The officials will say that the present system requires to be

supported in this manner, and it is for this reason that they do

these things, because the good of the country, the welfare of

mankind in general, of social life and civilization, demand it.

The soldiers, men of the lower classes, who are forced to execute

this violence with their own hands, will answer that the higher

authorities, who are supposed to know their business, have commanded

it, and that it is for them to obey. It never occurs to them to

question the capacity of those who represent the higher authorities.

If the possibility of error is ever admitted, it is only in the case

of some subordinate authority; the higher power whence all things

emanate is supposed to be absolutely infallible.

Thus, while attributing their actions to various motives, both

principals and subordinates agree that the existing order is the one

best suited to the present time, and that it is the sacred duty of

every man to maintain it.

This assurance of the necessity and immutability of the existing

order is continually advanced by all participators in violence

committed by the State, and that, as the existing order never can be

changed, the refusal of a single individual to perform the duties

imposed on him will make no difference as far as the fundamental

principle is concerned, and will only result in the substitution of

another who may be more cruel and do more harm.

This belief that the existing order is immutable, and that it is

the sacred duty of every man to lend it support, encourages every

man of good moral character to take part, with a conscience more or

less clear, in such affairs as that which occurred in Orel, and the

one in which those in the train for Tula were going to take part.

On what, then, is this belief founded?

It is but natural that it should seem pleasant and desirable to a

landowner to believe that the existing order is indispensable and

immutable, because it secures to him the income from his hundreds

and thousands of _dessiatins_ by which his idle and luxurious

existence is maintained.

It is also natural that the judge should willingly admit the

necessity of a system through which he receives fifty times more

than the most hard-working laboring man. And the same may be said

in regard to the other higher functionaries. It is only while the

present system endures that he, as governor, procureur, senator,

or member of the council, can receive his salary of several

thousands, without which he and his family would certainly perish;

for outside the place which he fills, more or less well according

to his abilities and diligence, he could command only a fraction of

what he receives. The ministers, the head of the State, and every

person in high authority are all alike in this, save that the higher

their rank, the more exclusive their position, the more important

it becomes that they should believe no order possible, except that

which now exists; for were it overthrown, not only would they find

it impossible to gain similar positions, but they would fall lower

in the scale than other men. The man who voluntarily hires himself

out as a policeman for ten roubles a month, a sum which he could

easily earn in any other position, has but little interest in the

preservation of the existing system, and therefore may or may not

believe in its immutability.

But the king or emperor, who receives his millions, who knows that

around him there are thousands of men envious to take his place, who

knows that from no other quarter could he draw such an income or

receive such homage, that, if overthrown, he might be judged for

abuse of power,--there is neither king nor emperor who can help

believing in the immutability and sanctity of the existing order.

The higher the position in which a man is placed, the more unstable

it is; and the more perilous and frightful the possible downfall,

the more firmly will he believe in the immutability of the existing

order; and he is able to do wicked and cruel deeds with a perfectly

peaceful conscience, because he persuades himself that they are

done, not for his own benefit, but for the support of the existing

order.

And so it is with every individual in authority, from obscure

policemen to the man who occupies the most exalted rank,--the

positions they occupy being more advantageous than those which they

might be capable of filling if the present system did not exist. All

these men believe more or less in its immutability, because it is

advantageous to them.

But what influences the peasants, the soldiers, who stand on

the lowest rung of the ladder and who derive no advantage from

the existing system, who are in the most enslaved and degraded

condition; what induces them to believe that the existing order,

which serves to keep them in this inferior position, is the best,

and one which should be maintained; and why are they willing,

in order to promote this end, to violate their consciences by

committing wicked deeds?

What urges them to the false conclusion that the existing order is

immutable and ought therefore to be maintained, when the fact is

that its immutability is due only to their own effort to maintain it?

Why do those men, taken from the plow, whom we see masquerading in

ugly, objectionable uniforms, with blue collars and gold buttons, go

about armed with muskets and sabers to kill their famishing fathers

and brothers? They derive no advantage from their present position;

they would be no losers were they deprived of it, since it is worse

than the one from which they were taken.

Those in authority belonging to the higher classes, the landowners

and merchants, the judges, senators, governors, ministers, and

kings, the officials in general, participate in such actions and

maintain the present system, because such a system is for their

interest. Often enough they are kind-hearted and gentle men. They

play no personal part in these acts; all they do is to institute

inquiries, pronounce judgments, and issue commands. Those in

authority do not themselves execute the deeds which they have

devised and ordered. They but rarely see in what manner these

dreadful deeds are executed. But the unfortunate members of the

lower classes, who receive no benefit from the existing system, who,

on the other hand, find themselves greatly despised because of the

duties which they perform in order that a system which is opposed to

their own interests may be maintained,--they who tear men from the

bosom of their families to send them to the galleys, who bind and

imprison them, who stand on guard over them, who shoot them, why do

they do this? What is it that compels these men to believe that the

existing order is immutable, and that it is their duty to maintain

it? Violence exists only because there are those who with their

own hands maltreat, bind, imprison, and murder. If there were no

policemen, or soldiers, or armed men of any sort ready when bidden

to use violence and to put men to death, not one of those who sign

death-warrants, or sentence for imprisonment for life or hard labor

in the galleys, would ever have sufficient courage himself to hang,

imprison, or torture one thousandth part of those whom now, sitting

in their studies, these men calmly order to be hung or tortured,

because they do not see it done, they do not do it themselves. Their

servants do it for them in some far-away corner.

All these deeds of injustice and cruelty have become an integral

part of the existing system of life, only because there are men ever

ready to execute them. If there were no such men, the multitude of

human beings who are now the victims of violence would be spared,

and furthermore, the magistrates would never dare to issue, nor even

dream of issuing, those commands which they now send forth with

such assurance. If there were no men to obey the will of others

and to execute commands to torture and murder, no one would ever

dare to defend the declaration so confidently made by landowners

and men of leisure; namely, that the land lying on all sides of

the unfortunate peasants, who are perishing for the want of it, is

the property of the man who does not till it, and that reserves

of grain, fraudulently obtained, are to be held intact amidst a

famine-stricken and dying population, because the merchant must

have his profit. If there were no men ready at the bidding of the

authorities to torture and murder, the landowner would never dream

of seizing a forest which had been tended by the peasants; nor would

officials consider themselves entitled to salaries paid to them from

money wrung from the famished people whom they oppress, or which

they derive for the prosecution, imprisonment, and exile of men who

denounce falsehood and preach the truth.

All this is done because those in authority well know that they have

always at hand submissive agents ready to obey their commands to

outrage and to murder.

It is to this crowd of submissive slaves, ready to obey all orders,

that we owe the deeds of the whole series of tyrants, from Napoleon

to the obscure captain who bids his men fire upon the people. It is

through the agency of policemen and soldiers (especially the latter,

since the former can act only when supported by military force)

that these deeds of violence are committed. What, then, has induced

those who are by no means benefited by doing with their hands

these dreadful deeds,--what is it that has led these kindly men

into an error so gross that they actually believe that the present

system, which is so distressing, so baleful, so fatal, is the one

best suited to the times? Who has led them into this extraordinary

aberration?

They can never have persuaded themselves that a course which is not

only painful and opposed to their interests, but which is fatal

to their class, which forms nine-tenths of the entire population,

one which, too, is opposed to their conscience, is right. "What

reason can you give for killing men, when God's commandment says,

'Thou shalt not kill'?" is a question I have often put to different

soldiers. And it always embarrassed them to have a question put

which recalled what they would rather not remember.

They knew that the divine law forbade murder,--_thou shalt not

kill_,--and they had always known of this compulsory military duty,

but had never thought of one as contradictory to the other. The

hesitating replies to my question were usually to the effect that

the act of killing a man in war and the execution of criminals by

order of the government were not included in the general prohibition

against murder. But when I rejoined that no such limitation existed

in the law of God, and cited the Christian doctrine of brotherhood,

the forgiveness of injuries, the injunction to love one's neighbor,

all of which precepts are quite contrary to murder, the men of the

lower class would usually agree with me and ask, "How then can it be

that the government (which they believe cannot err) sends troops to

war and orders the execution of criminals?" When I replied that this

was a mistake on the part of the government, my interlocutors became

still more uncomfortable, and either dropped the conversation or

showed annoyance.

"Probably there is a law for it. I should think the bishops know

more than you do," a Russian soldier once said to me. And he

evidently felt relieved, confident that his superiors had found a

law, one that had authorized his ancestors and their successors,

millions of men like himself, to serve the State, and that the

question I had asked is in the nature of a conundrum.

Every man in Christendom has undoubtedly been taught by tradition,

by revelation, and by the voice of conscience, which can never be

gainsaid, that murder is one of the most heinous crimes men can

commit; it is thus affirmed in the gospel, and they know that this

sin of murder is not altered by conditions--that is to say, if it

is sinful to kill one man, it is sinful to kill another. Any man

knows that, if murder be a sin, it is not changed by the character

or position of the man against whom it is committed, which is the

case also with adultery, theft, and all other sins, and yet men are

accustomed from childhood to see murder, not only acknowledged, but

blessed by those whom they are taught to regard as their spiritual

directors appointed by Christ, and to know that their temporal

leaders, with calm assurance, countenance the custom of murder, and

summon all men, in the name of the law and even the name of God, to

its participation. Men perceive the existence of an inconsistency,

but finding themselves unable to discern its cause, they naturally

attribute the idea to their own ignorance. The obviousness and

crudity of the contradiction confirms them in this belief. They

cannot imagine that their superiors and teachers, even the

scientists, could advocate with so much assurance two principles so

utterly at variance as the command to follow the law of Christ, and

the requirement to commit murder. No pure-minded, innocent child, no

youth, could imagine that men who stand so high in his esteem, whom

he looks upon with such reverence, could for any purpose deceive him

so unscrupulously.

