for these men the difference
between good and evil.

One fortune acquired by the trade in articles necessary for the
masses or by corrupting the people, or by speculations on 'Change,
or by the acquisition of cheap land, which later grows more
expensive on account of the popular want, or by the establishment
of plants ruining the health and the life of men, or by civil
or military service to the state, or by any means which pamper
to the vices of men--a fortune gained by such means, not only
with the consent, but even with the approval of the leaders of
society, corrupts people incomparably more than millions of thefts,
rascalities, plunderings, which are committed outside the forms
recognized by law and subject to criminal prosecution.

One execution, which is performed by well-to-do, cultured men,
not under the influence of passion, but with the approval and
coöperation of Christian pastors, and presented as something
necessary, corrupts and bestializes men more than hundreds and
thousands of murders, committed by uncultured labouring men,
especially under the incitement of passion. An execution, such as
Zhukóvski proposed to arrange, when men, as Zhukóvski assumed,
would even experience a religious feeling of meekness of spirit,
would be the most corrupting action that can be imagined. (See Vol.
VI. of Zhukóvski's _Complete Works_.)

Every war, however short its duration, with its usual accompanying
losses, destruction of the crops, thieving, admissible debauchery,
looting, murders, with the invented justifications of its necessity
and its justice, with the exaltation and eulogizing of military
exploits, of love of flag and country, with the hypocritical cares
for the wounded, and so forth, corrupts in one year more than do
millions of robberies, incendiarisms, murders, committed in the
course of hundreds of years by individual men under the influence of
the passions.

One luxurious life, running temperately within the limits of
decency, on the part of one respectable, so-called virtuous, family,
which, none the less, spends on itself the products of as many
labouring days as would suffice for the support of thousands of
people living in misery side by side with this family, corrupts
people more than do thousands of monstrous orgies of coarse
merchants, officers, labouring men, who abandon themselves to
drunkenness and debauchery, who for fun break mirrors, dishes, and
so forth.

One solemn procession, Te Deum, or sermon from the ambo or pulpit,
dealing with a lie in which the preachers themselves do not believe,
produces incomparably more evil than do thousands of forgeries and
adulterations of food, and so forth.

We talk of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. But the hypocrisy of the
men of our time far surpasses the comparatively innocent hypocrisy
of the Pharisees. They had at least an external religious law, in
the fulfilment of which they could overlook their obligations in
relation to their neighbours, and, besides, these obligations were
at that time not yet clearly pointed out; in our time, in the first
place, there is no such religious law which frees men from their
obligations to their neighbours, to all their neighbours without
exception (I do not count those coarse and stupid men who even now
think that sacraments or the decision of the Pope can absolve one
from sins): on the contrary, that Gospel law, which we all profess
in one way or another, directly points out these obligations, and
besides these obligations, which at that time were expressed in dim
words by only a few prophets, are now expressed so clearly that they
have become truisms, which are repeated by gymnasiasts and writers
of feuilletons. And so the men of our time, it would seem, cannot
possibly pretend that they do not know these their obligations.

The men of our time, who exploit the order of things which is
supported by violence, and who at the same time assert that they
are very fond of their neighbours, and entirely fail to observe
that they are with their whole lives doing evil to these their
neighbours, are like a man who has incessantly robbed people, and
who, being finally caught with his knife raised over his victim, who
is calling for aid in a desperate voice, should assert that he did
not know that what he was doing was unpleasant for him whom he was
robbing and getting ready to kill. Just as this robber and murderer
cannot deny what is obvious to all men, so, it would seem, it is
impossible for the men of our time, who live at the expense of the
sufferings of oppressed men, to assure themselves and others that
they wish for the good of those men whom they rob incessantly, and
that they did not know in what manner they acquire what they use as
their own.

It is impossible for us to believe that we do not know of those one
hundred thousand men in Russia alone, who are always locked up in
prisons and at hard labour, for the purpose of securing our property
and our peace; and that we do not know of those courts, in which
we ourselves take part, and which in consequence of our petitions
sentence the men who assault our property or endanger our security
to imprisonment, deportation, and hard labour, where the men, who
are in no way worse than those who sentence them, perish and are
corrupted; that we do not know that everything we have we have only
because it is acquired and secured for us by means of murders and
tortures. We cannot pretend that we do not see the policeman who
walks in front of the windows with a loaded revolver, defending
us, while we eat our savoury dinner or view a new performance, or
those soldiers who will immediately go with their guns and loaded
cartridges to where our property will be violated.

We certainly know that if we shall finish eating our dinner, or
seeing the latest drama, or having our fun at a ball, at the
Christmas tree, at the skating, at the races, or at the chase, we
do so only thanks to the bullet in the policeman's revolver and in
the soldier's gun, which will at once bore a hole through the hungry
stomach of the dispossessed man who, with watering mouth, is staying
around the corner and watching our amusements, and is prepared to
violate them the moment the policeman with the revolver shall go
away, or as soon as there shall be no soldier in the barracks ready
to appear at our first call.

And so, just as a man caught in broad daylight in a robbery can in
no way assure all men that he did not raise his hand over the man
about to be robbed by him, in order to take his purse from him, and
did not threaten to cut his throat, so we, it would seem, cannot
assure ourselves and others that the soldiers and policemen with
the revolvers are all about us, not in order to protect us, but
to defend us against external enemies, for the sake of order, for
ornament, amusement, and parades; and that we did not know that men
do not like to starve, having no right to make a living off the
land on which they live, do not like to work underground, in the
water, in hellish heat, from ten to fourteen hours a day, and in
the night, in all kinds of factories and plants, for the purpose
of manufacturing articles for our enjoyment. It would seem to be
impossible to deny that which is so obvious. And yet it is precisely
what is being done.

Though there are among the rich some honest people,--fortunately I
meet more and more of them, especially among the young and among
women,--who, at the mention of how and with what their pleasures are
bought, do not try to conceal the truth, and grasp their heads and
say, "Oh, do not speak of it. If it is so, it is impossible to go on
living;" though there are such sincere people, who, unable to free
themselves from their sin, none the less see it, the vast majority
of the men of our time have so entered into their rôle of hypocrisy,
that they boldly deny what is so startlingly obvious to every seeing
person.

"All this is unjust," they say; "nobody compels the people to work
for the proprietors and in factories. This is a question of free
agreement. Large possessions and capital are indispensable, because
they organize labour and give work to the labouring classes; and
the work in the factories and plants is not at all as terrible as
you imagine it to be. If there are some abuses in the factories,
the government and society will see to it that they be removed and
that the work be made still more easy and even more agreeable for
the labourers. The working people are used to physical labour, and
so far are not good for anything else. The poverty of the masses
is not at all due to the ownership of land, nor to the oppression
of capital, but to other causes: it is due to the ignorance, the
coarseness, the drunkenness of the masses. We, the men of state,
who are counteracting this impoverishment by wise enactments, and
we, the capitalists, who are counteracting it by the dissemination
of useful inventions, we, the clergy, by religious instruction,
and we, the liberals, by the establishment of labour-unions,
the increase and diffusion of knowledge, in this manner, without
changing our position, increase the welfare of the masses. We do not
want all men to be poor, like the poor, but want them to be rich,
like the rich. The statement that men are tortured and killed to
compel them to work for the rich is nothing but sophistry; troops
are sent out against the masses only when they, misunderstanding
their advantages, become riotous and disturb the peace, which is
necessary for the common good. Just as much do we need the curbing
of malefactors, for whom are intended the prisons, gallows, and hard
labour. We should ourselves like to do away with them, and we are
working in this direction."

The hypocrisy of our time, which is supported from two sides, by
the quasi-religion and the quasi-science, has reached such a point
that, if we did not live in the midst of it, we should not be able
to believe that men could reach such a degree of self-deception.
The people have in our time reached the remarkable state when their
hearts are so hardened that they look and do not see, that they
listen and do not hear or understand.

Men have long been living a life which is contrary to their
consciousness. If it were not for hypocrisy, they would not be
able to live this life. This order of life, which is contrary to
their consciousness, is continued only because it is hidden under
hypocrisy.

The more the distance is growing between reality and the
consciousness of men, the more does hypocrisy expand, but there are
limits even to hypocrisy, and it seems to me that in our time we
have reached that limit.

Every man of our time, with the Christian consciousness, which is
involuntarily acquired by him, finds himself in a situation which
is exactly like that of a sleeping man, who sees in his sleep that
he must do what he knows even in his sleep is not right for him
to do. He knows this in the very depth of his heart, and yet, as
though unable to change his position, he cannot stop and cease
doing what he knows he ought not to do. And, as happens in sleep,
his condition, becoming more and more agonizing, finally reaches
the utmost degree of tension, and then he begins to doubt the
reality of what presents itself to him, and he makes an effort of
consciousness, in order to break the spell that holds him fettered.

In the same condition is the average man of our Christian world.
He feels that everything which is done by himself and about him
is something insipid, monstrous, impossible, and contrary to his
consciousness, that this condition is becoming more and more
agonizing, and has reached the utmost limit of tension.

It cannot be: it cannot be that the men of our time, with our
Christian consciousness of the dignity of man, the equality of
men, which has permeated our flesh and blood, with our need for a
peaceful intercourse and union among the nations, should actually be
living in such a way that every joy of ours, every comfort, should
be paid for by the sufferings, the lives of our brothers, and that
we, besides, should every moment be within a hair's breadth of
throwing ourselves, like wild beasts, upon one another, nation upon
nation, mercilessly destroying labour and life, for no other reason
than that some deluded diplomatist or ruler has said or written
something stupid to another deluded diplomatist or ruler like
himself.

It cannot be. And yet every man of our time sees that it is
precisely what is being done, and that the same thing awaits him.
The state of affairs is getting more and more agonizing.

As the man in his sleep does not believe that what presents itself
to him as reality is actually real, and wants to awaken to the
other, the actual reality, so also the average man of our time
cannot in the depth of his heart believe that the terrible state in
which he is, and which is getting worse and worse, is the reality,
and he wants to awaken to the actual reality, the reality of the
consciousness which already abides in him.

And as the man asleep needs but make an effort of his consciousness
and ask himself whether it is not a dream, in order that what to
him appeared as such a hopeless state may be at once destroyed, and
he may awaken to a calm and joyous reality, even so the modern man
needs only make an effort of his consciousness, needs only doubt in
the reality of what his own and the surrounding hypocrisy presents
to him, and ask himself whether it is not all a deception, in order
that he may immediately feel himself at once passing over, like the
awakened man, from the imaginary, terrible world to the real, to the
calm and joyous reality.

This man need not perform any acts or exploits, but has only to make
an internal effort of consciousness.

                                   5

Cannot man make this effort?

According to the existing theory, indispensable for hypocrisy, man
is not free and cannot change his life.

"Man cannot change his life, because he is not free; he is not free,
because all of his acts are conditioned by previous causes. No
matter what a man may do, there always exist these or those causes,
from which the man has committed these or those acts, and so man
cannot be free and himself change his life," say the defenders of
the metaphysics of hypocrisy. They would be absolutely right, if
man were an unconscious being, immovable in relation to truth; that
is, if, having once come to know the truth, he always remained on
the selfsame stage of his cognition. But man is a conscious being,
recognizing a higher and still higher degree of the truth, and so,
if a man is not free in the commission of this or that act, because
for every act there exists a cause, the very causes of these acts,
which for conscious man consist in his recognizing this or that
truth as an adequate cause for his action, are within man's power.

Thus man, who is not free in the commission of these or those
acts, is free as regards the basis for his acts, something as the
engineer of a locomotive, who is not free as regards the change of
an accomplished or actual motion of the locomotive, is none the less
free in determining beforehand its future motions.

No matter what a conscious man may do, he acts in this way or that,
and not otherwise, only because he either now recognizes that the
truth is that he ought to act as he does, or because he formerly
recognized it, and now from inertia, from habit, acts in a manner
which now he recognizes to be false.

In either case the cause of his act was not a given phenomenon, but
the recognition of a given condition as the truth and, consequently,
the recognition of this or that phenomenon as an adequate cause of
his act.

Whether a man eats or abstains from food, whether he works or rests,
runs from danger or is subject to it, if he is a conscious man, he
acts as he does only because he now considers this to be proper and
rational: he considers the truth to consist in his acting this way,
and not otherwise, or he has considered it so for a long time.

The recognition of a certain truth or the non-recognition of it
does not depend on external causes, but on some others, which are
in man himself. Thus with all the external, apparently advantageous
conditions for the recognition of truth, one man at times does
not recognize it, and, on the contrary, another, under all the
most unfavourable conditions, without any apparent cause, does
recognize it. As it says in the Gospel: "No man can come to me,
except the Father draw him" (John vi. 44), that is, the recognition
of the truth, which forms the cause of all the phenomena of human
life, does not depend on external phenomena, but on some internal
qualities of man, which are not subject to his observation.

And so a man, who is not free in his acts, always feels himself free
in what serves as the cause of his actions,--in the recognition
or non-recognition of the truth, and feels himself free, not only
independently of external conditions taking place outside him, but
even of his own acts.

Thus a man, having under the influence of passion committed an act
which is contrary to the cognized truth, none the less remains free
in its recognition or non-recognition, that is, he can, without
recognizing the truth, regard his act as necessary and justify
himself in its commission, and can, by recognizing the truth,
consider his act bad and condemn it in himself.

Thus a gambler or a drunkard, who has not withstood temptation
and has succumbed to his passion, remains none the less free to
recognize his gambling or his intoxication either as an evil or as
an indifferent amusement. In the first case, he, though not at once,
frees himself from his passion, the more, as he the more sincerely
recognizes the truth; in the second, he strengthens his passion and
deprives himself of every possibility of liberation.

Even so a man, who could not stand the heat and ran out of a
burning house without having saved his companion, remains free (by
recognizing the truth that a man must serve the lives of others at
the risk of his own life) to consider his act bad, and so to condemn
himself for it, or (by not recognizing this truth) to consider his
act natural, and necessary, and to justify himself in it. In the
first case, in recognizing the truth, he, in spite of his departure
from it, prepares for himself a whole series of self-sacrificing
acts, which inevitably must result from such a recognition; in the
second case, he prepares a whole series of egotistical acts, which
are opposed to the first.

Not that a man is always free to recognize every truth, or not.
There are truths which have long ago been recognized by a man
himself or have been transmitted to him by education and tradition,
and have been taken by him on faith, the execution of which has
become to him a habit, a second nature; and there are truths
which present themselves to him indistinctly, in the distance.
A man is equally unfree in the non-recognition of the first and
the recognition of the second. But there is a third class of
truths, which have not yet become for man an unconscious motive
for his activity, but which at the same time have already revealed
themselves to him with such lucidity that he cannot evade them,
and must inevitably take up this or that relation to them, by
recognizing or not recognizing them. It is in relation to these same
truths that man's freedom is manifested.

Every man finds himself in his life in relation to truth in the
position of a wanderer who walks in the dark by the light of a
lantern moving in front of him: he does not see what is not yet
illuminated by the lantern, nor what he has passed over and what is
again enveloped in darkness, and it is not in his power to change
his relation to either; but he sees, no matter on what part of the
path he may stand, what is illuminated by the lantern, and it is
always in his power to select one side of the road on which he is
moving, or the other.

For every man there always are truths, invisible to him, which
have not yet been revealed to his mental vision; there are other
truths, already outlived, forgotten, and made his own; and there
are certain truths which have arisen before him in the light of his
reason and which demand his recognition. It is in the recognition
or non-recognition of these truths that there is manifested what we
cognize as our freedom.

The whole difficulty and seeming insolubility of the question about
man's freedom is due to this, that the men who decide this question
present man to themselves as immovable in relation to truth.

Man is unquestionably not free, if we represent him to ourselves as
immovable, if we forget that the life of man and of humanity is only
a constant motion from darkness to the light, from the lower stage
of the truth to the higher, from a truth which is mixed with errors
to a truth which is more free from them.

Man would not be free, if he did not know any truth, and he would
not be free and would not even have any idea about freedom, if the
whole truth, which is to guide him in his life, were revealed to him
in all its purity, without any admixture of errors.

But man is not immovable in relation to truth, and every individual
man, as also all humanity, in proportion to its movement in life,
constantly cognizes a greater and ever greater degree of the truth,
and is more and more freed from error. Therefore men always are in a
threefold relation to truth: one set of truths has been so acquired
by them that these truths have become unconscious causes of their
actions, others have only begun to be revealed to them, and the
third, though not yet made their own, are revealed to them with such
a degree of lucidity that inevitably, in one way or another, they
must take up some stand in relation to them, must recognize them, or
not.

It is in the recognition or non-recognition of these truths that man
is free.

Man's freedom does not consist in this, that he can, independently
of the course of his life and of causes already existing and acting
upon him, commit arbitrary acts, but in this, that he can, by
recognizing the truth revealed to him and by professing it, become a
free and joyous performer of the eternal and infinite act performed
by God or the life of the world, and can, by not recognizing the
truth, become its slave and be forcibly and painfully drawn in a
direction which he does not wish to take.

Truth not only indicates the path of human life, but also reveals
that one path, on which human life can proceed. And so all men will
inevitably, freely or not freely, walk on the path of life: some,
by naturally doing the work of life destined for them, others, by
involuntarily submitting to the law of life. Man's freedom is in
this choice.

Such a freedom, within such narrow limits, seems to men to be so
insignificant that they do not notice it: some (the determinists)
consider this portion of freedom to be so small that they do not
recognize it at all; others, the defenders of complete freedom,
having in view their imaginary freedom, neglect this seemingly
insignificant degree of freedom. The freedom which is contained
between the limits of the ignorance of the truth and of the
recognition of a certain degree of it does not seem to men to be
any freedom, the more so since, whether a man wants to recognize
the truth which is revealed to him or not, he inevitably will be
compelled to fulfil it in life.

A horse that is hitched with others to a wagon is not free not to
walk in front of the wagon; and if it will not draw, the wagon will
strike its legs, and it will go whither the wagon goes, and will
pull it involuntarily. But, in spite of this limited freedom, it is
free itself to pull the wagon or be dragged along by it. The same is
true of man.

Whether this freedom is great or not, in comparison with that
fantastic freedom which we should like to have, this freedom
unquestionably exists, and this freedom is freedom, and in this
freedom is contained the good which is accessible to man.

Not only does this freedom give the good to men, but it is also the
one means for the accomplishment of the work which is done by the
life of the world.

According to Christ's teaching, the man who sees the meaning of
life in the sphere in which it is not free, in the sphere of
consequences, that is, of acts, has not the true life. According
to the Christian teaching, only he has the true life who has
transferred his life into that sphere in which it is free, into the
sphere of causes, that is, of the cognition and the recognition
of the truth which is revealing itself, of its profession, and so
inevitably of its consequent fulfilment as the wagon's following the
horse.

In placing his life in carnal things, a man does that work which
is always in dependence on spatial and temporal causes, which are
outside of him. He himself really does nothing,--it only seems to
him that he is doing something, but in reality all those things
which it seems to him he is doing are done through him by a higher
power, and he is not the creator of life, but its slave; but in
placing his life in the recognition and profession of the truth
that is revealed to him, he, by uniting with the source of the
universal life, does not do personal, private works, which depend
on conditions of space and time, but works which have no causes and
themselves form causes of everything else, and have an endless,
unlimited significance.

By neglecting the essence of the true life, which consists in the
recognition and profession of the truth, and by straining their
efforts for the amelioration of their lives upon external acts, the
men of the pagan life-conception are like men on a boat, who, in
order to reach their goal, should put out the boiler, which keeps
them from distributing the oarsmen, and, instead of proceeding under
steam and screw, should try in a storm to row with oars that do not
reach to the water.

The kingdom of God is taken by force and only those who make an
effort get hold of it,--and it is this effort of the renunciation
of the change of the external conditions for the recognition and
profession of truth which is the effort by means of which the
kingdom of God is taken and which must and can be made in our time.

Men need but understand this: they need but stop troubling
themselves about external and general matters, in which they are
not free, and use but one hundredth part of the energy, which
they employ on external matters, on what they are free in, on the
recognition and profession of the truth which stands before them, on
the emancipation of themselves and of men from the lie and hypocrisy
which conceal the truth, in order that without effort and struggle
there should at once be destroyed that false structure of life which
torments people and threatens them with still worse calamities, and
that there should be realized that kingdom of God or at least that
first step of it, for which men are already prepared according to
their consciousness.

Just as one jolt is sufficient for a liquid that is saturated with
salt suddenly to become crystallized, thus, perhaps, the smallest
effort will suffice for the truth, which is already revealed to men,
to take hold of hundreds, thousands, millions of men,--for a public
opinion to be established to correspond to the consciousness, and,
in consequence of its establishment, for the whole structure of
the existing life to be changed. And it depends on us to make this
effort.

If every one of us would only try to understand and recognize the
Christian truth which surrounds us on all sides in the most varied
forms, and begs for admission into our souls; if we only stopped
lying and pretending that we do not see that truth, or that we wish
to carry it out, only not in what it first of all demands of us; if
we only recognized the truth which calls us and boldly professed it,
we should immediately see that hundreds, thousands, millions of men
are in the same condition that we are in, that they see the truth,
just as we do, and that, like us, they are only waiting for others
to recognize it.

If men only stopped being hypocritical, they would see at once
that the cruel structure of life, which alone binds them and which
presents itself to them as something firm, indispensable, and
sacred, as something established by God, is shaking already and is
holding only by that lie of hypocrisy by means of which we and our
like support it.

But if this is so, if it is true that it depends on us to destroy
the existing order of life, have we the right to destroy it, without
knowing clearly what we shall put in its place? What will become of
the world, if the existing order of things shall be destroyed?

"What will be there, beyond the walls of the world which we leave
behind?" (Herzen's words.)

"Terror seizes us,--the void, expanse, freedom.... How can we
go, without knowing whither? How can we lose, without seeing any
acquisition?

"If Columbus had reflected thus, he would never have weighed anchor.
It is madness to sail the sea without knowing the way, to sail
the sea no one has traversed before, to make for a country, the
existence of which is a question. With this madness he discovered
a new world. Of course, if the nations could move from one _hôtel
garni_ into another, a better one, it would be easier, but
unfortunately there is no one to arrange the new quarters. In the
future it is worse than on the sea,--there is nothing,--it will be
what circumstances and men make it.

"If you are satisfied with the old world, try to preserve it,--it
is very decrepit and will not last long; but if it is unbearable
for you to live in an eternal discord between convictions and life,
to think one thing and do another, come out from under the whited
mediæval vaults at your risk. I know full well that this is not
easy. It is not a trifling matter to part from everything a man is
accustomed to from the day of his birth, with what he has grown up
with from childhood. Men are prepared for terrible sacrifices, but
not for those which the new life demands of them. Are they prepared
to sacrifice modern civilization, their manner of life, their
religion, the accepted conventional morality? Are they prepared to
be deprived of all the fruits which have been worked out with such
efforts, of the fruits we have been boasting of for three centuries,
to be deprived of all the comforts and charms of our existence,
to prefer wild youth to cultured debility, to break up their
inherited palace from the mere pleasure of taking part in laying the
foundation for the new house, which will, no doubt, be built after
us?" (Herzen, Vol. V., p. 55.)

Thus spoke almost half a century ago a Russian author, who with his
penetrating mind even at that time saw very clearly what now is
seen by the least reflecting man of our time,--the impossibility of
continuing life on its former foundations, and the necessity for
establishing some new forms of life.

From the simplest, lowest, worldly point of view it is already clear
that it is madness to remain under the vault of a building, which
does not sustain its weight, and that it is necessary to leave it.
Indeed, it is hard to imagine a state which is more wretched than
the one in which is now the Christian world, with its nations armed
against each other, with the ever growing taxes for the support
of these ever growing armaments, with the hatred of the labouring
class against the rich, which is being fanned more and more, with
Damocles's sword of war hanging over all, and ready at any moment to
drop down, and inevitably certain to do so sooner or later.

Hardly any revolution can be more wretched for the great mass of
the people than the constantly existing order, or rather disorder,
of our life, with its habitual sacrifices of unnatural labour,
poverty, drunkenness, debauchery, and with all the horrors of an
imminent war, which is in one year to swallow up more victims than
all the revolutions of the present century.

What will happen with us, with all humanity, when each one of us
shall perform what is demanded of him by God through the conscience
which is implanted in him? Will there be no calamity, because,
finding myself entirely in the power of the Master, I in the
establishment built up and guided by Him shall do what He commands
me to do, but what seems strange to me, who do not know the final
ends of the Master?

But it is not even this question as to what will happen that
troubles men, when they hesitate to do the Master's will: they are
troubled by the question as to how they could live without those
conditions of their life which they have become accustomed to, and
which we call science, art, civilization, culture. We feel for
ourselves personally the whole burden of the present life, we even
see that the order of this life, if continued, will inevitably cause
our ruin; but, at the same time, we want the conditions of this our
life, which have grown out of it, our arts, sciences, civilizations,
cultures, to remain unharmed in the change of our life. It is as
though a man living in an old house, suffering from the cold and
the inconveniences of this house, and knowing, besides, that this
house is about to fall in, should consent to its rebuilding only on
condition that he should not come out of it: a condition which is
equal to a refusal to rebuild the house. "What if I leave the house,
for a time am deprived of all comforts, and the new house will not
be built at all or will be built in such a way that it will lack
what I am used to?"

But, if the material is on hand and the builders are there, all the
probabilities are in favour of the new house being better than the
old one, and at the same time there is not only a probability, but
even a certainty, that the old house will fall in and will crush
those who are left in it. Whether the former, habitual conditions of
life will be retained, whether they will be destroyed, or whether
entirely new ones, better ones, will arise, it is inevitably
necessary to leave the old conditions of our life, which have become
impossible and pernicious, and to go ahead and meet the future
conditions.

"The sciences, arts, civilizations, and cultures will disappear!"

All these are only different manifestations of the truth, and
the imminent change is to take place only in the name of an
approximation to truth and its realization. How, then, can the
manifestations of the truth disappear in consequence of its
realization? They will be different, better, and higher, but they
will by no means be destroyed. What will be destroyed in them is
what is false; but what there was of truth in them will only blossom
out and be strengthened.

                                   6

Come to your senses, men, and believe in the Gospel, in the teaching
of the good. If you shall not come to your senses, you will all
perish, as perished the men who were killed by Pilate, as perished
those who were crushed by the tower of Siloam, as perished millions
and millions of men, slayers and slain, executioners and executed,
tormentors and tormented, and as foolishly perished that man who
filled up his granaries and prepared himself to live for a long
time, and died the same night on which he wanted to begin his new
life. "Come to your senses and believe in the Gospel," Christ
said eighteen hundred years ago, and says now with even greater
convincingness, through the utter wretchedness and irrationality of
our life, predicted by Him and now an accomplished fact.

Now, after so many centuries of vain endeavours to make our life
secure by means of the pagan institution of violence, it would seem
to be absolutely obvious to everybody that all the efforts which
are directed toward this end only introduce new dangers into our
personal and social life, but in no way make it secure.

No matter what we may call ourselves; what attires we may put on;
what we may smear ourselves with, and in the presence of what
priests; how many millions we may have; what protection there may
be along our path; how many policemen may protect our wealth; how
much we may execute the so-called revolutionary malefactors and
anarchists; what exploits we ourselves may perform; what kingdoms we
may found, and what fortresses and towers we may erect, from that of
Babel to that of Eiffel,--we are all of us at all times confronted
by two inevitable conditions of our life, which destroy its whole
meaning: (1) by death, which may overtake any of us at any moment,
and (2) by the impermanency of all the acts performed by us, which
are rapidly and tracklessly destroyed. No matter what we may do,
whether we found kingdoms, build palaces, erect monuments, compose
poems, it is but for a short time, and everything passes, without
leaving a trace. And so, no matter how much we may conceal the fact
from ourselves, we cannot help but see that the meaning of our life
can be neither in our personal, carnal existence, which is subject
to inevitable sufferings and inevitable death, nor in any worldly
institution or structure.

