CONTRADICTION BETWEEN OUR LIFE AND OUR CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE.
Men Think they can Accept Christianity without Altering their
Life--Pagan Conception of Life does not Correspond with Present Stage of
Development of Humanity, and Christian Conception Alone Can Accord with
it--Christian Conception of Life not yet Understood by Men, but the
Progress of Life itself will Lead them Inevitably to Adopt it--The
Requirements of a New Theory of Life Always Seem Incomprehensible,
Mystic, and Supernatural--So Seem the Requirements of the Christian
Theory of Life to the Majority of Men--The Absorption of the Christian
Conception of Life will Inevitably be Brought About as the Result of
Material and Spiritual Causes--The Fact of Men Knowing the Requirements
of the Higher View of Life, and yet Continuing to Preserve Inferior
Organizations of Life, Leads to Contradictions and Sufferings which
Embitter Existence and Must Result in its Transformation--The
Contradictions of our Life--The Economic Contradiction and the Suffering
Induced by it for Rich and Poor Alike--The Political Contradiction and
the Sufferings Induced by Obedience to the Laws of the State--The
International Contradiction and the Recognition of it by Contemporaries:
Komarovsky, Ferri, Booth, Passy, Lawson, Wilson, Bartlett, Defourney,
Moneta--The Striking Character of the Military Contradiction.
There are many reasons why Christ's teaching is not understood.
One reason is that people suppose they have understood it when
they have decided, as the Churchmen do, that it was revealed by
supernatural means, or when they have studied, as the scientific
men do, the external forms in which it has been manifested.
Another reason is the mistaken notion that it is impracticable,
and ought to be replaced by the doctrine of love for humanity.
But the principal reason, which is the source of all the other
mistaken ideas about it, is the notion that Christianity is a
doctrine which can be accepted or rejected without any change of
life.
Men who are used to the existing order of things, who like it and
dread its being changed, try to take the doctrine as a collection
of revelations and rules which one can accept without their
modifying one's life. While Christ's teaching is not only a
doctrine which gives rules which a man must follow, it unfolds a
new meaning in life, and defines a whole world of human activity
quite different from all that has preceded it and appropriate to
the period on which man is entering.
The life of humanity changes and advances, like the life of the
individual, by stages, and every stage has a theory of life
appropriate to it, which is inevitably absorbed by men. Those who
do not absorb it consciously, absorb it unconsciously. It is the
same with the changes in the beliefs of peoples and of all
humanity as it is with the changes of belief of individuals. If
the father of a family continues to be guided in his conduct by
his childish conceptions of life, life becomes so difficult for
him that he involuntarily seeks another philosophy and readily
absorbs that which is appropriate to his age.
That is just what is happening now to humanity at this time of
transition through which we are passing, from the pagan conception
of life to the Christian. The socialized man of the present day
is brought by experience of life itself to the necessity of
abandoning the pagan conception of life, which is inappropriate to
the present stage of humanity, and of submitting to the obligation
of the Christian doctrines, the truths of which, however corrupt
and misinterpreted, are still known to him, and alone offer him a
solution of the contradictions surrounding him.
If the requirements of the Christian doctrine seem strange and
even alarming to the man of the social theory of life, no less
strange, incomprehensible, and alarming to the savage of ancient
times seemed the requirements of the social doctrine when it was
not fully understood and could not be foreseen in its results.
"It is unreasonable," said the savage, "to sacrifice my peace of
mind or my life in defense of something incomprehensible,
impalpable, and conventional--family, tribe, or nation; and above
all it is unsafe to put oneself at the disposal of the power of
others."
But the time came when the savage, on one hand, felt, though
vaguely, the value of the social conception of life, and of its
chief motor power, social censure, or social approbation--glory,
and when, on the other hand, the difficulties of his personal life
became so great that he could not continue to believe in the value
of his old theory of life. Then he accepted the social, state
theory of life and submitted to it.
That is just what the man of the social theory of life is passing
through now.
"It is unreasonable," says the socialized man, "to sacrifice my
welfare and that of my family and my country in order to fulfill
some higher law, which requires me to renounce my most natural and
virtuous feelings of love of self, of family, of kindred, and of
country; and above all, it is unsafe to part with the security of
life afforded by the organization of government."
But the time is coming when, on one hand, the vague consciousness
in his soul of the higher law, of love to God and his neighbor,
and, on the other hand, the suffering, resulting from the
contradictions of life, will force the man to reject the social
theory and to assimilate the new one prepared ready for him, which
solves all the contradictions and removes all his sufferings--the
Christian theory of life. And this time has now come.
