The Kingdom of God Is Within You - Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best non fiction books of all time txt) 📗

one another at his command. And so they flogged one

another until a simpleton was found who would not allow himself to

be flogged, and shouted to his companions not to flog one another.

Only then the fogging ceased, and the police officer made his

escape. Well, this simpleton’s advice would never be followed by

men of the state conception of life, who continue to flog one

another, and teach people that this very act of self-castigation

is the last word of human wisdom.

 

Indeed, can one imagine a more striking instance of men flogging

themselves than the submissiveness with which men of our times

will perform the very duties required of them to keep them in

slavery, especially the duty of military service? We see people

enslaving themselves, suffering from this slavery, and believing

that it must be so, that it does not matter, and will not hinder

the emancipation of men, which is being prepared somewhere,

somehow, in spite of the ever-increasing growth of slavery.

 

In fact, take any man of the present time whatever (I don’t mean a

true Christian, but an average man of the present day), educated

or uneducated, believing or unbelieving, rich or poor, married or

unmarried. Such a man lives working at his work, or enjoying his

amusements, spending the fruits of his labors on himself or on

those near to him, and, like everyone, hating every kind of

restriction and deprivation, dissension and suffering. Such a man

is going his way peaceably, when suddenly people come and say to

him: First, promise and swear to us that you will slavishly obey

us in everything we dictate to you, and will consider absolutely

good and authoritative everything we plan, decide, and call law.

Secondly, hand over a part of the fruits of your labors for us to

dispose of—we will use the money to keep you in slavery, and to

hinder you from forcibly opposing our orders. Thirdly, elect

others, or be yourself elected, to take a pretended share in the

government, knowing all the while that the government will proceed

quite without regard to the foolish speeches you, and those like

you, may utter, and knowing that its proceedings will be according

to our will, the will of those who have the army in their hands.

Fourthly, come at a certain time to the law courts and take your

share in those senseless cruelties which we perpetrate on sinners,

and those whom we have corrupted, in the shape of penal servitude,

exile, solitary confinement, and death. And fifthly and lastly,

more than all this, in spite of the fact that you maybe on the

friendliest terms with people of other nations, be ready, directly

we order you to do so, to regard those whom we indicate to you as

your enemies; and be ready to assist, either in person or by

proxy, in devastation, plunder, and murder of their men, women,

children, and aged alike—possibly your own kinsmen or relations—

if that is necessary to us.

 

One would expect that every man of the present day who has a grain

of sense left, might reply to such requirements, “But why should I

do all this?” One would think every right-minded man must say in

amazement: “Why should I promise to yield obedience to everything

that has been decreed first by Salisbury, then by Gladstone; one

day by Boulanger, and another by Parliament; one day by Peter

III., the next by Catherine, and the day after by Pougachef; one

day by a mad king of Bavaria, another by William? Why should I

promise to obey them, knowing them to be wicked or foolish people,

or else not knowing them at all? Why am I to hand over the fruits

of my labors to them in the shape of taxes, knowing that the money

will be spent on the support of officials, prisons, churches,

armies, on things that are harmful, and on my own enslavement?

Why should I punish myself? Why should I go wasting my time and

hoodwinking myself, giving to miscreant evildoers a semblance of

legality, by taking part in elections, and pretending that I am

taking part in the government, when I know very well that the real

control of the government is in the hands of those who have got

hold of the army? Why should I go to the law courts to take part

in the trial and punishment of men because they have sinned,

knowing, if I am a Christian, that the law of vengeance is replaced

by the law of love, and, if I am an educated man, that punishments

do not reform, but only deprave those on whom they are inflicted?

And why, most of all, am I to consider as enemies the people of a

neighboring nation, with whom I have hitherto lived and with whom

I wish to live in love and harmony, and to kill and rob them, or

to bring them to misery, simply in order that the keys of the

temple at Jerusalem may be in the hands of one archbishop and not

another, that one German and not another may be prince in

Bulgaria, or that the English rather than the American merchants

may capture seals?

 

And why, most of all, should I take part in person or hire others

to murder my own brothers and kinsmen? Why should I flog myself?

It is altogether unnecessary for me; it is hurtful to me, and from

every point of view it is immoral, base, and vile. So why should

I do this? If you tell me that if I do it not I shall receive

some injury from someone, then, in the first place, I cannot

anticipate from anyone an injury so great as the injury you bring

on me if I obey you; and secondly, it is perfectly clear to me

that if we our own selves do not flog ourselves, no one will flog

us.