Whoever you, the reader of these lines, may be, think of your
condition and of your duties,--not of the condition of landowner,
merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, soldier,
which people temporarily ascribe to you, nor of those imaginary
duties, which these positions impose upon you, but of that
real, eternal condition of existence, which by somebody's will
after a whole eternity of non-existence has issued forth from
unconsciousness, and at any moment by somebody's will may return to
where you come from. Think of your duties,--not of your imaginary
duties as a landowner to your estate, of a merchant to your capital,
of an emperor, minister, official to the state,--but of those real
duties of yours, which result from your real condition of existence,
which is called into life and is endowed with reason and love. Are
you doing what is demanded of you by Him who has sent you into the
world, and to whom you will very soon return? Are you doing what
He is demanding of you? Are you doing what is right, when, being a
landowner, manufacturer, you take away the productions of labour
from the poor, building up your life on this spoliation, or when,
being a ruler, a judge, you do violence to people and sentence
them to capital punishment, or when, being a soldier, you prepare
yourself for wars, and wage war, plunder, and kill?

You say that the world is constructed that way, that this is
unavoidable, that you are not doing this of your own will, but that
you are compelled to do so. But is it possible that the aversion
for human sufferings, for tortures, for the killing of men should
be so deeply implanted in you; that you should be so imbued with
the necessity for loving men and the still more potent necessity of
being loved by them; that you should clearly see that only with the
recognition of the equality of all men, with their mutual service,
is possible the realization of the greatest good which is accessible
to men; that your heart, your intellect, the religion professed
by you should tell you the same; that science should tell you the
same,--and that, in spite of it, you should be by some very dim,
complex considerations compelled to do what is precisely opposed to
it? that, being a landowner or a capitalist, you should be compelled
to construct all your life on the oppression of the masses? or that,
being an emperor or a president, you should be compelled to command
troops, that is, to be the leader and guide of murderers? or that,
being a government official, you should be compelled by violence to
take from poor people their hard-earned money, in order to use it
yourself and give it to the rich? or that, being a judge, a juror,
you should be compelled to sentence erring men to tortures and to
death, because the truth has not been revealed to them? or that,--a
thing on which all the evil of the world is chiefly based,--you,
every young man, should be compelled to become a soldier and,
renouncing your own will and all human sentiments, should promise,
at the will of men who are alien to you, to kill all those men whom
they may command you to kill?

It cannot be.

Even though men tell you that all this is necessary for the
maintenance of the existing structure of life; that the existing
order, with its wretchedness, hunger, prisons, executions, armies,
wars, is indispensable for society; that, if this order should be
impaired, there would come worse calamities,--it is only those
to whom this structure of life is advantageous that tell you
this, while those--and there are ten times as many of them--who
are suffering from this structure of life think and say the very
opposite. You yourself know in the depth of your heart that this
is not true, that the existing structure of life has outlived its
time and soon must be reconstructed on new principles, and that,
therefore, there is no need to maintain it, while sacrificing human
sentiments.

Above all else, even if we admit that the existing order is
necessary, why do you feel yourself obliged to maintain it, while
trampling on all better human sentiments? Who has engaged you as a
nurse to this decaying order? Neither society, nor the state, nor
any men have ever asked you to maintain this order, by holding the
place of landowner, merchant, emperor, priest, soldier, which you
now hold; and you know full well that you took up your position,
not at all with the self-sacrificing purpose of maintaining an order
of life which is indispensable for the good of men, but for your
own sake,--for the sake of your greed, love of glory, ambition,
indolence, cowardice. If you did not want this position, you would
not be doing everything it is necessary for you to do all the
time, in order to keep your place. Just try to stop doing those
complex, cruel, tricky, and mean things, which you are doing without
cessation in order to keep your place, and you will immediately
lose it. Just try, while being a ruler or an official, to stop
lying, committing base acts, taking part in acts of violence, in
executions; being a priest, to stop deceiving; being a soldier, to
stop killing; being a landowner, a manufacturer, to stop protecting
your property by means of the courts and of violence,--and you will
at once lose the position which, you say, is imposed upon you, and
which, you say, weighs heavily upon you.

It cannot be that a man should be placed against his will in a
position which is contrary to his consciousness.

If you are in this position, it is not because that is necessary for
anybody, but because you want it. And so, knowing that this position
is directly opposed to your heart, your reason, your faith, and even
to science, in which you believe, you cannot help but meditate on
the question as to whether you are doing right by staying in this
position and, above all, by trying to justify it.

You might be able to risk making a mistake, if you had time to see
and correct your mistake, and if that in the name of which you
should take your risk had any importance. But when you know for
certain that you may vanish any second, without the slightest chance
of correcting the mistake, either for your own sake or for the sake
of those whom you will draw into your error, and when you know,
besides, that, no matter what you may do in the external structure
of the world, it will disappear very soon, and just as certainly as
you yourself, without leaving any trace, it is obvious to you that
you have no reason to risk such a terrible mistake.

This is all so simple and so clear, if only we did not with
hypocrisy bedim the truth which is revealed to us.

"Share with others what you have, do not amass any wealth, do not
glorify yourself, do not plunder, do not torture, do not kill any
one, do not do unto others what you do not wish to have done to
yourself," was said, not eighteen hundred, but five thousand years
ago, and there could be no doubt as to the truth of this law, if
there were no hypocrisy: it would have been impossible, if not to
do so, at least not to recognize that we ought always to do so, and
that he who does not do so is doing wrong.

But you say that there also exists a common good, for which it is
possible and necessary to depart from these rules,--for the common
good it is right to kill, torture, rob. It is better for one man
to perish, than that a whole nation should perish, you say, like
Caiaphas, and you sign one, two, three death-warrants, load your
gun for that man who is to perish for the common good, put him in
prison, take away his property. You say that you do these cruel
things, because you feel yourself to be a man of society, the state,
under obligation to serve it and to carry out its laws, a landowner,
a judge, an emperor, a soldier. But, besides your belonging to a
certain state, and the obligations resulting therefrom, you also
belong to the infinite life of the world and to God, and have
certain obligations resulting from this relation.

And as your duties, which result from your belonging to a certain
family, a certain society, are always subordinated to the higher
duties, which result from your belonging to the state, so also your
obligations, which result from your belonging to the state, must
necessarily be subordinated to the duties which result from your
belonging to the life of the world, to God.

And as it would be senseless to cut down the telegraph-posts, in
order to provide fuel for the family or society, and to increase
its well-being, because this would violate the laws which preserve
the good of the state, so it would be senseless, for the purpose of
making the state secure and increasing its well-being, to torture,
execute, kill a man, because this violates the unquestionable laws
which preserve the good of the world.

Your obligations, which result from your belonging to the state,
cannot help but be subordinated to the higher eternal duty, which
results from your belonging to the infinite life of the world, or to
God, and cannot contradict them, as Christ's disciples said eighteen
hundred years ago: "Whether it be right in the sight of God to
hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye" (Acts iv. 19), and,
"We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts v. 29).

You are assured that, in order not to violate the constantly
changing order, which was yesterday established by some men in some
corner of the world, you must commit acts of torture and murder
separate men, who violate the eternal, invariable order of the
universe, which was established by God, or by reason. Can that be?

And so you cannot help but meditate on your position as a landowner,
merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, soldier,
which is connected with oppression, violence, deception, tortures,
and murders, and you cannot help but recognize their illegality.

I do not say that, if you are a landowner, you should at once give
your land to the poor; if you are a capitalist, you should at once
give your money, your factory to the labourers; if you are a king, a
minister, an official, a judge, a general, you should at once give
up your advantageous position; if you are a soldier (that is, occupy
a position on which all violence is based), you should, in spite of
all the dangers of a refusal to obey, at once throw up your position.

If you do so, you will do the very best possible; but it may
happen--and this is most likely--that you will not have the strength
to do so: you have connections, a family, inferiors, superiors; you
may be under such a strong influence of temptations that you will
not be able to do so,--but you are always able to recognize the
truth as a truth, and to stop lying. Do not assert that you remain a
landed proprietor, a manufacturer, a merchant, an artist, a writer,
because this is useful for men; that you are serving as a governor,
a prosecutor, a king, not because that gives you pleasure and you
are used to it, but for the good of humanity; that you continue to
be a soldier, not because you are afraid of punishment, but because
you consider the army indispensable for the security of human life;
you can always keep from lying thus to yourself and to men, and you
are not only able, but even must do so, because in this alone, in
the liberation of oneself from the lie and in the profession of the
truth, does the only good of your life consist.

You need but do this, and your position will inevitably change of
its own accord. There is one, only one thing in which you are free
and almighty in your life,--everything else is beyond your power.
This thing is, to recognize the truth and to profess it.

Suddenly, because just such miserable, erring people like
yourself have assured you that you are a soldier, emperor, landed
proprietor, rich man, priest, general, you begin to do evil, which
is obviously and unquestionably contrary to your reason and heart:
you begin to torture, rob, kill men, to build up your life on
their sufferings, and, above all, instead of doing the one work of
your life,--recognizing and professing the truth which is known to
you,--you carefully pretend that you do not know it, and conceal it
from yourself and from others, doing thus what is directly opposed
to the one thing to which you have been called.

And under what conditions do you do that? You, who are likely to die
at any moment, sign a sentence of death, declare war, go to war, sit
in judgment, torture, fleece the labourers, live luxuriously among
the poor, and teach weak, trustful people that this must be so, and
that in this does the duty of men consist, and you are running the
chance that, at the moment that you are doing this, a bacterium or
a bullet will fly into you, and you will rattle in your throat and
die, and will for ever be deprived of the possibility of correcting
and changing the evil which you have done to others and, above all,
to yourself, losing for nothing the life which is given to you but
once in a whole eternity, without having done the one thing which
you ought unquestionably to have done.

However simple and old this may be, and however much we may have
stupefied ourselves by hypocrisy and the auto-suggestion resulting
from it, nothing can destroy the absolute certainty of that simple
and clear truth that no external efforts can safeguard our life,
which is inevitably connected with unavoidable sufferings and which
ends in still more unavoidable death, that may come to each of us at
any moment, and that, therefore, our life can have no other meaning
than the fulfilment, at any moment, of what is wanted from us by
the power that sent us into life and gave us in this life one sure
guide,--our rational consciousness.

And so this power cannot want from us what is irrational and
impossible,--the establishment of our temporal, carnal life, the
life of society or of the state. This power demands of us what alone
is certain and rational and possible,--our serving the kingdom of
God, that is, our coöperation in the establishment of the greatest
union of everything living, which is possible only in the truth,
and, therefore, the recognition of the truth revealed to us, and
the profession of it, precisely what alone is always in our power.

"Seek ye the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these
things shall be added unto you." The only meaning of man's life
consists in serving the world by coöperating in the establishment of
the kingdom of God; but this service can be rendered only through
the recognition of the truth, and the profession of it, by every
separate individual.

"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they
say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is
within you."

_Yásnaya Polyána, May 14, 1893._




CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM

1894




CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM


The Franco-Russian celebrations which took place in France, in the
month of October of last year, provoked in me, as no doubt in many
other people, at first a feeling of amusement, then of perplexity,
and at last of indignation, which I intended to express in a
short article in a periodical; but, the more I dwelt on the chief
causes of this strange phenomenon, the more did I arrive at the
considerations which I now offer to my readers.


I.

Russians and Frenchmen have lived for many centuries, knowing one
another, entering with one another at times into friendly, more
often, I am sorry to say, into very hostile relations, which have
been provoked by their governments; suddenly, because two years
ago a French squadron arrived at Kronstadt, and the officers of
the squadron, upon landing, ate and drank a lot of wine in various
places, hearing and uttering upon these occasions many lying and
stupid words, and because, in the year 1893, a similar Russian
squadron arrived at Toulon, and the officers of the Russian squadron
ate and drank a lot in Paris, hearing and uttering upon that
occasion more lying and stupid words than before, it happened that
not only the men who ate, drank, and talked, but even those who
were present, and even those who were not present, but only heard
and read of it in newspapers, all these millions of Russians and
Frenchmen suddenly imagined that they somehow were particularly in
love with one another, that is, that all the French loved all the
Russians, and all the Russians loved all the French.

These sentiments were last October expressed in France in a most
unusual manner.

Here is the way the reception of the Russian sailors is described in
the _Rural Messenger_, a newspaper which collects its information
from all the others:

"At the meeting of the Russian and French vessels, both, besides the
salvos of guns, greeted one another with hearty, ecstatic shouts,
'Hurrah,' 'Long live Russia,' 'Long live France!'

"These were joined by bands of music (which came on many private
steamers), playing the Russian hymn, 'God save the Tsar,' and the
French Marseillaise; the public on the private vessels waved their
hats, flags, handkerchiefs, and bouquets; on many barques there were
peasants with their wives and children, and they all had bouquets in
their hands, and even the children waved the bouquets and shouted
at the top of their voices, '_Vive la Russie!_' Our sailors, upon
seeing such national transport, were unable to restrain their
tears....

"In the harbour all the ships-of-war which were then at Toulon were
drawn out in two lines, and our squadron passed between them; in
front was the ironclad of the admiralty, and this was followed by
the rest. There ensued a most solemn minute.

"On the Russian ironclad, fifteen salvos were fired in honour of
the French squadron, and a French ironclad replied with double
the number, with thirty salvos. From the French vessels thundered
the sounds of the Russian hymn. The French sailors climbed up on
the sail-yards and masts; loud exclamations of greeting proceeded
uninterruptedly from the two squadrons and from the private
vessels; the caps of the sailors, the hats and handkerchiefs of
the public,--all were thrown up triumphantly in honour of the dear
guests. On all sides, on the water and on the shore, there boomed
one common call, 'Long live Russia! Long live France!'

"In conformity with naval law, Admiral Avelán and the officers of
his staff landed, in order to greet the local authorities. On the
quay the Russian sailors were met by the chief marine staff of
France and the superior officers of the port of Toulon. There ensued
a universal friendly hand-shaking, accompanied by the boom of cannon
and the ringing of bells. A band of marine music played the hymn
'God save the Tsar,' drowned by the thunderous shouts of the public,
'Long live the Tsar! Long live Russia!' These exclamations blended
into one mighty sound, which drowned the music and the salvos from
the guns.

"Eye-witnesses declare that at this moment the enthusiasm of the
innumerable mass of people reached its highest limits, and that it
is impossible to express in words with what sensations the hearts
of all those present were filled. Admiral Avelán, with bared head,
and accompanied by Russian and French officers, directed his steps
to the building of the Marine Office, where the French minister of
marine was waiting for him.

"In receiving the admiral, the minister said: 'Kronstadt and Toulon
are two places which bear witness to the sympathy between the
Russian and the French nations; you will everywhere be met as dear
friends. The government and all of France welcome you upon your
arrival and that of your companions, who represent a great and noble
nation.'

"The admiral replied that he was not able to express all his
gratitude. 'The Russian squadron and all of Russia,' he said, 'will
remember the reception you have given us.'

"After a short conversation, the admiral, saying good-bye to the
minister, a second time thanked him for the reception, and added, 'I
do not want to part from you before pronouncing those words which
are imprinted in all Russian hearts: "Long live France!"'" (_Rural
Messenger_, 1893, No. 41.)

Such was the meeting at Toulon. In Paris the meeting and the
celebrations were more remarkable still.

Here is the way the meeting in Paris was described in the
newspapers: "All eyes were directed to the Boulevard des Italiens,
whence the Russian sailors were to appear. Finally the boom of
a whole hurricane of exclamations and applauses is heard in the
distance. The boom grows stronger and more audible. The hurricane is
apparently approaching. A mighty motion takes place on the square.
Policemen rush forward to clear a path toward the Cercle Militaire,
but this is by no means an easy task. There is an incredible crush
and pressure in the crowd.... Finally the head of the procession
appears in the square. At the same moment a deafening shout, '_Vive
la Russie! Vive les Russes!_' rises over it. All bare their heads,
the public, packed close in the windows, on the balconies, perched
even on the roofs, wave handkerchiefs, flags, and hats, applaud
madly, and from the windows of the upper stories throw clouds of
small many-coloured cockades. A whole sea of handkerchiefs, hats,
and flags surges above the heads of the crowd in the square: '_Vive
la Russie! Vive les Russes!_' shouts this mass of one hundred
thousand people, trying to get a look at the dear guests, extending
their hands to them, and in every way expressing their sympathies"
(_New Time_).

Another correspondent writes that the transport of the crowd
bordered on delirium. A Russian publicist, who was in Paris at
that time, describes this entrance of the sailors in the following
manner: "They tell the truth,--it was an incident of world-wide
import, wondrous, touching, soul-stirring, making the heart quiver
with that love which discerns the brothers in men, and which
detests bloodshed and concomitant acts of violence, the tearing
away of the children from their beloved mother. I have been in
some kind of an intoxication for several hours. I felt so strange,
and even so weak, as I stood at the station of the Lyons Railway,
among the representatives of the French administration in their
gold-embroidered uniforms, among the members of the municipality
in full dress, and heard the shouts, '_Vive la Russie! Vive le
Czar!_' and our national hymn, which was played several times in
succession. Where am I? What has happened? What magic stream has
united all this into one feeling, into one mind? Does one not feel
here the presence of the God of love and brotherhood, the presence
of something higher, something ideal, which descends upon men only
in lofty moments? The heart is so full of something beautiful and
pure and exalted, that the pen is not able to express it all. Words
pale before what I saw, what I felt. It is not transport,--the word
is too banal,--it is something better than transport. It is more
picturesque, profounder, more joyous, more varied. It is impossible
to describe what happened at the Cercle Militaire, when Admiral
Avelán appeared on the balcony of a second story. Words will not
tell anything here. During the Te Deum, when the choristers sang
in the church 'Save, O Lord, thy people,' there burst through the
open door the solemn sounds of the Marseillaise, which was played in
the street by an orchestra of wind-instruments. There was something
astounding and inexpressible in the impression conveyed" (_New
Time_, October, 1893).


II.

After arriving in France, the Russian sailors for two weeks went
from one celebration to another, and in the middle or at the end of
every celebration they ate, drank, and talked; and the information
as to what they ate and drank on Wednesday and where and what on
Friday, and what was said upon that occasion, was wired home and
conveyed to the whole of Russia. The moment some Russian captain
drank the health of France, this at once became known to the whole
world, and the moment the Russian admiral said, "I drink to fair
France!" these words were immediately borne over the whole world.
But more than that: the scrupulousness of the newspapers was such
that they reported not only the toasts, but even many dinners, with
the cakes and appetizers which were used at these dinners.

Thus it said in one issue of a newspaper that the dinner was "an
artistic production:"

      "Consommé de volailles, petits pâtés
        Mousse de hommard parisienne
        Noisette de bœuf à la béarnaise
            Faisans à la Périgord
      Casseroles de truffes au champagne
    Chaufroid de volailles à la Toulouse
               Salade russe
        Croute de fruits toulonaise
              Parfait à l'ananas
                Desserts"

In the next number it said:

"In a culinary sense the dinner left nothing to be desired. The menu
consisted of the following:

    "Potage livonien et St. Germain
          Zéphyrs Nantua
      Esturgeon braisé moldave
    Selle de daguet grand veneur,"

and so forth.

The next number described another menu. With every menu a
detailed description was given of the wines which the fêted men
consumed,--such and such "voodka" such and such _Bourgogne vieux,
Grand Moët_, and so forth. In an English paper there was an account
of all the intoxicants consumed by the celebrators. This amount is
so enormous that it is doubtful if all the drunkards of Russia and
of France could have drunk so much in so short a time.

They reported also the speeches which were made by the celebrators,
but the menus were more varied than the speeches. The speeches
consisted invariably of the same words in all kinds of combinations
and permutations. The meaning of these words was always one and the
same: "We love one another tenderly, we are in transport, because we
have so suddenly fallen in love with one another. Our aim is not war
and not _revanche_, and not the return of provinces taken, but only
_peace_, the benefaction of _peace_, the security of _peace_, the
rest and _peace_ of Europe. Long live the Emperor of Russia and the
empress,--we love them and we love _peace_. Long live the president
of the republic and his wife,--we love them, too, and we love
_peace_. Long live France, Russia, their fleets, and their armies.
We love the army, too, and _peace_, and the chief of the squadron."
The speeches generally ended, as in couplets, with the words,
"Toulon, Kronstadt," or "Kronstadt, Toulon." And the names of these
places, where so much food was eaten and so many kinds of wine were
consumed, were pronounced like words reminding one of the loftiest,
most valorous of acts of the representatives of both nations, words
after which there was nothing else to be said, because everything
was comprehensible. "We love one another, and we love peace.
Kronstadt, Toulon!" What else can be added to this? Especially with
the accompaniment of solemn music, playing simultaneously two hymns,
one--praising the Tsar and asking God for all kinds of benefactions
for him, and the other--cursing all kings and promising their ruin.

The men who expressed their sentiments of love particularly well
received decorations and rewards; other men for the same services,
or simply out of a superabundance of feelings, were given the
strangest and most unexpected presents,--thus the Emperor of Russia
received from the French squadron some kind of a golden book, in
which, I think, nothing was written, and if there was, it was
something that nobody needed to know, and the chief of the Russian
squadron received, among other presents, a still more remarkable
object, an aluminum plough, covered with flowers, and many other
just as unexpected presents.

Besides, all these strange acts were accompanied by still stranger
religious ceremonies and public prayers, which, it would seem, the
French had long ago outlived. Since the days of the Concordat there
had hardly been offered so many prayers as in that short time. All
the French suddenly became unusually pious, and carefully hung up
in the rooms of the Russian sailors those very images which they
had just as carefully removed from their schools, as being harmful
tools of superstition, and they kept praying all the time. Cardinals
and bishops everywhere prescribed prayers, and themselves prayed,
uttering the strangest prayers. Thus the Bishop of Toulon at the
launching of the ironclad _Joriguiberi_ prayed to the God of peace,
making people feel, however, that, if it came to a pinch, he could
address also the God of war.

"What her fate will be," said the bishop, in reference to the
ironclad, "God alone knows. No one knows whether she will belch
forth death from her appalling bosom. But if, invoking now the God
of peace, we should later have occasion to invoke the God of war, we
are firmly convinced that the _Joriguiberi_ will go forth side by
side with the mighty boats whose crews have this day entered into
such a close fraternal union with our own. Far from us be such a
prospect, and may the present festivity leave nothing but a peaceful
recollection, like the recollection of the _Grand Duke Constantine_,
which was present here (in 1857) at the launching of the ship
_Quirinal_, and may the friendship of France and of Russia make
these two nations the guardians of peace."

In the meantime tens of thousands of telegrams flew from Russia to
France, and from France to Russia. French women greeted Russian
women. Russian women expressed their gratitude to the French women.
A troupe of Russian actors greeted some French actors, and the
French actors informed them that they harboured deeply in their
hearts the greeting of the Russian actors. Some Russian candidates
for judicial positions, who served in a Circuit Court of some town
or other, expressed their enthusiasm for the French nation. General
So and So thanked Madame So and So, and Madame So and So assured
General So and So of her sentiments for the Russian nation; Russian
children wrote verses of welcome to French children, and the French
children answered in verse and in prose; the Russian minister of
education assured the French minister of education of the sentiments
of sudden love for the French, which were experienced by all the
children, scholars, and authors subject to his ministry; members
of a society for the protection of animals expressed their ardent
attachment for the French, and so did the Council of the City of
Kazán.

The canon of the eparchy of Arras informed his Worship, the chief
priest of the Russian court clergy, that he could affirm that deep
in the hearts of all the French cardinals and archbishops there was
imprinted a love for Russia and his Majesty Alexander III. and his
most august family, and that the Russian and French clergy professed
almost the selfsame religion and equally honoured the Virgin; to
which his Worship, the chief priest, replied that the prayers of
the French clergy for the most august family reëchoed joyfully in
the hearts of the whole Russian Tsar-loving family, and that, since
the Russian people also worshipped the Holy Virgin, it could count
on France in life and in death. Almost the same information was
vouchsafed by different generals, telegraph operators, and dealers
in groceries. Everybody congratulated somebody on something and
thanked somebody for something.

The excitement was so great that the most unusual acts were
committed, but no one observed their unusual character, and all, on
the contrary, approved of them, went into ecstasies over them, and,
as though fearing lest they should be too late, hastened to commit
similar acts, so as not to fall behind the rest. If protests were
expressed in words and in writing and in printing against these mad
acts, pointing out their irrationality, such protests were concealed
or squelched.[17]

  [17] Thus I know of the following protest of students, sent to
  Paris, which was not accepted by a single newspaper:

       "OPEN LETTER TO THE FRENCH STUDENTS

       "Lately a group of Moscow students of law, with the university
       authorities at their head, took it upon themselves to speak in
       behalf of all the student body of Moscow University in respect
       to the Toulon festivities.

       "We, the representatives of the association of student
       societies, protest in the most emphatic manner possible both
       against the arrogation of this group and substantially against
       the exchange of civilities between it and the French students.
       We, too, look with ardent love and profound respect upon France,
       and we do so, because we see in it a great nation, which
       formerly used to appear before the whole world as the herald and
       proclaimer of great ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity;
       and which was also the first in the matter of bold endeavour for
       the materialization of these great ideals,--and the best part
       of the Russian youth has always been ready to welcome France as
       the leading champion for the best future of humanity; but we do
       not consider such festivities as those of Kronstadt and Toulon a
       suitable occasion for such civilities.

       "On the contrary, these festivities signal a sad but, let us
       hope, temporary phenomenon,--the disloyalty of France to its
       former great historic rôle: the country, which once called the
       whole world to break the fetters of despotism and offered its
       fraternal aid to every nation that revolted for the sake of
       its freedom, now burns incense before the Russian government,
       which systematically trigs the normal, organic, and vital
       growth of the national life, and mercilessly crushes, without
       stopping at anything, all the strivings of Russian society
       toward the light, toward freedom, and toward independence. The
       Toulon manifestations are one of the acts of that drama which
       is presented by the antagonism--the creation of Napoleon III.
       and Bismarck--between two great nations, France and Germany.
       This antagonism keeps all of Europe under arms, and makes the
       Russian absolutism, which has always been the stay of despotism
       and arbitrariness against freedom, of the exploiters against
       the exploited, the executor of the political destinies of the
       world. A sensation of anguish for our country, of pity for the
       blindness of a considerable part of French society, such are the
       sensations evoked in us by these festivities.

       "We are fully convinced that the young generation of France
       will not be carried away by the national Chauvinism, and that,
       prepared to struggle for that better social structure toward
       which humanity is marching, it will know how to render to
       itself an account of the present events and to take the proper
       stand about them; we hope that our fervent protest will find a
       sympathetic echo in the hearts of the French youth.

       "The union council of twenty-four united Moscow student
       societies."--_Author's Note._

To say nothing of all the millions of work-days which were wasted
on these festivities, of the wholesale drunkenness of all the
participants, which was encouraged by all the powers, to say nothing
of the insipidity of the speeches made, the maddest and most cruel
things were done, and no one paid any attention to them.

Thus several dozens of men were crushed to death, and no one found
it necessary to mention this fact. One correspondent wrote that a
Frenchman told him at a ball that now there could hardly be found
a woman in Paris who would not be false to her duties, in order
to satisfy the wishes of some Russian sailor--and all this passed
by unnoticed, as something that ought to be. There occurred cases
of distinct madness. Thus one woman, dressing herself in a garment
of the colours of the Franco-Russian flags, waited for the sailors
and, exclaiming, "_Vive la Russie!_" jumped from the bridge into the
river and was drowned.

Women in general played in these festivities a prominent part and
even guided the men. Besides throwing flowers and all kinds of
ribbons, and offering presents and addresses, French women made for
the Russian sailors and kissed them; some of them for some reason
brought their children to them, to be kissed by them, and when the
Russian sailors complied with their wish, all persons present went
into ecstasies and wept.

This strange excitement was so infectious that, as one correspondent
tells, an apparently absolutely sound Russian sailor, after two days
of contemplation of what took place around him, in the middle of the
day jumped from the ship into the sea and, swimming, shouted, "_Vive
la France!_" When he was taken aboard and asked why he had done so,
he replied that he had made a vow that in honour of France he would
swim around the ship.

Thus the undisturbed excitement grew and grew, like a ball of
rolling wet snow, and finally reached such dimensions that not
only the persons present, not only predisposed, weak-nerved, but
even strong, normal men fell a prey to the general mood and became
abnormally affected.