We, who thousands of years ago passed through the transition, from
the personal, animal view of life to the socialized view, imagine
that that transition was an inevitable and natural one; but this
transition through which we have been passing for the last eighteen
hundred years seems arbitrary, unnatural, and alarming. But we
only fancy this because that first transition has been so fully
completed that the practice attained by it has become unconscious
and instinctive in us, while the present transition is not yet
over and we have to complete it consciously.
It took ages, thousands of years, for the social conception of
life to permeate men's consciousness. It went through various
forms and has now passed into the region of the instinctive
through inheritance, education, and habit. And therefore it seems
natural to us. But five thousand years ago it seemed as unnatural
and alarming to men as the Christian doctrine in its true sense
seems to-day.
We think to-day that the requirements of the Christian doctrine--of
universal brotherhood, suppression of national distinctions, abolition
of private property, and the strange injunction of non-resistance to
evil by force--demand what is impossible. But it was just the same
thousands of years ago, with every social or even family duty, such as
the duty of parents to support their children, of the young to maintain
the old, of fidelity in marriage. Still more strange, and even
unreasonable, seemed the state duties of submitting to the appointed
authority, and paying taxes, and fighting in defense of the country, and
so on. All such requirements seem simple, comprehensible, and natural to
us to-day, and we see nothing mysterious or alarming in them. But three
or five thousand years ago they seemed to require what was impossible.
The social conception of life served as the basis of religion
because at the time when it was first presented to men it seemed
to them absolutely incomprehensible, mystic, and supernatural.
Now that we have outlived that phase of the life of humanity, we
understand the rational grounds for uniting men in families,
communities, and states. But in antiquity the duties involved by
such association were presented under cover of the supernatural
and were confirmed by it.
The patriarchal religions exalted the family, the tribe, the
nation. State religions deified emperors and states. Even now
most ignorant people--like our peasants, who call the Tzar an
earthly god--obey state laws, not through any rational recognition
of their necessity, nor because they have any conception of the
meaning of state, but through a religious sentiment.
In precisely the same way the Christian doctrine is presented to
men of the social or heathen theory of life to-day, in the guise
of a supernatural religion, though there is in reality nothing
mysterious, mystic, or supernatural about it. It is simply the
theory of life which is appropriate to the present degree of
material development, the present stage of growth of humanity, and
which must therefore inevitably be accepted.
The time will come--it is already coming--when the Christian principles
of equality and fraternity, community of property, non-resistance of
evil by force, will appear just as natural and simple as the principles
of family or social life seem to us now.
Humanity can no more go backward in its development than the
individual man. Men have outlived the social, family, and state
conceptions of life. Now they must go forward and assimilate the
next and higher conception of life, which is what is now taking
place. This change is brought about in two ways: consciously
through spiritual causes, and unconsciously through material
causes.
Just as the individual man very rarely changes his way of life at
the dictates of his reason alone, but generally continues to live
as before, in spite of the new interests and aims revealed to him
by his reason, and only alters his way of living when it has
become absolutely opposed to his conscience, and consequently
intolerable to him; so, too, humanity, long after it has learnt
through its religions the new interests and aims of life, toward
which it must strive, continues in the majority of its
representatives to live as before, and is only brought to accept
the new conception by finding it impossible to go on living its
old life as before.
Though the need of a change of life is preached by the religious
leaders and recognized and realized by the most intelligent men,
the majority, in spite of their reverential attitude to their
leaders, that is, their faith in their teaching, continue to be
guided by the old theory of life in their present complex
existence. As though the father of a family, knowing how he ought
to behave at his age, should yet continue through habit and
thoughtlessness to live in the same childish way as he did in
boyhood.
That is just what is happening in the transition of humanity from
one stage to another, through which we are passing now. Humanity
has outgrown its social stage and has entered upon a new period.
It recognizes the doctrine which ought to be made the basis of
life in this new period. But through inertia it continues to keep
up the old forms of life. From this inconsistency between the new
conception of life and practical life follows a whole succession
of contradictions and sufferings which embitter our life and
necessitate its alteration.
One need only compare the practice of life with the theory of it,
to be dismayed at the glaring antagonism between our conditions of
life and our conscience.
