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

in Russia the death

penalty cannot be carried out for want of executioners. And in

spite of all the advantages bestowed on these men, who are

selected from convicts, there is a constantly diminishing number

of volunteers for the post. Governors, police officials, tax

collectors often have compassion on the people and try to find

pretexts for not collecting the tax from them. The rich are not

at ease in spending their wealth only on themselves, and lavish

it on works of public utility. Landowners build schools and

hospitals on their property, and some even give up the ownership

of their land and transfer it to the cultivators, or establish

communities upon it. Millowners and manufacturers build

hospitals, schools, savings banks, asylums, and dwellings for

their workpeople. Some of them form co-operative associations in

which they have shares on the same terms as the others.

Capitalists expend a part of their capital on educational,

artistic, philanthropic, and other public institutions. And many,

who are not equal to parting with their wealth in their lifetime,

leave it in their wills to public institutions.

 

All these phenomena might seem to be mere exceptions, except that

they can all be referred to one common cause. Just as one might

fancy the first leaves on the budding trees in April were

exceptional if we did not know that they all have a common cause,

the spring, and that if we see the branches on some trees shooting

and turning green, it is certain that it will soon be so with all.

 

So it is with the manifestation of the Christian standard of

opinion on force and all that is based on force. If this standard

already influences some, the most impressionable, and impels each

in his own sphere to abandon advantages based on the use of force,

then its influence will extend further and further till it

transforms the whole order of men’s actions and puts it into

accord with the Christian ideal which is already a living force in

the vanguard of humanity.

 

And if there are now rulers, who do not decide on any step on

their own authority, who try to be as unlike monarchs, and as like

plain mortals as possible, who state their readiness to give up

their prerogatives and become simply the first citizens of a

republic; if there are already soldiers who realize all the sin

and harm of war, and are not willing to fire on men either of

their own or a foreign country; judges and prosecutors who do not

like to try and to condemn criminals; priests, who abjure

deception; tax-gatherers who try to perform as little as they can

of their duties, and rich men renouncing their wealth—then the

same thing will inevitably happen to other rulers, other soldiers,

other judges, priests, tax-gatherers, and rich men. And when

there are no longer men willing to fill these offices, these

offices themselves will disappear too.

 

But this is not the only way in which public opinion is leading

men to the abolition of the prevailing order and the substitution

of a new order. As the positions based on the rule of force

become less attractive and fewer men are found willing to fill

them, the more will their uselessness be apparent.

 

Everywhere throughout the Christian world the same rulers, and the

same governments, the same armies, the same law courts, the same

tax-gatherers, the same priests, the same rich men, landowners,

manufacturers, and capitalists, as ever, but the attitude of the

world to them, and their attitude to themselves is altogether

changed.

 

The same sovereigns have still the same audiences and interviews,

hunts and banquets, and balls and uniforms; there are the same

diplomats and the same deliberations on alliances and wars; there

are still the same parliaments, with the same debates on the

Eastern question and Africa, on treaties and violations of

treaties, and Home Rule and the eight-hour day; and one set of

ministers replacing another in the same way, and the same speeches

and the same incidents. But for men who observe how one newspaper

article has more effect on the position of affairs than dozens of

royal audiences or parliamentary sessions, it becomes more and

more evident that these audiences and interviews and debates in

parliaments do not direct the course of affairs, but something

independent of all that, which cannot be concentrated in one

place.

 

The same generals and officers and soldiers, and cannons and

fortresses, and reviews and maneuvers, but no war breaks out. One

year, ten, twenty years pass by. And it becomes less and less

possible to rely on the army for the pacification of riots, and

more and more evident, consequently, that generals, and officers,

and soldiers are only figures in solemn processions—objects of

amusement for governments—a sort of immense—and far too

expensive—CORPS DE BALLET.

 

The same lawyers and judges, and the same assizes, but it becomes

more and more evident that the civil courts decide cases on the

most diverse grounds, but regardless of justice, and that criminal

trials are quite senseless, because the punishments do not attain

the objects aimed at by the judges themselves. These institutions

therefore serve no other purpose than to provide a means of

livelihood for men who are not capable of doing anything more

useful.

 

The same priests and archbishops and churches and synods, but it

becomes more and more evident that they have long ago ceased to

believe in what they preach, and therefore they can convince no

one of the necessity of believing what they don’t believe

themselves.

 

The same tax collectors, but they are less and less capable of

taking men’s property from them by force, and it becomes more and

more evident that people can collect all that is necessary by

voluntary subscription without their aid.