I remember how I, absent-mindedly reading one of these descriptions
of the solemnity of the reception of the sailors, suddenly felt a
feeling, akin to meekness of spirit, even a readiness for tears,
communicated to me, so that I had to make an effort to overcome this
feeling.

[Illustration: Malévannians

_Photogravure from Photograph_]


III.

Lately Sikórski, a professor of psychiatry, described in the _Kíev
University Record_ the psychopathic epidemic, as he calls it, of
the Malévannians, as manifested in a few villages of Vasilkóv
County of the Government of Kíev. The essence of this epidemic,
as Mr. Sikórski, the investigator of it, says, consisted in this,
that certain persons of these villages, under the influence of
their leader, by the name of Malévanny, came to imagine that the
end of the world was at hand, and so, changing their whole mode
of life, began to distribute their property, to dress up, and to
eat savoury food, and stopped working. The professor found the
condition of these men to be abnormal. He says: "Their unusual good
nature frequently passed into exaltation, a joyous condition, which
was devoid of external motives. They were sentimentally disposed:
excessively polite, talkative, mobile, with tears of joy appearing
easily and just as easily disappearing. They sold their necessaries,
in order to provide themselves with umbrellas, silk kerchiefs, and
similar objects, and at that the kerchiefs served them only as
ornaments for their toilet. They ate many sweet things. They were
always in a cheerful mood, and they led an idle life,--visited one
another, walked together.... When the obviously absurd character of
their refusal to work was pointed out to them, one every time heard
in reply the stereotyped phrase, 'If I want to, I shall work, and if
I do not want to, why should I compel myself?'"

The learned professor considers the condition of these men a
pronounced case of a psychopathic epidemic, and, advising the
government to take certain measures against its spread, ends his
communication with the words: "Malévannism is the wail of a morbidly
sick population and a supplication to be freed from liquor and to
have education and sanitary conditions improved."

But if Malévannism is the wail of a morbidly sick population and
a supplication to be freed from liquor and from harmful social
conditions, then this new disease, which has appeared in Paris
and has with alarming rapidity embraced a great part of the
city population of France and almost the whole of governmental
and cultured Russia, is just such an alarming wail of a morbid
population and just such a supplication to be freed from liquor and
from false social conditions.

And if we must admit that the psychopathic suffering of Malévannism
is dangerous, and that the government has done well to follow
the professor's advice and remove the leaders of Malévannism by
confining some of them in lunatic asylums and monasteries and by
deporting others to distant places, how much more dangerous must be
considered to be this new epidemic, which appeared in Toulon and
Paris and from there spread over the whole of France and of Russia,
and how much more necessary it is, if not for the government, at
least for society, to take decisive measures against the spread of
such epidemics!

The resemblance between the diseases is complete. There is the same
good nature, passing into causeless and joyful exaltation, the
same sentimentality, excessive politeness, talkativeness, the same
constant tears of meekness of spirit, which come and go without
cause, the same festive mood, the same walking for pleasure and
visiting one another, the same dressing up in the best clothes, the
same proneness for sweet food, the same senseless talks, the same
idleness, the same singing and music, the same leadership of the
women, and the same clownish phase of _attitudes passionelles_,
which Mr. Sikórski has noticed in the case of the Malévannians;
that is, as I understand this word, those different, unnatural
poses, which men assume during solemn meetings, receptions, and
after-dinner speeches.

The resemblance is complete. The only difference is this,--and the
difference is very great for the society in which these phenomena
are taking place,--that there it is the aberration of a few dozen
peaceful, poor village people, who live on their small means and,
therefore, cannot exert any violence on their neighbours, and who
infect others only by the personal and oral transmission of their
mood, while here it is the aberration of millions of people, who
possess enormous sums of money and means for exerting violence
against other people,--guns, bayonets, fortresses, ironclads,
melinite, dynamite, and who, besides, have at their command the
most energetic means for the dissemination of their madness, the
post, the telegraph, an enormous number of newspapers, and all kinds
of publications, which are printed without cessation and carry
the infection to all the corners of the globe. There is also this
difference, that the first not only do not get themselves drunk,
but even do not use any intoxicating liquor, while the second are
constantly in a state of semi-intoxication, which they never stop
maintaining in themselves. And so for a society in which these
phenomena are taking place, there is the same difference between
the Kíev epidemic, during which, according to Mr. Sikórski's
information, it does not appear that they commit any violence or
murders, and the one which made its appearance in Paris, where in
one procession twenty women were crushed to death, as there is
between a piece of coal, which has leaped out of the stove and
is glowing on the floor without igniting it, and a fire which is
already enveloping the door and walls of the house. In the worst
case the consequences of the Kíev epidemic will consist in this,
that the peasants of one millionth part of Russia will spend what
they have earned by hard labour, and will be unable to pay the
Crown taxes; but the consequences from the Toulon-Paris epidemic,
which is embracing men who are in possession of a terrible power,
of vast sums of money, and of implements of violence and of the
dissemination of their madness, can and must be terrible.


IV.

We can with pity listen to the delirium of a feeble, defenceless,
crazy old man, in his cap and cloak, and even not contradict him,
and even jestingly agree with him; but when it is a whole crowd of
sound insane people, who have broken away from their confinement,
and these people bristle from head to foot with sharp daggers,
swords, and loaded revolvers, and madly flourish these death-dealing
weapons, we can no longer agree with them, and we cannot be at rest
even for a minute. The same is true of that condition of excitement,
provoked by the French celebrations, in which Russian and French
society finds itself at the present time.

It is true, in all the speeches, in all the toasts, pronounced
at these celebrations, in all the articles concerning these
celebrations, they never stopped talking of the importance of
everything which was taking place for the guarantee of peace. Even
the advocates of war did not speak of hatred of those who snatch
away provinces, but of some kind of a love which somehow hates.

But we know of the slyness of all men who are mentally diseased, and
it is this most persistent repetition of our not wanting war, but
peace, and the reticence regarding that of which all think, that
form a most menacing phenomenon.

In answering a toast at a dinner given in the Palace of the
Elysées, the Russian ambassador said: "Before drinking a toast to
which will respond from the depth of their hearts, not only those
who are within these walls, but even those--and, that, too, with
equal force--whose hearts near by and far away, at all the points
of great, fair France, as also in all of Russia, at the present
moment are beating in unison with ours,--permit me to offer to
you the expression of our profoundest gratitude for the words of
welcome which were addressed by you to our admiral, whom our Tsar
has charged with the mission of paying back your visit at Kronstadt.
Considering the high importance which you enjoy, your words
characterize the true significance of the magnificent _peaceful_
festivities, which are celebrated with such wonderful unanimity,
loyalty, and sincerity."

The same unjustifiable mention of peace is found in the speech
of the French president: "The ties of love, which unite Russia
and France," he said, "and which two years ago were strengthened
by touching manifestations, of which our fleet was the object at
Kronstadt, become tighter and tighter with every day, and the
honourable exchange of our amicable sentiments must inspire all
those who take to heart the benefactions of peace, confidence, and
security," and so forth.

Both speeches quite unexpectedly and without any cause refer to the
benefactions of peace and to peaceful celebrations.

The same occurs in the telegrams which were exchanged between the
Emperor of Russia and the President of France. The Emperor of Russia
telegraphed:

"_Au moment où l'escadre russe quitte la France, il me tient à
cœur de vous exprimer combien je suis touché et reconnaissant
de l'accueil chaleureux et splendide, que mes marins ont trouvé
partout sur le sol français. Les témoignages de vive sympathie qui
se sont manifestés encore une fois avec tant d'éloquence, joindront
un nouveau lien à ceux qui unissent les deux pays et contribueront,
je l'espère, à l'affermissement de la paix générale, objet de leurs
efforts et de leurs vœux les plus constants_," etc.

The President of France in his reply telegraphed as follows:

"_La dépêche dont je remercie votre Majesté m'est parvenue au moment
ou je quittais Toulon pour rentrer à Paris. La belle escadre sur
laquelle j'ai eu la vive satisfaction de saluer le pavillon russe
dans les eaux françaises, l'accueil cordial et spontané que vos
braves marins ont rencontré partout en France affirment une fois
de plus avec éclat les sympathies sincères qui unissent nos deux
pays. Ils marquent en même temps une foi profonde dans l'influence
bienfaisante que peuvent exercer ensemble deux grandes nations
devouées à la cause de la paix._"

Again there is in both telegrams a gratuitous mention of peace,
which has nothing in common with the celebrations of the sailors.

There is not one speech, not one article, in which mention is not
made of this, that the aim of all these past orgies is the peace
of Europe. At a dinner, which is given by the representatives of
the Russian press, everybody speaks of peace. Mr. Zola, who lately
wrote about the necessity and even usefulness of war, and Mr. Vogüé,
who more than once expressed the same idea, do not say one word
about war, but speak only of peace. The meetings of the Chambers
are opened with speeches respecting the past celebrations, and the
orators affirm that these festivities are the declaration of the
peace of Europe.

It is as though a man, coming into some peaceful society, should go
out of his way on every occasion to assure the persons present that
he has not the slightest intention of knocking out anybody's teeth,
smashing eyes, or breaking arms, but means only to pass a peaceable
evening. "But nobody has any doubts about that," one feels like
saying to him. "But if you have such base intentions, at least do
not dare speak of them to us."

In many articles, which were written about these celebrations, there
is even a direct and naïve expression of pleasure, because during
the festivities no one gave utterance to what by tacit consent it
had been decided to conceal from everybody, and what only one
incautious man, who was immediately removed by the police, dared to
shout, giving expression to the secret thought of all, namely, "_A
bas l'Allemagne!_" Thus children are frequently so happy at having
concealed their naughtiness, that their very joy gives them away.

Why should we so rejoice at the fact that no mention was made of
war, if we indeed are not thinking of it?


V.

No one is thinking of war, but yet milliards are wasted on military
preparations, and, millions of men are under arms in Russia and in
France.

"But all this is being done for the security of peace. _Si vis
pacem, para bellum. L'empire c'est la paix, la republique c'est la
paix._"

But if it is so, why are the military advantages of our alliance
with France in case of a war with Germany explained, not only in all
the periodicals and newspapers published for the so-called cultured
people, but also in the _Rural Messenger_, a newspaper published
by the Russian government for the masses, by means of which these
unfortunate masses, deceived by the government, are impressed
with this, that "to be friendly with France is also useful and
profitable, because, if, beyond all expectation, the above-mentioned
powers (Germany, Austria, Italy) should decide to violate the
peace with Russia, Russia, though able with God's aid to protect
itself and handle a very powerful alliance of adversaries, would
not find this to be an easy task, and for a successful struggle
great sacrifices and losses would be needed," and so forth (_Rural
Messenger_, No. 43, 1893).

And why do they in all the French colleges teach history from a
text-book composed by Mr. Lavisse, twenty-first edition, 1889, in
which the following passage is found:

"_Depuis que l'insurrection de la Commune a été vaincue, la France
n'a plus été troublée. Au lendemain de la guerre, elle s'est
remise au travail. Elle a payé aux Allemands sans difficulté
l'énorme contribution de guerre de cinq milliards. Mais la France
a perdu sa renommée militaire pendant la guerre de 1870. Elle a
perdu une partie de son territoire. Plus de quinze cents mille
hommes, qui habitaient nos departements du Haut Rhin, du Bas Rhin
et de la Moselle, et qui étaient de bons Français, ont été obligés
de devenir Allemands. Ils ne sont pas resignés à leur sort. Ils
détestent l'Allemagne; ils espèrent toujours redevenir Français.
Mais l'Allemagne tient à sa conquête, et c'est un grand pays, dont
tous les habitants aiment sincèrement leur patrie et dont les
soldats sont braves et disciplinés. Pour reprendre à l'Allemagne ce
qu'elle nous a pris, il faut que nous soyons de bons citoyens et de
bons soldats. C'est pour que vous deveniez de bons soldats, que vos
maîtres vous apprennent l'histoire de la France. L'histoire de la
France montre que dans notre pays les fils ont toujours vengé les
désastres de leurs pères. Les Français du temps de Charles VII. ont
vengé leurs pères vaincus à Crécy, à Poitiers, à Azincourt. C'est à
vous, enfants élèves aujourd'hui dans nos écoles, qu'il appartient
de venger vos pères, vaincus à Sédan et à Metz. C'est votre devoir,
le grand devoir de votre vie. Vous devez y penser toujours,_" etc.

At the foot of the page there is a whole series of questions, to
correspond to the articles. The questions are as follows: "What
did France lose when she lost part of her territory? How many
Frenchmen became German with the loss of this territory? Do the
French love Germany? What must we do, in order to regain what was
taken away from us by Germany?" In addition to these there are
also "_Réflexions sur le Livre VII._," in which it says that "the
children of France must remember our defeats of 1870," that "they
must feel on their hearts the burden of this memory," but that "this
memory must not discourage them: it should, on the contrary, incite
them to bravery."

Thus, if in official speeches peace is mentioned with great
persistency, the masses, the younger generations, yes, all the
Russians and Frenchmen in general, are imperturbably impressed with
the necessity, legality, profitableness, and even virtue of war.

"We are not thinking of war,--we are concerned only about peace."

One feels like asking "_Qui, diable, trompe-t-on ici?_" if it were
necessary to ask this, and if it were not quite clear who the
unfortunate cheated are.

The cheated are the same eternally deceived, stupid, labouring
masses, the same who with their callous hands have built all these
ships, and fortresses, and arsenals, and barracks, and guns, and
steamboats, and quays, and moles, and all these palaces, halls,
and platforms, and triumphal arches; and have set and printed all
these newspapers and books; and have secured and brought all those
pheasants, and ortolans, and oysters, and wines, which are consumed
by all those men, whom they, again, have nurtured and brought up
and sustained,--men who, deceiving the masses, prepare the most
terrible calamities for them; the same good-natured, stupid masses,
who, displaying their sound, white teeth, have grinned in childish
fashion, naïvely enjoying the sight of all the dressed-up admirals
and presidents, of the flags fluttering above them, the fireworks,
the thundering music, and who will hardly have time to look around,
when there shall be no longer any admirals, nor presidents, nor
flags, nor music, but there will be only a wet, waste field,
hunger, cold, gloom, in front the slaying enemy, behind the goading
authorities, blood, wounds, sufferings, rotting corpses, and a
senseless, useless death.

And the men like those who now are celebrating at the festivities
in Toulon and Paris, will be sitting, after a good dinner, with
unfinished glasses of good wine, with a cigar between their teeth,
in a dark cloth tent, and will with pins mark down the places on
the map where so much food for cannon, composed of the masses,
should be left, in order to seize such and such a fortress, and in
order to obtain such or such a ribbon or promotion.


VI.

"But there is nothing of the kind, and there are no warlike
intentions," we are told. "All there is, is that two nations feeling
a mutual sympathy are expressing this sentiment to one another.
What harm is there in this, that the representatives of a friendly
nation were received with especial solemnity and honour by the
representatives of the other nation? What harm is there in it, even
if it be admitted that the alliance may have the significance of a
protection against a dangerous neighbour, threatening the peace of
Europe?"

The harm is this, that all this is a most palpable and bold lie, an
unjustifiable, bad lie. The sudden outburst of an exclusive love of
the Russians for the French, and of the French for the Russians, is
a lie; and our hatred for the Germans, our distrust of them, which
is understood by it, is also a lie. And the statement that the aim
of all these indecent and mad orgies is the guarantee of European
peace, is a still greater lie.

We all know that we have experienced no particular love for
the French, neither before, nor even now, even as we have not
experienced any hostile feeling toward the Germans.

We are told that Germany has some intentions against Russia, that
the Triple Alliance threatens the peace of Europe and us, and that
our alliance with France balances the forces, and so guarantees the
peace. But this assertion is so obviously absurd, that it makes one
feel ashamed to give it a serious denial. For this to be so, that
is, for the alliance to guarantee peace, it is necessary that the
forces be mathematically even. If now the excess is on the side of
the Franco-Russian alliance, the danger is still the same. It is
even greater, because, if there was a danger that William, who stood
at the head of the European alliance, would violate the peace, there
is a much greater danger that France, which cannot get used to the
loss of her provinces, will do so. The Triple Alliance was called a
league of peace, but for us it was a league of war. Even so now the
Franco-Russian alliance cannot present itself as anything else than
what it is,--a league of war.

And then, if peace depends on the balance of the powers, how are
the units to be determined, between whom the balance is to be
established? Now the English say that the alliance between Russia
and France menaces them, and that they must, therefore, form another
alliance. And into how many units of alliances must Europe be
divided, in order that there be a balance? If so, then every man
stronger than another in society is already a danger, and the others
must form into alliances, to withstand him.

They ask, "What harm is there in this, that France and Russia have
expressed their mutual sympathies for the guarantee of peace?"
What is bad is, that it is a lie, and a lie is never spoken with
impunity, and does not pass unpunished.

The devil is a slayer of men and the father of lies. And the lies
always lead to the slaying of men,--in this case more obviously than
ever.

In just the same manner as now, the Turkish war was preceded by a
sudden outburst of love of our Russians for their brothers, the
Slavs, whom no one had known for hundreds of years, while the
Germans, the French, the English have always been incomparably
nearer and more closely related to us than Montenegrins, Servians,
or Bulgarians. And there began transports, receptions, and
festivities, which were fanned by such men as Aksákov and Katkóv,
who are mentioned now in Paris as models of patriotism. Then, as
now, they spoke of nothing but the mutual sudden outburst of love
between the Russians and the Slavs. In the beginning they ate and
drank in Moscow, even as now in Paris, and talked nonsense to one
another, becoming affected by their own exalted sentiments, spoke of
union and peace, and did not say anything about the chief thing, the
intentions against Turkey. The newspapers fanned the excitement, and
the government by degrees entered into the game. Servia revolted.
There began an exchange of diplomatic notes and the publication of
semiofficial articles; the newspapers lied more and more, invented
and waxed wroth, and the end of it all was that Alexander II., who
really did not want any war, could not help but agree to it, and we
all know what happened: the destruction of hundreds of thousands of
innocent people and the bestialization and dulling of millions.

What was done in Toulon and in Paris, and now continues to be done
in the newspapers, obviously leads to the same, or to a still more
terrible calamity. Just so all kinds of generals and ministers will
at first, to the sounds of "God save the Tsar" and the Marseillaise
drink the health of France, of Russia, of the various regiments of
the army and the navy; the newspapers will print their lies; the
idle crowd of the rich, who do not know what to do with their powers
and with their time, will babble patriotic speeches, fanning hatred
against Germany, and no matter how peaceful Alexander III. may be,
the conditions will be such that he will be unable to decline a war
which will be demanded by all those who surround him, by all the
newspapers, and, as always seems, by the public opinion of the whole
nation. And before we shall have had time to look around, there will
appear in the columns of the newspapers the usual, ominous, stupid
proclamation:

"By God's grace, we, the most autocratic great Emperor of all
Russia, the King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc.,
inform all our faithful subjects that for the good of these dear
subjects, entrusted to us by God, we have considered it our duty
before God to send them out to slaughter. God be with them," and so
forth.

The bells will be rung, and long-haired men will throw
gold-embroidered bags over themselves and will begin to pray for the
slaughter. And there will begin again the old, well-known, terrible
deed. The newspaper writers, who under the guise of patriotism stir
people up to hatred and murder, will be about, in the hope of double
earnings. Manufacturers, merchants, purveyors of military supplies,
will bestir themselves joyfully, expecting double profits. All kinds
of officials will bestir themselves, foreseeing a chance to steal
more than they usually do. The military authorities will bestir
themselves, for they will receive double salaries and rations, and
will hope to get for the killing of people all kinds of trifles,
which they value very much,--ribbons, crosses, galloons, stars. Idle
gentlemen and ladies will bestir themselves, inscribing themselves
in advance in the Red Cross, preparing themselves to dress the
wounds of those whom their own husbands and brothers will kill, and
imagining that they are thus doing a most Christian work.

And, drowning in their hearts their despair by means of songs,
debauches, and vódka, hundreds of thousands of simple, good people,
torn away from peaceful labour, from their wives, mothers, children,
will march, with weapons of murder in their hands, whither they will
be driven. They will go to freeze, to starve, to be sick, to die
from diseases, and finally they will arrive at the place where they
will be killed by the thousand, and they will kill by the thousand,
themselves not knowing why, men whom they have never seen and who
have done them and can do them no harm.

And when there shall be collected so many sick, wounded, and killed
that nobody will have the time to pick them up, and when the air
shall already be so infected by this rotting food for cannon that
even the authorities will feel uncomfortable, then they will stop
for awhile, will somehow manage to pick up the wounded, will haul
off and somewhere throw into a pile the sick, and will bury the
dead, covering them with lime, and again they will lead on the whole
crowd of the deceived, and will continue to lead them on in this
manner until those who have started the whole thing will get tired
of it, or until those who needed it will get what they needed.

And again will men become infuriated, brutalized, and bestialized,
and love will be diminished in the world, and the incipient
Christianization of humanity will be delayed for decades and for
centuries. And again will the people, who gain thereby, begin to
say with assurance that, if there is a war, this means that it is
necessary, and again they will begin to prepare for it the future
generations, by corrupting them from childhood.


VII.

And so, when there appear such patriotic manifestations as were the
Toulon celebrations, which, though still at a distance, in advance
bind the wills of men and oblige them to commit those customary
malefactions which always result from patriotism, every one who
understands the significance of these celebrations cannot help
but protest against everything which is tacitly included in them.
And so, when the journalists say in print that all the Russians
sympathize with what took place at Kronstadt, Toulon, and Paris;
that this alliance for life and death is confirmed by the will
of the whole nation; and when the Russian minister of education
assures the French ministers that his whole company, the Russian
children, the learned, and the authors, share his sentiments; or
when the commander of the Russian squadron assures the French that
the whole of Russia will be grateful to them for their reception;
and when the chief priests speak for their flocks and assure the
French that their prayers for the life of the most august house
have reëchoed joyfully in the hearts of the Russian _Tsar-loving_
nation; and when the Russian ambassador in Paris, who is considered
to be the representative of the Russian nation, says after a dinner
of _ortolans à la soubise et logopédes glacés_, with a glass of
champagne _Grand Moët_ in his hand, that all Russian hearts are
beating in unison with his heart, which is filled with a sudden
outburst of exclusive love for fair France (_la belle France_),--we,
the people who are free from the stultification, consider it our
sacred duty, not only for our own sakes, but also for the sake of
tens of millions of Russians, in the most emphatic manner to protest
against it and to declare that our hearts do not beat in unison with
the hearts of the journalists, ministers of education, commanders of
squadrons, chief priests, and ambassadors, but, on the contrary, are
full to the brim with indignation and loathing for that harmful lie
and that evil which they consciously and unconsciously disseminate
with their acts and their speeches. Let them drink _Moët_ as much as
they please, and let them write articles and deliver addresses in
their own name, but we, all the Christians, who recognize ourselves
as such, cannot admit that we are bound by everything that these men
say and write. We cannot admit it, because we know what is concealed
beneath all these drunken transports, speeches, and embraces, which
do not resemble the confirmation of peace, as we are assured, but
rather those orgies and that drunkenness to which evil-doers abandon
themselves when they prepare themselves for a joint crime.


VIII.

About four years ago,--the first swallow of the Toulon spring,--a
certain French agitator in favour of a war with Germany came to
Russia for the purpose of preparing the Franco-Russian alliance,
and he visited us in the country. He arrived at our house when we
were working in the mowing. At breakfast, as we returned home, we
made the acquaintance of the guest, and he immediately proceeded to
tell us how he had fought, had been in captivity, had run away from
it, and how he had made a patriotic vow, of which he was apparently
proud, that he would not stop agitating a war against Germany until
the integrity and glory of France should be reëstablished.

In our circle all the convictions of our guest as to how necessary
an alliance between Russia and France was for the reëstablishment of
the former borders of France and its might and glory, and for making
us secure against the malevolent intentions of Germany, were of no
avail to him. In reply to his arguments that France could not be at
peace so long as the provinces taken from it were not returned to
it, we said that similarly Prussia could not be at rest, so long as
it had not paid back for Jena, and that, if the French "_revanche_"
should now be successful, the Germans would have to pay them back,
and so on without end.

In reply to his arguments that the French were obliged to save
their brothers, who had been torn away from them, we said that the
condition of the inhabitants, of the majority of the inhabitants, of
the working people in Alsace-Lorraine, was hardly any worse under
German rule than it had been under France, and that, because some
Alsatians preferred to belong to France rather than to Germany,
and he, our guest, found it desirable to reestablish the glory of
French arms, it was not worth while, either to begin those terrible
calamities which result from war, or even to sacrifice one single
human life.

In reply to his arguments that it was all very well for us to
speak thus, since we had not experienced the same, and that we
should be speaking differently, if we had the Baltic provinces and
Poland taken away from us, we said that even from the political
standpoint the loss of Poland and of the Baltic provinces could not
be a calamity for us, but might rather be considered an advantage,
since it would diminish the necessity for a military force and the
expenses of state; and from the Christian point of view we never
could permit a war, since a war demanded the killing of men, whereas
Christianity not only forbade every murder, but even demanded
that we do good to all men, considering all, without distinction
of nationalities, as our brothers. The Christian state, we said,
which enters upon war, to be consistent, must not only haul down
the crosses from the churches, turn all the churches into buildings
for different purposes, give the clergy other offices, and, above
all, prohibit the Gospel, but must also renounce all the demands
of morality which result from the Christian law. "_C'est à prendre
ou à laisser_," we said. But until Christianity was abolished, it
would be possible to entice men to war only by cunning and deceit,
as indeed is being done nowadays. We see this cunning and deception,
and so cannot submit to it. As there was no music, no champagne,
nothing intoxicating about us, our guest only shrugged his shoulders
and with customary French amiability remarked that he was very
thankful for the fine reception accorded to him in our house, but
that he was sorry that his ideas were not treated in the same way.


IX.

After this conversation we went to the mowing, and there he, in
the hope of finding more sympathy for his ideas among the masses,
asked me to translate to the peasant Prokófi, an old, sickly man,
with an enormous rupture, who none the less stuck to his work,
and was my companion in the mowing, his plan of attacking the
Germans, which was to squeeze the Germans, who were between the
French and the Russians, from both sides. The Frenchman gave an
ocular demonstration of this to Prokófi, by touching from two sides
Prokófi's sweaty hempen shirt with his white fingers. I recall
Prokófi's good-naturedly scornful surprise, when I explained to him
the Frenchman's words and gestures. The proposition to squeeze the
Germans from both sides was apparently taken by Prokófi as a joke,
for he would not admit the idea that a grown man and a scholar
should calmly and when he was sober talk of the desirability of war.

"Well, if we squeeze the German from both sides," he replied
jestingly to what he thought was a joke, "he will have no place to
go to. We must give him room."

I translated this to my guest.

"_Dites lui que nous aimons les Russes_," he said.

These words obviously startled Prokófi even more than the
proposition to squeeze the German, and provoked a certain sentiment
of suspicion.

"Who is he?" Prokófi asked me, with mistrust, indicating my guest
with his head.

I told him that he was a Frenchman, a rich man.

"What is his business?" Prokófi asked me.

When I explained to him that he had come to invite the Russians to
form an alliance with France in case of a war with Germany, Prokófi
apparently became quite dissatisfied, and, turning to the women, who
were sitting near a haycock, he shouted at them in a strong voice,
which involuntarily betrayed the feelings which this conversation
had provoked in him, that they should go and rake up the unraked hay.

"Come now, you crows! Have you fallen asleep? Come! Much time we
have to squeeze the German! We have not finished the mowing yet, and
it looks likely that we shall be mowing on Wednesday," he said. And
then, as though fearing to offend the stranger by such a remark, he
added, displaying his half-worn-off teeth in a good-natured smile,
"You had better come and work with us, and send the German, too.
When we get through working, we shall have a good time. Well take
the German along. They are just such folk as we." And, having said
this, Prokófi took his muscular arm out of the crotch of the fork,
on which he had been leaning, threw the fork over his shoulders, and
went away to the women.

"_Oh, le brave homme!_" the polite Frenchman exclaimed, smiling. And
with this he then concluded his diplomatic mission to the Russian
people.