And yet it is this very deception which is constantly practised. In

the first place, to all working-men, who have personally no time to

analyze moral and religious problems, it is taught from childhood,

by example and precept, that tortures and murders are compatible

with Christianity, and in certain cases they should not only be

permitted, but must be employed; in the second place, to certain

among them, engaged in the army either through conscription or

voluntarily, it is conveyed that the accomplishment with their own

hands of torture or homicide is not only their sacred duty, but a

glorious exploit, meriting praise and recompense.

This universal deception is propagated by all catechisms or their

substitutes, those books which at the present time teachers are

compelled to use in the instruction of the young. It is taught that

violence,--outrage, imprisonment, execution,--the murder that takes

place in civil or in foreign war, has for its object the maintenance

and security of the political organization,--whether this be an

absolute or a constitutional monarchy, consulate, republic, or

commune,--that it is perfectly legitimate, and that it is in

contradiction neither to morality nor Christianity.

And men are so firmly convinced of this that they grow up, live, and

die in the belief, never for a moment doubting it.

So much for this universal deception. And now for another, which is

special, and practised upon soldiers and police, the instruments by

whose agency outrages and murders, necessary for the support and

maintenance of the existing order, are accomplished.

The military rules and regulations of every country are practically

the same as those formulated in the Russian military code.

"87. To fulfil exactly, and without comment, the orders of the

superior officers, means--to execute orders with precision, without

considering whether they are good or bad, or whether their execution

be possible. Only the superior is responsible for the consequences

of his order.

"88. The only occasion on which the inferior should not obey the

order of his superior is when he sees plainly that in obeying it

..." (Here one naturally thinks it will surely go on to say when

he plainly sees that in fulfilling the order of his superior he

violates the law of God. Not at all; it goes on to say:) "_sees

plainly that he violates the oath of allegiance and duty to his

sovereign_."

It is stated in the code that a man, in becoming a soldier, can and

must execute _all_ the orders, without exception, which he receives

from his superior; orders which, for a soldier, are for the most

part connected with murder. He may violate every law, human and

divine, as long as he does not violate his oath of allegiance to him

who, at a given time, happens to be in power.

Thus it stands in the Russian military code, and this is the

substance of the military codes of other nations. It could not be

otherwise. The foundations of the power of the State rest upon the

delusion by means of which men are set free from their obligations

to God and to their own consciences, and bound to obey the will of a

casual superior.

This is the basis of the appalling conviction that prevails among

the lower classes, that the existing system, so ruinous to them, is

necessary and justifiable, and that it must be maintained by outrage

and murder.

This is inevitable. In order to force the lower, the more numerous

classes to act as their own oppressors and tormentors, to commit

deeds contrary to their consciences, it is necessary to deceive them.

And this is done.

Not long since I saw again put into practice this shameful

deception, and again wondered to see it effected without opposition

and so audaciously.

In the beginning of November, on my way through Tula, I saw at the

gates of the _Zemskaya Uprava_ the familiar dense crowd of men and

women, from which issued the sounds of drunken voices, blended with

the heartrending sobs of the wives and mothers.

The military conscription was in progress.

As usual, I could not pass by without pausing; the sight attracts me

as by fascination.

Again I mingled with the crowd, and stood looking on, questioning,

and marveling at the facility with which this most terrible of all

offenses is committed in broad daylight, and in the midst of a large

city.

On the first day of November, in every village in Russia, with its

population of one hundred millions, the _starostas_,[27] according

to custom, take the men whose names are entered on the rolls,

frequently their own sons, and carry them to town.

[27] Elders.

On the way the men drink freely, unchecked by the elder men; they

realize that entering upon this insane business of leaving their

wives and mothers, giving up everything that is sacred to them, only

to become the senseless tools of murder, is too painful if one's

senses are not stupefied with wine.

And thus they journey on, carousing, brawling, singing, and

fighting. The night is spent in a tavern, and on this morning,

having drunk still more, they assemble before the house of the

_Uprava_.

Some in new sheepskin coats, with knit mufflers wound round their

necks, some with their eyes swollen with drinking, some noisy and

boisterous, by way of stimulating their courage, others silent and

woebegone, they were gathered near the gates, surrounded by their

wives and mothers with tear-stained faces, awaiting their turn (I

happened to be there on the day when the recruits were received,

that is to say, the day on which they were examined), while others

were crowding the entry of the office.

Meanwhile they are hurrying on the work within. A door opens and

the guard calls for Piotr Sidorov. Piotr Sidorov makes the sign of

the cross, looks around with a startled gaze, and opening a glass

door, he enters the small room where the recruits take off their

clothes. The man before him, his friend, who has just been enrolled,

has but this moment stepped out of the office stark naked, and

with chattering teeth hastens to put on his clothes. Piotr Sidorov

has heard, and can plainly see by the look on his face, that the

man has been enlisted. He longs to question him, but he is ordered

to undress as quickly as possible. He pulls off his sheepskin

coat, drops his waistcoat and his shirt, and with prominent ribs,

trembling and reeking with the odors of liquor, tobacco, and sweat,

steps barefooted into the office, wondering what he shall do with

his large sinewy hands.

A portrait of the Emperor in uniform, with a ribbon across his

breast, in a large golden frame, hangs in a conspicuous place, while

a small ikon of Christ, clad in a loose garment, with the crown of

thorns on his head, hangs in one corner. In the middle of the room

is a table covered with a green cloth on which papers are lying,

and on which stands a small three-cornered object surmounted by

an eagle and called the mirror of justice. Around the table the

officials sit tranquilly. One smokes, another turns over the papers.

As soon as Sidorov enters a guard comes up and measures him. His

chin is raised and his feet are adjusted. Then a man who is smoking

a cigarette--the doctor--approaches him, and without glancing at

his face, but gazing in another direction, touches his body with an

expression of disgust, measures him, orders the guard to open his

mouth, tells him to breathe, and then proceeds to dictate to another

man who takes down the minutes. Finally, and still without even one

glance at his face, the doctor says: "He will do! The next!" and

with a wearied air he seats himself at the table. Once more the

guard hustles him about, bidding him to make haste. Somehow or other

he pulls on his shirt, fumbling for the sleeves, hastily gets on his

trousers, wraps his feet in the rags he uses for stockings, pulls on

his boots, hunts for his muffler and cap, tucks his sheepskin coat

under his arm, and is escorted to that part of the hall which is

fenced off by a bench, where the recruits who have been admitted are

placed. A young countryman like himself, but from another, far-away

government, who is a soldier already, with a musket to which a

bayonet is attached, guards him, ready to run him through the body

if he should attempt to escape.

Meanwhile the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives, hustled by

policemen, presses around the gates, trying to find out who has been

taken and who rejected. A man who has been rejected comes out and

tells them that Piotr has been admitted; then is heard the cry of

Piotr's young wife, for whom this word means a four or five years'

separation, and the dissolute life such as a soldier's wife in

domestic service is.

But here comes a man with flowing hair and dressed differently from

the others, who has just arrived; he descends from his droschky and

goes toward the house of the _Zemskaya Uprava_, while the policemen

clear a way for him through the crowd.

"The Father has arrived to swear them in." And this "Father,"

who has always been accustomed to believe himself a special and

privileged servant of Christ, and who is usually quite unconscious

of his false position, enters the room where the recruits who have

been admitted are waiting for him; he puts on, as a vestment, a sort

of brocade curtain, disengages from it his flowing hair, opens the

Bible wherein an oath is forbidden, lifts the cross, that cross on

which Christ was crucified for refusing to do what this person, his

supposed servant, commands men to do, and all these defenseless and

deluded young men repeat after him the lie so familiar to his lips,

which he utters with such assurance. He reads while they repeat:

"I promise and swear to the Lord Almighty, upon His holy Bible,"

etc. ... to defend (that is, to murder all those whom I shall be

ordered to murder) and to do whatever those men, strangers to me,

who regard me only as a necessary tool to be used in perpetrating

the outrages by which they oppress my brethren and preserve their

own positions, command me to do. All the recruits having stupidly

repeated the words, the so-called Father departs, quite sure that

he has performed his duty in the most accurate and conscientious

manner, while the young men deluded by him really believe that by

the absurd, and to them almost unintelligible, words which they have

just uttered, they are released during their term of service from

all obligations to their fellow-men, and are bound by new and more

imperative ties to the duties of a soldier.

And this is done publicly, but not a man comes forward to say to the

deceived and the deceivers, "Come to your senses and go your way;

this is all a base and treacherous lie; it imperils not only your

bodies, but your souls."

No one does this. On the contrary, as if in derision, after they

have all been enrolled and are about to depart, the colonel enters

the hall where these poor, drunken, and deluded creatures are locked

in, and with a solemn air, calls out to them in military fashion:

"Good day, men! I congratulate you upon entering _the Czar's

service_." And they, poor fellows, mumble in their semi-drunken way,

a reply which has already been taught them, to the effect that it

fills their hearts with joy.

The expectant crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives is still standing

at the gates. Women, with tear-worn, wide-open eyes, watch the door.

Suddenly it opens and the men come rolling out, assuming an air of

bravado, the Petruhas, Vanuhas, and Makars, now enrolled, trying

to avoid the eyes of their relatives, pretending not to see them.

At once break out the sobs and cries of the wives and mothers.

