Men need but understand that what is given out to them as public
opinion, what is maintained by such complex and artificial means,
is not public opinion, but only the dead consequence of the quondam
public opinion; they need only, above all, believe in themselves, in
this, that what is cognized by them in the depth of their hearts,
what begs for recognition and finds no expression only because it
contradicts public opinion, is that force which changes the world,
and the manifestation of which forms man's destiny; men need but
believe that the truth is not what men about him say, but what his
conscience, that is, God, says to him, and immediately there will
disappear the false, artificially sustained public opinion, and the
true one will be established.
If men only said what they believe, and did not say what they do
not believe, there would immediately disappear the superstitions
that result from patriotism, and all the evil feelings and all
the violence, which are based on them. There would disappear the
hatred and hostility of states against states and of nationalities
against nationalities, which are fanned by the governments; there
would disappear the eulogizing of military exploits, that is, of
murder; there would, above all else, disappear the respect for the
authorities, the surrender of people's labours and the submission to
them, for which there are no foundations outside of patriotism.
Let all this be done, and immediately all that vast mass of weak
men, who are always guided from without, will sweep over to the side
of the new public opinion. And the new public opinion will become
the ruling one in the place of the old public opinion.
Let the governments have possession of the school, the church, the
press, milliards of roubles, and millions of disciplined men turned
into machines,--all that apparently terrible organization of rude
force is nothing in comparison with the recognition of the truth,
which arises in the heart of one man who knows the force of the
truth, and is communicated by this man to another, a third man, just
as an endless number of candles are lighted from one. This light
need only burn, and, like the wax before the face of the fire, all
this seemingly so powerful organization will waste away.
If men only understood that terrible power which is given them in
the word which expresses the truth. If men only did not sell their
birthright for a mess of pottage. If men only made use of this power
of theirs,--the rulers would not only not dare, as they dare now, to
threaten men with universal slaughter, to which they will drive men
or not, as they may see fit, but would not even dare in the sight of
peaceable citizens to bring the disciplined murderers out on parade
or in manœuvres; the governments would not dare for their own
profit, for the advantage of their accomplices, to make and unmake
customs treaties, and they would not dare to collect from the people
those millions of roubles which they distribute to their accomplices
and for which they prepare themselves for the commission of murder.
And so the change is not only possible, but it is even impossible
for it not to take place, as it is impossible for an overgrown, dead
tree not to rot, and for a young one not to grow. "Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I
unto you; let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,"
said Christ. And this peace is actually already among us, and it
depends on us to attain it.
If only the hearts of separate men did not grow faint from those
temptations with which they are tempted every hour, and if they
were not frightened by those imaginary fears with which they are
terrified. If men only knew in what their mighty, all-conquering
force consists, the peace for which men have always wished, not the
one which is obtained by means of diplomatic treaties, journeys of
emperors and kings from one city to another, dinners, speeches,
fortresses, cannon, dynamite, and melenite, but the one which is
obtained not by the exhaustion of the masses by taxes, not by
tearing the flower of the population away from work and debauching
them, but by the free profession of the truth by every separate
individual, would long ago have come to us.
_Moscow, March 17, 1894._