The sight of these so radically different men,--the one beaming with
freshness, alacrity, elegance, the well-fed Frenchman, in a silk hat
and long overcoat of the latest fashion, energetically illustrating
with his white hands, unused to labour, how to squeeze the Germans,
and the sight of the dishevelled Prokófi, with hay-seed in his hair,
dried up from work, sunburnt, always tired and always working, in
spite of his immense rupture, with fingers swollen from work, with
his loosely hanging homespun trousers, battered bast shoes, jogging
along with an immense forkful of hay over his shoulder in that
indolent pace of a labouring man, which economizes motion,--the
sight of these two so radically different men elucidated to me then
many things, and has occurred to me now, after the Toulon-Paris
celebrations. One of them personified all those men, nurtured by
the labours of the masses, who later use these masses as food for
cannon; and Prokófi personified to me that food for cannon, which
nurtures and makes secure the men who dispose of it.


X.

"But France has been deprived of two provinces,--two children have
been violently removed from their mother. But Russia cannot permit
Germany to prescribe laws to it and to deprive it of its historic
destiny in the East,--it cannot tolerate the chance of having
its provinces, the Baltic provinces, Poland, the Caucasus, taken
from it, as was done in the case of France. But Germany cannot
tolerate the possibility of losing its prerogatives, which it has
gained through so many sacrifices. But England cannot yield its
supremacy on the seas to any one." And, having spoken such words,
it is generally assumed that a Frenchman, a Russian, a German, an
Englishman must be prepared to sacrifice everything in order to
regain the lost provinces, to establish their predominance in the
East, to maintain their unity and power, their supremacy on the
seas, and so forth.

It is assumed that the sentiment of patriotism is, in the first
place, a sentiment which is always inherent in men, and, in the
second, such an exalted moral sentiment that, if it is absent,
it has to be evoked in those who do not have it. But neither is
correct. I have passed half a century among the Russian masses,
and among the great majority of the real Russian people I have in
all that time never seen or heard even once any manifestation or
expression of this sentiment of patriotism, if we do not count
those patriotic phrases, which are learned by rote during military
service or are repeated from books by the most frivolous and
spoiled men of the nation. I have never heard any expression of
patriotic sentiments from the people; but, I have, on the contrary,
frequently heard the most serious and respectable men from among the
masses giving utterance to the most absolute indifference and even
contempt for all kinds of manifestations of patriotism. The same
thing I have observed among the labouring classes of other nations,
and I have often been assured of the same by cultured Frenchmen,
Germans, and Englishmen concerning their own working people.

The working people are too busy with the all-absorbing business of
supporting themselves and their families, to be interested in those
political questions, which present themselves as the chief motive
of patriotism,--the questions of Russia's influence in the East,
the unity of Germany, or the restitution of the lost provinces
to France, or the acts of this or that part of one state toward
another, and so forth, do not interest them, not only because they
hardly ever know the conditions under which these questions have
arisen, but also because the interests of their lives are quite
independent of the political interests. It is always very much a
matter of indifference to a man from the masses, where certain
borders will be marked down, or to whom Constantinople will belong,
or whether Saxony or Brunswick will be a member of the German union,
or whether Australia or Matabeleland will belong to England, or
even to what government he will have to pay taxes and to what army
he will have to send his sons; but it is always very important for
him to know how much he will have to pay in taxes, how long he
has to serve, and how much he will receive for his labour,--and
these are questions that are quite independent of the common
political interests. It is for this reason that, in spite of all
the intensified means used by the governments for the inoculation
of the masses with a patriotism which is alien to them and for the
suppression of the ideas of socialism, which are developing among
them, the socialism more and more penetrates into the masses, and
the patriotism, which is so carefully inoculated by the governments,
is not only not adopted by the masses, but is disappearing more and
more, maintaining itself only among the upper classes, to whom it is
advantageous. If it happens that at times patriotism takes hold of
the popular crowd, as was the case in Paris, this is only so when
the masses are subjected to an intensified hypnotic influence by the
governments and the ruling classes, and the patriotism is maintained
among the masses only so long at this influence lasts.

Thus, for example, in Russia, where patriotism, in the form of
love and loyalty for the faith, the Tsar, and the country, is
inoculated in the masses with extraordinary tension and with the
use of all the tools at the command of the governments, such as the
church, the school, the press, and all kinds of solemnities, the
Russian labouring classes,--one hundred millions of the Russian
nation,--in spite of Russia's unearned reputation as a nation that
is particularly devoted to its faith, its Tsar, and its country,
are most free from the deception of patriotism and from loyalty
to faith, the Tsar, and country. The men of the masses for the
most part do not know their Orthodox, state faith, to which they
are supposed to be so loyal, and when they come to know it, they
immediately give it up and become rationalists, that is, accept a
faith which it is impossible to attack or to defend; on their Tsar
they, in spite of the constant and persistent influences brought
to bear upon them, look as upon all the powers of violence, if not
with condemnation, at least with absolute indifference; but their
country, if by that we do not mean their village or township, they
do not know at all, or, if they do, they do not distinguish it
from any other countries, so that, as Russian colonists used to go
to Austria and to Turkey, they now with just as much indifference
settle in Russia, outside of Russia, in Turkey or in China.


XI.

My old friend D----, who in the winter lived alone in the country,
while his wife, whom he went to see but rarely, lived in Paris,
used to talk during the long autumn evenings with an illiterate,
but very clever and respectable peasant, an elder, who came in the
evening to report, and my friend told him, among other things, of
the superiority of the French political order over our own. This
was on the eve of the last Polish insurrection and the interference
of the French government in our affairs. The patriotic Russian
newspapers at that time burned with indignation on account of such
interference, and so heated up the ruling classes that they talked
of a war with France.

My friend, who had read the papers, told the elder also of these
relations between Russia and France. Submitting to the tone of the
papers, my friend said that if there should be any war (he was an
old soldier), he would serve and fight against France. At that time
the "_revanche_" against the French seemed necessary to the Russians
on account of Sevastopol.

"But why should we wage war?" asked the elder.

"How can we permit France to manage our affairs?"

"But you say yourself that things are better arranged with them than
with us," the elder said, quite seriously. "Let them arrange matters
in our country, too."

My friend told me that this reflection so startled him that he was
absolutely at a loss what to say, and only laughed, as laugh those
who awaken from a deceptive dream.

Such reflections one may hear from any sober Russian labouring
man, if only he is not under any hypnotic influence of the
government. They talk of the love of the Russian masses for their
faith, their Tsar, and their government, and yet there will not
be found one commune of peasants in the whole of Russia, which
would hesitate for a moment, which of the two places to choose
for its colonization,--Russia, with the Tsar, the little father,
as they write in books, and with the holy Orthodox faith in its
adored country, but with less and worse land, or without the little
father, the white Tsar, and without the Orthodox faith, somewhere
outside of Russia, in Prussia, China, Turkey, Austria, but with some
greater and better advantages, as indeed we have seen before and
see at present. For every Russian peasant the question as to what
government he will be under (since he knows that, no matter under
what government he may be, he will be fleeced just the same) has
incomparably less meaning than the question as to whether, I will
not say the water is good, but as to whether the clay is soft and as
to whether there will be a good crop of cabbage.

But it may be thought that the indifference of the Russians is due
to this, that any other government under whose power they may come
will certainly be better than the Russian, because in Europe there
is not one that is worse than the Russian; but that is not so: so
far as I know, we have seen the same in the case of the English,
Dutch, German immigrants in America, and of all the other colonists
in Russia.

The transference of the European nations from the power of one
government to another, from the Turkish to the Austrian, or from
the French to the German, changes the condition of the nations so
little that in no case can they provoke the dissatisfaction of the
working classes, so long as they are not artificially subjected to
the suggestions of the governments and the ruling classes.


XII.

People generally adduce, in proof of the existence of patriotism,
the manifestations of patriotic sentiments in a nation during a time
of all kinds of celebrations, as, for example, in Russia during a
coronation or the meeting of the emperor after the calamity of the
seventeenth of October, or in France during the proclamation of war
against Prussia, or in Germany during the festivities of victory, or
during the Franco-Russian celebrations.

But it ought to be known how these manifestations are prepared. In
Russia, for example, people are especially dressed up by the village
commune and the owners of factories to meet and welcome the emperor
whenever he passes through a given locality.

The transports of the masses are generally prepared artificially
by those who need them, and the degree of transport expressed by
the crowd shows only the degree of the art of the arrangers of
these transports. This business has long been practised, and so
the specialists in arranging such transports have reached a high
degree of virtuosity in these arrangements. When Alexander II. was
still an heir apparent, and was in command, as is usually the case,
of the Preobrázhenski regiment, he once drove out after dinner
to the regiment in camp. The moment his carriage appeared, the
soldiers, coatless as they were, rushed out to meet him, and with
such transport welcomed, as they say, their most august commander,
that all ran a race behind his carriage, and many of them made
the sign of the cross while on a run, looking all the time at the
heir apparent. All those who saw this meeting were deeply touched
by this naïve loyalty and love of the Russian soldiers for their
Tsar and his heir, and by that sincere religious and apparently
unprepared transport which was expressed in the faces, the motions,
and especially in the signs of the cross, which the soldiers
made. However, all that was done artificially and prepared in the
following manner: after the inspection of the previous day the heir
said to the brigade commander that he would drive up the next day to
the regiment.

"When are we to expect your Imperial Majesty?"

"In all probability in the evening. Only, please, no preparations."

The moment the heir drove off, the brigade commander called together
the commanders of the companies and gave the order that on the
following day all the soldiers were to appear in clean shirts, and,
as soon as they saw the heir's carriage, which the signallers were
to announce, they were to run at haphazard after the carriage,
shouting "Hurrah!" and that, at the same time, every tenth man in
the company was to run and make the sign of the cross. The sergeants
drew up the companies, and, counting the soldiers, stopped at every
tenth man: "One, two, three ... eight, nine, ten,--Sidorénko--the
sign of the cross; one, two, three, four ... Ivánov--the sign of
the cross...." Everything was carried out as by command, and the
impression of transport was complete, both on the heir apparent and
on all the persons present, even on the soldiers and the officers,
and even on the commander of the brigade, who had invented all that.
Just so, though less coarsely, they do in all places, wherever
there are any patriotic manifestations. Thus the Franco-Russian
celebrations, which present themselves to us as free expressions
of the people's sentiments, did not originate with the people, but
were, on the contrary, very artfully and quite obviously prepared
and provoked by the French government.

"The moment the arrival of the Russian sailors became known," I am
again quoting the same _Rural Messenger_, the official organ, which
collects its information from all the other newspapers, "committees
for the arrangement of celebrations were being formed, not only
in all the large and small cities lying on the route from Toulon
to Paris, a considerable distance, but also in a large number of
towns and villages which lie quite to either side of this route.
Everywhere a subscription was opened for contributions to meet the
expenses for these celebrations. Many cities sent deputations to
Paris to our imperial ambassador, imploring him to let the sailors
visit their cities even for one day or even for one hour. The
municipal governments of all those cities in which our sailors were
ordered to stay set aside vast sums, averaging more than one hundred
thousand roubles, for the arrangement of all kinds of festivities
and amusements, and expressed their willingness to expend even
greater sums, as much as should be needed, provided the welcome and
the celebrations should be as magnificent as possible.

"In Paris itself a private committee collected, in addition to the
sum set aside by the city government for this purpose, an immense
sum by private subscription, also for the arrangement of amusements,
and the French government assigned more than one hundred thousand
roubles for expenses incurred by the ministers and other authorities
in welcoming the guests. In many cities, where our sailors will not
set foot at all, they none the less decided to celebrate the first
of October with all kinds of festivities in honour of Russia. A vast
number of cities and provinces decided to send special deputations
to Toulon and Paris, in order to welcome the Russian guests and
to offer them presents to remember France by, or to send to them
addresses and telegrams of welcome. It was decided everywhere to
consider the first of October a national holiday and to dismiss
the pupils of all the educational institutions for that day, and
in Paris for two days. Officials of lower rank had their penalties
remitted, that they might gratefully remember the joyful day for
France,--the first of October.

"To make it easier for those who wished to visit Toulon and take
part in the welcome to the Russian squadron, the railways lowered
the rates to one-half and sent out special trains."

And thus, when by means of a whole series of universal, simultaneous
measures, which the government can always take by dint of the
power which it has in its hands, a certain part of the nation,
preëminently the scum of the people, the city crowd, is brought to
a condition of abnormal excitement, they say: "Behold, this is the
free expression of the will of the whole nation." Manifestations
like those which just took place in Toulon and in Paris, which in
Germany take place at the meeting of the emperor or of Bismarck,
or at manœuvres in Lorraine, and which are constantly repeated
in Russia at every meeting circumstanced with solemnity, prove
only this, that the means of an artificial excitation of the
people, which now are in the hands of the governments and the
ruling classes, are so powerful that the governments and the ruling
classes, which are in possession of them, are always able at will
to provoke any kind of a patriotic manifestation they may wish
by rousing the patriotic sentiments of the masses. Nothing, on
the contrary, proves the absence of patriotism in the masses with
such obviousness as those tense efforts which now are made by the
governments and the ruling classes for the artificial excitation
of patriotism, and the insignificant results which are obtained in
spite of all the efforts.

If patriotic sentiments are so proper to the nations, they should
be permitted to manifest themselves freely, and should not be
provoked by all kinds of exclusive and artificial means, applied on
every possible occasion. Let them even for a time, for one year,
stop in Russia compelling all the people, as they are doing now,
upon the accession of every Tsar, to swear allegiance to him; let
them at every divine service stop solemnly repeating several times
the customary prayers for the Tsar; let them stop celebrating his
birthdays and name-days with ringing of bells, illumination, and
the prohibition to work; let them stop everywhere hanging out and
displaying representations of him; let them stop, in prayer-books,
almanacs, text-books, printing his name and the names of his
family, and even the pronouns referring to him, in capitals; let
them stop glorifying him in special books and newspapers printed
for the purpose; let them stop imprisoning men for the slightest
disrespectful word uttered concerning the Tsar,--let them stop
doing all that for a time only, and then we should see how proper
it is for the masses, for the real labouring masses, for Prokófi,
for elder Iván, and for all the men of the Russian masses,--as the
nation is made to believe and as all the foreigners are convinced of
it,--to worship the Tsar, who in one way or another turns them over
into the hands of a landed proprietor or of the rich in general. So
it is in Russia; but let them similarly stop in Germany, France,
Italy, England, America doing all that which is done there with the
same tension by the ruling classes in order to rouse patriotism and
loyalty and submission to the existing government, and we should
see in how far this imaginary patriotism is characteristic of the
nations of our time.

But, as it is, the masses are stultified from childhood by all
possible means, by school-books, divine services, sermons, books,
newspapers, verses, monuments, which all tend in one and the same
direction; then they select by force or bribery a few thousands of
the people, and when these assembled thousands, joined by all the
loafers who are always happy to be present at any spectacle, to the
sounds of cannon-shots and of music, and at the sight of every
kind of splendour and light begin to shout what the leaders shout
to them, we are told that this is an expression of the sentiments
of the whole nation. But, in the first place, these thousands,
or, if it is a great crowd, these tens of thousands, who shout
something at such celebrations, form but a tiny, a ten-thousandth
part of the whole nation; in the second place, out of these tens of
thousands of shouting men, who wave their hats, the greater part
are either collected by force, as is the case with us in Russia, or
artificially provoked by some enticement; in the third place, among
all these thousands, there are scarcely tens who know what it is all
about, and all the rest would as gladly shout and wave their hats if
the very opposite took place; and, in the fourth place, the police
are always present, and they will make any one shut up if he does
not shout what the government wants and demands shall be shouted,
and lock him up at once, as was done with much force during the
Franco-Russian festivities.

In France they welcomed with equal enthusiasm the war with Russia
under Napoleon I., and then Alexander I., against whom the war was
waged, and then again Napoleon, and again the allies, and Bourbon,
and Orleans, and the Republic, and Napoleon III., and Boulanger;
and in Russia they acclaim with the same enthusiasm, to-day Peter,
to-morrow Catherine, the next day Paul, Alexander, Constantine,
Nicholas, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, the brother Slavs, the King of
Prussia, the French sailors, and all those whom the government wants
them to welcome. The same happens in England, America, Germany,
Italy.

What in our time is called patriotism is, on the one hand, only
a certain mood, which is constantly produced and maintained in
the masses by the schools, the religion, the venal press, having
such a tendency as the government demands, and, on the other, a
temporary excitation, produced with exclusive means by the ruling
classes, in the masses, who stand on a lower moral and even mental
plane,--an excitation, which later is given out as a constant
expression of the will of the whole nation. The patriotism of the
oppressed nationalities does not form an exception to this. It is as
little characteristic of the working classes, and is artificially
inculcated upon them by the upper classes.


XIII.

"But if the men of the masses do not experience the sentiment of
patriotism, this is due to the fact that they have not yet reached
that exalted sentiment, which is characteristic of every cultured
man. If they do not experience this exalted sentiment, it has to be
educated in them. It is this that the government is doing."

Thus generally speak the men of the ruling classes, with such full
confidence that patriotism is an exalted sentiment, that the naïve
men of the masses, who do not experience it, consider themselves at
fault, because they do not experience this sentiment, and try to
assure themselves that they experience it, or at least pretend that
they do.

But what is this exalted sentiment, which, in the opinion of the
ruling classes, ought to be educated in the nations?

This sentiment is in its most precise definition nothing but a
preference shown to one's own state or nation in comparison with any
other state or nation, a sentiment which is fully expressed in the
German patriotic song, "_Deutschland, Deutschland über alles_," in
which we need only substitute _Russland_, _Frankreich_, _Italien_,
or any other state for _Deutschland_, and we shall get the clearest
formula of the exalted sentiment of patriotism. It may be that this
sentiment is very desirable and useful for the governments and the
integrity of the state, but one cannot help but observe that this
sentiment is not at all exalted, but, on the contrary, very stupid
and very immoral: stupid, because, if every state will consider
itself better than any other, it is obvious that they will all be
in the wrong; and immoral, because it inevitably leads every man
who experiences the feeling to try to obtain advantages for his own
state and nation, at the expense of other states and nations--a
tendency which is directly opposed to the fundamental moral law
recognized by all men: not to do unto another what we do not wish to
have done to ourselves.

Patriotism may have been a virtue in the ancient world, when it
demanded of man that he serve the highest ideal accessible to him
at the time,--the ideal of his country. But how can patriotism
be a virtue in our time, when it demands of men what is directly
opposed to what forms the ideal of our religion and morality,--not
the recognition of the equality and brotherhood of all men, but the
recognition of one state and nationality as predominating over all
the others. This sentiment is in our time not only not a virtue, but
unquestionably a vice; no such sentiment of patriotism in its true
sense does or can exist in our time, because the material and moral
foundations for it are lacking.

Patriotism could have some sense in the ancient world, when every
nation, more or less homogeneous in its structure, professing one
and the same state religion, and submitting to the same unlimited
power of its supreme, deified ruler, appeared to itself as an island
in the ocean of the barbarians, which ever threatened to inundate it.

We can see how with such a state of affairs, patriotism, that is,
the desire to ward off the attacks of the barbarians, who were not
only prepared to destroy the social order, but who also threatened
wholesale plundering and murder, with the enslavement of men and
the rape of women, was a natural feeling, and we can see why a man,
to free himself and his compatriots from such calamities, could
have preferred his nation to all the others, and could experience a
hostile feeling toward the barbarians around him, and could kill
them, in order to protect his nation.

But what significance can this sentiment have in our Christian
time? On what ground and for what purpose can a man of our time, a
Russian, go and kill Frenchmen or Germans, or a Frenchman Germans,
when he knows full well, no matter how little educated he may be,
that the men of the other state and nation, against which they are
rousing his patriotic hostility, are not barbarians, but just such
Christians as he, frequently of the same faith and profession with
him, desiring like him nothing but peace and a peaceful exchange of
labour, and that, besides, they are for the most part united with
him either by the interests of common labour, or by commercial or
spiritual interests, or by all together? Thus frequently the men of
another country are nearer and more indispensable to a man than his
own countrymen, as is the case with labourers who are connected with
employers of other nationalities, and as is the case with commercial
people, and especially with scholars and artists.

Besides, the conditions of life themselves have so changed now that
what we call our country, what we are supposed to distinguish from
everything else, has ceased to be something clearly defined, as it
was with the ancients, where the men forming one country belonged
to one nationality, one state, and one faith. We can understand
the patriotism of an Egyptian, a Jew, a Greek, who, defending
his country, was at the same time defending his faith, and his
nationality, and his home, and his state.

But in what way will in our time be expressed the patriotism of an
Irishman in the United States, who by his faith belongs to Rome, by
his nationality to Ireland, by his state allegiance to the United
States? In the same condition are a Bohemian in Austria, a Pole in
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, a Hindoo in England, a Tartar and
an Armenian in Russia and in Turkey. But, even leaving out these
men of the separate conquered nationalities, the men of the most
homogeneous states, such as are Russia, France, Prussia, can no
longer experience that sentiment of patriotism, which was peculiar
to the ancients, because frequently all the chief interests of their
life (sometimes their domestic ones,--they are married to women
of another nation; the economic ones,--their capital is abroad;
their spiritual, scientific, or artistic ones) are not in their own
country, but outside it, in that state against which the government
is rousing his patriotic hatred.

But most of all is patriotism impossible in our time, because, no
matter how much we have tried for eighteen hundred years to conceal
the meaning of Christianity, it has none the less trickled through
into our life, and is guiding it in such a way that the coarsest and
most stupid of men cannot help but see the absolute incompatibility
of patriotism with those moral rules by which they live.


XIV.

Patriotism was necessary for the formation, out of heterogeneous
nationalities, of strong, united kingdoms, protected against the
barbarians. But as soon as the Christian enlightenment transformed
all these kingdoms alike from within, by giving them the same
foundations, patriotism not only became unnecessary, but was also
the one barrier against that union of the nations for which they are
prepared by dint of their Christian consciousness.

Patriotism is in our time the cruel tradition of a long-gone-by
period of time, which holds itself only through inertia and
because the governments and the ruling classes feel that with
this patriotism is connected not only their power, but also their
existence, and so with care and cunning and violence rouse and
sustain it in the nations. Patriotism is in our time like the
scaffolding, which at one time was necessary for the construction of
the walls of a building, but which now, though it only interferes
with the proper use of the building, is not taken down, because its
existence is advantageous for some persons.

Among the Christian nations there has for a long time ceased to
exist any cause for discord, and there can be no such cause. It is
even impossible to imagine why and how Russian and German labourers,
who peacefully work together near the border and in the capital
cities, should begin to quarrel among themselves. And much less
can we imagine any hostility between, let us say, a Kazán peasant,
who supplies a German with corn, and the German, who supplies him
with scythes and machines, and similarly among French, German, and
Italian labourers. It is even ridiculous to talk of quarrels among
the scholars, artists, writers of various nationalities, who live
by the same interests, that are independent of nationality and the
state structure.

But the governments cannot leave the nations alone, that is, in
peaceful relations among themselves, because the chief, if not the
only justification of the existence of the governments consists in
making peace between the nations, that is, in allaying their hostile
relations. And so the governments provoke these hostile relations
under the guise of patriotism, and then make it appear that they are
making peace among the nations. It is something like what a gipsy
does, who pours some pepper under his horse's tail, and lashes it in
the stall, and then leads it out, while hanging on to the bridle,
pretending that he has the hardest time to restrain the mettled
horse.

We are assured that the governments are concerned about preserving
the peace among the nations. In what way do they preserve this peace?

People are living along the Rhine in peaceful intercourse among
themselves,--suddenly, in consequence of all kinds of disputes and
intrigues between the kings and emperors, war breaks out, and the
French government finds it necessary to recognize some of these
inhabitants as Frenchmen. Ages pass, men have become accustomed
to this state of affairs; again there begin hostilities between
the governments of the great nations, and war breaks out on the
slightest pretence, and the Germans find it necessary to recognize
these inhabitants once more as Germans, and in all the French and
the Germans ill-will flames up toward one another. Or Germans
and Russians are living peacefully near the border, peacefully
exchanging their labour and the products of labour, and suddenly the
same institutions which exist only in the name of the pacification
of the nations begin to quarrel, to do one foolish thing after
another, and are not able to invent anything better than the
coarsest childish method of self-inflicted punishment, if only they
can thus have their will and do something nasty to their adversary
(which in this case is especially advantageous, since not those who
start a customs war, but others, suffer from it); thus the Customs
War between Russia and Germany was lately started. Then, with the
aid of the newspapers, there flames up a malevolent feeling, which
is still farther fanned by the Franco-Russian celebrations, and
which, before we know it, may lead to a sanguinary war.

I have cited the last two examples of the manner in which the
governments affect the people by rousing in them a hostile
feeling toward other nations, because they are contemporary; but
there is not one war in all history, which was not provoked by
the governments, by the governments alone, independently of the
advantages to the nations, to which war, even if it is successful,
is always harmful.

The governments assure the nations that they are in danger of an
incursion from other nations and from internal enemies, and that the
only salvation from this danger consists in the slavish obedience
of the nations to their governments. This is most obvious in the
time of revolutions and dictatorships, and this takes place at all
times and in all places, wherever there is power. Every government
explains its existence and justifies all its violence by insisting
that, if it did not exist, things would be worse. By assuring the
nations that they are in danger, the governments subject them to
themselves. When the nations submit to the governments, these
governments compel these nations to attack the other nations. In
this manner the nations find confirmed the assurances of their
governments in regard to the danger from being attacked by other
nations.

_Divide et impera._

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most unquestionable
significance is for the rulers nothing but a tool for attaining
their ambitious and selfish ends, and for the ruled a renunciation
of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish submission
to those who are in power. Thus is patriotism actually preached,
wherever it is preached.

Patriotism is slavery.

The advocates of peace through arbitration judge like this: two
animals cannot divide their prey otherwise than by fighting, as do
children, barbarians, and barbarous nations. But sensible people
settle their differences by discussion, conviction, the transmission
of the solution of the question to disinterested, sensible men. Even
thus must the sensible nations of our time act. These reflections
seem quite correct. The nations of our time have reached an age of
discretion, are not hostile to one another, and should be able to
settle their differences in a peaceable manner. But the reflection
is correct only in reference to the nations, to the nations alone,
if they were not under the power of their governments. But the
nations which submit to their governments cannot be sensible,
because submission to the governments is already a sign of the
greatest senselessness.

How can we talk of the sensibleness of men who promise in advance to
do everything (including the murder of men) which the government,
that is, certain men who have accidentally come to hold this
position, may command them to do?

Men who are able to accept such a duty of unflinching submission to
what certain strangers will, from St. Petersburg, Vienna, Paris,
command them to do, cannot be sensible, and the governments, that
is, the men who possess such power, can still less be sensible,
and cannot help abusing it,--they cannot help losing their minds
from such a senselessly terrible power. For that reason the peace
among the nations cannot be attained by any sensible means, through
conventions, through arbitrations, so long as there exists a
submission to the governments, which is always senseless and always
pernicious.

But the submission of men to the governments will always exist,
so long as there is any patriotism, because every power is based
on patriotism, that is, on the readiness of men, for the sake of
defending their nation, their country, that is, the state, against
supposed dangers that are threatening it, to submit to the power.

On this patriotism was based the power of the French kings over the
whole nation previous to the Revolution; on the same patriotism
was based the power of the Committee of Public Safety after the
Revolution; on the same patriotism was reared the power of Napoleon
(as consul and as emperor); and on the same patriotism, after the
downfall of Napoleon, was established the power of the Bourbons,
and later of the Republic, and of Louis Philippe, and again of the
Republic, and again of Bonaparte, and again of the Republic, and on
the same patriotism came very near being established the power of
Mr. Boulanger.

It is terrible to say so, but there does not exist, and there has
not existed, a case of aggregate violence committed by one set of
men against another which has not been committed in the name of
patriotism. In the name of patriotism the Russians fought with
the French, and the French with the Russians, and in the name of
patriotism the Russians and the French are now preparing themselves
to wage war against the Germans,--to fight from two flanks. But war
is not all,--in the name of patriotism the Russians crush the Poles,
and the Germans the Slavs; in the name of patriotism the Communists
killed the Versaillians, and the Versaillians, the Communists.