Our whole life is in flat contradiction with all we know, and with
all we regard as necessary and right. This contradiction runs
through everything, in economic life, in political life, and in
international life. As though we had forgotten what we knew and
put away for a time the principles we believe in (we cannot help
still believing in them because they are the only foundation we
have to base our life on) we do the very opposite of all that our
conscience and our common sense require of us.
We are guided in economical, political, and international
questions by the principles which were appropriate to men of three
or five thousand years ago, though they are directly opposed to
our conscience and the conditions of life in which we are placed
to-day.
It was very well for the man of ancient times to live in a society
based on the division of mankind into masters and slaves, because
he believed that such a distinction was decreed by God and must
always exist. But is such a belief possible in these days?
The man of antiquity could believe he had the right to enjoy the
good things of this world at the expense of other men, and to keep
them in misery for generations, since he believed that men came
from different origins, were base or noble in blood, children of
Ham or of Japhet. The greatest sages of the world, the teachers
of humanity, Plato and Aristotle, justified the existence of
slaves and demonstrated the lawfulness of slavery; and even three
centuries ago, the men who described an imaginary society of the
future, Utopia, could not conceive of it without slaves.
Men of ancient and medieval times believed, firmly believed, that
men are not equal, that the only true men are Persians, or Greeks,
or Romans, or Franks. But we cannot believe that now. And people
who sacrifice themselves for the principles of aristocracy and of
patriotism to-duty, don't believe and can't believe what they
assert.
We all know and cannot help knowing--even though we may never have
heard the idea clearly expressed, may never have read of it, and
may never have put it into words, still through unconsciously
imbibing the Christian sentiments that are in the air--with our
whole heart we know and cannot escape knowing the fundamental
truth of the Christian doctrine, that we are all sons of one
Father, wherever we may live and whatever language we may speak;
we are all brothers and are subject to the same law of love
implanted by our common Father in our hearts.
Whatever the opinions and degree of education of a man of to-day,
whatever his shade of liberalism, whatever his school of
philosophy, or of science, or of economics, however ignorant or
superstitious he may be, every man of the present day knows that
all men have an equal right to life and the good things of life,
and that one set of people are no better nor worse than another,
that all are equal. Everyone knows this, beyond doubt; everyone
feels it in his whole being. Yet at the same time everyone sees
all round him the division of men into two castes--the one,
laboring, oppressed, poor, and suffering, the other idle,
oppressing, luxurious, and profligate. And everyone not only sees
this, but voluntarily or involuntarily, in one way or another, he
takes part in maintaining this distinction which his conscience
condemns. And he cannot help suffering from the consciousness of
this contradiction and his share in it.
Whether he be master or slave, the man of to-day cannot help
constantly feeling the painful opposition between his conscience
and actual life, and the miseries resulting from it.
The toiling masses, the immense majority of mankind who are
suffering under the incessant, meaningless, and hopeless toil and
privation in which their whole life is swallowed up, still find
their keenest suffering in the glaring contrast between what is
and what ought to be, according to all the beliefs held by
themselves, and those who have brought them to that condition and
keep them in it.
They know that they are in slavery and condemned to privation and
darkness to minister to the lusts of the minority who keep them
down. They know it, and they say so plainly. And this knowledge
increases their sufferings and constitutes its bitterest sting.
The slave of antiquity knew that he was a slave by nature, but our
laborer, while he feels he is a slave, knows that he ought not to
be, and so he tastes the agony of Tantalus, forever desiring and
never gaining what might and ought to be his.
The sufferings of the working classes, springing from the
contradiction between what is and what ought to be, are increased
tenfold by the envy and hatred engendered by their consciousness
of it.
The laborer of the present day would not cease to suffer even if
his toil were much lighter than that of the slave of ancient
times, even if he gained an eight-hour working day and a wage of
three dollars a day. For he is working at the manufacture of
things which he will not enjoy, working not by his own will for
his own benefit, but through necessity, to satisfy the desires of
luxurious and idle people in general, and for the profit of a
single rich man, the owner of a factory or workshop in particular.
And he knows that all this is going on in a world in which it is a
recognized scientific principle that labor alone creates wealth,
and that to profit by the labor of others is immoral, dishonest,
and punishable by law; in a world, moreover, which professes to
believe Christ's doctrine that we are all brothers, and that true
merit and dignity is to be found in serving one's neighbor, not in
exploiting him. All this he knows, and he cannot but suffer
keenly from the sharp contrast between what is and what ought to
be.