 

The same rich men, but it becomes more and more evident that they

can only be of use by ceasing to administer their property in

person and giving up to society the whole or at least a part of

their wealth.

 

And when all this has become absolutely evident to everyone, it

will be natural for men to ask themselves: “But why should we keep

and maintain all these kings, emperors, presidents, and members of

all sorts of senates and ministries, since nothing comes of all

their debates and audiences? Wouldn’t it be better, as some

humorist suggested, to make a queen of india-rubber?”

 

And what good to us are these armies with their generals and bands

and horses and drums? And what need is there of them when there

is no war, and no one wants to make war? and if there were a war,

other nations would not let us gain any advantage from it; while

the soldiers refuse to fire on their fellow-countrymen.

 

And what is the use of these lawyers and judges who don’t decide

civil cases with justice and recognize themselves the uselessness

of punishments in criminal cases?

 

And what is the use of tax collectors who collect the taxes

unwillingly, when it is easy to raise all that is wanted without

them?

 

What is the use of the clergy, who don’t believe in what they

preach?

 

And what is the use of capital in the hands of private persons,

when it can only be of use as the property of all?

 

And when once people have asked themselves these questions they

cannot help coming to some decision and ceasing to support all

these institutions which are no longer of use.

 

But even before those who support these institutions decide to

abolish them, the men who occupy these positions will be reduced

to the necessity of throwing them up.

 

Public opinion more and more condemns the use of force, and

therefore men are less and less willing to fill positions which

rest on the use of force, and if they do occupy them, are less and

less able to make use of force in them. And hence they must become

more and more superfluous.

 

I once took part in Moscow in a religious meeting which used to

take place generally in the week after Easter near the church in

the Ohotny Row. A little knot of some twenty men were collected

together on the pavement, engaged in serious religious discussion.

At the same time there was a kind of concert going on in the

buildings of the Court Club in the same street, and a police

officer noticing the little group collected near the church sent a

mounted policeman to disperse it. It was absolutely unnecessary

for the officer to disperse it. A group of twenty men was no

obstruction to anyone, but he had been standing there the whole

morning, and he wanted to do something. The policeman, a young

fellow, with a resolute flourish of his right arm and a clink of

his saber, came up to us and commanded us severely: “Move on!

what’s this meeting about?” Everyone looked at the policeman, and

one of the speakers, a quiet man in a peasant’s dress, answered

with a calm and gracious air, “We are speaking of serious matters,

and there is no need for us to move on; you would do better, young

man, to get off your horse and listen. It might do you good”;

and turning round he continued his discourse. The policeman

turned his horse and went off without a word.

 

That is just what should be done in all cases of violence.

 

The officer was bored, he had nothing to do. He had been put,

poor fellow, in a position in which he had no choice but to give

orders. He was shut off from all human existence; he could do

nothing but superintend and give orders, and give orders and

superintend, though his superintendence and his orders served no

useful purpose whatever. And this is the position in which all

these unlucky rulers, ministers, members of parliament, governors,

generals, officers, archbishops, priests, and even rich men find

themselves to some extent already, and will find themselves

altogether as time goes on. They can do nothing but give orders,

and they give orders and send their messengers, as the officer

sent the policeman, to interfere with people. And because the

people they hinder turn to them and request them not to interfere,

they fancy they are very useful indeed.

 

But the time will come and is coming when it will be perfectly

evident to everyone that they are not of any use at all, and only

a hindrance, and those whom they interfere with will say gently

and quietly to them, like my friend in the street meeting, “Pray

don’t interfere with us.” And all the messengers and those who

send them too will be obliged to follow this good advice, that is

to say, will leave off galloping about, with their arms akimbo,

interfering with people, and getting off their horses and removing

their spurs, will listen to what is being said, and mixing with

others, will take their place with them in some real human work.

 

The time will come and is inevitably coming when all institutions

based on force will disappear through their uselessness,

stupidity, and even inconvenience becoming obvious to all.

 

The time must come when the men of our modern world who fill

offices based upon violence will find themselves in the position

of the emperor in Andersen’s tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,”

when the child seeing the emperor undressed, cried in all

simplicity, “Look, he is naked!” And then all the rest, who had

seen him and said nothing, could not help recognizing it too.

 

The story is that there was once an emperor, very fond of new

clothes. And to him came two tailors, who promised to make him

some extraordinary clothes.