XV.

It would seem that with the dissemination of culture, of improved
means of locomotion, of frequent intercourse among the men of the
various nations, in connection with the diffusion of the press, and,
above all, in connection with the complete absence of danger from
other nations, the deception of patriotism ought to become harder
and harder, and ought in the end to become impossible.

But the point is, that these same means of a universal
external culture, of improved methods of locomotion, and of
intercommunication, and above all, of the press, which the
governments have seized upon and seize upon more and more, give
them now such a power of exciting in the nations hostile feelings
toward one another, that, though on the one hand the obviousness of
the uselessness and harm of patriotism has increased, there has, on
the other, increased the power of the governments and of the ruling
classes to influence the masses, by rousing patriotism in them.

The difference between what was and what now is consists only in
this, that, since now a much greater number of men share in the
advantages which patriotism affords to the upper classes, a much
greater number of men take part in the dissemination and maintenance
of this wonderful superstition.

The more difficult it is to maintain the power, the greater and
greater is the number of men with whom the government shares it.

Formerly a small group of rulers had the power,--emperors, kings,
dukes, their officials, and warriors; but now the participants in
this power and in the advantages which it affords are not only the
officials and the clergy, but also capitalists, great and small, the
landowners, bankers, members of Chambers, teachers, rural officers,
scholars, even artists, and especially journalists. And all these
persons consciously and unconsciously spread the deception of
patriotism, which is indispensable to them for the maintenance of
their advantageous position. And the deception, thanks to the fact
that the means of deception have become more powerful and that now
an ever-growing number of men are taking part in it, is produced so
successfully that, in spite of the great difficulty of deceiving,
the degree of the deception remains the same.

One hundred years ago, the illiterate masses, who had no conception
as to who composed their government and as to what nations
surrounded them, blindly obeyed those local officials and gentry,
whose slaves they were. And it sufficed for the government by means
of bribes and rewards to keep these officials and this gentry in
their power, in order that the masses might obediently do what was
demanded of them. But now, when the masses for the most part can
read and more or less know of whom their government is composed, and
what nations surround them; when the men of the masses constantly
move about with ease from one place to another, bringing to the
masses information about what is going on in the world, a mere
demand to carry out the commands of the government no longer
suffices: it becomes necessary to obscure the true conceptions which
the masses have concerning life, and to impress them with improper
ideas concerning the conditions of their life and concerning the
relation of other nations toward them.

And so, thanks to the diffusion of the press, of the rudiments, and
of the means of communication, the governments, having their agents
everywhere, by means of decrees, church sermons, the schools, the
newspapers inculcate on the masses the wildest and most perverse
conceptions about their advantages, about the relation of the
peoples among themselves, about their properties and intentions;
and the masses, which are so crushed by labour that they have no
time and no chance to understand the significance and verify the
correctness of those conceptions which are inculcated upon them, and
of those demands which are made on them in the name of their good,
submit to them without a murmur.

But the men from the masses who free themselves from constant
labour and who educate themselves, and who, it would seem, should
be able to understand the deception which is practised upon them,
are subjected to such an intensified effect of menaces, bribery,
and hypnotization by the governments, that they almost without an
exception pass over to the side of the governments and, accepting
advantageous and well-paid positions as teachers, priests, officers,
officials, become participants in the dissemination of the deception
which ruins their fellow men. It is as though at the door of
education stood a snare, into which inevitably fall those who in one
way or another leave the masses that are absorbed in labour.

At first, as one comes to understand the cruelty of the deception,
there involuntarily rises an indignation against those who for their
personal, selfish, ambitious advantage produce this cruel deception,
which destroys, not only men's bodies, but also their souls, and
one feels like showing up these cruel deceivers. But the point is,
that the deceivers do not deceive because they want to deceive, but
because they almost cannot do otherwise. And they do not deceive in
any Machiavellian way, with a consciousness of the deception which
they practise, but for the most part with the naïve assurance that
they are doing something good and elevated, in which opinion they
are constantly maintained by the sympathy and approval of all the
men who surround them. It is true that, feeling dimly that their
power and their advantageous position is based on this deception,
they are involuntarily drawn toward it; but they do not act because
they wish to deceive the masses, but because they think that the
work which they are doing is useful for the masses.

Thus emperors and kings and their ministers, performing their
coronations, manœuvres, inspections, mutual visits, during
which time they, dressing themselves up in all kinds of uniforms
and travelling from one place to another, consult with one another
with serious faces about how to pacify presumably hostile nations
(who will never think of fighting with one another), are absolutely
convinced that everything they do is exceedingly sensible and useful.

Similarly all the ministers, diplomatists, and all kinds of
officials, who dress themselves up in their uniforms, with all
kinds of ribbons and little crosses, and with preoccupation write
on fine paper their obscure, twisted, useless numbered reports,
communications, prescriptions, projects, are absolutely convinced
that without this their activity the whole life of the nations will
come to a standstill or will be entirely destroyed.

Similarly the military, who dress themselves up in their ridiculous
costumes and who seriously discuss with what guns or cannon it is
better to kill people, are fully convinced that their manœuvres
and parades are most important and necessary for the nation.

The same conviction is held by the preachers, journalists, and
writers of patriotic verses and text-books, who receive a liberal
reward for preaching patriotism. Nor is any doubt concerning this
harboured by the managers of celebrations, like the Franco-Russian
ones, who are sincerely affected when they utter their patriotic
speeches and toasts. All people do unconsciously what they do,
because that is necessary, or because their whole life is based
on this deception and they are unable to do anything else, while
these same acts evoke the sympathy and the approval of all those
men among whom they are committed. Not only do they, being all
connected with one another, approve and justify the acts and the
activities of one another,--the emperors and kings, the acts of
the soldiers, the officials, and the clergy; and the military, the
officials, and the clergy, the acts of the emperors, the kings, and
one another,--the popular crowd, especially the city crowd, which
sees no comprehensible meaning in everything which is being done by
these men, involuntarily ascribes a special, almost a supernatural
significance to them. The crowd sees, for example, that triumphal
arches are being erected; that men masquerade in crowns, uniforms,
vestments; that fireworks are displayed, cannon are fired, bells are
rung, regiments are marching with music, documents, telegrams, and
couriers fly from one place to another, and strangely masquerading
men with preoccupation keep riding from one place to another, saying
and writing something, and so forth,--and, not being able to verify
whether there is the slightest need for what is being done (as,
indeed, there is none), ascribes to all this a special, mysterious,
and important meaning, and with shouts of transport or with silent
awe meets all these manifestations. But in the meantime these
expressions of transport and the constant respect of the crowd still
more strengthen the assurance of the men who are doing all these
foolish things.

Lately William II. ordered a new throne for himself, with some
special ornaments, and, dressing himself up in a white uniform with
patches, in tight trousers, and in a helmet with a bird on it, and
throwing a red mantle over all, came out to his subjects and seated
himself on this throne, with the full assurance that this was a very
necessary and important act, and his subjects not only did not see
anything funny in all this, but even found this spectacle to be very
majestic.


XVI.

The power of the governments has now for a long time ceased to be
based on force, as it was based in those times when one nationality
conquered another and by force of arms held it in subjection, or
when the rulers, amidst a defenceless people, maintained separate
armed troops of janissaries, opríchniks, or guardsmen. The power of
the governments has now for a long time been based on what is called
public opinion.

There exists a public opinion that patriotism is a great moral
sentiment, and that it is good and right to consider one's own
nation, one's own state, the best in the world, and from this there
naturally establishes itself a public opinion that it is necessary
to recognize the power of the government over ourselves and to
submit to it; that it is good and right to serve in the army and
to submit to discipline; that it is good and right to give up our
savings in the shape of taxes to the government; that it is good
and right to submit to the decisions of the courts; that it is good
and right to believe without verification in what is given out as a
divine truth by the men of the government.

Once such a public opinion exists, there establishes itself a mighty
power, which in our time has command of milliards of money, of an
organized mechanism of government, the post, the telegraphs, the
telephones, disciplined armies, courts, the police, a submissive
clergy, the school, even the press, and this power maintains in the
nations that public opinion which it needs.

The power of the governments is maintained through public opinion;
but, having the power, the governments by means of all their organs,
the officers of the courts, the school, the church, even the press,
are always able to keep up the public opinion which they need.
Public opinion produces power,--power produces public opinion. There
seems to be no way out from this situation.

Thus it would, indeed, be, if public opinion were something stable
and unchanging, and if the governments were able to produce the
public opinion which they need.

But fortunately this is not the case, and public opinion is, in the
first place, not something which is constant, unchanging, stable,
but, on the contrary, something eternally changing, moving together
with the motion of humanity; and, in the second, public opinion not
only cannot be produced by the will of the governments, but is that
which produces the governments and gives them power or takes it away
from them.

It may appear that public opinion remains immovable and now is such
as it was decades ago, and it may appear that public opinion wavers
in relation to certain special cases, as though going back, so that,
for example, it now destroys the republic, putting the monarchy in
its place, and now again destroys the monarchy, putting the republic
in its place; but that only seems so when we view the external
manifestations of that public opinion which is artificially produced
by the governments. We need only take public opinion in its relation
to the whole life of men, and we shall see that public opinion, just
like the time of the day or year, never stands in one place, but is
always in motion, always marching unrestrictedly ahead along the
path on which humanity proceeds, just as, in spite of retardations
and waverings, day or spring moves on unrestrictedly along the path
over which the sun travels.

Thus, though by the external signs the condition of the nations of
Europe in our time is nearly the same that it was fifty years ago,
the relation of the nations toward it is now entirely different
from what it was fifty years ago. Though there exist, even as fifty
years ago, the same rulers, armies, wars, taxes, luxury, and misery,
the same Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, these existed before
because the public opinion of the nations demanded them, but now
they all exist because the governments artificially maintain that
which formerly was a living public opinion.

If we frequently do not notice this motion of public opinion, as we
do not notice the motion of water in the river, with the current
of which we are swimming, this is due to the fact that those
imperceptible changes of public opinion which form its motion are
taking place in ourselves.

The property of public opinion is that of constant and unrestricted
motion. If it seems to us that it is standing in one place, this
is due to the fact that everywhere there are people who have
established an advantageous position for themselves at a certain
moment of public opinion, and so with all their strength try to
maintain it and not to admit the manifestation of the new, the
present public opinion which, though not yet fully expressed, is
living in the consciousness of men. Such people, who retain the
obsolete public opinion and conceal the new, are all those who at
the present time form the governments and the ruling classes, and
who profess patriotism as an indispensable condition of human life.

The means which are at the command of these people are enormous, but
since public opinion is something eternally flowing and increasing,
all their efforts cannot help but be vain: the old grows old, and
the youthful grows.

The longer the expression of the new public opinion shall be
retained, the more it will grow, and the greater will be the force
with which it will express itself. The government and the ruling
classes try with all their strength to retain that old public
opinion of patriotism, on which their power is based, and to retard
the manifestation of the new, which will destroy it. But it is
possible only within certain limits to retain the old and retard the
new, just as running water can be held back by a dam only within
certain limits.

No matter how much the governments may try to rouse in the nations
the past public opinion, now no longer characteristic of them,
concerning the dignity and virtue of patriotism, the men of our time
no longer believe in patriotism, but more and more believe in the
solidarity and brotherhood of the nations. Patriotism now presents
to men nothing but the most terrible future; but the brotherhood
of the nations forms that ideal which more and more grows to be
comprehensible and desirable for humanity. And so the transition
of men from the former obsolete public opinion to the new must
inevitably be accomplished. This transition is as inevitable as the
falling of the last sere leaves in autumn and the unfolding of the
young leaves in swelling buds.

The longer this transition is delayed, the more imperative does it
become, and the more obvious is its necessity.

Indeed, we need only recall what it is we are professing, as
Christians, and simply as men of our time, we need but recall
those moral bases which guide us in our public, domestic, and
private life, and that position in which we have placed ourselves
in the name of patriotism, in order that we may see what degree
of contradiction we have reached between our consciousness and
that which among us, thanks to the intensified influence of the
government in this respect, is regarded as our public opinion.

We need only reflect on those very usual demands of patriotism,
which present themselves to us as something very simple and
natural, in order that we may understand to what extent these
demands contradict that real public opinion which we all share now.
We all consider ourselves free, cultured, humane men, and even
Christians, and at the same time we are in such a position that
if to-morrow William takes umbrage at Alexander, or Mr. N---- writes
a clever article on the Eastern question, or some prince robs the
Bulgarians or the Servians, or some queen or empress takes offence
at something, we all, the cultured, humane Christians, must go out
to kill men, whom we do not know, and toward whom we are friendly
disposed, as toward all men. If this has not yet happened, we owe
this, as we are assured, to the peaceful mind of Alexander III., or
to this, that Nicholas Aleksándrovich is going to marry Victoria's
grandchild. But let another man be in the place of Alexander, or
let Alexander himself change his mood, or Nicholas Aleksándrovich
marry Amalia, and not Alice, and we shall throw ourselves like
bloodthirsty animals upon one another, to take out one another's
guts. Such is the supposed public opinion of our time. Such opinions
are calmly repeated in all the leading and liberal organs of the
press.

[Illustration: Alexander III.

_Photogravure from Photograph_]

If we, the Christians of one thousand years' standing, have not yet
cut one another's throats, it is because Alexander III. does not let
us do so.

This is, indeed, terrible.


XVII.

For the greatest and most important changes to take place in the
life of humanity, no exploits are needed,--neither the armament
of millions of soldiers, nor the construction of new roads
and machines, nor the establishment of exhibitions, nor the
establishment of labour-unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor
explosions, nor the invention of aerial motion, and so forth, but
only a change in public opinion. But for public opinion to change,
no efforts of the mind are needed, nor the rejection of anything
existing, nor the invention of anything unusual and new; all that
is needed is, that every separate man should say what he actually
thinks and feels, or at least should not say what he does not think.
Let men, even a small number of them, do so, and the obsolete public
opinion will fall of its own accord and there will be manifested
the youthful, live, present public opinion. And let public opinion
change, and the inner structure of men's life, which torments and
pains them, will be changed without any effort. It is really a shame
to think how little is needed for all men to be freed from all
those calamities which now oppress them; they need only stop lying.
Let men only not succumb to that lie which is inculcated on them,
let them not say what they do not think or feel, and immediately a
revolution will take place in the whole structure of our life, such
as the revolutionists will not accomplish in centuries, even if all
the power were in their hands.

If men only believed that the strength is not in strength, but in
the truth, and if they boldly expressed it, or at least did not
depart from it in words and deeds,--if they did not say what they do
not think, and did not do what they consider bad and stupid.

"What harm is there in crying '_Vive la France!_' or 'Hurrah!' to
some emperor, king, victor, or in going in a uniform, with the
chamberlain's key, to wait for him in the antechamber, to bow, and
to address him by strange titles, and then to impress all young
and uncultured men with the fact that this is very praiseworthy?"
Or, "What harm is there in writing an article in defence of the
Franco-Russian alliance or the Customs War, or in condemnation of
the Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen?" Or, "What harm is
there in attending some patriotic celebration and eulogizing men
whom you do not care for and have nothing to do with, and drinking
their health?" Or even, "What harm is there in recognizing, in a
conversation, the benefit and usefulness of treaties, or alliances,
or even in keeping silent, when your nation and state is praised in
your presence, and other nationalities are cursed and blackened,
or when Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism are praised, or when
some war hero or ruler, like Napoleon, Peter, or the contemporary
Boulanger or Skóbelev, are praised?"

All that seems so unimportant, and yet in these seemingly
unimportant acts, in our aloofness from them, in our readiness to
point out, according to our strength, the irrationality of what is
obviously irrational,--in this does our great, invincible power
consist, the power which composes that insuperable force which
forms the real, actual, public opinion, which, moving itself, moves
the whole of humanity. The governments know this, and tremble
before this force, and with all the means at their command try to
counteract it and to get possession of it.

They know that the force is not in force, but in thought and in its
clear enunciation, and so they are more afraid of the expression
of independent thought than of armies, and establish censorships,
bribe newspapers, take possession of the management of religion
and of schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world
slips away from them: it is not even in a book, a newspaper,--it
is intangible and always free,--it is in the depth of men's
consciousness. The most powerful, intangible, freest force is the
one which is manifested in man's soul, when he by himself reflects
on the phenomena of the world, and then involuntarily expresses his
thoughts to his wife, brother, friend, to all those men with whom
he comes together, and from whom he considers it a sin to conceal
what he regards as the truth. No milliards of roubles, millions of
soldiers, no institutions, nor wars, nor revolutions will produce
what will be produced by the simple expression of a free man as to
what he considers just, independently of what exists and what is
inculcated upon him.

One free man will truthfully say what he thinks and feels, amidst
thousands of men, who by their acts and words affirm the very
opposite. It would seem that the man who frankly expressed his
thought would remain alone, while in reality it happens that all
those men, or the majority of them, have long been thinking and
feeling the same, but have not expressed their thought. And what
yesterday was the new opinion of one man, to-day becomes the common
opinion of all men. And as soon as this opinion has established
itself, men's acts begin to change imperceptibly, slowly, but
irresistibly.

For, as it is, every free man says to himself: "What can I do
against all this sea of evil and deceit, which inundates me? Why
should I give expression to my thought? Why even give form to it?
It is better not to think of these obscure and intricate questions.
Maybe these contradictions form an inevitable condition of all the
phenomena of life. And why should I alone struggle against all this
evil of the world? Would it not be better if I abandoned myself to
the current which sweeps me along? If anything can be done, it can
be done only in conjunction with other men."

And, abandoning that powerful instrument of thought and its
expression, which moves the world, this man takes up the instrument
of public activity, without noticing that all public activity is
based on the very principles against which he has to struggle,
that in entering upon any public activity which exists amidst our
world, he must at least partially depart from the truth, make
such concessions as will destroy the whole force of that powerful
instrument of the struggle which is given to him. It is as though a
man, into whose hands an unusually sharp dagger is given, one that
cuts everything, should drive in nails with the blade.

We all deplore the senseless order of life which contradicts all
our existence, and yet not only fail to make use of the one most
powerful tool, which is in our hands,--the recognition of the truth
and its expression,--but, on the contrary, under the pretext of
struggling with evil, destroy this tool and sacrifice it to the
imaginary struggle against this order.

One man does not tell the truth which he knows, because he feels
himself under obligation to the men with whom he is connected;
another,--because the truth might deprive him of the advantageous
position by means of which he is supporting his family; a
third,--because he wants to attain glory and power, to use them
later in the service of men; a fourth,--because he does not wish
to violate the ancient sacred traditions; a fifth,--because the
expression of the truth will provoke persecution and will impair
that good public activity to which he is devoting himself, or
intends to devote himself.

One man serves as an emperor, king, minister, official, soldier,
and assures himself and others that the deviation from the truth
which is necessary in his position is more than redeemed by his
usefulness.

Another exercises the office of a spiritual pastor, though in
the depth of his heart he does not believe in what he teaches,
permitting himself a deviation from the truth in view of the good
which he does. A third instructs men in literature and, in spite
of the suppression of the whole truth, in order not to provoke the
government and society against himself, has no doubt as to the good
which he does; a fourth simply struggles against the existing order,
as do the revolutionists and anarchists, and is fully convinced that
the aim which he pursues is so beneficent that the suppression of
the truth, which is indispensable in his activity, and even lying
will not destroy the good effect of his activity.

For the order of life which is contrary to the consciousness of
men to give way to one in accord with it, it is necessary for the
obsolete public opinion to give way to a live and new one.

For the old, obsolete public opinion to give way to the new, live
one, it is necessary that the men who are conscious of the new
demands of life should clearly express them. Meanwhile all the men
who recognize all these new demands, one in the name of one thing,
and another in the name of another, not only repress them, but
even in words and deeds confirm what is directly opposed to these
demands. Only the truth and its expression can establish that new
public opinion which will change the obsolete and harmful order of
life; we, however, not only do not express the truth which we know,
but frequently even express precisely what we consider to be an
untruth.

If free men would only not depend on what has no force and is never
free,--on external power,--and would always believe in what is
always powerful and free,--in the truth and its expression. If men
only expressed boldly the truth, already revealed to them, about the
brotherhood of all the nations and about the criminality of the
exclusive membership in one nation, the dead, false public opinion,
on which the whole power of the governments is based, and all the
evil produced by them, would fall off by itself like a dried-up
skin, and there would appear that new, live public opinion, which is
only waiting for the sloughing off of the hampering old opinion, in
order clearly and boldly to proclaim its demands and establish the
new forms of life in accordance with the consciousness of men.


XVIII.

Men need but understand that what is given out to them as public
opinion, what is maintained by such complex and artificial means,
is not public opinion, but only the dead consequence of the quondam
public opinion; they need only, above all, believe in themselves, in
this, that what is cognized by them in the depth of their hearts,
what begs for recognition and finds no expression only because it
contradicts public opinion, is that force which changes the world,
and the manifestation of which forms man's destiny; men need but
believe that the truth is not what men about him say, but what his
conscience, that is, God, says to him, and immediately there will
disappear the false, artificially sustained public opinion, and the
true one will be established.

If men only said what they believe, and did not say what they do
not believe, there would immediately disappear the superstitions
that result from patriotism, and all the evil feelings and all
the violence, which are based on them. There would disappear the
hatred and hostility of states against states and of nationalities
against nationalities, which are fanned by the governments; there
would disappear the eulogizing of military exploits, that is, of
murder; there would, above all else, disappear the respect for the
authorities, the surrender of people's labours and the submission to
them, for which there are no foundations outside of patriotism.

Let all this be done, and immediately all that vast mass of weak
men, who are always guided from without, will sweep over to the side
of the new public opinion. And the new public opinion will become
the ruling one in the place of the old public opinion.

Let the governments have possession of the school, the church, the
press, milliards of roubles, and millions of disciplined men turned
into machines,--all that apparently terrible organization of rude
force is nothing in comparison with the recognition of the truth,
which arises in the heart of one man who knows the force of the
truth, and is communicated by this man to another, a third man, just
as an endless number of candles are lighted from one. This light
need only burn, and, like the wax before the face of the fire, all
this seemingly so powerful organization will waste away.

If men only understood that terrible power which is given them in
the word which expresses the truth. If men only did not sell their
birthright for a mess of pottage. If men only made use of this power
of theirs,--the rulers would not only not dare, as they dare now, to
threaten men with universal slaughter, to which they will drive men
or not, as they may see fit, but would not even dare in the sight of
peaceable citizens to bring the disciplined murderers out on parade
or in manœuvres; the governments would not dare for their own
profit, for the advantage of their accomplices, to make and unmake
customs treaties, and they would not dare to collect from the people
those millions of roubles which they distribute to their accomplices
and for which they prepare themselves for the commission of murder.

And so the change is not only possible, but it is even impossible
for it not to take place, as it is impossible for an overgrown, dead
tree not to rot, and for a young one not to grow. "Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I
unto you; let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,"
said Christ. And this peace is actually already among us, and it
depends on us to attain it.

If only the hearts of separate men did not grow faint from those
temptations with which they are tempted every hour, and if they
were not frightened by those imaginary fears with which they are
terrified. If men only knew in what their mighty, all-conquering
force consists, the peace for which men have always wished, not the
one which is obtained by means of diplomatic treaties, journeys of
emperors and kings from one city to another, dinners, speeches,
fortresses, cannon, dynamite, and melenite, but the one which is
obtained not by the exhaustion of the masses by taxes, not by
tearing the flower of the population away from work and debauching
them, but by the free profession of the truth by every separate
individual, would long ago have come to us.

_Moscow, March 17, 1894._




REASON AND RELIGION

1895




REASON AND RELIGION


You ask me:

1. Should people who are not particularly advanced mentally seek
an expression in words for the truths of the inner life, as
comprehended by them?

2. Is it worth while in one's inner life to strive after complete
consciousness?

3. What are we to be guided by in moments of struggle and wavering,
that we may know whether it is indeed our conscience that is
speaking in us, or whether it is reflection, which is bribed by our
weakness? (The third question I for brevity's sake expressed in my
own words, without having changed its meaning, I hope.)

These three questions in my opinion reduce themselves to one,--the
second, because, if it is not necessary for us to strive after a
full consciousness of our inner life, it will be also unnecessary
and impossible for us to express in words the truths which we
have grasped, and in moments of wavering we shall have nothing to
be guided by, in order to ascertain whether it is our conscience
or a false reflection that is speaking within us. But if it is
necessary to strive after the greatest consciousness accessible to
human reason (whatever this reason may be), it is also necessary to
express the truths grasped by us in words, and it is these expressed
truths which have been carried into full consciousness that we have
to be guided by in moments of struggle and wavering. And so I answer
your radical question in the affirmative, namely, that every man,
for the fulfilment of his destiny upon earth and for the attainment
of the true good (the two things go together), must strain all the
forces of his mind for the purpose of elucidating to himself those
religious bases by which he lives, that is, the meaning of his life.

I have frequently met among illiterate earth-diggers, who have
to figure out cubic contents, the wide-spread conviction that
the mathematical calculation is deceptive, and that it is not
to be trusted. Either because they do not know any mathematics,
or because the men who figured things out mathematically for
them had frequently consciously or unconsciously deceived them,
the opinion that mathematics was inadequate and useless for the
calculation of measures has established itself as an undoubted
truth which they think it is even unnecessary to prove. Just such
an opinion has established itself among, I shall say it boldly,
irreligious men,--an opinion that reason cannot solve any religious
questions,--that the application of reason to these questions is the
chief cause of errors, that the solution of religious questions by
means of reason is criminal pride.

I say this, because the doubt, expressed in your questions, as
to whether it is necessary to strive after consciousness in our
religious convictions, can be based only on this supposition,
namely, that reason cannot be applied to the solution of religious
questions. However, such a supposition is as strange and obviously
false as the supposition that calculation cannot settle any
mathematical questions.

God has given man but one tool for the cognition of himself and
his relation to the world,--there is no other,--and this tool is
reason, and suddenly he is told that he can use his reason for
the elucidation of his domestic, economic, political, scientific,
artistic questions, but not for the elucidation of what it is
given him for. It turns out that for the elucidation of the most
important truths, of those on which his whole life depends, a man
must by no means employ reason, but must recognize these truths as
beyond reason, whereas beyond reason a man cannot cognize anything.
They say, "Find it out, through revelation, faith." But a man cannot
even believe outside of reason. If a man believes in this, and not
in that, he does so only because his reason tells him that he ought
to believe in this, and not to believe in that. To say that a man
should not be guided by reason is the same as saying to a man, who
in a dark underground room is carrying a lamp, that, to get out from
this underground room and find his way, he ought to put out his lamp
and be guided by something different from the light.

But, perhaps, I shall be told, as you say in your letter, that
not all men are endowed with a great mind and with a special
ability for expressing their thoughts, and that, therefore, an
awkward expression of their thoughts concerning religion may lead
to error. To this I will answer in the words of the Gospel, "What
is hidden from the wise is revealed to babes." This saying is not
an exaggeration and not a paradox, as people generally judge of
those utterances of the Gospel which do not please them, but the
assertion of a most simple and unquestionable truth, which is,
that to every being in the world a law is given, which this being
must follow, and that for the cognition of this law every being is
endowed with corresponding organs. And so every man is endowed with
reason, and in this reason there is revealed to him the law which he
must follow. This law is hidden only from those who do not want to
follow it and who, in order not to follow it, renounce reason and,
instead of using their reason for the cognition of the truth, use
for this purpose the indications, taken upon faith, of people like
themselves, who also reject reason.

But the law which a man must follow is so simple that it is
accessible to any child, the more so since a man has no longer any
need of discovering the law of his life. Men who lived before him
discovered and expressed it, and all a man has to do is to verify
them with his reason, to accept or not to accept the propositions
which he finds expressed in the tradition, that is, not as people,
who wish not to fulfil the law, advise us to do, by verifying reason
through tradition, but by verifying tradition through reason.
Tradition may be from men, and false, but reason is certainly
from God, and cannot be false. And so, for the cognition and the
expression of truth, there is no need of any especial prominent
capacity, but only of the faith that reason is not only the highest
divine quality of man, but also the only tool for the cognition of
truth.