"According to all principles, according to all I know, and what
everyone professes," the workman says to himself. "I ought to be
free, equal to everyone else, and loved; and I am--a slave,
humiliated and hated." And he too is filled with hatred and tries
to find means to escape from his position, to shake off the enemy
who is over-riding him, and to oppress him in turn. People say,
"Workmen have no business to try to become capitalists, the poor
to try to put themselves in the place of the rich." That is a
mistake. The workingmen and the poor would be wrong if they tried
to do so in a world in which slaves and masters were regarded as
different species created by God; but they are living in a world
which professes the faith of the Gospel, that all are alike sons
of God, and so brothers and equal. And however men may try to
conceal it, one of the first conditions of Christian life is love,
not in words but in deeds.
The man of the so-called educated classes lives in still more
glaring inconsistency and suffering. Every educated man, if he
believes in anything, believes in the brotherhood of all men, or
at least he has a sentiment of humanity, or else of justice, or
else he believes in science. And all the while he knows that his
whole life is framed on principles in direct opposition to it all,
to all the principles of Christianity, humanity, justice, and
science.
He knows that all the habits in which he has been brought up, and
which he could not give up without suffering, can only be
satisfied through the exhausting, often fatal, toil of oppressed
laborers, that is, through the most obvious and brutal violation
of the principles of Christianity, humanity, and justice, and even
of science (that is, economic science). He advocates the
principles of fraternity, humanity, justice, and science, and yet
he lives so that he is dependent on the oppression of the working
classes, which he denounces, and his whole life is based on the
advantages gained by their oppression. Moreover he is directing
every effort to maintaining this state of things so flatly opposed
to all his beliefs.
We are all brothers--and yet every morning a brother or a sister
must empty the bedroom slops for me. We are all brothers, but
every morning I must have a cigar, a sweetmeat, an ice, and such
things, which my brothers and sisters have been wasting their
health in manufacturing, and I enjoy these things and demand them.
We are all brothers, yet I live by working in a bank, or
mercantile house, or shop at making all goods dearer for my
brothers. We are all brothers, but I live on a salary paid me for
prosecuting, judging, and condemning the thief or the prostitute
whose existence the whole tenor of my life tends to bring about,
and who I know ought not to be punished but reformed. We are all
brothers, but I live on the salary I gain by collecting taxes from
needy laborers to be spent on the luxuries of the rich and idle.
We are all brothers, but I take a stipend for preaching a false
Christian religion, which I do not myself believe in, and which
only serve's to hinder men from understanding true Christianity.
I take a stipend as priest or bishop for deceiving men in the
matter of the greatest importance to them. We are all brothers,
but I will not give the poor the benefit of my educational,
medical, or literary labors except for money. We are all
brothers, yet I take a salary for being ready to commit murder,
for teaching men to murder, or making firearms, gunpowder, or
fortifications.
The whole life of the upper classes is a constant inconsistency.
The more delicate a man's conscience is, the more painful this
contradiction is to him.
A man of sensitive conscience cannot but suffer if he lives such a
life. The only means by which he can escape from this suffering
is by blunting his conscience, but even if some men succeed in
dulling their conscience they cannot dull their fears.
The men of the higher dominating classes whose conscience is
naturally not sensitive or has become blunted, if they don't
suffer through conscience, suffer from fear and hatred. They are
bound to suffer. They know all the hatred of them existing, and
inevitably existing in the working classes. They are aware that
the working classes know that they are deceived and exploited, and
that they are beginning to organize themselves to shake off
oppression and revenge themselves on their oppressors. The higher
classes see the unions, the strikes, the May Day Celebrations, and
feel the calamity that is threatening them, and their terror
passes into an instinct of self-defense and hatred. They know
that if for one instant they are worsted in the struggle with
their oppressed slaves, they will perish, because the slaves are
exasperated and their exasperation is growing more intense with
every day of oppression. The oppressors, even if they wished to
do so, could not make an end to oppression. They know that they
themselves will perish directly they even relax the harshness of
their oppression. And they do not relax it, in spite of all their
pretended care for the welfare of the working classes, for the
eight-hour day, for regulation of the labor of minors and of
women, for savings banks and pensions. All that is humbug, or
else simply anxiety to keep the slave fit to do his work. But the
slave is still a slave, and the master who cannot live without a
slave is less disposed to set him free than ever.