Some of the men clasp them in their arms, weeping, some put on a

devil-may-care look, others make an attempt to console them. The

wives, the mothers, realizing that they are now abandoned, without

support, for three or four years, cry and wail bitterly. The fathers

say little; they only sigh and make a clicking sound with their

tongues that indicates their grief; they know that they are about

to lose that help which they have reared and trained their sons to

render; that when their sons return they will no longer be sober and

industrious laborers, but soldiers, weaned from their former life of

simplicity, grown dissolute, and vain of their uniforms.

Now the whole crowd has departed, driving down the street in

sleighs to the taverns and inns, and louder grows the chorus of

mingled sobs, songs, and drunken cries, the moaning and muttering

of the wives and mothers, the sounds of the accordion, the noise of

altercations.

All repair to the eating-houses and taverns, from the traffic of

which part of the revenue of the government is derived, and there

they give themselves up to drink, stupefying their senses so that

they care nothing for the injustice done to them.

Then they spend several weeks at home, drinking nearly all the time.

When the day arrives, they are driven like cattle to the appointed

place, where they are drilled in military exercises by those who a

few years ago, like themselves, were deceived and brutalized. During

the instructions the means employed are lying, blows, and _vodka_.

And before the year is over the good, kindly, and intelligent

fellows will have become as brutal as their teachers.

"Suppose your father were arrested and attempted escape," I once

suggested to a young soldier, "what would you do?"

"It would be my duty to thrust my bayonet through his body," he

replied, in the peculiar, meaningless monotone of the soldier. "And

if he ran I should shoot," he added, taking pride apparently in

thinking what he should do if his father attempted to run.

When a good young fellow is reduced to a condition lower than

that of the brute, he is ready for those who wish to use him as

an instrument of violence. He is ready. The man is lost, and a

new instrument of violence has been created. And all this goes on

throughout Russia in the autumn of every year, in broad daylight, in

the heart of a great city, witnessed by all the inhabitants, and the

stratagem is so skilfully managed, that though men at the bottom of

their hearts realize its infamy, still they have not the power to

throw off the yoke.

After our eyes are once opened, and we view this frightful delusion

in its true light, it is astonishing that preachers of Christianity

and morality, teachers of youth, or even those kindly and sensible

parents who are to be found in every community, can advocate

any principles of morality whatever in the midst of a society

where torture and murder are openly recognized as constituting

indispensable conditions in human life,--openly acknowledged by all

churches and governments,--where certain men among us must be always

ready to murder their brethren, and where any of us may have to do

the same.

Not to speak of Christian doctrine, how are children, how are

youths, how are any to be taught morality, while the principle that

murder is required in order to maintain the general welfare is

taught; when men are made to believe that murder is lawful, that

some men, and any of us may be among them, must kill and torture

their neighbors, and commit every kind of crime at the command of

those in authority? If this principle is right, then there is not,

nor can there be, any doctrine of morality; might is right, and

there is no other law. This principle, which some seek to justify

on the hypothesis of the struggle for existence, in fact dominates

society.

What kind of moral doctrine can that be which permits murder for any

object whatsoever? It is as impossible as a mathematical problem

which would affirm that 2 = 3. It may be admitted that 2 = 3 looks

like mathematics, but it is not mathematics at all. Every code of

morals must be founded first of all upon the acknowledgment that

human life is to be held sacred.

The doctrine of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life

for a life, has been revoked by Christianity because that doctrine

was but the justification of immorality, a semblance of justice, but

without meaning. Life is a substance which can neither be weighed,

measured, nor compared; hence the taking of one life for another has

no sense. Moreover, the aim of every social law is amelioration of

human life. How, then, can the destruction of certain lives improve

the condition of other lives? The destruction of life is not an act

that tends to improve it; it is suicide.

To destroy human life, and call it justice, may be likened to the

act of a man who, having lost one arm, cuts off the other, by way of

making matters even.

Not to speak of the deceit of presenting the most shocking crimes in

the light of a duty, of the shocking abuse of using Christ's name

and authority in order to confirm acts which he condemned, how can

men, looking at the matter from the standpoint merely of personal

safety, suffer the existence of the shocking, senseless, cruel, and

dangerous force which every organized government, supported by the

army, represents?

The most violent and rapacious band of robbers is less to be

feared than such an organization. Even the authority of the leader

of a band of robbers is more or less limited by the will of each

individual member of the band, who, retaining a certain degree of

independence, has the right to oppose acts with which he does not

agree. But the authority of men who form part of an organized

government, maintained by the army with its present system of

discipline, is unlimited. When their master, be he Boulanger,

Pugatchov, or Napoleon, issues his commands, there is no crime too

hideous for those who form part of the government and the army to

commit.

It must often occur to one who sees conscriptions, drills, and

military manœuvers taking place, who sees police going about with

loaded revolvers, sentinels armed with bayonets,--to one who hears

from morning till night, as I do (in the district of Hamovniky,[28]

where I live), the whirring balls and the concussion as they

strike the target,--to ask why these things are tolerated. And

when one sees in the same city, where every attempt at violence is

at once suppressed, where even the sale of powder or medicines is

prohibited, where a doctor is not allowed to practice without a

diploma, thousands of disciplined men, controlled by one individual,

being trained for murder, one cannot help asking how men who have

any regard for their own safety can calmly endure such a condition

of affairs, and allow it to continue? Leaving aside the question

of the immorality and pernicious influence of it, what could be

more dangerous? What are they thinking of,--I speak not now of

Christians, Christian pastors, philanthropists, or moralists, but

simply those who value their lives, their safety, their welfare?

Granting that power is at present in the hands of a moderate

ruler, it may fall to-morrow into those of a Biron, an Elizabeth,

a Catharine, a Pugatchov, a Napoleon. And even though the ruler be

moderate to-day, he may become a mere savage to-morrow; he may be

succeeded by an insane or half-insane heir, like the King of Bavaria

or the Emperor Paul.

[28] In Moscow.

It is not only those who fill the highest offices, but all the

lesser authorities scattered over the land--the chiefs of police,

the commanders of companies, even the _stanovoys_[29]--may commit

shocking crimes before they can be dismissed; it is an everyday

occurrence.

[29] Chiefs of rural police.

Involuntarily one asks: How can men allow these things to go on? How

can they tolerate them with any regard to their own personal safety?

It may be replied that some men do oppose it. (Those who are

deluded and live in subjection have nothing either to tolerate or

interdict.) Those who favor the continuance of the present system

are only those who derive some special advantage from it. They

favor it, and even with the disadvantages of having an insane

or tyrannical man at the head of the government and the army,

the position is less disadvantageous to them than if the present

organization were abolished.

Whether his position be held under a Boulanger, a Republic, a

Pugatchov, or a Catharine,--the judge, the police commissioner, the

governor, the officer, will remain in it. But if the system which

assures their positions were overthrown, they would lose them.

Therefore it is a matter of indifference to these men whether one

man or another be at the head of the organization of violence. What

they do fear is its abolition; so they support it.

One wonders why men of independent means, who are not obliged to

become soldiers, the so-called _élite_ of society, enter military

service in Russia, in England, in Germany, in Austria, and even in

France, and desire the chance of killing? Why do parents, why do

moral men, send their children to military schools? Why do mothers

buy them such toys as helmets, swords, and muskets? (No child of

a peasant ever plays at being a soldier.) Why do kindly men and

women, who can have no manner of interest in war, go into ecstasies

over the exploits of a man like Skobelev? Why do men who are

under no obligation to do it, and who receive no pay for it, like

Marshals of Nobility in Russia, devote months to the service which

demands such unremitting labor, wearying to the minds as well as

to the body,--the enlistment of recruits? Why do all emperors and

kings wear a military dress, why do they have drills and parades

and military rewards? Why are monuments built to generals and

conquerors? Why do wealthy and independent men regard it as an

honor to occupy the position of lackeys to kings, to flatter them

and feign a belief in their special superiority? Why do men who

have long since ceased to believe in the medieval superstitions

of the Church still constantly and solemnly pretend to do so,

and thus support a sacrilegious and demoralizing institution?

Why is the ignorance of the people so zealously preserved, not

only by the government, but by men of the higher classes? Why do

they so energetically denounce every attempt to overthrow popular

superstition and to promote popular education? Why do historians,

novelists, and poets, who can derive no benefit in exchange for

their flattery, paint in such glowing colors the emperors, kings,

and generals of bygone times? Why do the so-called scientists devote

their lives to formulate theories that violence committed on the

people by power is legitimate violence--is right?

One often wonders why an artist or a woman of the world, neither of

whom, it would seem, ordinarily take much interest in sociological

or military questions--why should they condemn strikes among

workmen, or advocate war with such partizan zeal?

But one ceases to feel surprise when one realizes that the members

of the higher classes possess the keenest insight, an intuitive

perception, as it were, concerning those conditions which are

friendly and those which are hostile to the organization upon whose

existence their privileges depend.

It is true that the woman of society does not deliberately argue

thus: "Were there no capitalists, or armies to defend them, my

husband would have no money, and I should have neither _salon_

nor fashionable gowns;" nor does the artist tell himself, in

so many words, that if his pictures are to be sold there must

be capitalists, defended by armies, to buy them; yet instinct,

here doing duty for reason, is their surest guide. This instinct

guides, with rare exceptions, all men who support those political,

religious, and economic institutions which are advantageous to

themselves.

But is it possible that men who belong to the higher classes defend

this organization only because it is for their own advantage? They

surely cannot fail to see that as an organization it is irrational,

incompatible with the present consciousness of men, with public

opinion, and that it is fraught with danger. Good, intelligent,

honest men who belong to the ruling class cannot but suffer from

such contradictions, nor can they close their eyes to the dangers

that menace them.