A special mind and gifts are not needed for the cognition and
exposition of the truth, but for the invention and exposition of the
lie. Having once departed from the indications of reason, men heap
up and take upon faith, generally in the shape of laws, revelations,
dogmas, such complicated, unnatural, and contradictory propositions
that, in order to expound them and harmonize them with the lie,
there is actually a need of astuteness of mind and of a special
gift. We need only think of a man of our world, educated in the
religious tenets of any Christian profession,--Catholic, Orthodox,
Protestant,--who wants to elucidate to himself the religious tenets
inculcated upon him since childhood, and to harmonize them with
life,--what a complicated mental labour he must go through in
order to harmonize all the contradictions which are found in the
profession inoculated in him by his education: God, the Creator and
the good, created evil, punishes people, and demands redemption, and
so forth, and we profess the law of love and of forgiveness, and we
punish, wage war, take away the property from poor people, and so
forth, and so forth.

It is for the unravelling of these contradictions, or rather,
for the concealment of them from ourselves, that a great mind and
special gifts are needed; but for the discovery of the law of our
life, or, as you express it, in order to bring our faith into full
consciousness, no special mental gifts are needed,--all that is
necessary is not to admit anything that is contrary to reason, not
to reject reason, religiously to guard reason, and to believe in
nothing else. If the meaning of a man's life presents itself to him
indistinctly, that does not prove that reason is of no use for the
elucidation of this meaning, but only this, that too much of what is
irrational has been taken upon faith, and that it is necessary to
reject everything which is not confirmed by reason.

And so my answer to your fundamental question, as to whether it is
necessary to strive after consciousness in our inner life, is this,
that this is the most necessary and important work of our life. It
is necessary and important because the only rational meaning of our
life consists in the fulfilment of the will of God who sent us into
this life. But the will of God is not recognized by any special
miracle, by the writing of the law on tablets with God's finger, or
by the composition of an infallible book with the aid of the Holy
Ghost, or by the infallibility of some holy person or of an assembly
of men,--but only by the activity of the reason of all men who in
deeds and words transmit to one another the truths which have become
more and more elucidated to their consciousness. This cognition has
never been and never will be complete, but is constantly increased
with the movement of humanity: the longer we live, the more clearly
do we recognize God's will and, consequently, what we ought to do
for its fulfilment. And so I think that the elucidation by any man
(no matter how small he himself and others may consider him to
be--it is the little ones who are great) of the whole religious
truth, as it is accessible to him, and its expression in words
(since the expression in words is the one unquestionable symptom of
a complete clearness of ideas) is one of the most important and most
sacred duties of man.

I shall be very much pleased if my answer shall satisfy you even in
part.




PATRIOTISM OR PEACE

Letter to Manson

1896




PATRIOTISM OR PEACE

Letter to Manson


DEAR SIR:--You write to me asking me to express myself in respect to
the United States of North America "in the interests of Christian
consistency and true peace," and express the hope that "the nations
will soon awaken to the one means of securing national peace."

I harbour the same hope. I harbour the same hope, because the
blindness in our time of the nations that extol patriotism, bring
up their young generations in the superstition of patriotism, and,
at the same time, do not wish for the inevitable consequences of
patriotism,--war,--has, it seems to me, reached such a last stage
that the simplest reflection, which begs for utterance in the mouth
of every unprejudiced man, is sufficient, in order that men may see
the crying contradiction in which they are.

Frequently, when you ask children which they will choose of two
things which are incompatible, but which they want alike, they
answer, "Both."

"Which do you want,--to go out driving or to stay at
home?"--"Both,--go out driving and stay at home."

Just so the Christian nations answer the question which life puts to
them, as to which they will choose, patriotism or peace, they answer
"Both patriotism and peace," though it is as impossible to unite
patriotism with peace, as at the same time to go out driving and
stay at home.

The other day there arose a difference between the United States
and England concerning the borders of Venezuela. Salisbury for some
reason did not agree to something; Cleveland wrote a message to
the Senate; from either side were raised patriotic warlike cries;
a panic ensued upon 'Change; people lost millions of pounds and of
dollars; Edison announced that he would invent engines with which
it would be possible to kill more men in an hour than Attila had
killed in all his wars, and both nations began energetically to
arm themselves for war. But because, simultaneously with these
preparations for war, both in England and in America, all kinds
of literary men, princes, and statesmen began to admonish their
respective governments to abstain from war, saying that the subject
under discussion was not sufficiently important to begin a war
for, especially between two related Anglo-Saxon nations, speaking
the same language, who ought not to war among themselves, but
ought calmly to govern others; or because all kinds of bishops,
archdeacons, canons prayed and preached concerning the matter in all
the churches; or because neither side considered itself sufficiently
prepared,--it happened that there was no war just then. And people
calmed down.

But a person has to have too little perspicacity not to see that
the causes which now are leading to a conflict between England
and America have remained the same, and that, if even the present
conflict shall be settled without a war, there will inevitably
to-morrow or the day after appear other conflicts, between
England and Russia, between England and Turkey, in all possible
permutations, as they arise every day, and one of these will lead to
war.

If two armed men live side by side, having been impressed from
childhood with the idea that power, wealth, and glory are the
highest virtues, and that, therefore, to acquire power, wealth,
and glory by means of arms, to the detriment of other neighbouring
possessors, is a very praiseworthy matter, and if at the same time
there is no moral, religious, or political restraint for these men,
is it not evident that such people will always fight, that the
normal relation between them will be war? and that, if such people,
having clutched one another, have separated for awhile, they have
done so only, as the French proverb says, "_pour mieux sauter_,"
that is, they have separated to take a better run, to throw
themselves with greater fury upon one another?

Strange is the egotism of private individuals, but the egotists
of private life are not armed, do not consider it right either
to prepare or use arms against their adversaries; the egotism of
private individuals is under the control of the political power
and of public opinion. A private person who with gun in his hand
takes away his neighbour's cow, or a desyatína of his crop, will
immediately be seized by a policeman and put into prison. Besides,
such a man will be condemned by public opinion,--he will be called
a thief and robber. It is quite different with the states: they are
all armed,--there is no power over them, except the comical attempts
at catching a bird by pouring some salt on its tail,--attempts at
establishing international congresses, which, apparently, will
never be accepted by the powerful states (who are armed for the
very purpose that they may not pay any attention to any one), and,
above all, public opinion, which rebukes every act of violence in a
private individual, extols, raises to the virtue of patriotism every
appropriation of what belong to others, for the increase of the
power of the country.

Open the newspapers for any period you may wish, and at any moment
you will see the black spot,--the cause of every possible war: now
it is Korea, now the Pamir, now the lands in Africa, now Abyssinia,
now Turkey, now Venezuela, now the Transvaal. The work of the
robbers does not stop for a moment, and here and there a small war,
like an exchange of shots in the cordon, is going on all the time,
and the real war can and will begin at any moment.

If an American wishes the preferential grandeur and well-being of
America above all other nations, and the same is desired for his
state by an Englishman, and a Russian, and a Turk, and a Dutchman,
and an Abyssinian, and a citizen of Venezuela and of the Transvaal,
and an Armenian, and a Pole, and a Bohemian, and all of them are
convinced that these desires need not only not be concealed or
repressed, but should be a matter of pride and be developed in
themselves and in others; and if the greatness and well-being of
one country or nation cannot be obtained except to the detriment of
another nation, frequently of many countries and nations,--how can
war be avoided?

And so, not to have any war, it is not necessary to preach and pray
to God about peace, to persuade the English-speaking nations that
they ought to be friendly toward one another, in order to be able
to rule over other nations; to form double and triple alliances
against one another; to marry princes to princesses of other
nations,--but to destroy what produces war. But what produces war
is the desire for an exclusive good for one's own nation,--what is
called patriotism. And so to abolish war, it is necessary to abolish
patriotism, and to abolish patriotism, it is necessary first to
become convinced that it is an evil, and that it is hard to do.
Tell people that war is bad, and they will laugh at you: who does
not know that? Tell them that patriotism is bad, and the majority
of people will agree with you, but with a small proviso. "Yes, bad
patriotism is bad, but there is also another patriotism, the one we
adhere to." But wherein this good patriotism consists no one can
explain. If good patriotism consists in not being acquisitive, as
many say, it is none the less retentive; that is, men want to retain
what was formerly acquired, since there is no country which was not
based on conquest, and it is impossible to retain what is conquered
by any other means than those by which it was acquired, that is,
by violence and murder. But even if patriotism is not retentive,
it is restorative,--the patriotism of the vanquished and oppressed
nations, the Armenians, Poles, Bohemians, Irish, and so forth. This
patriotism is almost the very worst, because it is the most enraged
and demands the greatest degree of violence.

Patriotism cannot be good. Why do not people say that egotism can be
good, though this may be asserted more easily, because egotism is a
natural sentiment, with which a man is born, while patriotism is an
unnatural sentiment, which is artificially inoculated in him?

It will be said: "Patriotism has united men in states and keeps
up the unity of the states." But the men are already united in
states,--the work is all done: why should men now maintain an
exclusive loyalty for their state, when this loyalty produces
calamities for all states and nations? The same patriotism which
produced the unification of men into states is now destroying those
states. If there were but one patriotism,--the patriotism of none
but the English,--it might be regarded as unificatory or beneficent,
but when, as now, there are American, English, German, French,
Russian patriotisms, all of them opposed to one another, patriotism
no longer unites, but disunites. To say that, if patriotism was
beneficent, by uniting men into states, as was the case during its
highest development in Greece and Rome, patriotism even now, after
eighteen hundred years of Christian life, is just as beneficent,
is the same as saying that, since the ploughing was useful and
beneficent for the field before the sowing, it will be as useful
now, after the crop has grown up.

It would be very well to retain patriotism in memory of the use
which it once had, as people preserve and retain the ancient
monuments of temples, mausoleums, and so forth. But the temples and
mausoleums stand, without causing any harm to men, while patriotism
produces without cessation innumerable calamities.

What now causes the Armenians and the Turks to suffer and cut
each other's throats and act like wild beasts? Why do England and
Russia, each of them concerned about her share of the inheritance
from Turkey, lie in wait and do not put a stop to the Armenian
atrocities? Why do the Abyssinians and Italians fight one another?
Why did a terrible war come very near breaking out on account
of Venezuela, and now on account of the Transvaal? And the
Chino-Japanese War, and the Turkish, and the German, and the French
wars? And the rage of the subdued nations, the Armenians, the Poles,
the Irish? And the preparation for war by all the nations? All that
is the fruits of patriotism. Seas of blood have been shed for the
sake of this sentiment, and more blood will be shed for its sake, if
men do not free themselves from this outlived bit of antiquity.

I have several times had occasion to write about patriotism,
about its absolute incompatibility, not only with the teaching of
Christ in its ideal sense, but even with the lowest demands of the
morality of Christian society, and every time my arguments have
been met with silence or with the supercilious hint that the ideas
expressed by me were Utopian expressions of mysticism, anarchism,
and cosmopolitanism. My ideas have frequently been repeated in a
compressed form, and, instead of retorting to them, it was added
that it was nothing but cosmopolitanism, as though this word
"cosmopolitanism" unanswerably overthrew all my arguments. Serious,
old, clever, good men, who, above all else, stand like the city on
a hill, and who involuntarily guide the masses by their example,
make it appear that the legality and beneficence of patriotism
are so obvious and incontestable that it is not worth while to
answer the frivolous and senseless attacks upon this sentiment, and
the majority of men, who have since childhood been deceived and
infected by patriotism, take this supercilious silence to be a most
convincing proof, and continue to stick fast in their ignorance.

And so those people who from their position can free the masses from
their calamities, and do not do so, commit a great sin.

The most terrible thing in the world is hypocrisy. There was good
reason why Christ once got angry,--that was against the hypocrisy of
the Pharisees.

But what was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in comparison with the
hypocrisy of our time? In comparison with our men, the Pharisees
were the most truthful of men, and their art of hypocrisy was
as child's play in comparison with the hypocrisy of our time;
nor can it be otherwise. Our whole life, with the profession of
Christianity, the teaching of humility and love, in connection with
the life of an armed den of robbers, can be nothing but one solid,
terrible hypocrisy. It is very convenient to profess a teaching at
one end of which is Christian sanctity and infallibility, and at the
other--the pagan sword and gallows, so that, when it is possible to
impose or deceive by means of sanctity, sanctity is put into effect,
and when the deception does not work, the sword and the gallows
are put into effect. Such a teaching is very convenient, but the
time comes when this spider-web of lie is dispersed, and it is no
longer possible to continue to keep both, and it is necessary to
ally oneself with either one or the other. It is this which is now
getting to be the case in relation to the teaching about patriotism.

Whether people want it or not, the question stands clearly before
humanity: how can that patriotism, from which result innumerable
physical and moral calamities of men, be necessary and a virtue? It
is indispensable to give an answer to this question.

It is necessary either to show that patriotism is such a great good
that it redeems all those terrible calamities which it produces in
humanity; or to recognize that patriotism is an evil, which must
not only not be inoculated in men and impressed upon them, but from
which also we must try to free ourselves at all cost.

_C'est à prendre ou à laisser_, as the French say. If patriotism
is good, then Christianity, which gives peace, is an idle dream,
and the sooner this teaching is eradicated, the better. But
if Christianity really gives peace, and we really want peace,
patriotism is a survival from barbarous times, which must not
only not be evoked and educated, as we now do, but which must
be eradicated by all means, by means of preaching, persuasion,
contempt, and ridicule. If Christianity is the truth, and we wish to
live in peace, we must not only have no sympathy for the power of
our country, but must even rejoice in its weakening, and contribute
to it. A Russian must rejoice when Poland, the Baltic provinces,
Finland, Armenia, are separated from Russia and made free; and an
Englishman must similarly rejoice in relation to Ireland, Australia,
India, and the other colonies, and coöperate in it, because, the
greater the country, the more evil and cruel is its patriotism,
and the greater is the amount of the suffering on which its power
is based. And so, if we actually want to be what we profess, we
must not, as we do now, wish for the increase of our country, but
wish for its diminution and weakening, and contribute to it with
all our means. And thus must we educate the younger generations:
we must bring up the younger generations in such a way that, as it
is now disgraceful for a young man to manifest his coarse egotism,
for example, by eating everything up, without leaving anything for
others, to push a weaker person down from the road, in order to pass
by himself, to take away by force what another needs, it should
be just as disgraceful to wish for the increase of his country's
power; and, as it now is considered stupid and ridiculous for a
person to praise himself, it should be considered stupid to extol
one's nation, as is now done in various lying patriotic histories,
pictures, monuments, text-books, articles, sermons, and stupid
national hymns. But it must be understood that so long as we are
going to extol patriotism and educate the younger generations in
it, we shall have armaments, which ruin the physical and spiritual
life of the nations, and wars, terrible, horrible wars, like those
for which we are preparing ourselves, and into the circle of which
we are introducing, corrupting them with our patriotism, the new,
terrible fighters of the distant East.

Emperor William, one of the most comical persons of our time,
orator, poet, musician, dramatic writer, and artist, and, above
all, patriot, has lately painted a picture representing all the
nations of Europe with swords, standing at the seashore and, at the
indication of Archangel Michael, looking at the sitting figures
of Buddha and Confucius in the distance. According to William's
intention, this should mean that the nations of Europe ought to
unite in order to defend themselves against the peril which is
proceeding from there. He is quite right from his coarse, pagan,
patriotic point of view, which is eighteen hundred years behind the
times. The European nations, forgetting Christ, have in the name of
their patriotism more and more irritated these peaceful nations,
and have taught them patriotism and war, and have now irritated
them so much that, indeed, if Japan and China will as fully forget
the teachings of Buddha and of Confucius as we have forgotten the
teaching of Christ, they will soon learn the art of killing people
(they learn these things quickly, as Japan has proved), and, being
fearless, agile, strong, and populous, they will inevitably very
soon make of the countries of Europe, if Europe does not invent
something stronger than guns and Edison's inventions, what the
countries of Europe are making of Africa. "The disciple is not above
his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master"
(Luke vi. 40).

In reply to a prince's question how to increase his army, in order
to conquer a southern tribe which did not submit to him, Confucius
replied: "Destroy all thy army, and use the money, which thou art
wasting now on the army, on the enlightenment of thy people and on
the improvement of agriculture, and the southern tribe will drive
away its prince and will submit to thy rule without war."

Thus taught Confucius, whom we are advised to fear. But we, having
forgotten Christ's teaching, having renounced it, wish to vanquish
the nations by force, and thus are only preparing for ourselves
new and stronger enemies than our neighbours. A friend of mine,
who saw William's picture, said: "The picture is beautiful, only
it does not at all represent what the legend says. It means that
Archangel Michael shows to all the governments of Europe, which are
represented as robbers bedecked with arms, what it is that will
cause their ruin and annihilation, namely, the meekness of Buddha
and the wisdom of Confucius." He might have added, "And the humility
of Lao-tse."

Indeed, we, thanks to our hypocrisy, have forgotten Christ to such
an extent, have so squeezed out of our life everything Christian,
that the teachings of Buddha and Confucius stand incomparably higher
than that beastly patriotism, by which our so-called Christian
nations are guided. And so the salvation of Europe and of the
Christian world at large does not consist in this, that, bedecking
themselves with swords, as William has represented them, they
should, like robbers, cast themselves upon their brothers beyond
the sea, in order to kill them, but, on the contrary, they should
renounce the survival of barbarous times,--patriotism,--and, having
renounced it, should take off their arms and show the Eastern
nations, not an example of savage patriotism and beastliness, but an
example of brotherly love, which Christ has taught us.

_Moscow, January 2, 1896._




LETTER TO ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY

On Non-Resistance

1896




LETTER TO ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY

On Non-Resistance


MY DEAR CROSBY:--I am very glad to hear of your activity and that
it is beginning to attract attention. Fifty years ago Garrison's
proclamation of non-resistance only cooled people toward him, and
the whole fifty years' activity of Ballou in this direction was met
with stubborn silence. I read with great pleasure in _Peace_ the
beautiful ideas of the American authors in regard to non-resistance.
I make an exception only in the case of Mr. Bemis's old, unfounded
opinion, which calumniates Christ in assuming that Christ's
expulsion of the cattle from the temple means that he struck the men
with a whip, and commanded his disciples to do likewise.

The ideas expressed by these writers, especially by H. Newton and
G. Herron, are beautiful, but it is to be regretted that they do
not answer the question which Christ put before men, but answer the
question which the so-called orthodox teachers of the churches, the
chief and most dangerous enemies of Christianity, have put in its
place.

Mr. Higginson says that the law of non-resistance is not admissible
as a general rule. H. Newton says that the practical results of
the application of Christ's teaching will depend on the degree of
faith which men will have in this teaching. Mr. C. Martyn assumes
that the stage at which we are is not yet suited for the application
of the teaching about non-resistance. G. Herron says that in order
to fulfil the law of non-resistance, it is necessary to learn to
apply it to life. Mrs. Livermore says the same, thinking that the
fulfilment of the law of non-resistance is possible only in the
future.

All these opinions treat only the question as to what would happen
to people if all were put to the necessity of fulfilling the law
of non-resistance; but, in the first place, it is quite impossible
to compel all men to accept the law of non-resistance, and, in the
second, if this were possible, it would be a most glaring negation
of the very principle which is being established. To compel all men
not to practise violence against others! Who is going to compel men?

In the third place, and above all else, the question, as put by
Christ, does not consist in this, whether non-resistance may become
a universal law for all humanity, but what each man must do in order
to fulfil his destiny, to save his soul, and do God's work, which
reduces itself to the same.

The Christian teaching does not prescribe any laws for all men; it
does not say, "Follow such and such rules under fear of punishment,
and you will all be happy," but explains to each separate man his
position in the world and shows him what for him personally results
from this position. The Christian teaching says to each individual
man that his life, if he recognizes his life to be his, and its aim,
the worldly good of his personality or of the personalities of other
men, can have no rational meaning, because this good, posited as the
end of life, can never be attained, because, in the first place,
all beings strive after the goods of the worldly life, and these
goods are always attained by one set of beings to the detriment
of others, so that every separate man cannot receive the desired
good, but, in all probability, must even endure many unnecessary
sufferings in his struggle for these unattained goods; in the second
place, because if a man even attains the worldly goods, these, the
more of them he attains, satisfy him less and less, and he wishes
for more and more new ones; in the third place, mainly because the
longer a man lives, the more inevitably do old age, diseases, and
finally death, which destroys the possibility of any worldly good,
come to him.

Thus, if a man considers his life to be his, and its end to be the
worldly good, for himself or for other men, this life can have for
him no rational meaning. Life receives a rational meaning only when
a man understands that the recognition of his life as his own, and
the good of personality, of his own or of that of others, as its
end, is an error, and that the human life does not belong to him,
who has received this life from some one, but to Him who produced
this life, and so its end must not consist in the attainment of his
own good or of the good of others, but only in the fulfilment of the
will of Him who produced it. Only with such a comprehension of life
does it receive a rational meaning, and its end, which consists in
the fulfilment of God's will, become attainable, and, above all,
only with such a comprehension does man's activity become clearly
defined, and he no longer is subject to despair and suffering, which
were inevitable with his former comprehension.

"The world and I in it," such a man says to himself, "exist by the
will of God. I cannot know the whole world and my relation to it,
but I can know what is wanted of me by God, who sent men into this
world, endless in time and space, and therefore inaccessible to my
understanding, because this is revealed to me in the tradition, that
is, in the aggregate reason of the best people in the world, who
lived before me, and in my reason, and in my heart, that is, in the
striving of my whole being.

"In the tradition, the aggregate of the wisdom of all the best men,
who lived before me, I am told that I must act toward others as I
wish that others should act toward me; my reason tells me that the
greatest good of men is possible only when all men will act likewise.

"My heart is at peace and joyful only when I abandon myself to the
feeling of love for men, which demands the same. And then I can not
only know what I must do, but also the cause for which my activity
is necessary and defined.

"I cannot grasp the whole divine work, for which the world exists
and lives, but the divine work which is being accomplished in this
world and in which I am taking part with my life is accessible to
me. This work is the destruction of the discord and of the struggle
among men and other beings, and the establishment among men of the
greatest union, concord, and love; this work is the realization
of what the Jewish prophets promised, saying that the time will
come when all men shall be taught the truth, when the spears shall
be forged into pruning-hooks, and the scythes and swords into
ploughshares, and when the lion shall lie with the lamb."

Thus the man of the Christian comprehension of life not only knows
how he must act in life, but also what he must do.

He must do what contributes to the establishment of the kingdom of
God in the world. To do this, a man must fulfil the inner demands of
God's will, that is, he must act amicably toward others, as he would
like others to do to him. Thus the inner demands of a man's soul
coincide with that external end of life which is placed before him.

And here though we have an indication which is so clear to a man of
the Christian comprehension, and incontestable from two sides, as
to what the meaning and end of human life consists in, and how a man
must act, and what he must do, and what not, there appear certain
people, who call themselves Christians, who decide that in such and
such cases a man must depart from God's law and the common cause of
life, which are given to him, and must act contrary to the law and
the common cause of life, because, according to their ratiocination,
the consequences of the acts committed according to God's law may be
profitless and disadvantageous for men.

Man, according to the Christian teaching, is God's workman. The
workman does not know his master's whole business, but the nearest
aim to be attained by his work is revealed to him, and he is given
definite indications as to what he should do; especially definite
are the indications as to what he must not do, in order that he may
not work against the aim for the attainment of which he was sent to
work. In everything else he is given complete liberty. And so for
a man who has grasped the Christian conception of life the meaning
of his life is clear and rational, and he cannot have a moment of
wavering as to how he should act in life and what he ought to do, in
order to fulfil the destiny of his life.

According to the law given him in the tradition, in his reason, and
in his heart, a man must always act toward another as he wishes
to have done to him: he must contribute to the establishment of
love and union among men; but according to the decision of these
far-sighted people, a man must, while the fulfilment of the law,
according to their opinion, is still premature, do violence, deprive
of liberty, kill people, and with this contribute, not to union
of love, but to the irritation and enragement of people. It is as
though a mason, who is put to do certain definite work, who knows
that he is taking part with others in the building of a house, and
who has received a clear and indubitable command from the master
himself that he is to lay a wall, should receive the command from
other masons like him, who, like him, do not know the general plan
of the structure and what is useful for the common work, to stop
laying the wall, and to undo the work of the others.

Wonderful delusion! The being that breathes to-day and disappears
to-morrow, that has one definite, incontestable law given to him,
as to how he is to pass his short term of life, imagines that he
knows what is necessary and useful and appropriate for all men, for
the whole world, for that world which moves without cessation, and
goes on developing, and in the name of this usefulness, which is
differently understood by each of them, he prescribes to himself
and to others for a time to depart from the unquestionable law,
which is given to him and to all men, and not to act toward all men
as he wants others to act toward him, not to bring love into the
world, but to practise violence, to deprive of freedom, to punish,
to kill, to introduce malice into the world, when it is found that
this is necessary. And he enjoins us to do so knowing that the most
terrible cruelties, tortures, murders of men, from the Inquisitions
and punishments and terrors of all the revolutions to the present
bestialities of the anarchists and the massacres of them, have all
proceeded from this, that men suppose that they know what people and
the world need; knowing that at any given moment there are always
two opposite parties, each of which asserts that it is necessary
to use violence against the opposite party,--the men of state
against the anarchists, the anarchists against the men of state; the
English against the Americans, the Americans against the English;
the English against the Germans; and so forth, in all possible
combinations and permutations.

Not only does a man of the Christian concept of life see clearly by
reflection that there is no ground whatever for his departure from
the law of his life, as clearly indicated to him by God, in order to
follow the accidental, frail, frequently contradictory demands of
men; but if he has been living the Christian life for some time, and
has developed in himself the Christian moral sensitiveness, he can
positively not act as people demand that he shall, not only as the
result of reflection, but also of feeling.

As it is for many men of our world impossible to subject a child to
torture and to kill it, though such a torture may save a hundred
other people, so a whole series of acts becomes impossible for a
man who has developed the Christian sensitiveness of his heart in
himself. A Christian, for example, who is compelled to take part
in court proceedings, where a man may be sentenced to capital
punishment, to take part in matters of forcible seizure of other
people's property, in discussions about the declaration of war,
or in preparations for the same, to say nothing of war itself,
finds himself in the same position in which a good man would be,
if he were compelled to torture or kill a child. It is not that he
decides by reflection what he ought not to do, but that he cannot
do what is demanded of him, because for a man there exists the
moral impossibility, just as there is a physical impossibility, of
committing certain acts. Just as it is impossible for a man to lift
up a mountain, as it is impossible for a good man to kill a child,
so it is impossible for a man who lives a Christian life to take
part in violence. Of what significance for such a man can be the
reflections that for some imaginary good he must do what has become
morally impossible for him?

How, then, is a man to act when he sees the obvious harm of
following the law of love and the law of non-resistance, which
results from it? How is a man to act--this example is always
adduced--when a robber in his sight kills or injures a child, and
when the child cannot be saved otherwise than by killing the robber?

It is generally assumed that, when they adduce such an example,
there can be no other answer to the question than that the robber
ought to be killed, in order that the child be saved. But this
answer is given so emphatically and so quickly only because we are
not only in the habit of acting in this manner in the case of the
defence of a child, but also in the case of the expansion of the
borders of a neighbouring state to the detriment of our own, or in
the case of the transportation of lace across the border, or even
in the case of the defence of the fruits of our garden against
depredations by passers-by.

It is assumed that it is necessary to kill the robber in order to
save the child, but we need only stop and think on what ground a man
should act thus, be he a Christian or a non-Christian, to convince
ourselves that such an act can have no rational foundations, and is
considered necessary only because two thousand years ago such a mode
of action was considered just and people were in the habit of acting
thus. Why should a non-Christian, who does not recognize God and
the meaning of life in the fulfilment of His will, kill the robber,
in defending the child? To say nothing of this, that in killing
the robber he is certainly killing, but does not know for certain
until the very last moment whether the robber will kill the child or
not, to say nothing of this irregularity: who has decided that the
life of the child is more necessary and better than the life of the
robber?