The attitude of the ruling classes to the laborers is that of a
man who has felled his adversary to the earth and holds him down,
not so much because he wants to hold him down, as because he knows
that if he let him go, even for a second, he would himself be
stabbed, for his adversary is infuriated and has a knife in his
hand. And therefore, whether their conscience is tender or the
reverse, our rich men cannot enjoy the wealth they have filched
from the poor as the ancients did who believed in their right to
it. Their whole life and all their enjoyments are embittered
either by the stings of conscience or by terror.
So much for the economic contradiction. The political
contradiction is even more striking.
All men are brought up to the habit of obeying the laws of the
state before everything. The whole existence of modern times is
defined by laws. A man marries and is divorced, educates his
children, and even (in many countries) professes his religious
faith in accordance with the law. What about the law then which
defines our whole existence? Do men believe in it? Do they
regard it as good? Not at all. In the majority of cases people
of the present time do not believe in the justice of the law, they
despise it, but still they obey it. It was very well for the
men of the ancient world to observe their laws. They firmly
believed that their law (it was generally of a religious
character) was the only just law, which everyone ought to obey.
But is it so with us? we know and cannot help knowing that the law
of our country is not the one eternal law; that it is only one of
the many laws of different countries, which are equally imperfect,
often obviously wrong and unjust, and are criticised from every
point of view in the newspapers. The Jew might well obey his
laws, since he had not the slightest doubt that God had written
them with his finger; the Roman too might well obey the laws which
he thought had been dictated by the nymph Egeria. Men might well
observe the laws if they believed the Tzars who made them were
God's anointed, or even if they thought they were the work of
assemblies of lawgivers who had the power and the desire to make
them as good as possible. But we all know how our laws are
made. We have all been behind the scenes, we know that they are
the product of covetousness, trickery, and party struggles; that
there is not and cannot be any real justice in them. And so
modern men cannot believe that obedience to civic or political
laws can satisfy the demands of the reason or of human nature.
Men have long ago recognized that it is irrational to obey a law
the justice of which is very doubtful, and so they cannot but
suffer in obeying a law which they do not accept as judicious and
binding.
A man cannot but suffer when his whole life is defined beforehand
for him by laws, which he must obey under threat of punishment,
though he does not believe in their wisdom or justice, and often
clearly perceives their injustice, cruelty, and artificiality.
We recognize the uselessness of customs and import duties, and are
obliged to pay them. We recognize the uselessness of the
expenditure on the maintenance of the Court and other members of
Government, and we regard the teaching of the Church as injurious,
but we are obliged to bear our share of the expenses of these
institutions. We regard the punishments inflicted by law as cruel
and shameless, but we must assist in supporting them. We regard
as unjust and pernicious the distribution of landed property, but
we are obliged to submit to it. We see no necessity for wars and
armies, but we must bear terribly heavy burdens in support of
troops and war expenses.
But this contradiction is nothing in comparison with the
contradiction which confronts us when we turn to international
questions, and which demands a solution, under pain of the loss of
the sanity and even the existence of the human race. That is the
contradiction between the Christian conscience and war.
We are all Christian nations living the same spiritual life, so that
every noble and pregnant thought, springing up at one end of the world,
is at once communicated to the whole of Christian humanity and evokes
everywhere the same emotion at pride and rejoicing without distinction
of nationalities. We who love thinkers, philanthropists, poets, and
scientific men of foreign origin, and are as proud of the exploits of
Father Damien as if he were one of ourselves, we, who have a simple love
for men of foreign nationalities, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans, and
Englishmen, who respect their qualities, are glad to meet them and make
them so warmly welcome, cannot regard war with them as anything heroic.
We cannot even imagine without horror the possibility of a disagreement
between these people and ourselves which would call for reciprocal
murder. Yet we are all bound to take a hand in this slaughter which is
bound to come to pass to-morrow not to-day.
It was very well for the Jew, the Greek, and the Roman to defend
the independence of his nation by murder. For he piously believed
that his people was the only true, fine, and good people dear to
God, and all the rest were Philistines, barbarians. Men of
medieval times--even up to the end of the last and beginning of
this century--might continue to hold this belief. But however
much we work upon ourselves we cannot believe it. And this
contradiction for men of the present day has become so full of
horror that without its solution life is no longer possible.
"We live in a time which is full of inconsistencies," writes Count
Komarovsky, the professor of international law, in his learned
treatise.
"The press of all countries is continually expressing the
universal desire for peace, and the general sense of its
necessity for all nations.