And is it possible that the millions of men of the lower classes

can go on calmly committing deeds which are so manifestly criminal,

such as are the murders and tortures which they commit, simply from

fear of punishment? Surely these things could not exist were not the

falsehood and brutality of their actions hidden from all classes of

men by the system of the political organization.

When such deeds are committed, there are so many instigators,

participants, and abettors that no single individual feels himself

morally responsible.

Assassins compel all the witnesses of an assassination to strike

the body of the victim, with the intention of dividing the

responsibility among the greatest number possible. And whenever

those crimes by the aid of which the state system is maintained are

to be committed, this same thing is observed. The rulers of State

always endeavor to involve the greatest possible number of citizens

in the participation of the crimes which it is to their interest to

have committed.

In these latter days this is made especially evident by the

drawing of citizens on the jury in courts of law, by drafting them

into the army as soldiers, and into the communal or legislative

administration as electors or elected.

As in a wicker basket all the ends are so carefully interwoven that

they cannot be seen, so is it with the responsibility for crime.

Individual responsibilities are so manipulated that no man perceives

precisely what he is incurring.

In olden times tyrants were responsible for the crimes which were

committed, but in the present age the most frightful crimes are

perpetrated, such as would hardly have been possible in the time of

Nero, and still no one is held responsible.

Some demand the crime, some propose it, some determine it, some

confirm it, some order it, some execute it.

Women and old men are hung, are flogged to death--even quite

innocent people, as was recently the case with us in Russia, in

the affair of the factory at Uzova; or, as is done all over in

Europe and America, in the struggle with anarchists and other

revolutionists, hundreds, thousands of men are shot, are killed;

or, as happens in time of war, millions of men are massacred; or,

as is happening always, the souls of men are destroyed by solitary

confinement, by the debauchery of barrack life--and no one is

responsible.

On the lower scale of the social ladder are posted soldiers armed

with muskets, pistols, swords; they go about doing violence and

killing, and through their doing so force other men to become

soldiers like themselves, and yet they never dream that the

responsibility rests on their shoulders; they shift it on to their

superiors, who give the orders.

The czars, the presidents, the ministers of State, the general

assemblies, order tortures, murders, conscriptions, and as they

enjoy the absolute assurance that they rule by the grace of God

or by the will of the society they govern, and that that society

demands from them what they order, they cannot regard themselves as

responsible.

Between these two classes we find a number of intermediaries, who

take charge of the executions, tortures, conscriptions, and they,

too, wash their hands of all responsibility, alleging on the one

hand the orders of their superiors, and on the other that it is for

such as themselves, who stand lower on the social ladder, to do

these things.

The power that demands and the power that fulfils commands, the two

extremes of governmental organization, unite like the two ends of

a chain, each depending on and supporting the other, and all the

intervening links.

Were it not for the conviction that there are men who assume the

whole responsibility of such deeds, no soldier would lift his hand

to torture or murder his fellow-man. Were it not for the conviction

that the nation demands it, no king, emperor, president, or assembly

would venture to issue commands for murder and torture. Were it

not that he believes that there are men above him who assume the

responsibility of his actions, and others below him whose welfare

requires this treatment, no man of the intermediate class would ever

perform the functions committed to him.

The organization of the State is such that on whatever position of

the social ladder a man may stand, his irresponsibility remains

intact. The higher he stands, the more liable he is to feel the

pressure brought to bear on him from below, urging him to issue

commands, and the less likely he will be to be influenced by orders

from above, and _vice versa_.

But it is not enough that all men bound by the organization of the

State transfer their responsibility from one to the other,--the

peasant, for instance, who becomes a soldier to the merchant who

has become an officer; the officer to the noble who occupies the

position of governor; the governor to the minister of State; the

minister to the sovereign; and the sovereign who in his turn

shifts the responsibility upon all,--officials, nobles, merchants,

peasants. Not only do men in this way merely free themselves from

all sense of responsibility for their actions, but because, as

they adapt themselves to fulfil the requirements of political

organizations, they so constantly, persistently, and strenuously

assure themselves and others that all men are not equal that they

begin to believe it sincerely themselves. Thus we are assured that

some men are superior and must be especially honored and obeyed;

while, on the other hand, we are assured in every way that others

are inferior, and therefore bound to obey without murmur the

commands of their superiors.

It is to this inequality,--the exaltation of some upon the abasement

of others,--that we may chiefly attribute the incapacity which men

display for discerning the folly of the existing system, with the

cruelty and deceptions committed by some, and suffered by others.

There are certain men who have been made to believe that they are

possessed of a peculiar importance and greatness, who have become

so intoxicated by their imaginary superiority that they cease to

realize their responsibility for the actions they commit; others

who, on the contrary, have been told that they are insignificant

beings, and that it is their duty to submit to those above them,

and, as the natural result of this continual state of degradation,

fall into a strange condition of stupefied servility, and in this

state they, too, lose all sense of responsibility for their actions.

And as to the intermediate class, subservient to those above them,

and yet to a certain extent regarding themselves as superiors, they

are apt to be both servile and arrogant, and they also lose the

sense of responsibility.

One needs but to glance at any official of high rank in the act

of reviewing the troops. Accompanied by his staff, mounted on

a magnificently caparisoned charger, equipped in a brilliant

uniform, displaying all his decorations, he rides in front of

the ranks, while the band plays martial music and the soldiers

present arms, standing, as they do, as though verily petrified

with servility,--one has but to see this to understand how in such

moments, under such conditions, both generals and soldiers might

commit deeds which they never would have dreamed of committing.

But the intoxication to which men succumb under conditions like

parades, pageants, religious ceremonies, and coronations, though

acute, is not enduring, while there is another which is chronic,

shared by all who have any authority whatsoever, from the Czar to

the policemen on the street, shared, too, by the masses who submit

to authority in a state of stupefied servility, and who by way of

justifying their submission, after the usual manner of slaves,

ascribe the greatest importance and dignity to those whom they obey.

It is this delusion in regard to human inequality and the consequent

intoxication of power and stupefaction of servility, which makes it

possible for those who are associated in a state organization to

commit crimes and suffer no remorse.

Under the influence of this intoxication,--there is an intoxication

of servility as well as of power,--men seem to others, no less than

to themselves, not the ordinary human beings which they really are,

but specially privileged beings,--nobles, merchants, governors,

judges, officers, kings, statesmen, soldiers, having no longer

ordinary human duties, but only the duties of the class to which

they belong.

Thus the landed proprietor who prosecuted the peasants on account of

the forest did so because he did not regard himself as an ordinary

man, with the same rights as the peasants, his neighbors, but as a

great landowner and a member of the nobility, and, as such, exalted

by the intoxication of authority, felt himself insulted by the

opposition of the peasants. And regardless of the consequences, he

sends in his petition to be reinstated in his pretended rights. The

judges who rendered an unfair decision in his favor, did so because

they fancied themselves different from ordinary men, who are guided

only by truth; under the spell of the intoxication of authority,

they believed themselves the guardians of a justice which cannot

err; and at the same time, under the influence of servility, they

considered themselves obliged to apply certain texts set forth in a

certain book and called the laws; and all the other persons who took

part in this affair, from the representatives of higher authority

down to the last soldier ready to fire upon his brother,--they all

accepted themselves in their conventionally accredited characters.

Not one asked himself if he should take part in an act which his

conscience reprobated, but each accepted himself as one who had

simply to fulfil a certain function; let it be the Czar, anointed

of God, an exceptional being called to look after the welfare of a

hundred million men; let it be the noble; the priest, the recipient

of grace through ordination; the soldier, bound by oath to fulfil

commands without hesitation,--it is the same with all.

All their activity, past, present, and future, is stimulated by a

like intoxicating influence. If they had not the firm conviction

that the title of king, statesman, governor, judge, landowner,

marshal of nobility, officer, or soldier is of serious import and

necessity, not one of them could contemplate without horror and

disgust his own share in the deeds done in these latter days.

Arbitrary distinctions, established hundreds of years ago,

recognized for hundreds of years, described by special names

and distinguished by special dress, sanctioned by all kinds of

solemnities calculated to influence men through their emotions, have

been so thoroughly impressed upon the human imagination that men

have forgotten the common, everyday aspects of life; they look upon

themselves and others from a point of view dependent upon outward

conditions, and regard their own acts and those of their neighbors

accordingly.

Here, for instance, we see a man of advanced years, a man perfectly

in possession of his senses, who, because he has been decorated

with some bauble, and is attired in a ridiculous habit, or because

he is the holder of certain keys, or has received a bit of blue

ribbon fitter for the wear of a coquettish child, when he is called

general, chamberlain, chevalier of the order of St. Andrew, or some

such absurdity, becomes at once proud, arrogant, happy; if, on the

contrary, he fails to get the gewgaw or the nickname he expected, he

becomes unhappy and ill, really to the point of sickness.

Or let us take a still more remarkable case. A man, morally

sane, young, free, and absolutely safe from want, has no sooner

received the name of district-attorney, of _Zemsky Nachalnik_,

than he pounces upon some luckless widow, takes her from her small

children, and throws her into jail, all because the poor woman has

been secretly selling wine, and thus depriving the treasury of 25

roubles' revenue. This man feels no remorse. Another still more

surprising case is that of a man, ordinarily kind and good, who,

because he wears a uniform or carries a medal, and is told that he

is a keeper [_garde-champêtre_] or custom-house officer, considers

himself justified in shooting men down, and no one ever dreams of

blaming him for it, nor does he think himself in the wrong; but

if he failed to fire upon his fellow-men he would then indeed be

culpable. I say nothing of judges and jurymen, who condemn men to

death, nor of troops, who slaughter thousands without a vestige of

remorse, because they are told that they are not in the position of

ordinary men, but are jurymen, judges, generals, soldiers.