If a non-Christian does not recognize God, and does not consider
the meaning of life to consist in the fulfilment of God's will, it
is only calculation, that is, the consideration as to what is more
profitable for him and for all men, the continuation of the robber's
life or that of the child, which guides the choice of his acts. But
to decide this, he must know what will become of the child which he
saves, and what would become of the robber if he did not kill him.
But that he cannot know. And so, if he is a non-Christian, he has
no rational foundation for saving the child through the death of the
robber.

But if a man is a Christian, and so recognizes God and sees the
meaning of life in the fulfilment of His will, no matter what
terrible robber may attack any innocent and beautiful child, he has
still less cause to depart from the law given him by God and to
do to the robber what the robber wants to do to the child; he may
implore the robber, may place his body between the robber and his
victim, but there is one thing he cannot do,--he cannot consciously
depart from the law of God, the fulfilment of which forms the
meaning of his life. It is very likely that, as the result of his
bad bringing up and of his animality, a man, being a pagan or a
Christian, will kill the robber, not only in the defence of the
child, but also in his own defence or in the defence of his purse,
but that will by no means signify that it is right to do so, that it
is right to accustom ourselves and others to think that that ought
to be done.

This will only mean that, in spite of the external education and
Christianity, the habits of the stone age are still strong in man,
that he is capable of committing acts which have long ago been
disavowed by his consciousness. A robber in my sight is about to
kill a child and I can save it by killing the robber; consequently
it is necessary under certain conditions to resist evil with
violence.

A man is in danger of his life and can be saved only through my
lie; consequently it is necessary in certain cases to lie. A man
is starving, and I cannot save him otherwise than by stealing;
consequently it is necessary in certain cases to steal.

I lately read a story by Coppée, in which an orderly kills his
officer, who has his life insured, and thus saves his honour and the
life of his family. Consequently in certain cases it is right to
kill.

Such imaginary cases and the conclusions drawn from them prove only
this, that there are men who know that it is not right to steal,
to lie, to kill, but who are so loath to stop doing this that they
use all the efforts of their mind in order to justify their acts.
There does not exist a moral rule for which it would be impossible
to invent a situation when it would be hard to decide which is more
moral, the departure from the rule or its fulfilment. The same is
true of the question of non-resistance to evil: men know that it is
bad, but they are so anxious to live by violence, that they use all
the efforts of their mind, not for the elucidation of all the evil
which is produced by man's recognition of the right to do violence
to others, but for the defence of this right. But such invented
cases in no way prove that the rules about not lying, stealing,
killing are incorrect.

"_Fais ce que doit, advienne que pourra_,--do what is right, and let
come what may,"--is an expression of profound wisdom. Each of us
knows unquestionably what he ought to do, but none of us knows or
can know what will happen. Thus we are brought to the same, not only
by this, that we must do what is right, but also by this, that we
know what is right, and do not know at all what will come and result
from our acts.

The Christian teaching is a teaching as to what a man must do for
the fulfilment of the will of Him who sent him into the world.
But the reflections as to what consequences we assume to result
from such or such acts of men not only have nothing in common with
Christianity, but are that very delusion which destroys Christianity.

No one has yet seen the imaginary robber with the imaginary child,
and all the horrors, which fill history and contemporary events,
have been produced only because men imagine that they can know the
consequences of the possible acts.

How is this? Men used to live a beastly life, violating and killing
all those whom it was advantageous for them to violate and kill,
and even eating one another, thinking that that was right. Then
there came a time, when, thousands of years ago, even in the time
of Moses, there appeared the consciousness in men that it was bad
to violate and kill one another. But there were some men for whom
violence was advantageous, and they did not recognize the fact, and
assured themselves and others that it was not always bad to violate
and kill men, but that there were cases when this was necessary,
useful, and even good. And acts of violence and murder, though not
as frequent and cruel, were continued, but with this difference,
that those who committed them justified them on the ground of
usefulness to men. It was this false justification of violence that
Christ arraigned. He showed that, since every act of violence could
be justified, as actually happens, when two enemies do violence
to one another and both consider their violence justifiable, and
there is no chance of verifying the justice of the determination
of either, it is necessary not to believe in any justifications of
violence, and under no condition, as at first was thought right by
humanity, is it necessary to make use of them.

It would seem that men who profess Christianity would have
carefully to unveil this deception, because in the unveiling of
this deception does one of the chief manifestations of Christianity
consist. But the very opposite has happened: men to whom violence
was advantageous, and who did not want to give up these advantages,
took upon themselves the exclusive propaganda of Christianity, and,
preaching it, asserted that, since there are cases in which the
non-application of violence produces more evil than its application
(the imaginary robber who kills the child), we must not fully accept
Christ's teaching about non-resistance to evil, and that we may
depart from this teaching in the defence of our lives and of those
of other men, in the defence of our country, the protection of
society from madmen and malefactors, and in many other cases. But
the decision of the question as to when Christ's teaching ought to
be set aside was left to those very men who made use of violence.
Thus Christ's teaching about non-resistance to evil turned out to be
absolutely set aside, and, what is worse than all that, those very
men whom Christ arraigned began to consider themselves the exclusive
preachers and expounders of His teaching. But the light shineth
in the dark, and the false preachers of Christianity are again
arraigned by His teaching.

We can think of the structure of the world as we please, we may do
what is advantageous and agreeable for us to do, and use violence
against people under the pretext of doing good to men, but it is
absolutely impossible to assert that, in doing so, we are professing
Christ's teaching, because Christ arraigned that very deception. The
truth will sooner or later be made manifest, and will arraign the
deceivers, even as it does now.

Let only the question of the human life be put correctly, as it was
put by Christ, and not as it was corrupted by the churches, and all
the deceptions which by the churches have been heaped on Christ's
teaching will fall of their own accord.

The question is not whether it will be good or bad for human society
to follow the law of love and the resulting law of non-resistance,
but whether you--a being that lives to-day and is dying by degrees
to-morrow and every moment--will now, this very minute, fully do
the will of Him who sent you and clearly expressed it in tradition
and in your reason and heart, or whether you want to act contrary
to this will. As soon as the question is put in this form, there
will be but one answer: I want at once, this very minute, without
any delay, without waiting for any one, and without considering the
seeming consequences, with all my strength to fulfil what alone I
am indubitably commanded to do by Him who sent me into the world,
and in no case, under no condition, will I, can I, do what is
contrary to it, because in this lies the only possibility of my
rational, unwretched life.

_January 12, 1896._




INTRODUCTIONS TO BOOKS

1890-94




INTRODUCTIONS TO BOOKS




A. STOCKHAM'S TOKOLOGY


The present book does not belong to the vast number of all kinds of
books, from the philosophical and the scientific to the artistic
and practical, which, with other words, in other permutations and
combinations, say and repeat the old familiar, sickeningly familiar,
commonplaces. This book is one of those rare books which do not
treat of what everybody talks about and nobody needs, but of what
nobody talks about and what is important and necessary for all. It
is important for the parents to know how they should act, in order
without unnecessary suffering to bring forth uncorrupted and healthy
children, and still more important it is for the future children to
be born under the best of conditions, as, indeed, it says in one
of the mottoes of the book, "To be well-born is the right of every
child."

The book is not one of those which are read only that no one may
say that he has not read this book, but one of those the reading of
which leaves traces, compelling men to change their lives, to mend
what is irregular in them, or at least to think of doing so. This
book is called _Tokology_, the science of the bearing of children.
There are all kinds of strange sciences, but there is no such
science, and yet, after the science of how to live and die, this is
the most important science. This book has had enormous success in
America, and has greatly influenced American mothers and fathers.
In Russia it ought to have an even greater influence. The questions
about abstaining from tobacco and all kinds of exciting beverages,
beginning with alcohol and ending with tea, the questions about
eating without the slaughter of living beings, vegetarianism, the
questions about sexual continence in domestic life, and many others,
which partly have been solved and partly are being worked out, and
possess a vast literature in Europe and in America, have not yet
been touched upon by us, and so Mrs. Stockham's book is particularly
important for us: it at once transfers the reader into a new world
of a living human movement.

In this book every thinking woman--for this book is chiefly
intended for women--will find first of all an indication that there
is absolutely no need of continuing to live as insipidly as her
forefathers lived, but that it is possible to find better paths of
life, using for this purpose science, the experience of men, and her
own free thought, and, as the first model of such a use she will
find in this book many precious counsels and hints, which will make
life easier for herself, her husband, and her children.

_February 2, 1890._




AMIEL'S DIARY


About a year and a half ago I chanced for the first time to read
Amiel's book, _Fragments d'un Journal Intime_. I was struck by the
significance and profundity of its contents, the beauty of the
exposition, and, above all, the sincerity of this book. As I read
it, I marked down the passages which more particularly startled
me. My daughter undertook to translate these passages, and thus
were formed the extracts from the _Fragments d'un Journal Intime_,
that is, the extracts from the extracts of Amiel's diary in several
volumes not yet printed, which he conducted from day to day for the
period of thirty years.

Henri Amiel was born in Geneva in 1821 and was early left an
orphan. Having graduated from the higher courses in Geneva, Amiel
went abroad and there passed several years at the universities of
Heidelberg and Berlin. Upon returning in 1849 to his home, he at
the age of twenty-eight years received in the Geneva Academy a
professorship, at first of æsthetics, and later of philosophy, and
this he held until his death.

Amiel's whole life was passed in Geneva, where he died in 1881,
having in no way risen above the large number of the most ordinary
of professors, who, mechanically compiling their lectures from the
latest books in their particular specialties, just as mechanically
transmit them to their hearers, and from a still greater number
of poets without contents, who furnish these quite useless, but
still marketable wares to periodicals that are published in tens of
thousands of copies.

Amiel did not have the slightest success either in the learned or
in the literary field. As he was approaching old age, he wrote of
himself as follows:

"What have I been able to extract from those gifts which were
bestowed upon me, from the peculiar conditions of my life of half
a century? Are all my collected scribblings, my correspondence,
these thousands of intimate pages, my lectures, my articles, my
verses, my different notes anything but dry leaves? To whom and
for what have I ever been of any use? And will my name live a day
longer than I myself, and will it have any significance for any one?
Insignificant, empty life! _Vie nulle._"

About Amiel and his diary two well-known French writers, his friend,
the well-known critic, E. Scherer, and the philosopher, Caro, have
written after his death. Interesting is that sympathetic, but
partially patronizing air with which both these authors treat Amiel,
when they regret that he was deprived of those qualities which are
necessary for the performance of real work. And yet, the real work
of these two writers--the critical labours of E. Scherer and the
philosophic labours of Caro--will hardly much outlive their authors,
while the accidental, not real work of Amiel, his diary, will always
remain a live book, necessary for men and influencing them for the
good.

A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure in which
he reveals to us the inner working of his soul, of course, if this
work is new, and not previously accomplished. No matter what he may
write, a drama, a learned work, a story, a philosophic treatise, a
lyric poem, a criticism, a satire, it is only this inner work of his
soul which is dear to us, and not the architectural structure in
which he, for the most part, and I think, always, distorting them,
clothes his thoughts and feelings.

Everything which Amiel poured into a ready mould, his lectures,
treatises, poems, was completely dead; but his diary, where, without
thinking of the form, he spoke only to himself, full of life,
wisdom, instruction, consolation, will for ever remain one of the
best books accidentally left to us by such men as Marcus Aurelius,
Pascal, Epictetus.

Pascal says: "There are but three kinds of people: those who, having
found God, serve Him; those who, not having found Him, are busy
seeking Him, and those who, not having found Him, none the less do
not seek Him.

"The first are sensible and happy, the last are senseless and
unhappy, the second are unhappy, but sensible."

I think that the difference established by Pascal between the first
and the second, between those who, as he says in another passage,
having found God, serve Him with their whole hearts, and those who,
not having found Him, seek Him with their whole hearts, is not only
not so great as he thought, but does not even exist. I think that
those who with their whole hearts and suffering ("_en gemissant_,"
as Pascal says) seek God, already serve Him. They serve Him with
this, that with these sufferings of their seeking they lay out
and open for others the road to God, as Pascal himself did in his
thoughts, and as Amiel did all his life in his diary.

Amiel's whole life, as it is presented to us in this diary, is full
of this seeking after God, which is suffering with the whole heart.
The contemplation of this seeking is the more instructive in that
it never ceases to be a seeking, never stops, never passes into the
consciousness of the acquisition of truth and into instruction.
Amiel says neither to himself nor to others: "I now know the
truth,--hear me!" On the contrary, it seems to him, as is proper
for him who sincerely seeks the truth, that the more he finds out,
the more he has still left to know, and he, without stopping, does
everything he can for the purpose of finding out more and more of
the truth, and so constantly feels his ignorance. He constantly
dwells upon what Christianity and the condition of a Christian
ought to be, without for a moment dwelling on the thought that
Christianity is precisely what he professes, and that he himself
personifies the condition of a Christian. And yet his whole diary
is full of expressions of the profoundest Christian understanding
and feeling. These expressions act most powerfully on the reader on
account of their very unconsciousness and sincerity. He speaks with
himself, without thinking that he is heard, without trying to appear
sure of what he is not sure, without concealing his suffering and
his seeking.

It is as though we were present, without the master's knowledge, at
the most secret, profound, impassioned inner work of the soul, which
is generally concealed from the view of an outsider.

For this reason it is possible to find many statelier and more
eloquent expressions of Amiel's religious feeling, but it is hard
to find such as are more intimate and more heart-stirring. Shortly
before his death, when he knew that his disease might any day end in
strangulation, he wrote:

"When you no longer reflect that you have tens of years, one year,
a month free before yourself, when you already count tens of hours,
and the future night bears in itself the menace of the unexplored,
it is evident that you decline art, science, politics, and are
satisfied with conversing with yourself, and that is possible until
the very end. This inward conversation is the only thing which
is left to him who is sentenced to death and whose execution is
delayed. He (this condemned man) concentrates upon himself. He no
longer emits rays, but only converses with his soul. He no longer
acts, but only contemplates.... Like a hare, he returns to his lair
to die; and this lair is his conscience, his thought. So long as he
can hold a pen and has a moment of solitude, he concentrates himself
before this echo of himself and holds converse with God.

"This, by the way, is not a moral investigation, a repentance, a
call. It is only the 'amen' of submission.

"My child, give me your heart.

"Renunciation and agreement are less difficult for me than for
others, because I want nothing. I should only want not to suffer.
Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane asked for the same. Let us do
the same that He did. 'Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou
wilt,'--and we will wait."

Such he is on the day before his death. He is not less sincere and
serious throughout his whole diary, in spite of the elegance, and
now and then choiceness of his diction, which became a habit with
him. In the course of all the thirty years of his diary he feels
that we all so thoroughly forget, that we are all condemned to death
and that our execution is only delayed. And it is for this very
reason that this book is so sincere, serious, and useful.

_1893._




S. T. SEMÉNOV'S PEASANT STORIES


I have long ago formed a rule to judge every artistic production
from three sides: (1) from the side of its contents,--in how far
that which is revealed by the artist from a new side is important
and necessary for men, because every production is a production of
art only when it reveals a new side of life; (2) to what extent the
form of the production is good, beautiful, and in correspondence
with the contents; and (3) in how far the relation of the artist
to his subject is sincere, that is, in how far he believes in what
he represents. This last quality always seems to me to be the most
important one in an artistic production. It gives to an artistic
production its force, makes an artistic production infectious, that
is, evokes in the hearer and reader those sensations which the
artist experiences.

Seménov possesses this quality in the highest degree.

There is a certain story by Flaubert, translated by Turgénev,
_Julian the Merciful_. The last episode of the story, which is
intended to be most touching, consists in this, that Julian lies
down in the same bed with a leper, whom he warms up with his body.
This leper is Christ, who carries Julian off to heaven with Him.
All that is told with great mastery, but I always remain very cold
during the reading of this story. I feel that the author himself
would not have done, and would not even have wished to do so, and I
never feel any agitation in reading about this wonderful exploit.

But Seménov describes the simplest story, and it always touches me.
A village lad comes to Moscow to find himself a place, and with the
influence of a countryman of his, a coachman, who is living with a
wealthy merchant, he here gets the position of assistant janitor.
This place was formerly occupied by an old man. It was by the advice
of his coachman that the merchant sent away the old man and in his
place put the young lad. The lad arrives in the evening to begin
his work, and in the yard hears the old man's complaints in the
servants' room, for having been discharged for no cause whatsoever,
only to make room for the young fellow. The lad suddenly feels pity
for the old man and is ashamed to have pushed him out. He reflects
for a moment, wavers, and finally decides to give up the place,
which he needs and which has pleased him so much.

All this is told in such a way that every time when I read it I feel
that the author not only would have wished to act similarly in such
a case, but would certainly have done so, and his feeling infects
me, and I am happy, and it seems to me that I have done something
good or would be glad to do something good.

Sincerity is Seménov's chief characteristic. But, besides it, the
contents are always significant,--significant, because they deal
with the most important class of Russia, the peasantry, which
Seménov knows as only a peasant, who himself lives the hard life
of a peasant, can know. The contents of his stories are also
significant, because in all of them the chief interest is not in the
external events, not in the peculiarities of the situations, but in
the approximation to and the removal from the ideal of Christian
truth, which stands firm and clear in the soul of the author and
serves him as a safe measure for the valuation of the worth and
importance of human acts.

The form of the stories fully corresponds to the contents: it is
serious and simple, and the details are always correct,--there
are no false notes. What is particularly good is the figurative
language of the persons in the stories, which is frequently quite
new, and always artless and strikingly powerful.

_March 23, 1894._




THE WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT


It was, I think, in the year 1881 that Turgénev, during a visit at
my house, took a French novel, under the name of _Maison Tellier_,
out of his satchel and gave it to me.

"Read it, if you have a chance," he said, apparently with
indifference, just as the year before he had handed me a number of
the _Russian Wealth_, in which there was an article by Garshín, who
was making his début. Evidently, as in the case of Garshín, so even
now, he was afraid he might influence me in one way or another, and
wished to know my uninfluenced opinion.

"He is a young French author," he said; "look at it,--it is not
bad; he knows you and esteems you very much," he added, as though
to encourage me. "As a man he reminds me of Druzhínin. He is just
as excellent a son and friend, _un homme d'un commerce sur_, as was
Druzhínin, and, besides, he has relations with the labouring people,
whom he guides and aids. Even in his relations to women he reminds
me of Druzhínin."

And Turgénev told me something remarkable and incredible in regard
to Maupassant's relations in this respect.

This time, the year 1881, was for me the most ardent time of the
inner reconstruction of my whole world-conception, and in this
reconstruction the activity which is called artistic, and to which
I formerly used to devote all my strength, not only lost for me the
significance formerly ascribed to it, but even became distinctly
distasteful to me on account of the improper place which it had
occupied in my life and which in general it occupies in the
concepts of the men of the wealthy classes.

For this reason I was at that time not in the least interested in
such productions as the one which Turgénev recommended to me. But,
to oblige him, I read the book which he gave me.

Judging from the first story, _Maison Tellier_, I could not help
but see, in spite of the indecent and insignificant subject of the
story, that the author possessed what is called talent.

The author was endowed with that particular gift, called talent,
which consists in the author's ability to direct, according to
his tastes, his intensified, strained attention to this or that
subject, in consequence of which the author who is endowed with this
ability sees in those subjects, upon which he directs his attention,
something new, something which others did not see. Maupassant
evidently possessed that gift of seeing in subjects something which
others did not see. But, to judge from the small volume which I
had read, he was devoid of the chief condition necessary, besides
talent, for a truly artistic production. Of the three conditions:
(1) a correct, that is, a moral relation of the author to the
subject, (2) the clearness of exposition, or the beauty of form,
which is the same, and (3) sincerity, that is, an undisguised
feeling of love or hatred for what the artist describes,--Maupassant
possessed only the last two, and was entirely devoid of the first.
He had no correct, that is, no moral relation to the subjects
described. From what I had read, I was convinced that Maupassant
possessed talent, that is, the gift of attention, which in the
objects and phenomena of life revealed to him those qualities
which are not visible to other men; he also possessed a beautiful
form, that is, he expressed clearly, simply, and beautifully what
he wished to say, and also possessed that condition of the worth
of an artistic production, without which it does not produce any
effect,--sincerity,--that is, he did not simulate love or hatred,
but actually loved and hated what he described. But, unfortunately,
being devoid of the first, almost the most important condition of
the worth of an artistic production, of the correct, moral relation
to what he represented, that is, of the knowledge of the difference
between good and evil, he loved and represented what it was not
right to love and represent, and did not love and did not represent
what he ought to have loved and represented. Thus the author in this
little volume describes with much detail and love how women tempt
men and men tempt women, and even some incomprehensible obscenities,
which are represented in _La Femme de Paul_, and he describes the
labouring country people, not only with indifference, but even with
contempt, as so many animals.

Particularly striking was that lack of distinction between bad and
good in the story _Une Partie de Campagne_, in which, in the form
of a most clever and amusing jest, he gives a detailed account of
how two gentlemen with bared arms, rowing in a boat, simultaneously
tempted, the one an old mother, and the other a young maiden, her
daughter.

The author's sympathy is during the whole time obviously to such an
extent on the side of the two rascals, that he ignores, or, rather,
does not see what the tempted mother, the girl, the father, and the
young man, evidently the fiancé of the daughter, must have suffered,
and so we not only get a shocking description of a disgusting crime
in the form of an amusing jest, but the event itself is described
falsely, because only the most insignificant side of the subject,
the pleasure afforded to the rascals, is described.

In the same volume there is a story, _Histoire d'une Fille de
Ferme_, which Turgénev recommended to me more particularly, and
which more particularly displeased me on account of the author's
incorrect relation to the subject. The author apparently sees in all
the working people whom he describes nothing but animals, who do not
rise above sexual and maternal love, and so the description leaves
us with an incomplete, artificial impression.

The insufficient comprehension of the lives and interests of the
working classes, and the representation of the men from those
classes in the form of half-animals, which are moved only by
sensuality, malice, and greed, forms one of the chief and most
important defects of the majority of the modern French authors,
among them Maupassant, not only in this story, but also in all
the other stories, in which he touches on the people and always
describes them as coarse, dull animals, whom one can only ridicule.
Of course, the French authors must know the conditions of their
people better than I know them; but, although I am a Russian and
have not lived with the French people, I none the less assert that,
in describing their masses, the French authors are wrong, and
that the French masses cannot be such as they are described. If
there exists a France as we know it, with her truly great men and
with those great contributions which these great men have made to
science, art, civil polity, and the moral perfection of humanity,
those labouring masses, which have held upon their shoulders this
France and her great men, do not consist of animals, but of men with
great spiritual qualities; and so I do not believe what I am told
in novels like _La Terre_, and in Maupassant's stories, just as I
should not believe if I were told of the existence of a beautiful
house standing on no foundation. It is very possible that the high
qualities of the masses are not such as are described in _La petite
Fadette_ and in _La Mare au Diable_, but these qualities exist, that
I know for certain, and the writer who describes the masses, as
Maupassant does, by telling sympathetically of the "_hanches_" and
"_gorges_" of Breton domestics, and with contempt and ridicule the
life of the labouring people, commits a great error in an artistic
sense, because he describes the subject from only one, the most
uninteresting, physical side, and completely overlooks the other,
the most important, spiritual side, which forms the essence of the
subject.

In general, the reading of the volume which Turgénev gave me left me
completely indifferent to the young writer.

I was at that time so disgusted with the stories, _Une Partie de
Campagne_, _La Femme de Paul_, and _L'Histoire d'une Fille de
Ferme_, that I did not at that time notice the beautiful story, _Le
Papa de Simon_, and the superb story, so far as the description of a
night is concerned, _Sur l'Eau_.

"There are in our time, when there are so many who are willing to
write, a number of people with talent, who do not know to what to
apply it, or who boldly apply it to what ought not and should not
be described," I thought. I told Turgénev so. And I entirely forgot
about Maupassant.

The first thing from Maupassant's writings which after that fell
into my hands was _Une Vie_, which somebody advised me to read. This
book at once made me change my opinion concerning Maupassant, and
after that I read with interest everything which was written over
his name. _Une Vie_ is an excellent novel, not only incomparably
the best novel by Maupassant, but almost the best French novel
since Hugo's _Les Misérables_. Besides the remarkable power of his
talent, that is, of that peculiar, strained attention, directed upon
an object, in consequence of which the author sees entirely new
features in the life which he is describing, this novel combines,
almost to an equal degree, all three conditions of a true artistic
production: (1) the correct, that is, the moral, relation of the
author to the subject, (2) the beauty of form, and (3) sincerity,
that is, love for what the author describes. Here the meaning of
life no longer presents itself to the author in the experiences of
all kinds of debauched persons,--here the contents, as the title
says, are formed by the description of a ruined, innocent, sweet
woman, who is prepared for anything beautiful, a woman who is ruined
by that very gross, animal sensuality which in the former stories
presented itself to the author as the central phenomenon of life,
which dominates everything, and the author's whole sympathy is on
the side of the good.

The form, which is beautiful even in the first stories, is here
carried to a high degree of perfection, such as, in my opinion, has
not been reached by any other French prose writer. And, besides,
what is most important, the author here really loves, and loves
strongly, the good family which he describes, and actually despises
that coarse male who destroys the happiness and peace of this dear
family and especially of the heroine of the novel.

It is for that reason that all the events and persons of this novel
are so vivid and impress themselves on our memory: the weak, good,
slatternly mother; the noble, weak, dear father, and the daughter,
who is still dearer in her simplicity, absence of exaggeration,
and readiness for everything good; their mutual relations, their
first journey, their servants, their neighbours, the calculating,
coarsely sensuous, stingy, petty, impudent fiancé, who, as always,
deceives the innocent girl with the customary base idealization
of the grossest of sentiments; the marriage; Corsica, with the
charming descriptions of nature; then the life in the country; the
coarse deception of the husband; the seizure of the power over
the estate; his conflicts with his father-in-law; the yielding of
the good people; the victory of impudence; the relation to the
neighbours,--all that is life itself, with all its complexity and
variety. But not only is all this described vividly and well,--there
is over all a sincere, pathetic tone, which involuntarily affects
the reader. One feels that the author loves this woman, and that he
does not love her merely for her external forms, but for her soul,
for what there is good in it, and that he sympathizes with her and
suffers for her, and this sensation is involuntarily transferred to
the reader. And the questions as to why, for what purpose, this fair
creature was ruined, and why it should be so, naturally arise in
the reader's soul, and make him stop and reflect on the meaning and
significance of human life.

In spite of the false notes, which here and there occur in the
novel, as, for example, the detailed account of the girl's skin,
or the impossible and unnecessary details about how the deserted
wife, by the advice of the abbot, again becomes a mother, details
which destroy all the charm of the heroine's purity; in spite of the
melodramatic and unnatural history of the revenge of the insulted
husband,--in spite of these blemishes, the novel not only appears to
me to be beautiful, but through it I no longer saw in the author the
talented babbler and jester, who does not know and does not want to
know what is good and what bad, such as he had appeared to me to be,
judging him from the first book, but a serious man, who looks deeply
into man's life and is beginning to make things out in it.

The next novel of Maupassant which I read was _Bel-Ami_.

_Bel-Ami_ is a very filthy book. The author apparently gives himself
the reins in the description of what attracts him, and at times
seems to be losing the fundamental, negative point of view upon his
hero and passes over to his side; but in general, _Bel-Ami_, like
_Une Vie_, has for its basis a serious thought and sentiment.

In _Une Vie_ the fundamental thought is the perplexity in the
presence of the cruel senselessness of the agonizing life of a
beautiful woman, who is ruined by the gross sensuality of a man;
here it is not only the perplexity, but also the indignation of the
author at the sight of the welfare and success of a gross sensuous
beast, who by his very sensuality makes a career for himself and
attains a high position in the world, an indignation also at the
sight of the corruption of that milieu in which the hero attains his
success. There the author seems to ask: "Why, for what purpose, is
the fair creature ruined? Why did it happen?" Here he seems to be
answering the questions: "Everything pure and good has perished and
continues to perish in our society, because this society is corrupt,
senseless, and terrible."