"Representatives of governments, private persons, and official
organs say the same thing; it is repeated in parliamentary
debates, diplomatic correspondence, and even in state treaties.
At the same time governments are increasing the strength of
their armies every year, levying fresh taxes, raising loans,
and leaving as a bequest to future generations the duty of
repairing the blunders of the senseless policy of the present.
What a striking contrast between words and deeds! Of course
governments will plead in justification of these measures that
all their expenditure and armament are exclusively for purposes
of defense. But it remains a mystery to every disinterested
man whence they can expect attacks if all the great powers are
single-hearted in their policy, in pursuing nothing but self
defense. In reality it looks as if each of the great powers
were every instant anticipating an attack on the part of the
others. And this results in a general feeling of insecurity
and superhuman efforts on the part of each government to
increase their forces beyond those of the other powers. Such a
competition of itself increases the danger of war. Nations
cannot endure the constant increase of armies for long, and
sooner or later they will prefer war to all the disadvantages
of their present position and the constant menace of war. Then
the most trifling pretext will be sufficient to throw the whole
of Europe into the fire of universal war. And it is a mistaken
idea that such a crisis might deliver us from the political and
economical troubles that are crushing us. The experience of
the wars of latter years teaches us that every war has only
intensified national hatreds, made military burdens more
crushing and insupportable, and rendered the political and
economical grievous and insoluble."
"Modern Europe keeps under arms an active army of nine millions of
men," writes Enrico Ferri,
"besides fifteen millions of reserve, with an outlay of four
hundred millions of francs per annum. By continual increase of
the armed force, the sources of social and individual
prosperity are paralyzed, and the state of the modern world may
be compared to that of a man who condemns himself to wasting
from lack of nutrition in order to provide himself with arms,
losing thereby the strength to use the arms he provides, under
the weight of which he will at last succumb."
Charles Booth, in his paper read in London before the Association
for the Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations, June 26,
1887, says the same thing. After referring to the same number,
nine millions of the active army and fifteen millions of reserve,
and the enormous expenditure of governments on the support and
arming of these forces, he says:
"These figures represent only a small part of the real cost,
because besides the recognized expenditure of the war budget of
the various nations, we ought also to take into account the
enormous loss to society involved in withdrawing from it such
an immense number of its most vigorous men, who are taken from
industrial pursuits and every kind of labor, as well as the
enormous interest on the sums expended on military preparations
without any return. The inevitable result of this expenditure
on war and preparations for war is a continually growing
national debt. The greater number of loans raised by the
governments of Europe were with a view to war. Their total sum
amounts to four hundred millions sterling, and these debts are
increasing every year."
The same Professor Komarovsky says in another place:
"We live in troubled times. Everywhere we hear complaints of
the depression of trade and manufactures, and the wretchedness
of the economic position generally, the miserable conditions of
existence of the working classes, and the universal
impoverishment of the masses. But in spite of this, governments
in their efforts to maintain their independence rush to the
greatest extremes of senselessness. New taxes and duties are
being devised everywhere, and the financial oppression of the
nations knows no limits. If we glance at the budgets of the
states of Europe for the last hundred years, what strikes us
most of all is their rapid and continually growing increase.
"How can we explain this extraordinary phenomenon which sooner
or later threatens us all with inevitable bankruptcy?
"It is caused beyond dispute by the expenditure for the
maintenance of armaments which swallows up a third and even a
half of all the expenditure of European states. And the most
melancholy thing is that one can foresee no limit to this
augmentation of the budget and impoverishment of the masses.
What is socialism but a protest against this abnormal position
in which the greater proportion of the population of our world
is placed?
"We are ruining ourselves," says Frederick Passy in a letter read
before the last Congress of Universal Peace (in 1890) in London,
"we are ruining ourselves in order to be able to take part in
the senseless wars of the future or to pay the interest on
debts we have incurred by the senseless and criminal wars of
the past. We are dying of hunger so as to secure the means of
killing each other."
Speaking later on of the way the subject is looked at in France,
he says:
"We believe that, a hundred years after the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the citizen, the time has come to
recognize the rights of nations and to renounce at once and
forever all those undertakings based on fraud and force, which,
under the name of conquests, are veritable crimes against
humanity, and which, whatever the vanity of monarchs and the
pride of nations may think of them, only weaken even those who
are triumphant over them."
"I am surprised at the way religion is carried on in this
country," said Sir Wilfrid Lawson at the same congress.