This abnormal and surprising state of affairs is formulated in words

like these: "As a man, I sympathize with him, but as a keeper, a

judge, a general, a czar, or a soldier, I must torture or murder

him."

So it is in this present case; men are on the way to slaughter and

torment their famine-stricken brethren, admitting all the while that

in this dispute between the peasants and the landowner the former

are in the right (all the superior officials told me so). They know

that the peasants are miserable, poor, and hungry, and that the

landowner is wealthy and one who inspires no sympathy, and yet these

men are going to kill the peasants in order that this landowner may

gain 3000 roubles; and all because they regard themselves at the

moment not as men, but one as a governor, another as a general of

gendarmerie, another as an officer, or as soldiers, as the case may

be, and bound not by the eternal laws of the human conscience, but

by the accidental, transitory demands of their positions.

However strange it may appear, the only explanation of this

surprising phenomenon is that men are like those under hypnotic

influence, who, as suggested by the hypnotizers, imagine themselves

in certain conditions. Thus, for instance, when it is suggested to

a hypnotized patient that he is lame, he proceeds to limp; that he

is blind, he ceases to see; that he is an animal, and he begins to

bite. And this is the state of all those who put their social and

political duties before, and to the detriment of, their duties as

human beings.

The essential characteristic of this condition is, that men,

influenced by the thought that has been suggested to them, are

unable to weigh their own actions, and simply obey the suggestion

that has been communicated to them.

The difference between men artificially hypnotized and those under

the influence of governmental suggestion consists in this,--that

to the former their imagined environment is suggested suddenly by

one person, and the suggestion operates only for a short time;

whereas to the latter, their imagined position has been the result

of gradual suggestion, going on, not for years, but for generations,

and proceeds not from a single individual, but from their entire

circumstances.

"But," it will be objected, "always, in all societies, the majority

of men, all the children, all the women, absorbed in the duties

and cares of motherhood, all the great mass of workers, who are

completely absorbed by their labor, all those of weak mind, all the

enfeebled, the many who have come under the subjection of nicotine,

alcohol, opium, or what not,--all these are not in a position to

think for themselves, and consequently they submit to those who

stand on a higher intellectual level, or they simply act according

to domestic or social tradition, or in accordance with public

opinion,--and in their acting thus there is nothing abnormal or

contradictory."

Indeed, there is nothing unnatural in it, and the readiness with

which those who reason but little submit to the guidance of men who

stand on a higher plane of consciousness is a universal phenomenon,

and one without which social life could not be. The minority submit

to principles which they have considered for themselves, and in

consequence of the accordance of these principles with their reason;

the rest of men, the majority, submit to the same principles, not

because of personal apprehension of their validity, but because

public opinion demands it.

Such submission to public opinion of men who can think but little

for themselves has nothing abnormal about it so long as public

opinion maintains its unity.

But there is a period when the higher forms of truth, having been

revealed to the few, are in process of transmission to the many;

and when the public opinion which was based on a lower plane of

consciousness has already begun to waver, to give place to the new,

ready to be established. And now men begin to view their own and

other men's actions in the light of their new consciousness, while,

influenced by inertia and tradition, they still continue to apply

principles which were the outcome of the once highest consciousness,

but which are now distinctly opposed to it. Hence it is that men

find themselves in an abnormal position, and that, while realizing

the necessity of conforming to this new public opinion, they lack

courage to abandon conformity to the old one. This is the attitude

which men, not only the men on the train, but the greater part of

mankind, occupy toward Christian truths.

The attitude of those who belong to the upper classes, and who have

all the advantages of high position, is the same as that of the

lower classes who obey implicitly every command that is given to

them.

Men of the ruling classes, who have no reasonable explanation of

their privileges, and who in order to retain them are forced to

repress all their nobler and more humane tendencies, try to persuade

themselves of the necessity of their superior position; while the

lower classes, stultified and oppressed by labor, are kept by the

higher classes in a state of constant subjection.

This is the only possible explanation of the amazing phenomena

which I witnessed on the train on the 9th of September, when men,

naturally kindly and inoffensive, were to be seen going with an easy

conscience to commit the most cruel, contemptible and idiotic of

crimes.

It cannot be said that they are devoid of the conscience which

should forbid them to do these things, as was the case with the men

who, centuries ago, tortured their fellow-men, scourged them to

death, and burned them at the stake;--nay, it does exist in them,

but it is kept dormant; auto-suggestion, as the psychologist calls

it, keeps it thus among the upper classes, while the soldiers, the

executioners, are under the hypnotic influence of the classes above

them.

Conscience may slumber for a time, but it is not dead, and in spite

of suggestion and auto-suggestion, it still whispers; yet a little

while and it will awaken.

One might compare these men to a person under the influence of

hypnotism, to whom it has been suggested that he shall commit some

act contrary to his conception of right and wrong, as, for example,

to murder his mother or his child. He feels himself so far coerced

by the suggestion given him that he cannot refrain; and yet as the

appointed time and place draw near, he seems to hear the stifled

voice of conscience reviving, and he begins to draw back, he tries

to awaken himself. And no one can tell whether or not hypnotic

suggestion will conquer in the end; all depends on the relative

strength of conflicting influences.

So it was with the soldiers on that train, so it is with all men of

our period who take part in state violence and profit by it.

There was a time when, having gone forth to do violence and murder,

to terrify by an example, men did not return until they had

performed their mission, and then they suffered no doubt or remorse;

but having done their fellow-men to death, they placidly returned to

the bosom of their families, caressed their children, and with jest

and laughter gave themselves up to all the pure joys of the hearth.

The men who were then benefited by violence, landed proprietors

and men of wealth, believed their own interests to have a direct

connection with these cruelties. It is different now, when men know,

or at least suspect, the real reason why they do these things. They

may close their eyes and try to silence their consciences, but

neither those who commit such outrages, nor those who order them,

can longer fail to discern the significance of their acts. It may

be that they do not fully appreciate it until they are on the point

of committing the deed, or in some cases not until after the deed

has been done. Those soldiers, for instance, who administered the

tortures during the riot at the Yuzovo factory, at Nijni-Novgorod,

Saratov, and Orel, did not fully apprehend the significance of what

they were doing until it was all over; and now, both they who gave

the orders, and they who executed them, suffer agonies of shame in

the condemnation of public opinion and of their own conscience. I

have talked with some of the soldiers about it; they either tried to

change the subject or spoke of it with horror and repugnance.

There are instances of men coming to their senses, however, just

as they are on the point of committing deeds of the kind. I know

of a sergeant who during the riots was beaten by two peasants;

he reported the fact to the commander of his company, but on the

following day, when he saw the tortures inflicted upon other

peasants, he persuaded his superior officer to destroy his report

and to allow the peasants who had beaten him to depart unpunished.

I know of a case where the soldiers appointed to shoot a prisoner

refused to obey; and of other occasions where the superior officers

have refused to direct tortures and executions.

The men who were in the train on the 9th of September started with

the intention of torturing and murdering their fellow-men, but

whether they would carry out their intention one could not know.

However each one's share in the responsibility of this affair might

be concealed from him, however strong the hypnotic suggestion

among those taking part in it that they did so, not as men, but as

functionaries, and so could violate all human obligations,--in spite

of this,--the nearer they approached their destination, the more

they must have hesitated about it.

It is impossible that the Governor should not pause at the moment of

giving the decisive order to begin to murder and torture. He knows

that the conduct of the Governor at Orel has excited the indignation

of the honorable men, and he himself, influenced by public opinion,

has repeatedly expressed his own disapproval of the affair; he knows

that the lawyer who ought to have accompanied him distinctly refused

to do so, denouncing the whole affair as shameful; he knows that

changes are likely to take place in the government at any moment,

the result of which would be that those who were in favor yesterday

may be in disgrace to-morrow; that if the Russian press remains

silent, the foreign press may give an account of this business that

might cover him with opprobrium. Already he feels the influence of

the new public opinion which is to supersede and destroy the old

one. Moreover, he has no assurance that his subordinates may not at

the last moment refuse to obey him. He hesitates; it is impossible

to divine what he will do.

The functionaries and officers who accompany him feel more or less

as he does. They all know at the bottom of their hearts that they

are engaged in a shameful business, that their share in it stains

and degrades them in the eyes of those persons whose opinion they

value. They know that a man who participates in deeds like these

feels shame in the presence of the woman he loves. And like the

Governor, they, too, feel doubtful whether the soldiers will obey

them at the last moment. What a contrast to the self-assurance of

their bearing on the platform of the station! Not only do they

suffer, but they actually hesitate, and it is partly to hide their

inward agitation that they assume an air of bravado. And this

agitation increases as they draw nearer to their destination.

And, indeed, the entire body of soldiers, although they give no

outward sign, and seem utterly submissive, are really in the same

state of mind.

They are no longer like the soldiers of former days, who gave up the

natural life of labor, and surrendered themselves to debauchery,

rapine, and murder, as the Roman legions did, or the veterans of

the Thirty Years' War, or even those soldiers of more modern times,

whose term of service lasted twenty-five years. Now they are for

the most part men newly taken from their families, with all the

memories of the wholesome, rational life from which they have been

torn still fresh in their minds.

