For the greatest and most important changes to take place in the
life of humanity, no exploits are needed,--neither the armament
of millions of soldiers, nor the construction of new roads
and machines, nor the establishment of exhibitions, nor the
establishment of labour-unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor
explosions, nor the invention of aerial motion, and so forth, but
only a change in public opinion. But for public opinion to change,
no efforts of the mind are needed, nor the rejection of anything
existing, nor the invention of anything unusual and new; all that
is needed is, that every separate man should say what he actually
thinks and feels, or at least should not say what he does not think.
Let men, even a small number of them, do so, and the obsolete public
opinion will fall of its own accord and there will be manifested
the youthful, live, present public opinion. And let public opinion
change, and the inner structure of men's life, which torments and
pains them, will be changed without any effort. It is really a shame
to think how little is needed for all men to be freed from all
those calamities which now oppress them; they need only stop lying.
Let men only not succumb to that lie which is inculcated on them,
let them not say what they do not think or feel, and immediately a
revolution will take place in the whole structure of our life, such
as the revolutionists will not accomplish in centuries, even if all
the power were in their hands.
If men only believed that the strength is not in strength, but in
the truth, and if they boldly expressed it, or at least did not
depart from it in words and deeds,--if they did not say what they do
not think, and did not do what they consider bad and stupid.
"What harm is there in crying '_Vive la France!_' or 'Hurrah!' to
some emperor, king, victor, or in going in a uniform, with the
chamberlain's key, to wait for him in the antechamber, to bow, and
to address him by strange titles, and then to impress all young
and uncultured men with the fact that this is very praiseworthy?"
Or, "What harm is there in writing an article in defence of the
Franco-Russian alliance or the Customs War, or in condemnation of
the Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen?" Or, "What harm is
there in attending some patriotic celebration and eulogizing men
whom you do not care for and have nothing to do with, and drinking
their health?" Or even, "What harm is there in recognizing, in a
conversation, the benefit and usefulness of treaties, or alliances,
or even in keeping silent, when your nation and state is praised in
your presence, and other nationalities are cursed and blackened,
or when Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism are praised, or when
some war hero or ruler, like Napoleon, Peter, or the contemporary
Boulanger or Skóbelev, are praised?"
All that seems so unimportant, and yet in these seemingly
unimportant acts, in our aloofness from them, in our readiness to
point out, according to our strength, the irrationality of what is
obviously irrational,--in this does our great, invincible power
consist, the power which composes that insuperable force which
forms the real, actual, public opinion, which, moving itself, moves
the whole of humanity. The governments know this, and tremble
before this force, and with all the means at their command try to
counteract it and to get possession of it.
They know that the force is not in force, but in thought and in its
clear enunciation, and so they are more afraid of the expression
of independent thought than of armies, and establish censorships,
bribe newspapers, take possession of the management of religion
and of schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world
slips away from them: it is not even in a book, a newspaper,--it
is intangible and always free,--it is in the depth of men's
consciousness. The most powerful, intangible, freest force is the
one which is manifested in man's soul, when he by himself reflects
on the phenomena of the world, and then involuntarily expresses his
thoughts to his wife, brother, friend, to all those men with whom
he comes together, and from whom he considers it a sin to conceal
what he regards as the truth. No milliards of roubles, millions of
soldiers, no institutions, nor wars, nor revolutions will produce
what will be produced by the simple expression of a free man as to
what he considers just, independently of what exists and what is
inculcated upon him.
One free man will truthfully say what he thinks and feels, amidst
thousands of men, who by their acts and words affirm the very
opposite. It would seem that the man who frankly expressed his
thought would remain alone, while in reality it happens that all
those men, or the majority of them, have long been thinking and
feeling the same, but have not expressed their thought. And what
yesterday was the new opinion of one man, to-day becomes the common
opinion of all men. And as soon as this opinion has established
itself, men's acts begin to change imperceptibly, slowly, but
irresistibly.
For, as it is, every free man says to himself: "What can I do
against all this sea of evil and deceit, which inundates me? Why
should I give expression to my thought? Why even give form to it?
It is better not to think of these obscure and intricate questions.
Maybe these contradictions form an inevitable condition of all the
phenomena of life. And why should I alone struggle against all this
evil of the world? Would it not be better if I abandoned myself to
the current which sweeps me along? If anything can be done, it can
be done only in conjunction with other men."
And, abandoning that powerful instrument of thought and its
expression, which moves the world, this man takes up the instrument
of public activity, without noticing that all public activity is
based on the very principles against which he has to struggle,
that in entering upon any public activity which exists amidst our
world, he must at least partially depart from the truth, make
such concessions as will destroy the whole force of that powerful
instrument of the struggle which is given to him. It is as though a
man, into whose hands an unusually sharp dagger is given, one that
cuts everything, should drive in nails with the blade.
We all deplore the senseless order of life which contradicts all
our existence, and yet not only fail to make use of the one most
powerful tool, which is in our hands,--the recognition of the truth
and its expression,--but, on the contrary, under the pretext of
struggling with evil, destroy this tool and sacrifice it to the
imaginary struggle against this order.
One man does not tell the truth which he knows, because he feels
himself under obligation to the men with whom he is connected;
another,--because the truth might deprive him of the advantageous
position by means of which he is supporting his family; a
third,--because he wants to attain glory and power, to use them
later in the service of men; a fourth,--because he does not wish
to violate the ancient sacred traditions; a fifth,--because the
expression of the truth will provoke persecution and will impair
that good public activity to which he is devoting himself, or
intends to devote himself.
One man serves as an emperor, king, minister, official, soldier,
and assures himself and others that the deviation from the truth
which is necessary in his position is more than redeemed by his
usefulness.
Another exercises the office of a spiritual pastor, though in
the depth of his heart he does not believe in what he teaches,
permitting himself a deviation from the truth in view of the good
which he does. A third instructs men in literature and, in spite
of the suppression of the whole truth, in order not to provoke the
government and society against himself, has no doubt as to the good
which he does; a fourth simply struggles against the existing order,
as do the revolutionists and anarchists, and is fully convinced that
the aim which he pursues is so beneficent that the suppression of
the truth, which is indispensable in his activity, and even lying
will not destroy the good effect of his activity.
For the order of life which is contrary to the consciousness of
men to give way to one in accord with it, it is necessary for the
obsolete public opinion to give way to a live and new one.
For the old, obsolete public opinion to give way to the new, live
one, it is necessary that the men who are conscious of the new
demands of life should clearly express them. Meanwhile all the men
who recognize all these new demands, one in the name of one thing,
and another in the name of another, not only repress them, but
even in words and deeds confirm what is directly opposed to these
demands. Only the truth and its expression can establish that new
public opinion which will change the obsolete and harmful order of
life; we, however, not only do not express the truth which we know,
but frequently even express precisely what we consider to be an
untruth.
If free men would only not depend on what has no force and is never
free,--on external power,--and would always believe in what is
always powerful and free,--in the truth and its expression. If men
only expressed boldly the truth, already revealed to them, about the
brotherhood of all the nations and about the criminality of the
exclusive membership in one nation, the dead, false public opinion,
on which the whole power of the governments is based, and all the
evil produced by them, would fall off by itself like a dried-up
skin, and there would appear that new, live public opinion, which is
only waiting for the sloughing off of the hampering old opinion, in
order clearly and boldly to proclaim its demands and establish the
new forms of life in accordance with the consciousness of men.