The last scene of the novel, the marriage in a fashionable church
of the triumphant rascal, who is adorned with the Order of the
Legion of Honour, with the pure young maiden, the daughter of the
old, formerly irreproachable mother of the family, whom he seduced,
the marriage, which is blessed by the bishop and is recognized as
something good and proper by all the persons present, expresses
this idea with unusual force. In this novel, in spite of its being
clogged with obscene details, in which the author unfortunately
seems to delight, we can see the same serious relations of the
author to life.

Read the conversation of the old poet with Duroy, when they come out
after dinner from the Walters, I think. The old poet lays bare life
before his young interlocutor and shows it to him such as it is,
with its eternal, unavoidable companion and end,--death.

"It already holds me, _la gueuse_," he says of death. "It has
already loosened my teeth, pulled out my hair, mauled my limbs, and
is about to swallow me. I am already in its power,--it only plays
with me, as a cat plays with a mouse, knowing that I cannot get away
from it. Glory, wealth,--what is it all good for, since it is not
possible to buy a woman's love with them, and it is only a woman's
love that makes life worth living. And death will take that away. It
will take this first, and then health, strength, and life itself.
And it is the same with everybody. And that is all."

Such is the meaning of the remarks of the aging poet. But Duroy,
the fortunate lover of all those women whom he likes, is so full of
sensuous energy and strength that he hears, and yet does not hear,
and understands, and yet does not understand, the words of the old
poet. He hears and understands, but the spring of his sensuous life
bubbles up with such force that the incontestable truth, which
promises the same end to him, does not appal him.

It is this inner contradiction which, besides its satirical
significance, forms the chief meaning of _Bel-Ami_. The same thought
sparkles in the beautiful scenes of the death of the consumptive
journalist. The author puts the question to himself as to what
life is and how the contradiction between the love of life and the
knowledge of unavoidable death is to be solved,--and he does not
answer the questions. He seems to be seeking and waiting, and does
not decide one way or another. Consequently the moral relation to
life continues to be correct in this novel also.

But in the next novels after that this moral relation to life
begins to become entangled, the valuation of the phenomena of life
begins to waver, to grow dim, and in the last novels is completely
distorted.

In _Mont-Oriol_ Maupassant seems to combine the motives of the
two preceding novels, and repeats himself as regards contents. In
spite of the beautiful descriptions, full of refined humour, of a
fashionable watering-place and of the activity of the doctors in
this place, we have here the same male, Paul, who is just as base
and heartless as the husband in _Une Vie_, and the same deceived,
ruined, yielding, weak, lonely, always lonely, dear woman, and
the same indifferent triumph of insignificance and baseness as in
_Bel-Ami_.

The thought is the same, but the author's relation to what he
describes is now considerably lower, especially lower than in the
first novel. The inner valuation of the author as to what is good
and bad begins to become entangled. In spite of all the mental
desire of the author to be objective without any bias, the rascal
Paul apparently enjoys the author's complete sympathy. For this
reason the history of Paul's love, his attempts to seduce, and his
success in this produce a false impression. The reader does not know
what the author wants,--whether he wants to show the whole emptiness
and baseness of Paul, who with indifference turns away from the
woman and offends her, only because her form is spoiled from being
pregnant with a child by him, or whether he wants, on the contrary,
to show how agreeable and nice it is to live the way this Paul lives.

In the next novels after that, _Pierre et Jean_, _Fort comme la
Mort_, and _Notre Cœur_, the moral relation of the author to his
persons is still more entangled, and is entirely lost in the last.
On all these novels already lies the stamp of indifference, haste,
fictitiousness, and, above all, again that absence of a correct
moral relation to life which was noticeable in his first writings.
This begins at the same time that Maupassant's reputation as a
fashionable author becomes established, and he is subject to that
terrible temptation to which every well-known author, particularly
such an attractive one as Maupassant, falls a prey. On the one side,
the success of the first novels, newspaper laudations, and flattery
of society, especially of the women; on the second, the evergrowing
rewards, which, however, do not keep pace with the constantly
growing demands; on the third,--the insistence of publishers, who
vie with one another, flatter, implore, and no longer judge of the
quality of the productions offered by the author, but in ecstasy
accept everything which appears over the name that has established
its reputation with the reading public. All these temptations are
so great that they evidently intoxicate the author: he succumbs to
them, and, though he continues to work out his novels as regards
their forms, and does it even better than before, and even loves
what he describes, he no longer loves what he describes because
it is good and moral, that is, because it is loved by everybody,
and hates what he describes not because it is bad and despised by
everybody, but only because one thing accidentally pleases and
another displeases him.

Upon all the novels of Maupassant, beginning with _Bel-Ami_,
lies this stamp of haste and, above all, of fictitiousness. From
that time on Maupassant no longer does what he did in his first
two novels,--he does not take for the foundation of his novels
certain moral demands and on their basis describe the activity of
his persons, but writes his novels as all artisan novelists write
theirs, that is, he invents the most interesting and the most
pathetic or most contemporary persons and situations, and from these
composes his novel, adorning it with all those observations which
he has happened to make and which fit into the canvas of the novel,
without the slightest concern how the events described are related
to the demands of morality. Such are _Pierre et Jean_, _Fort comme
la Mort_, and _Notre Cœur_.

No matter how much we are accustomed to read in French novels about
how families live by threes, and how there is always a lover, whom
all but the husband know, it still remains quite incomprehensible
to us how it is that all husbands are always fools, _cocus_, and
_ridicules_, and all lovers, who in the end marry and become
husbands, are neither _ridicules_ nor _cocus_, but heroes. And still
less can we understand in what way all women are loose in morals and
all mothers holy.

It is on these unnatural and improbable and, above all, profoundly
immoral situations that _Pierre et Jean_ and _Fort comme la Mort_
are constructed. And so the sufferings of the persons who are in
these situations do not touch us much. Pierre's and Jean's mother,
who was able to pass all her life in deceiving her husband, evokes
little sympathy for herself when she is compelled to confess her sin
to her son, and still less when she justifies herself, asserting
that she could not help making use of the opportunity of happiness
which presented itself to her. Still less can we sympathize with
the gentleman who, in _Fort comme la Mort_, during his whole life
deceived his friend, corrupted his wife, and now laments because,
having grown old, he is not able to corrupt also the daughter
of his paramour. But the last novel, _Notre Cœur_, does not
even have any inner problem, except the description of all kinds
of shades of sexual love. What is described is a satiated, idle
debauchee, who does not know what he wants, and who now falls in
with just as debauched, mentally debauched, a woman, without even
any justification of sensuality, and now parts from her and falls in
with a servant girl, and now again falls in with the first and, it
seems, lives with both. Though in _Pierre et Jean_ and _Fort comme
la Mort_ there are touching scenes, this last novel provokes nothing
but disgust in us.

The question in Maupassant's first novel, _Une Vie_, stands like
this. Here is a good, clever, dear human being, ready for anything
good, and this being for some reason is sacrificed, at first to a
coarse, petty, stupid animal of a husband, and then to just such
a son, and perishes aimlessly, without having given anything to
the world. What is this for? The author puts the question like
that, and does not seem to give any answer. But his whole novel,
all his sentiments of sympathy for her and disgust with what
ruined her serve as an answer to his question. If there is one
man who has understood her sufferings and has given expression to
this understanding, these sufferings are redeemed, as Job says to
his friends, when they say that no one will find out about his
suffering. Let a suffering be made known and understood, and it is
redeemed. Here the author saw and comprehended this suffering and
showed it to men. And this suffering is redeemed, because, as soon
as it is understood by men, it will sooner or later be destroyed.

In the next novel, _Bel-Ami_, the question is no longer as to why
there is any suffering for the worthy, but why there is wealth and
glory for the unworthy. And what are this wealth and glory, and how
are they acquired? And just as before, this question includes an
answer, which consists in the negation of everything which is so
highly valued by the crowd. The contents of this second novel are
still serious, but the moral relation of the author to the subject
described is considerably weakened, and while in the first novel
only here and there occur blemishes of sensuality, which spoil the
novel, in _Bel-Ami_ these blemishes expand, and many chapters are
written in mere obscenity, in which the author seems to revel.

In the next novel, _Mont-Oriol_, the questions as to why and for
what purpose are the sufferings of the dear woman and the success
and joys of the savage male are no longer put, but it seems to be
assumed that it ought to be so, and the moral demands are almost
not felt; instead there appear, without any need and evoked by no
artistic demands, obscene, sensuous descriptions. As a striking
example of this violation of art, in consequence of the incorrect
relation of the author to the subject, may with particular vividness
serve the detailed description of the appearance of the heroine in
the bathtub, which is given in this novel. This description is of no
use whatsoever, and is in no way connected with the external or the
internal meaning of the novel: bubbles cling to the pink body.

"Well?" asks the reader.

"That's all," replies the author. "I describe, because I like such
descriptions."

In the next two novels, _Pierre et Jean_ and _Fort comme la
Mort_, no moral demand whatever is to be found. Both novels are
constructed on debauchery, deception, and lying, which bring the
_dramatis personæ_ to tragic situations.

In the last novel, _Notre Cœur_, the condition of the _dramatis
personæ_ is most monstrous, savage, and immoral, and these persons
no longer struggle against anything, but only seek enjoyments, of
ambition, of the senses, of the sexual passion, and the author seems
to sympathize completely with their strivings. The only conclusion
one can draw from this last novel is this, that the greatest
happiness in life is sexual intercourse, and that, therefore, we
must in the most agreeable manner make use of this happiness.

Still more startling is this immoral relation to life as it is
expressed in the quasi-novel, _Yvette_. The contents of this
terribly immoral production are as follows: a charming girl,
with an innocent soul, but corrupted in the forms which she has
acquired in the corrupt surroundings of her mother, deludes the
debauchee. He falls in love with her, but, imagining that this girl
consciously talks that insinuating nonsense which she has learned
in her mother's company, and which she repeats like a parrot,
without understanding it, he imagines that the girl is corrupt, and
coarsely proposes a _liaison_ with her. This proposition frightens
and offends her (she loves him), opens her eyes to her position and
to that of her mother, and makes her suffer deeply. The touching
situation--the conflict of the beauty of the innocent soul with the
immorality of the world--is beautifully described, and it would have
been well to stop here, but the author, without the least external
or internal need, continues his narration and causes this gentleman
to make his way to the girl at night and seduce her. In the first
part of the novel the author had evidently been on the side of the
girl, and in the second he suddenly passed over to the side of the
debauchee. One impression destroys the other, and the whole novel
falls to pieces and breaks up, like bread which has not been kneaded.

In all his novels after _Bel-Ami_ (I am not speaking now of his
shorter stories, which form his chief desert and fame,--of them I
shall speak later), Maupassant obviously surrendered himself to the
theory, which not only existed in his circle in Paris, but which now
exists everywhere among artists, that for an artistic production we
not only need have no clear conception of what is good and what bad,
but that, on the contrary, the artist must absolutely ignore all
moral questions,--that in this does a certain merit of the artist
consist. According to this theory an artist can and must represent
what is true, what exists, or what is beautiful, what, consequently,
pleases him, or even what can be useful as material for "science,"
but it is not the business of the artist to trouble himself about
what is moral or immoral, good or bad.

I remember, a famous painter showed me once his painting, which
represented a religious procession. Everything was exquisitely
painted, but I could not see any relation of the artist to his
subject.

"Well, do you consider these rites good, and do you think that they
ought to be performed, or do you not?" I asked the artist.

The artist said to me, with a certain condescension to my naïveté,
that he did not know and did not consider it necessary to know: his
business was to represent life.

"But do you at least love this?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Well, do you despise these rites?"

"Neither the one nor the other," replied, with a smile of compassion
for my stupidity, the modern highly cultured artist, who represented
life without understanding its meaning and without either loving or
hating its phenomena. Even so unfortunately thought Maupassant.

In his introduction to _Pierre et Jean_ he says that people tell the
writer: "_Consolez-moi, attristez-moi, attendrissez-moi, faites-moi
râcer, faites-moi rire, faites-moi frémir, faites-moi pleurer,
faites-moi penser. Seuls quelques esprits d'élites demandent á
l'artiste: faites-moi quelque chose de beau dans la forme qui vous
conviendra le mieux d'après votre tempérament._"

It was to satisfy the demand of these chosen spirits that Maupassant
wrote his novels, imagining naïvely that that which was considered
beautiful in his circle was the beautiful which art ought to serve.

In the same circle in which Maupassant moved, it is woman, a
young, beautiful, for the most part a nude woman, and the sexual
intercourse with her that have preëminently been considered to be
that beauty which art must serve. Such an opinion was held not only
by Maupassant's fellows in "art," by painters, sculptors, novelists,
and poets, but also by philosophers, the teachers of the younger
generations. Thus the famous Renan says frankly in his work, _Marc
Aurèle_, while condemning Christianity for its lack of appreciation
of feminine beauty:

"_Le défaut du christianisme apparait bien ici, il est trop
uniquement moral: la beauté chez-lui est tout-à-fait sacrifiée.
Or, aux yeux d'une philosophie complète, la beauté, loin d'être un
avantage superficiel, un danger, un inconvénient, est un don de
Dieu, comme la vertu. Elle vaut la rertu; la femme belle exprime
aussi bien une face du but divin, une des fins de Dieu, que l'homme
de génie ou la femme vertueuse. Elle le sait et de là sa fierté.
Elle sent instinctivement le trésor infini qu'elle porte en son
corps; elle sait bien, que sans esprit, sans talent, sans grace
vertu, elle compte entre les premières manifestations de Dieu: et
pourquoi lui interdire de mettre en valeur le don, qui lui a été
fait, de sortir le diamant qui lui est échu?_

"_La femme, en se passant, accomplit un devoir; elle pratique
un art, art exquis, en un sens le plus charmant des arts. Ne nous
laissons pas égarer par le sourire que certains mots provoquent chez
les gens frivoles. On décerne la palme du génie à l'artiste grec qui
a su résoudre le plus délicat des problèmes, orner le corps humain,
c'est à orner la perfection même, et l'on ne veut voir qu'une
affaire de chiffons dans l'essai de collaborer à la plus belle
œuvre de Dieu, à la beauté de la femme! La toilette de la femme,
avec tous ses raffinements, est du grand art à sa manière._

"_Les siècles et les pays, qui savent y réussir,--sont les grands
siècles, les grands pays, et le christianisme montra par l'exclusion
dont il frappa le genre de recherches que l'idéal social qu'il
concevait ne deviendrait le cadre d'une société complète que bien
plus tard, quand la révolte des gens du monde aurait brisé le joug
étroit imposé primitivement à la secte par un piétisme exalté_"
(_Marc Aurèle_, p. 555).

(Thus, according to the opinion of this guide of the younger
generations, it is only now that the Parisian tailors and wigmakers
have mended the mistake made by Christianity, and have reestablished
beauty in its real, high significance.)

To leave no doubt in what sense beauty is to be taken, this same
famous writer, historian, and scholar wrote a drama, _L'Abbesse de
Jouarre_, in which he showed that sexual intercourse with a woman
is that very ministration to beauty, that is, a high and good work.
In this drama, which is remarkable for its absence of talent and
especially for the coarseness of Darcy's conversations with the
Abbess, where we can see from the very first words of what love this
gentleman is speaking with the apparently innocent and highly moral
girl, who is not in the least offended by this,--it appears that the
most highly moral people, in the sight of death, to which they are
condemned, a few hours before it can do nothing more beautiful than
surrender themselves to their animal passion.

Thus, in the circle in which Maupassant grew up and was educated,
the representation of feminine beauty and love has quite seriously,
and as something long ago decided and determined by the cleverest
and most learned of men, been considered to be the true problem of
the highest art,--_le grand art_.

It is to this theory, frightful in its insipidity, that Maupassant
was subjected, when he became a fashionable writer. And, as was to
have been expected, in the novels this false ideal led Maupassant to
a series of mistakes and to weaker and ever weaker productions.

In this showed itself the radical difference which exists between
the demands of the novel and those of the story. The novel has for
its problem, even for its external problem, the description of
the whole human life or of many human lives, and so the writer of
a novel must have a clear and firm idea of what is good and what
bad in life, and Maupassant did not possess that; on the contrary,
according to the theory to which he held, it was thought that that
was not necessary. If he had been a novelist like some untalented
writers of sensuous novels, he would have calmly described as good
what is bad, and his novels would be complete and interesting
for people sharing the same views as the author. But Maupassant
had talent, that is, he saw things in their real form, and so he
involuntarily revealed the truth: he involuntarily saw the bad in
what he wanted to regard as good. For this reason his sympathy is
constantly wavering in all his novels, with the exception of the
first: now he represents the bad as being good, now he recognizes
the bad to be bad and the good to be good, and now again he keeps
all the time jumping from one to the other. But this destroys
the very essence of every artistic impression, the _charpente_,
on which he stands. People who are not very sensitive to art
frequently imagine that an artistic production forms one whole,
because the same persons act in it all the time, because everything
is constructed on one plot, or because the life of one man is
described. That is not true. That only seems so to the superficial
observer: the cement which binds every artistic production into
one whole and so produces the illusion of a reflection of life
is not the unity of persons and situations, but the unity of the
original, moral relation of the author to his subject. In reality,
when we read or contemplate an artistic production by a new author,
the fundamental question which arises in our soul is always this:
"Well, what kind of a man are you? How do you differ from all other
men whom I know, and what new thing can you tell me about the way
we ought to look upon our life?" No matter what the artist may
represent,--saints, robbers, kings, lackeys,--we seek and see only
the artist's soul. If he is an old, familiar artist, the question is
no longer, "Who are you?" but, "Well, what new thing can you tell
me? From what new side will you now illumine my life for me?" And
so an author who has no definite, clear, new view of the world, and
still more so the one who does not consider this to be necessary,
cannot give an artistic production. He can write beautifully, and a
great deal, but there will be no artistic production. Even so it was
with Maupassant in his novels. In his first two novels, especially
in the first, _Une Vie_, there was that clear, definite, new
relation to life, and so there was an artistic production; but as
soon as he, submitting to the fashionable theory, decided that there
is no need whatever for this relation of the author to life, and
began to write only in order to _faire quelque chose de beau_, his
novels ceased to be artistic productions. In _Une Vie_ and _Bel-Ami_
the author knows who is to be loved and who is to be hated, and the
reader agrees with him and believes him, believes in those persons
and events which are described to him. But in _Notre Cœur_ and
in _Yvette_ the author does not know who is to be loved and who is
to be hated; nor does the reader know it. And as the reader does
not know it, he does not believe in the events described and is not
interested in them. And so, with the exception of the first two,
or, speaking strictly, of the one first novel, all of Maupassant's
novels, as novels, are weak; and if Maupassant had left us only his
novels, he would be a striking example of how a brilliant gift may
perish in consequence of that false milieu in which it was evolved,
and of those false theories of art which are invented by men who
do not love it and so do not understand it. But, fortunately,
Maupassant has written short stories, in which he did not succumb
to the false theory which he adopted, and wrote, not _quelque chose
de beau_, but what touched and provoked his moral feeling. It is in
these stories, not in all, but in the best of them, that we see how
the moral feeling grew in the author.

In this, indeed, does the remarkable quality of every true talent
consist, so long as it does not do violence to itself under the
influence of a false theory, that it teaches its possessor, leads
him on over the path of moral development, makes him love what is
worthy of love, and hate what is worthy of hatred. An artist is an
artist for the very reason that he sees the objects, not as he wants
to see them, but as they are. The bearer of talent,--man,--may make
mistakes, but the talent, as soon as the reins are given to it, as
was done by Maupassant in his stories, will reveal and lay bare the
subject and will make the writer love it, if it is worthy of love,
and hate it, if it is worthy of hatred. What happens to every true
artist, when, under the influence of his surroundings, he begins to
describe something different from what he ought to describe, is what
happened to Balaam, who, when he wanted to bless, cursed that which
ought to have been cursed, and, when he wanted to curse, began to
bless that which ought to have been blessed; he will involuntarily
do, not what he wants, but what he ought to do. The same happened
with Maupassant.

There has hardly been another such an author, who thought so
sincerely that all the good, the whole meaning of life was in woman,
in love, and who with such force of passion described woman and
the love of her from all sides, and there has hardly been another
author, who with such clearness and precision has pointed out all
the terrible sides of the same phenomenon, which to him seemed to be
the highest, and one that gives the greatest good to men. The more
he comprehended this phenomenon, the more did it become unveiled;
the shrouds fell off, and all there was left was its terrible
consequences and its still more terrible reality.

Read his "Idiot Son," "A Night with the Daughter" (_L'Ermite_), "The
Sailor and His Sister" (_Le Port_), "Field of Olives," _La Petite
Roque_, the English _Miss Harriet_, _Monsieur Parent_, _L'Armoire_
(the girl that fell asleep in the safe), "The Marriage" in _Sur
l'Eau_, and the last expression of everything, _Un Cas de Divorce_.
What Marcus Aurelius said, trying to find means with which to
destroy in imagination the attractiveness of this sin, Maupassant
does in glaring, artistic pictures, which upset one completely. He
wants to laud love, but the more he knew of it, the more he cursed
it. He cursed it for the calamities and sufferings which it brings
with it, and for the disappointments, and, above all, for the
simulation of true love, for the deception which is in it, and from
which man suffers the more, the more he abandons himself to this
deception.

The mighty moral growth of the author, during his literary activity,
is written in indelible characters in these exquisite short stories
and in his best book, _Sur l'Eau_.

And not merely in this discrowning, this involuntary and, therefore,
so much more powerful discrowning of sexual love, do we see the
author's moral growth; we see it also in all those higher and ever
higher demands which he makes on life.

Not only in sexual love does he see the inner contradiction between
the demands of the animal and of the rational man,--he sees it in
the whole structure of the world.

He sees that the world, the material world, such as it is, is not
only not the best of worlds, but, on the contrary, might have been
quite different,--this idea is strikingly expressed in _Horla_,--and
does not satisfy the demands of reason and of love; he sees that
there is a certain other world, or at least there are the demands
for such a world, in man's soul.

He is tormented, not only by the irrationality of the material world
and the absence of beauty in it, but also by its lack of love, by
its disunion. I know of no more heartrending cry of despair of an
erring man who recognizes his loneliness, than the expression of
this idea in the exquisite story, _Solitude_.

The phenomenon which more than any other tortured Maupassant, and to
which he frequently returned, is the agonizing state of loneliness,
the spiritual loneliness of a man, that barrier which stands between
a man and others, that barrier which, as he says, is felt the more
painfully, the closer the bodily contact.

What is it that tortures him? And what would he have? What destroys
this barrier, what puts a stop to this loneliness? Love, not love of
woman, of which he is tired, but pure, spiritual, divine love. And
it is this that Maupassant seeks; toward this saviour of life, which
was long ago clearly revealed to all, that he painfully tugs at the
fetters with which he feels himself bound.

He is not yet able to name what he is seeking, he does not want to
name it with his lips alone, for fear of defiling his sanctuary.
But his unnamed striving, which is expressed by his terror in the
presence of solitude, is so sincere that it infects us and draws
us more powerfully than many, very many sermons of love, which are
enunciated with the lips alone.

The tragedy of Maupassant's life consists in this, that, living in
surroundings that are terrible because of their monstrousness and
immorality, he by the force of his talent, that unusual light which
was in him, broke away from the world-conception of his circle, was
near to liberation, already breathed the air of freedom, but, having
spent his last strength in this struggle, perished without becoming
free, because he did not have the strength to make this one last
effort.

The tragedy of this ruin consists in the same in which it even now
continues to consist for the majority of the so-called men of our
time.

Men have in general never lived without an explanation of the
meaning of the life they live. Everywhere and at all times there
have appeared advanced, highly gifted men, prophets, as they are
called, who have explained to men this meaning and significance of
life, and at all times the men of the rank and file, who have no
strength to make this meaning clear to themselves, have followed
that explanation of life which their prophets revealed to them.

This meaning was eighteen hundred years ago simply, lucidly,
indubitably, and joyously explained by Christianity, as is proved by
the life of all those who have accepted this meaning and follow that
guide of life which follows from this meaning.

But there appeared men who interpreted this meaning in such a way
that it became nonsense. And people are in a dilemma,--whether
to recognize Christianity, as it is interpreted by Catholicism,
Lourdes, the Pope, the dogma of the seedless conception, and so
forth, or to live on, being guided by the instructions of Renan and
his like, that is, to live without any guidance and comprehension of
life, surrendering themselves to their lusts, so long as they are
strong, and to their habits, when the passions have subsided.

And the people, the people of the rank and file, choose one or the
other, sometimes both, at first libertinism, and then Catholicism.
And people continue to live thus for generations, shielding
themselves with different theories, which are not invented in order
to find out the truth, but in order to conceal it. And the people of
the rank and file, especially the dull ones among them, feel at ease.

But there are also other people,--there are but a few of them
and they are far between,--and such was Maupassant, who with
their own eyes see things as they are, see their meaning, see the
contradictions of life, which are hidden from others, and vividly
present to themselves that to which these contradictions must
inevitably lead them, and seek for their solutions in advance. They
seek for them everywhere except where they are to be found, in
Christianity, because Christianity seems to them to have outlived
its usefulness, to be obsolete and foolish and repellent by its
monstrosity. Trying in vain to arrive by themselves at these
solutions, they come to the conclusion that there are no solutions,
that the property of life consists in carrying within oneself these
unsolved contradictions. Having arrived at such a solution, these
people, if they are weak, unenergetic natures, make their peace
with such a senseless life, are even proud of their condition,
considering their lack of knowledge to be a desert, a sign of
culture; but if they are energetic, truthful, and talented natures,
such as was Maupassant, they cannot bear it and in one way or
another go out of this insipid life.

It is as though thirsty people in the desert should be looking
everywhere for water, except near those men who, standing near a
spring, pollute it and offer ill-smelling mud instead of water,
which still keeps on flowing farther down, below the mud. Maupassant
was in that position; he could not believe,--it even never occurred
to him that the truth which he was seeking had been discovered long
ago and was near him; nor could he believe that it was possible
for a man to live in a contradiction such as he felt himself to be
living in.

Life, according to those theories in which he was brought up, which
surrounded him, and which were verified by all the passions of his
youthful and spiritually and physically strong being, consists in
enjoyment, chief of which is woman and the love of her, and in the
doubly reflected enjoyment,--in the representation of this love
and the excitation of this love in others. All that would be very
well, but, as we look closely at these enjoyments, we see amidst
them appear phenomena which are quite alien and hostile to this love
and this beauty: woman for some reason grows homely, looks horrid
in her pregnancy, bears a child in nastiness, then more children,
unwished-for children, then deceptions, cruelties, then moral
sufferings, then simply old age, and finally death.

And then, is this beauty really beauty? And then, what is it all
for? It would be nice, if it were possible to arrest life. But it
goes on. What does it mean,--life goes on? Life goes on, means,--the
hair falls out and grows gray, the teeth decay, there appear
wrinkles, and there is an odour in the mouth. Even before everything
ends, everything becomes terrible and disgusting: you perceive the
pasty paint and powder, the sweat, the stench, the homeliness. Where
is that which I served? Where is beauty? And it is all. If it is
not,--there is nothing. There is no life.

Not only is there no life in what seemed to have life, but you, too,
begin to get away from it, to grow feeble, to look homely, to decay,
while others before your very eyes seize from you those pleasures
in which was the whole good of life. More than that: there begins
to glint the possibility of another life, something else, some
other union of men with the whole world, such as excludes all those
deceptions, something else, something that cannot be impaired by
anything, that is true and always beautiful. But that cannot be,--it
is only the provoking sight of an oasis, when we know that it is not
there and that everything is sand.

Maupassant lived down to that tragic moment of life, when there
began the struggle between the lie of the life which surrounded him,
and the truth which he was beginning to see. He already had symptoms
of spiritual birth.

It is these labours of birth that are expressed in his best
productions, especially in his short stories.

If it had been his fate not to die in the labour of birth, but to be
born, he would have given great, instructive productions, but even
what he gave us during the process of his birth is much. Let us be
grateful to this strong, truthful man for what he gave us.

_Vorónezh, April 2, 1894._


THE END.


       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been
retained except in obvious cases of typographical error.

Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the
original text.

The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not match
the page number in the List of Illustrations.

Page 290: The transcriber has removed "were" from "But since there
were was more than one woman in each house".





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