 

As for the government—that means the tzars, ministers, and

officials with pens in their hands, who cannot force us into doing

anything, as that officer of police compelled the peasants; the

men who will drag us to the law court, to prison, and to

execution, are not tzars or officials with pens in their hands,

but the very people who are in the same position as we are. And

it is just as unprofitable and harmful and unpleasant to them to

be flogged as to me, and therefore there is every likelihood that

if I open their eyes they not only would not treat me with

violence, but would do just as I am doing.

 

Thirdly, even if it should come to pass that I had to suffer for

it, even then it would be better for me to be exiled or sent to

prison for standing up for common sense and right—which, if not

to-day, at least within a very short time, must be triumphant—

than to suffer for folly and wrong which must come to an end

directly. And therefore, even in that case, it is better to run

the risk of their banishing me, shutting me up in prison, or

executing me, than of my living all my life in bondage, through my

own fault, to wicked men. Better is this than the possibility of

being destroyed by victorious enemies, and being stupidly tortured

and killed by them, in fighting for a cannon, or a piece of land

of no use to anyone, or for a senseless rag called a banner.

 

I don’t want to flog myself and I won’t do it. I have no reason

to do it. Do it yourselves, if you want it done; but I won’t do

it.

 

One would have thought that not religious or moral feeling alone,

but the simplest common sense and foresight should impel every man

of the present day to answer and to act in that way. But not so.

Men of the state conception of life are of the opinion that to act

in that way is not necessary, and is even prejudicial to the

attainment of their object, the emancipation of men from slavery.

They hold that we must continue, like the police officer’s

peasants, to flog one another, consoling ourselves with the

reflection that we are talking away in the assemblies and

meetings, founding trades unions, marching through the streets on

the 1st of May, getting up conspiracies, and stealthily teasing

the government that is flogging us, and that through all this it

will be brought to pass that, by enslaving ourselves in closer and

closer bondage, we shall very soon be free.

 

Nothing hinders the emancipation of men from slavery so much as

this amazing error. Instead of every man directing his energies

to freeing himself, to transforming his conception of life, people

seek for an external united method of gaining freedom, and

continue to rivet their chains faster and faster.

 

It is much as if men were to maintain that to make up a fire there

was no need to kindle any of the coals, but that all that was

necessary was to arrange the coals in a certain order. Yet the

fact that the freedom of all men will be brought about only

through the freedom of individual persons, becomes more and more

clear as time goes on. The freedom of individual men, in the name

of the Christian conception of life, from state domination, which

was formerly an exceptional and unnoticed phenomenon, has of late

acquired threatening significance for state authorities.

 

If in a former age, in the Roman times, it happened that a

Christian confessed his religion and refused to take part in

sacrifices, and to worship the emperors or the gods; or in the

Middle Ages a Christian refused to worship images, or to

acknowledge the authority of the Pope—these cases were in the

first place a matter of chance. A man might be placed under the

necessity of confessing his faith, or he might live all his life

without being placed under this necessity. But now all men,

without exception, are subjected to this trial of their faith.

Every man of the present day is under the necessity of taking part

in the cruelties of pagan life, or of refusing all participation

in them. And secondly, in those days cases of refusal to worship

the gods or the images or the Pope were not incidents that had any

material bearing on the state. Whether men worshiped or did not

worship the gods or the images or the Pope, the state remained

just as powerful. But now cases of refusing to comply with the

unchristian demands of the government are striking at the very

root of state authority, because the whole authority of the state

is based on the compliance with these unchristian demands.

 

The sovereign powers of the world have in the course of time been

brought into a position in which, for their own preservation, they

must require from all men actions which cannot be performed by men

who profess true Christianity.

 

And therefore in our days every profession of true Christianity,

by any individual man, strikes at the most essential power of the

state, and inevitably leads the way for the emancipation of all.

 

What importance, one might think, can one attach to such an

incident as some dozens of crazy fellows, as people will call

them, refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the government,

refusing to pay taxes, to take part in law proceedings or in

military service?

 

These people are punished and exiled to a distance, and life goes

on in its old way. One might think there was no importance in

such incidents; but yet, it is just those incidents, more than

anything else, that will undermine the power of the state and

prepare the way for the freedom of