These young men, peasants for the most part, know what they are

going to do; they know that the land-owners generally ill-treat the

peasants, and that this probably is a case in point. Furthermore,

the majority of them can read, and the books they read are

not always in favor of the service; some even demonstrate its

immorality. They find comrades who are independent thinkers,

volunteers and young officers, and the seed of doubt respecting the

merit and rectitude of such deeds as they are about to commit has

already been sown in their minds. True, they have all been subjected

to that ingenious discipline, the work of centuries, which tends to

kill the spirit of independence in every man, and are so accustomed

to automatic obedience that at the words of command, "Fire along the

line!... Fire!" and so forth, their muskets are raised mechanically,

and they perform the customary movements. But now, "Fire!" means

something more than firing at a target; it means the murder of their

abused, downtrodden fathers and brothers, who are grouped yonder in

the street with their wives and children, gesticulating and crying

out one does not know what.

There they are: here a man with thin beard, clad in a patched

_kaftan_, with bast shoes on his feet, just like the father left

behind in the province of Kazan or Ryazan; there another, with gray

beard and bowed shoulders, leaning on a stout staff, just like the

grandfather; and here a youth, with big boots and red shirt, just

like himself a year ago,--the soldier who is about to shoot him. And

there is a woman, with her bast shoes and petticoat, like the mother

he left behind him.

And he must fire upon them!

And God alone knows what each soldier will do at the supreme moment.

The slightest suggestion that they ought not to do it, that they

must not do it,--a single word or hint,--would be enough to make

them pause.

Every one of these men at the moment of action will be like one

hypnotized, to whom it has been suggested to chop a log, who, as

he approaches the object which is told to him is a log, sees as

he raises the ax that it is not a log at all, but his own brother

who lies sleeping there. He may accomplish the act which has been

suggested to him, or he may awake at the moment of committing it.

It is the same with these men. If they do not awaken, then will a

deed be done as shocking as that committed in Orel, and the reign of

official hypnotism will thereby gain new power. If they awaken, then

not only will the deed remain undone, but many of those who hear

of their refusal to do it will free themselves from the suggestion

under whose influence they have hitherto acted, or at least will

think of the possibility of doing so.

If only a few of these men come to their senses, and refuse to do

the deed, and fearlessly express their opinion of the wickedness of

such deeds, even such a few men might enable the rest to throw off

the suggestion under the influence of which they act, and such evil

deeds would not be done.

And another thing: if but a few of those persons who are simply

spectators of the affair would, from their knowledge of other

affairs of the same kind, boldly express their opinion to those

engaged in it, and point out to them their folly, cruelty, and

criminality, even this would not be without a salutary influence.

This is precisely what happened in the case of Tula. Partly because

certain persons expressed reluctance to take a part in the affair;

because a lady passenger and others showed their indignation at a

railway station; because one of the colonels whose regiment was

summoned to reduce the peasants to obedience declared that soldiers

are not executioners,--because of these and other apparently

trifling influences the affair took on a different aspect, and

the troops, on arriving, did not commit outrages, but contented

themselves with cutting down the trees and sending them to the

landowner.

Had it not been that certain of these men conceived a distinct idea

that they were doing wrong, and had not the idea got abroad, the

occurrences at Orel would have been repeated. Had the feeling been

stronger, perhaps the Governor and his troops would not have gone

so far as even to fell the trees and deliver them to the landowner.

Had it been more powerful still, perhaps the Governor would not have

dared even to set out for Tula; its influence might even have gone

so far as to prevent the Minister from framing, and the Emperor from

confirming, such decrees.

All depends, as we come therefore to see, upon the degree of

consciousness that men possess of Christian truth.

Hence, let all men to-day who wish to promote the welfare of mankind

direct their efforts toward the development of this consciousness of

Christian truth.

But, strange to say, those men who nowadays talk most of the

amelioration of human life, and who are the acknowledged leaders

of public opinion, declare this to be precisely the wrong thing

to do, and that there are more effectual expedients for improving

human existence. They insist that any improvement in the conditions

of human life must be accomplished, not through individual

moral effort, nor through the propagation of truth, but through

progressive modifications in the general material conditions of

life. Therefore, they say, individual effort should be devoted to

the gradual reform of the everyday conditions of life; and seeing

that any individual profession of the truth which may happen to

be incompatible with the existing order is harmful, because it

provokes, on the part of the government, an opposition which

prevents the individual from continuing efforts which may be of

utility to society.

According to this theory, all changes in the life of mankind proceed

from the same causes that control the lives of the brute creation.

And all the religious teachers, like Moses and the Prophets,

Confucius, Lao Tze, Buddha, and Christ, preached their doctrines,

and their followers adopted them, not because they divined and loved

the truth, but because the political, social, and, above all, the

economical conditions of the nations in whose midst these doctrines

found expression were favorable to their exposition and development.

Therefore the principal activity of a man who wishes to serve the

world and to improve the condition of his kind should be directed,

according to this theory, not to teaching and profession of the

truth, but to the improvement of the outward, political, social,

and, above all, economic conditions of life. The change in these

conditions may be accomplished by serving the government and

introducing liberal and progressive principles, by contributing to

the development of commerce, by propagating socialistic principles,

but, above all, by promoting the diffusion of science.

According to this doctrine, it is a matter of no consequence whether

one profess the revealed truth or not; there is no obligation to

live in accordance with its precepts, or to refrain from actions

opposed to them,--as, for instance, to serve the government, though

one considers its power detrimental; to profit by the organization

of capital, though one disapproves of it; to subscribe to certain

forms of religion, though one considers them superstitions. Practise

in the courts of law, though one believes them to be corrupt; or

enter the army, or take the oath of allegiance, or indeed lie, or

do anything that is convenient. These things are trivial; for it is

a matter of vital importance, instead of challenging the prevailing

customs of the day, to conform to them, though they be contrary

to one's convictions, satisfied meanwhile to try and liberalize

the existing institutions, by encouraging commerce, propagating

socialistic doctrines, and generally promoting _soi-disant_

science and civilization. According to this convenient theory,

it is possible for a man to remain a landowner, a merchant, a

manufacturer, a judge, a functionary paid by the government, a

soldier, an officer, and at the same time to be humanitarian,

socialist, and revolutionary.

Hypocrisy, formerly growing only out of such religious doctrines as

that of original sin, redemption, the Church, has in these latter

days, by means of the new theory, gained for itself a scientific

basis, and those whose intellectual habit of mind renders the

hypocrisy of the Church unendurable, are yet deceived by this new

hypocrisy with the _cachet_ of science. If in old times a man who

professed the doctrines taught by the Church could with a clear

conscience take part in any political crime, and benefit by so

doing, provided he complied with the external forms of his faith,

men of the present day, who deny Christianity, and view the conduct

of life from a secular and scientific standpoint, are every whit as

sure of their own innocence, even of their lofty morality, when they

participate in and benefit by the evil-doings of government.

It is not alone in Russia, but in France, England, Germany, and

America as well, that we find the wealthy landed proprietor, who,

in return for having allowed the men who live on his estate and who

supply him with the products of the soil, extorts from these men,

who are often poverty-stricken, all that he possibly can. Whenever

these oppressed laborers make an attempt to gain something for

themselves from the lands which the rich man calls his own, without

first asking his consent, troops are called out, who torture and put

to death those who have been bold enough to take such liberties.

By methods like this are claims to the ownership of land made good.

One would hardly imagine that a man who lived in such a wicked and

selfish manner could call himself a Christian, or even liberal.

One would think that if a man cared to seem Christian or liberal,

he would at least cease to plunder and to torment his fellow-men

with the aid of the government, in order to vindicate his claims

to the ownership of land. And such would be the case were it not

for the metaphysical hypocrisy which teaches that from a religious

standpoint it is immaterial whether one owns land or not, and that,

from the scientific point of view, for a single individual to give

up his land would be a useless sacrifice, without any effect on the

well-being of mankind, the amelioration of which can only be brought

about by a progressive modification of outward conditions.

Meanwhile, your modern landowner will, without the least hesitation

or doubt, organize an agricultural exhibition, or a temperance

society, or, through his wife and daughters, distribute warm

underclothing and soup to three old women; and he will hold forth

before the domestic circle, or in society, or as a member of

committees, or in the public press, upon the gospel of love for

mankind in general and the agricultural class in particular, that

class which he never ceases to torment and oppress. And those who

occupy a similar position will believe in him and sing his praises,

and take counsel together upon the best methods of improving the

condition of those very laboring classes they spend their lives

in exploiting; and for this purpose they suggest every possible

expedient, save that which would effect it,--namely, to desist from

robbing the poor of the land necessary for their subsistence.

(A striking example of this hypocrisy was presented by the Russian

landowners during the struggle with the famine of last year,[30]

a famine of which they were themselves the cause, and by which

they profited, not only by selling bread at the highest price, but

even by disposing of the dried potato-plants for five roubles a

_dessiatin_, to be used as fuel by the freezing peasants.)

[30] 1892.

The business of the merchant, again (as is the case with business of

any kind), is based upon a series of frauds; he takes advantage of

the necessities of men by buying his merchandise below, and selling

it above, its value. One would think that a man, the mainspring

of whose activity is what he himself in his own language calls

shrewdness, ought to feel ashamed of this, and never dream of

calling himself Christian or liberal while he continues a merchant.

