The Kingdom of God Is Within You - Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best non fiction books of all time txt) 📗
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dulling their sensibilities, half of mankind would shoot
themselves without delay, for to live in opposition to one’s
reason is the most intolerable condition. And that is the
condition of all men of the present day. All men of the modern
world exist in a state of continual and flagrant antagonism
between their conscience and their way of life. This antagonism
is apparent in economic as well as political life. But most
striking of all is the contradiction between the Christian law of
the brotherhood of men existing in the conscience and the
necessity under which all men are placed by compulsory military
service of being prepared for hatred and murder—of being at the
same time a Christian and a gladiator.
CHAPTER VI.
ATTITUDE OF MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY TO WAR.
People do not Try to Remove the Contradiction between Life and
Conscience by a Change of Life, but their Cultivated Leaders Exert
Every Effort to Obscure the Demands of Conscience, and justify
their Life; in this Way they Degrade Society below Paganism to a
State of Primeval Barbarism—Undefined Attitude of Modern Leaders
of Thought to War, to Universal Militarism, and to Compulsory
Service in Army—One Section Regards War as an Accidental
Political Phenomenon, to be Avoided by External Measures only—
Peace Congress—The Article in the REVUE DES REVUES—Proposition
of Maxime du Camp—Value of Boards of Arbitration and Suppression
of Armies—Attitude of Governments to Men of this Opinion and What
they Do—Another Section Regards War as Cruel, but Inevitable—
Maupassant—Rod—A Third Section Regard War as Necessary, and not
without its Advantages—Doucet-Claretie-Zola-Vog��.
The antagonism between life and the conscience may be removed in
two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience. And
there would seem there can be no doubt as to these alternatives.
A man may cease to do what he regards as wrong, but he cannot
cease to consider wrong what is wrong. Just in the same way all
humanity may cease to do what it regards as wrong, but far from
being able to change, it cannot even retard for a time the
continual growth of a clearer recognition of what is wrong and
therefore ought not to be. And therefore it would seem inevitable
for Christian men to abandon the pagan forms of society which they
condemn, and to reconstruct their social existence on the
Christian principles they profess.
So it would be were it not for the law of inertia, as immutable a
force in men and nations as in inanimate bodies. In men it takes
the form of the psychological principle, so truly expressed in the
words of the Gospel, “They have loved darkness better than light
because their deeds were evil.” This principle shows itself in
men not trying to recognize the truth, but to persuade themselves
that the life they are leading, which is what they like and are
used to, is a life perfectly consistent with truth.
Slavery was opposed to all the moral principles advocated by Plato
and Aristotle, yet neither of them saw that, because to renounce
slavery would have meant the break up of the life they were
living. We see the same thing in our modern world.
The division of men into two castes, as well as the use of force
in government and war, are opposed to every moral principle
professed by our modern society. Yet the cultivated and advanced
men of the day seem not to see it.
The majority, if not all, of the cultivated men of our day try
unconsciously to maintain the old social conception of life, which
justifies their position, and to hide from themselves and others
its insufficiency, and above all the necessity of adopting the
Christian conception of life, which will mean the break up of the
whole existing social order. They struggle to keep up the
organization based on the social conception of life, but do not
believe in it themselves, because it is extinct and it is
impossible to believe in it.
All modern literature—philosophical, political, and artistic—is
striking in this respect. What wealth of idea, of form, of color,
what erudition, what art, but what a lack of serious matter, what
dread of any exactitude of thought or expression! Subtleties,
allegories, humorous fancies, the widest generalizations, but
nothing simple and clear, nothing going straight to the point,
that is, to the problem of life.
But that is not all; besides these graceful frivolities, our
literature is full of simple nastiness and brutality, of arguments
which would lead men back in the most refined way to primeval
barbarism, to the principles not only of the pagan, but even of
the animal life, which we have left behind us five thousand years
ago.
And it could not be otherwise. In their dread of the Christian
conception of life which will destroy the social order, which some
cling to only from habit, others also from interest, men cannot
but be thrown back upon the pagan conception of life and the
principles based on it. Nowadays we see advocated not only
patriotism and aristocratic principles just as they were advocated
two thousand years ago, but even the coarsest epicureanism and
animalism, only with this difference, that the men who then
professed those views believed in them, while nowadays even the
advocates of such views do not believe in them, for they have no
meaning for the present day. No one can stand still when the
earth is shaking under his feet. If we do not go forward we must
go back. And strange and terrible to say, the cultivated men of
our day, the leaders of thought, are in reality with their subtle
reasoning drawing society back, not to paganism even, but to a
state of primitive barbarism.