"You send a boy to Sunday school, and you tell him: 'Dear boy,
you must love your enemies. If another boy strikes you, you
mustn't hit him back, but try to reform him by loving him.'
Well. The boy stays in the Sunday school till he is fourteen
or fifteen, and then his friends send him into the army. What
has he to do in the army? He certainly won't love his enemy;
quite the contrary, if he can only get at him, he will run him
through with his 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 a boy to love his enemy, it is good for
a grown-up man."
"There are in Europe twenty-eight millions of men under arms,"
says Wilson,
"to decide disputes, not by discussion, but by murdering one
another. That is the accepted method for deciding disputes
among Christian nations. This method is, at the same time,
very expensive, for, according to the statistics I have read,
the nations of Europe spent in the year 1872 a hundred and
fifty millions sterling on preparations for deciding disputes
by means of murder. It seems to me, therefore, that in such a
state of things one of two alternatives must be admitted:
either Christianity is a failure, or those who have undertaken
to expound it have failed in doing so. Until our warriors are
disarmed and our armies disbanded, the have not the right to
call ourselves a Christian nation."
In a conference on the subject of the duty of Christian ministers
to preach against war, G. D. Bartlett said among other things:
"If I understand the Scriptures, I say that men are only
playing with Christianity so long as they ignore the question
of war. I have lived a longish life and have heard our
ministers preach on universal peace hardly half a dozen times.
Twenty years ago, in a drawing room, I dared in the presence of
forty persons to moot the proposition that war was incompatible
with Christianity; I was regarded as an arrant fanatic. The
idea that we could get on without war was regarded as
unmitigated weakness and folly."
The Catholic priest Defourney has expressed himself in the same
spirit. "One of the first precepts of the eternal law inscribed
in the consciences of all men," says the Abby Defourney,
"is the prohibition of taking the life or shedding the blood of
a fellow-creature without sufficient cause, without being
forced into the necessity of it. This is one of the
commandments which is most deeply stamped in the heart of man.
But so soon as it is a question of war, that is, of shedding
blood in torrents, men of the present day do not trouble
themselves about a sufficient cause. Those who take part in
wars do not even think of asking themselves whether there is
any justification for these innumerable murders, whether they
are justifiable or unjustifiable, lawful or unlawful, innocent
or criminal; whether they are breaking that fundamental
commandment that forbids killing without lawful cause.
But their conscience is mute. War has ceased to be something
dependent on moral considerations. In warfare men have in all
the toil and dangers they endure no other pleasure than that of
being conquerors, no sorrow other than that of being conquered.
Don't tell me that they are serving their country. A great
genius answered that long ago in the words that have become a
proverb: 'Without justice, what is an empire but a great band
of brigands?' And is not every band of brigands a little
empire? They too have their laws; and they too make war to
gain booty, and even for honor.
"The aim of the proposed institution [the institution of an
international board of arbitration] is that the nations of
Europe may cease to be nations of robbers, and their armies,
bands of brigands. And one must add, not only brigands, but
slaves. For our armies are simply gangs of slaves at the
disposal of one or two commanders or ministers, who exercise a
despotic control over them without any real responsibility, as
we very well know.
"The peculiarity of a slave is that he is a mere tool in the
hands of his master, a thing, not a man. That is just what
soldiers, officers, and generals are, going to murder and be
murdered at the will of a ruler or rulers. Military slavery is
an actual fact, and it is the worst form of slavery, especially
now when by means of compulsory service it lays its fetters on
the necks of all the strong and capable men of a nation, to
make them instruments of murder, butchers of human flesh, for
that is all they are taken and trained to do.
"The rulers, two or three in number, meet together in cabinets,
secretly deliberate without registers, without publicity, and
consequently without responsibility, and send men to be
murdered."
"Protests against armaments, burdensome to the people, have not
originated in our times," says Signor E. G. Moneta.
"Hear what Montesquieu wrote in his day. 'France [and one
might say, Europe] will be ruined by soldiers. A new plague is
spreading throughout Europe. It attacks sovereigns and forces
them to maintain an incredible number of armed men. This
plague is infectious and spreads, because directly one
government increases its armament, all the others do likewise.
So that nothing is gained by it but general ruin.
"'Every government maintains as great an army as it possibly
could maintain if its people were threatened with
extermination, and people call peace this state of tension of
all against all. And therefore Europe is so ruined that if
private persons were in the position of the governments of our
continent, the richest of them would not have enough to live
on. We are poor though we have the wealth and trade of the
whole world.'