But, according to the new metaphysic of hypocrisy, he may pass for

a virtuous man and still pursue his evil career; the religious man

has but to believe, the liberal man but to coöperate, in the reform

of external conditions to promote the general progress of commerce;

the rest does not signify. So this merchant (who, besides, often

sells bad commodities, adulterates, and uses false weights and

measures, or deals exclusively in commodities that imperil human

life, such as alcohol or opium) frankly considers himself, and is

considered by others,--always provided he only does not cheat his

colleagues in business and knavery, his fellow-tradesmen,--a model

of conscientiousness and honesty. And if he spend one per cent of

his stolen money on some public institution, hospital, museum,

or school, men call him the benefactor of the people on whose

exploitation all his welfare depends; and if he gives but the least

part of this money to the Church or to the poor, then is he deemed

an exemplary Christian indeed.

Take again the factory-owner, whose entire income is derived

from reducing the pay of his workmen to its lowest terms, and

whose whole business is carried on by forced and unnatural labor,

endangering the health of generations of men. One would suppose

that if this man professed Christian or liberal principles he would

cease to sacrifice human lives to his interests. But, according

to the existing theory, he encourages industry, and it would be a

positive injury to society if he were to abandon his operations,

even supposing he were willing to do so. And, too, this man, the

cruel slave-driver of thousands of human beings, having built for

those injured in his service minute houses, with gardens six feet

in extent, or established a fund, or a home for the aged, or a

hospital, is perfectly satisfied that he has more than atoned for

the moral and physical jeopardy into which he has plunged so many

lives; and he continues to live calmly, proud of his work.

We find that the functionary, civil, military, or ecclesiastical,

who performs his duties to gratify his selfishness or ambition, or,

as is more usually the case, for the sake of the stipend, collected

in the shape of taxes from an exhausted and crippled people,--if,

by a rare exception, he does not directly steal from the public

treasury,--considers himself, and is considered by his equals, a

most useful and virtuous member of society.

There are judges and other legal functionaries who know that their

decisions have condemned hundreds and thousands of unfortunate men

to be torn from their families and thrown into prison. There these

hapless beings are locked up in solitary confinement, or sent to

the galleys, where they go desperate and put an end to themselves

by starving themselves to death, by swallowing glass, or by some

such means. And who knows what the mothers, wives, and children

of these men suffer by the separation and imprisonment, and the

disgrace of it,--who have vainly begged for pardon for their sons,

husbands, brothers, or that their lot may be a little alleviated.

But the judge or other legal functionary is so primed with the

current hypocrisy that he himself, his colleagues, his wife, and his

friends are all quite sure, despite what he does, that he is a good

and sensible man. According to the current philosophy of hypocrisy,

such a man performs a duty of great importance to the public. And

this man, who has injured hundreds or thousands of human beings, who

owe it to him that they have lost their belief in goodness and their

faith in God, goes to church with a benevolent smile, listens to the

Bible, makes liberal speeches, caresses his children, bestows moral

lessons upon them, for their edification, and grows sentimental over

imaginary suffering.

Not only these men, their wives and children, but the entire

community around them, all the teachers, actors, cooks, jockeys,

live by preying upon the life-blood of the working-people, which

in one way or another they absorb like leeches. Every one of their

days of pleasure costs thousands of days in the lives of the

workers. They see the suffering and privation of these workmen,

of their wives and children, of their aged and feeble. They know

what punishments are visited upon those who attempt to resist

the organized system of pillage, but so far from abandoning or

concealing their luxurious habits, they flaunt them in the faces of

those whom they oppress and by whom they are hated. All the while

they assure themselves and others that they have the welfare of the

working-man greatly at heart. On Sundays, clad in rich garments,

they drive in their carriages to churches where the mockery of

Christianity is preached, and listen there to the words of men who

have learned their falsehoods by heart. Some of these men wear

stoles, some wear white cravats; they all preach the doctrine of

love for one's neighbor, a doctrine belied by their daily lives. And

they have all grown so accustomed to playing this part that they

really believe themselves to be what they pretend.

This universal hypocrisy, which has become to every class of

society at the present day like the air it breathes, is so familiar

that men are no longer exasperated by it. It is very fitting that

hypocrisy should signify acting or playing of a part. It has become

so much a matter of course that it no longer excites surprise when

the representatives of Christ pronounce a blessing over murderers

as they stand in rank holding their guns in the position which

signifies, in military parlance, "for prayers," or when the priests

and pastors of various Christian sects accompany the executioner

to the scaffold, and, by lending the sanction of their presence

to murder, make men believe it compatible with Christianity.

(One minister was present when experiments in "electrocution"

took place in the United States.) At the International Prison

Exposition recently held in St. Petersburg, where instruments of

torture, such as chains, and models of prison-cells for solitary

confinement,--means of torture worse than the knout or the

rod,--were on exhibition, sympathetic ladies and gentlemen went to

see them, and seemed greatly entertained.

No one marvels to find liberal science insisting upon the

equality, fraternity, and liberty of men on the one hand, while

on the other it is striving to prove the necessity of armies,

executions, custom-houses, of censorship of the press, of legalized

prostitution, of the expulsion of foreign labor, of the prohibition

of emigration, and of the necessity and justice of colonization

established by the pillage and extermination of whole races of

so-called savages, etc.

They talk of what will happen when all men shall profess what they

call Christianity (by which they mean the different conflicting

creeds); when every one will be fed and clothed; when men will

communicate with one another all over the world by telegraph and

telephones, and will travel in balloons; when all working-men will

accept the doctrine of socialism; when the trade unions will embrace

many millions of men and possess millions of money; when all men

will be educated, will read the papers, and be familiar with all the

sciences.

But what good will this do if after all these improvements men are

still false to the truth?

The miseries of men are caused by disunion, and disunion arises from

the fact that men follow not truth, but falsehood, of which there is

no end. Truth is the only bond by which men may be united; and the

more sincerely men strive after the truth the nearer they approach

to true unity.

But how are men to be united in the truth, or even approach it,

if they not only fail to proclaim the truth which they possess,

but actually think it useless to do so, and pretend to believe in

something which they know to be a lie? In reality no improvement in

the condition of mankind is possible while men continue to hide the

truth from themselves, nor until they acknowledge that their unity,

and consequently their welfare, can be promoted only by the spirit

of truth; until they admit that to profess, and to act in obedience

to the truth as it has been revealed to them, is more important than

all things else.

Let all the material progress ever dreamt of by religious and

scientific men be made; let all men accept Christianity, and let all

the improvements suggested by the Bellamys and Richets, with every

possible addition and correction, be carried out; and yet if the

hypocrisy of to-day still flourishes, if men do not make known the

truth that is within them, but go on pretending to believe what they

know to be untrue, showing respect where they no longer feel it,

their condition will never improve; on the contrary, it will become

worse. The more men are raised above want, the more telegraphs,

telephones, books, newspapers, and reviews they possess, the more

numerous will be the channels for the diffusion of falsehood

and hypocrisy, and the more at variance and miserable will men

become,--and it is even so at the present time.

Let all those material changes take place, and still the position of

humanity will in no way be improved by them; but let every man, so

far as he is able, begin at once and live up to his highest ideal

of the truth or, at the least, cease to defend a lie, then indeed

should we see even in this year of 1893 such an advance in the

establishment of the truth upon earth, and in the deliverance of

mankind, as could hardly be hoped for in a hundred years.

It was not without reason that the only harsh and denunciatory words

that Christ uttered were addressed to hypocrites. It is neither

theft, nor robbery, nor murder, nor fornication, nor fraud, but

falsehood, that particular hypocritical falsehood, which destroys

in men's conscience the distinction between good and evil, which

corrupts them and takes from them the possibility of avoiding evil

and of seeking good, which deprives them of that which constitutes

the essence of a true human life,--it is this which bars the way

to all improvement. Those men who do evil, knowing not the truth,

inspire in the beholder compassion for their victims and repugnance

for themselves, but they only injure the few whom they molest.

Whereas those men who, knowing the good, yet pursue the evil,

wearing all the while the mantle of hypocrisy, commit a wrong,

not only against themselves and their victims, but also against

thousands of other men who are deceived by the falsehood under which

they conceal the wrong.

Thieves, robbers, murderers, rogues, who commit acts which they

themselves, as well as other men, know to be evil, serve as a

warning to show men what is evil, and make them hate it. Those,

however, who steal, rob, torture, and murder, justifying themselves

by pretended religious, scientific, or other motives, like the

landowners, merchants, factory-owners, and government servants of

the present time, by provoking imitation, injure not only their

victims, but thousands and millions of men who are corrupted

by their influence, and who become so blinded that they cannot

distinguish the difference between good and evil.

One fortune acquired by trading in the necessaries of life or

in articles that tend to demoralize men, or by speculations

in the stock exchange, or by the acquisition of cheap lands

which subsequently rise in value by reason of the increasing

needs of the people, or by the establishment of factories that

endanger human health and human lives, or by rendering civil or

military service to the State, or by any occupation that tends

to the demoralization of mankind,--a fortune acquired in any of

these ways, not only permitted, but approved by the leaders of

society, when, furthermore, it is supported by a show of charity,

surely demoralizes men more than millions of thefts, frauds, or

robberies,--sins committed against the laws of the land and subject

to judicial prosecution.

A single enforcement of capital punishment, ordained by men of

education and wealth, sanctioned by the approval of the Christian

clergy, and declared to be an act of justice essential to the

welfare of the State, tends far more to degrade and brutalize

mankind than hundreds and thousands of murders committed in passion

by the ignorant. A more demoralizing scene than the execution

suggested by Jukovsky, calculated as it is to excite a feeling of

religious exaltation, it would be difficult to conceive.[31]

[31] See vol. iv. of the works of Jukovsky (a Russian poet).

