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._