"That was written almost 150 years ago. The picture seems drawn
from the world of to-day. One thing only has changed-the form
of government. In Montesquieu's time it was said that the
cause of the maintenance of great armaments was the despotic
power of kings, who made war in the hope of augmenting by
conquest their personal revenues and gaining glory. People
used to say then: 'Ah, if only people could elect those who
would have the right to refuse governments the soldiers and the
money--then there would be an end to military politics.' Now
there are representative governments in almost the whole of
Europe, and in spite of that, war expenditures and the
preparations for war have increased to alarming proportions.
"It is evident that the insanity of sovereigns has gained
possession of the ruling classes. War is not made now because
one king has been wanting in civility to the mistress of
another king, as it was in Louis XIV.'s time. But the natural
and honorable sentiments of national honor and patriotism are
so exaggerated, and the public opinion of one nation so excited
against another, that it is enough for a statement to be made
(even though it may be a false report) that the ambassador of
one state was not received by the principal personage of
another state to cause the outbreak of the most awful and
destructive war there has ever been seen. Europe keeps more
soldiers under arms to-day than in the time of the great
Napoleonic wars. All citizens with few exceptions are forced
to spend some years in barracks. Fortresses, arsenals, and
ships are built, new weapons are constantly being invented, to
be replaced in a short time by fresh ones, for, sad to say,
science, which ought always to be aiming at the good of
humanity, assists in the work of destruction, and is constantly
inventing new means for killing the greatest number of men in
the shortest time. And to maintain so great a multitude of
soldiers and to make such vast preparations for murder,
hundreds of millions are spent annually, sums which would be
sufficient for the education of the people and for immense
works of public utility, and which would make it possible to
find a peaceful solution of the social question.
"Europe, then, is, in this respect, in spite of all the
conquests of science, in the same position as in the darkest
and most barbarous days of the Middle Ages. All deplore this
state of things--neither peace nor war--and all would be glad
to escape from it. The heads of governments all declare that
they all wish for peace, and vie with one another in the most
solemn protestations of peaceful intentions. But the same day
or the next they will lay a scheme for the increase of the
armament before their legislative assembly, saying that these
are the preventive measures they take for the very purpose of
securing peace.
"But this is not the kind of peace we want. And the nations
are not deceived by it. True peace is based on mutual
confidence, while these huge armaments show open and utter lack
of confidence, if not concealed hostility, between states.
What should we say of a man who, wanting to show his friendly
feelings for his neighbor, should invite him to discuss their
differences with a loaded revolver in his hand?
"It is just this flagrant contradiction between the peaceful
professions and the warlike policy of governments which all
good citizens desire to put an end to, at any cost."
People are astonished that every year there are sixty thousand
cases of suicide in Europe, and those only the recognized and
recorded cases--and excluding Russia and Turkey; but one ought
rather to be surprised that there are so few. Every man of the
present day, if we go deep enough into the contradiction between
his conscience and his life, is in a state of despair.
Not to speak of all the other contradictions between modern life
and the conscience, the permanently armed condition of Europe
together with its profession of Christianity is alone enough to
drive any man to despair, to doubt of the sanity of mankind, and
to terminate an existence in this senseless and brutal world.
This contradiction, which is a quintessence of all the other
contradictions, is so terrible that to live and to take part in it
is only possible if one does not think of it--if one is able to
forget it.
What! all of us, Christians, not only profess to love one another, but
do actually live one common life; we whose social existence beats with
one common pulse--we aid one another, learn from one another, draw ever
closer to one another to our mutual happiness, and find in this
closeness the whole meaning of life!--and to-morrow some crazy ruler
will say some stupidity, and another will answer in the same spirit, and
then I must go expose myself to being murdered, and murder men--who have
done me no harm--and more than that, whom I love. And this is not a
remote contingency, but the very thing we are all preparing for, which
is not only probable, but an inevitable certainty.
To recognize this clearly is enough to drive a man out of his
senses or to make him shoot himself. And this is just what does
happen, and especially often among military men. A man need only
come to himself for an instant to be impelled inevitably to such
an end.
And this is the only explanation of the dreadful intensity with
which men of modern times strive to stupefy themselves, with
spirits, tobacco, opium, cards, reading newspapers, traveling, and
all kinds of spectacles and amusements. These pursuits are
followed up as an important, serious business. And indeed they
are a serious business. If there were no external means of
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.