This tendency on the part of the leading thinkers of the day is
nowhere more apparent than in their attitude to the phenomenon in
which all the insufficiency of the social conception of life is
presented in the most concentrated form—in their attitude, that
is, to war, to the general arming of nations, and to universal
compulsory service.
The undefined, if not disingenuous, attitude of modern thinkers to
this phenomenon is striking. It takes three forms in cultivated
society. One section look at it as an incidental phenomenon,
arising out of the special political situation of Europe, and
consider that this state of things can be reformed without a
revolution in the whole internal social order of nations, by
external measures of international diplomacy. Another section
regard it as something cruel and hideous, but at the same time
fated and inevitable, like disease and death. A third party with
cool indifference consider war as an inevitable phenomenon,
beneficial in its effects and therefore desirable.
Men look at the subject from different points of view, but all
alike talk of war as though it were something absolutely
independent of the will of those who take part in it. And
consequently they do not even admit the natural question which
presents itself to every simple man: “How about me—ought I to
take any part in it?” In their view no question of this kind even
exists, and every man, however he may regard war from a personal
standpoint, must slavishly submit to the requirements of the
authorities on the subject.
The attitude of the first section of thinkers, those who see a way
out of war in international diplomatic measures, is well expressed
in the report of the last Peace Congress in London, and the
articles and letters upon war that appeared in No. 8 of the REVUE
DES REVUES, 1891. The congress after gathering together from
various quarters the verbal and written opinion of learned men
opened the proceedings by a religious service, and after listening
to addresses for five whole days, concluded them by a public
dinner and speeches. They adopted the following resolutions:
“1. The congress affirms its belief that the brotherhood of man
involves as a necessary consequence a brotherhood of nations.
“2. The congress recognizes the important influence that
Christianity exercises on the moral and political progress of
mankind, and earnestly urges upon ministers of the Gospel and
other religious teachers the duty of setting forth the
principles of peace and good will toward men. AND IT RECOMMENDS
THAT THE THIRD SUNDAY IN DECEMBER BE SET APART FOR THA
PURPOSE.
“3. The congress expresses the 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 for most inadequate causes.
“4. The congress protests against the use of military drill in
schools by way of physical exercise, and suggests the formation
of brigades for saving life rather than of a quasi-military
character; and urges the desirability of impressing on the
Board of Examiners who formulate the questions for examination
the propriety of guiding the minds of children in the
principles of peace.
“5. The congress holds that the doctrine of the Rights of Man
requires that the aboriginal and weaker races, their
territories and liberties, shall be guarded from injustice and
fraud, and that these races shall be shielded against the vices
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 expresses its hearty appreciation of the
resolutions of the Anti-slavery Conference held recently at
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
often indirect causes of war, and that these evils should be
counteracted by the publication of accurate information tending
to the removal of misunderstanding between nations, and
recommends the importance of considering the question of
commencing an international newspaper with such a purpose.
“7. The congress proposes to the Inter-parliamentary Conference
that the utmost support should be given to every project for
unification of weights and measures, coinage, tariff, postage,
and telegraphic arrangements, etc., which would assist in
constituting a commercial, industrial, and scientific union of
the peoples.
“8. The congress, in view of the vast social and moral
influence of woman, urges upon every woman to sustain the
things that make for peace, as otherwise she incurs grave
responsibility for the continuance of the systems of
militarism.
“9. The congress expresses the hope that the Financial Reform
Association and other similar societies in Europe and America
should unite in considering means for 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 awaits with impatience the
suppression of armaments, which, under the plea of defense,
become in their turn a danger by keeping alive mutual distrust,
and are, at the same time, the cause of that general economic
disturbance which stands in the way of settling in a
satisfactory manner the problems of labor and poverty, which
ought to 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
of the questions which now most 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 effecting a gradual general disarmament.
“11. The congress, in consideration of the fact that the
timidity of a single power might delay the convocation of the
above-mentioned congress, is of opinion that the government
which should first dismiss any considerable number
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