A war, even of the shortest duration,--with all its customary

consequences, the destruction of harvests, the thefts, the unchecked

debauchery and murders, with the usual explanations of its necessity

and justice, with the accompanying glorification and praise bestowed

upon military exploits, upon patriotism, devotion to the flag, with

the assumption of tenderness and care for the wounded,--will do more

in one year to demoralize men than thousands of robberies, arsons,

and murders committed in the course of centuries by individual men

carried away by passion.

The existence of one household, one not even extravagant beyond

the ordinary limits, esteeming itself virtuous and innocent, which

yet consumes the production of enough to support thousands of the

men who live near in poverty and distress, has a more degrading

influence on mankind than innumerable orgies of gross shopkeepers,

officers, or workmen who are addicted to drink and debauchery, and

who smash mirrors and crockery by way of amusement.

One solemn procession, one religious service, or one sermon from

the pulpit, embodying a falsehood which the preacher himself does

not believe, does infinitely more harm than thousands of frauds,

adulterations of food, etc.

Men talk of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees; but the hypocrisy

of our contemporaries far surpasses the comparatively harmless

sanctimoniousness of the Pharisees. They at least had an outward

religious law, whose fulfilment may perhaps have prevented them from

discerning their duty toward their neighbors; indeed, those duties

had not then been distinctly defined. To-day there is no such law.

(I do not consider such gross and stupid men as even now believe

that sacraments or absolution of the Pope can free them from sins.)

On the contrary, the law of the gospel, which in one form or another

we all profess, makes our duties perfectly plain. Indeed, those

precepts which were but vaguely indicated by certain of the prophets

have since been so clearly formulated, have grown to be such

truisms, that the very school-boys and hack writers repeat them.

Therefore men of our times cannot feign ignorance concerning them.

Those men who enjoy the advantages of the existing system, and who

are always protesting love for their neighbor, without suspicion

that their own lives are an injury to their neighbors, are like

the robber who, caught with an uplifted knife, his victim crying

desperately for help, protests that he did not know that he was

doing anything unpleasant to the man whom he was in the act of

robbing and about to murder. Since the denial of this robber

and murderer would be of no avail, his act being patent to all

observers, it would seem equally futile for our fellow-citizens, who

live by the sufferings of the oppressed, to assure themselves and

others that they desire the welfare of those whom they never cease

to rob, and that they had not realized the nature of the methods by

which their prosperity had been attained.

We can no longer persuade ourselves that we do not know of the

one hundred thousand men in Russia alone who have been shut up

in galleys or in prisons for the purpose of securing to us our

property and our peace; and that we do not know of the existence

of those courts of law at which we preside, to which we bring

our accusations, which sentence those men, who have attacked our

property or our lives, to the galleys, to imprisonment, or to exile,

where human beings, no worse than they who have pronounced judgment

upon them, become degraded and lost; nor that we do not know that

everything that we possess has been won and is preserved at the

expense of murder and violence. We cannot shut our eyes and pretend

that we do not see the policeman, who, armed with a revolver, paces

before our window, protecting us while we are eating our excellent

dinner, or when we are at the theater seeing a new play; nor do

not know of the existence of the soldiers who will appear armed

with guns and cartridges whenever our property is menaced. We know

perfectly well that if we finish our dinner, see the new play to its

end, enjoy a merry-making at Christmas, take a walk, go to a ball, a

race, or a hunt, we owe it to the policeman's revolver or the ball

in the soldier's musket, which will pierce the hungry belly of the

disinherited man who, with watering mouth, peeps round the corner

at our pleasures, and who might interrupt them if the policeman

or the soldiers in the barracks were not ready to appear at our

first call. Hence, as the man who is caught in the act of robbery

in broad daylight cannot deny that he threatened his victim with a

knife for the purpose of stealing his purse, it might be supposed

that we could no longer represent to ourselves and to others that

the soldiers and policemen whom we see around us are here, not for

the purpose of protecting us, but to repulse foreign enemies, to

assure public order, to adorn by their presence public rejoicings

and ceremonies. We cannot pretend we do not know that men are not

fond of starving to death. We know that they do not like to die

of hunger, being deprived of the right to earn their living from

the soil upon which they live, that they are not anxious to work

ten to fourteen hours a day underground, standing in water, or in

over-heated rooms, twelve or fourteen hours a day, or at night,

manufacturing articles which contribute to our pleasures. It would

seem impossible to deny what is so evident, and yet it is what we do

deny.

It cannot be denied that there are people of the wealthy class,

and I am glad to say that I meet them more and more frequently,

particularly in the younger generation and among women, who, on

being reminded by what means and at what a price their pleasures

are obtained, instantly admit the truth of it, and with bowed heads

exclaim: "Ah, do not tell us of it! If it is as you say, one cannot

live!" If, however, there are some who are willing to admit their

sin, though they know not how to escape from it, still, the majority

of men nowadays have become so confirmed in hypocrisy that they

boldly deny facts that are patent to every one who has eyes.

"It is all nonsense," they say. "No one forces the people to work

for the landowners or in the factories. It is a matter of mutual

accommodation. Large properties and capital are indispensable,

because they enable men to organize companies and provide work for

the laboring classes, and the work in mills and factories is by no

means so dreadful as you represent it. When real abuses are found

to exist, the government and society in general take measures to

abolish them and to render the labor of the working-men easier and

more agreeable. The working-classes are used to physical labor,

and are not as yet capable of doing anything else. The poverty

of the people is caused neither by the landowners nor by the

tyranny of the capitalists; it springs from other causes,--from

ignorance, disorder, and intemperance. We, the governing classes,

who counteract this state of poverty by wise administration; and

we, the capitalists, who counteract it by the multiplication of

useful inventions; and we, the liberals, who contribute our share

by instituting trade unions and by diffusing education,--these are

the methods by which we promote the welfare of the people, without

making any radical change in our position. We do not wish all to be

poor like the poor; we wish all to be rich like the rich.

"As to torturing and killing men for the purpose of making them

work for the rich, that is all sophistry; the troops are sent out

to quell disturbances when men, not appreciating their advantages,

rebel and disturb the peace essential for the general welfare. It

is equally necessary to restrain malefactors, for whom prisons,

gallows, and the like are established. We are anxious enough to

abolish them as far as possible ourselves, and are working for that

purpose."

Hypocrisy, which nowadays is supported by two methods, the

quasi-religious and the quasi-scientific, has attained such

proportions, that if we did not live in its atmosphere continually,

it would be impossible to believe that humanity could sink to such

depths of self-deception. Men have reached so surprising a state,

their hearts have become so hardened, that they look and do not see;

listen, and do not hear or understand.

For a long time they have been living a life that is contrary to

their conscience. Were it not for the aid of hypocrisy they would be

unable so to live, for such a life, so opposed to conscience, can

only continue because it is veiled by hypocrisy.

And the greater the difference between the practice and the

conscience of men, the more elastic becomes hypocrisy. Yet even

hypocrisy has its limits, and I believe that we have reached them.

Every man of the present day, with the Christian consciousness that

has involuntarily become his, may be likened to a sleeper who dreams

that he is doing what even in his dream he knows he ought not to do.

In the depths of his dream-consciousness he realizes his conduct,

and yet seems unable to change his course, and to cease doing that

which he is aware he should not do.

Then, in the progress of his dream, his state of mind becoming less

and less endurable, he begins to doubt the reality of what has

seemed so real, and makes a conscious effort to break the spell that

holds him.

The average man of our Christian world is in exactly the same

strait. He feels that everything going on around him is absurd,

senseless, and impossible; that the situation is becoming more and

more painful, that it has indeed reached the crisis.

It is impossible that we of the present age, endowed with the

Christian conscience that has become a part of our very flesh and

blood as it were, who live with a full consciousness of the dignity

of man and the equality of all men, who feel our need for peaceable

relations with each other and for the unity of all nations, should

go on living in such a way. It is impossible that all our pleasures,

all our satisfactions, should be purchased by the sufferings and

the lives of our brethren; impossible that we should be ready at a

moment's notice to rush upon each other like wild beasts, one nation

against another, and relentlessly destroy the lives and labor of

men, only because one foolish diplomatist or ruler says or writes

something foolish to another.

It is impossible; and yet all men of our time see that this is what

does happen every day, and all wait for the catastrophe, while the

situation grows more and more strained and painful.

And as a man in his sleep doubts the reality of his dream and longs

to awaken and return to real life, so the average man of our day

cannot, in the bottom of his heart, believe the terrible situation

in which he finds himself, and which is growing worse and worse,

to be the reality. He longs to attain to a higher reality, the

consciousness of which is already within him.

And like this sleeper, who has but to make the conscious effort

to ask himself whether it be a dream, in order to transform its

seeming hopelessness into a joyous awakening, our average man has

but to make a conscious effort and ask himself, "Is not all this

an illusion?" in order to feel himself forthwith like the awakened

sleeper, transported from an hypocritical and horrible dream-world

into a living, peaceful, and joyous real one.

And for this he has no need of any heroic achievement; he has only

to make the effort prompted by his moral consciousness.

But is man able to make this effort?

According to the existing theory, one indispensable from the point

of view of hypocrisy, man is not free and may not change his life.

"A man cannot change his life, because he is not a free agent. He

is not a free agent, because his acts are the result of preceding

causes. And whatever he may do, certain it is that preceding causes

always determine that a man must act in one way rather than in

another; therefore a man is not free to change his life,"--thus

argue the defenders of the metaphysic of hypocrisy. And they would

be perfectly right if man were an unconscious and stationary being,

incapable of apprehending the truth, and unable to advance to a

higher state by means of it. But man is a conscious being, able to

grow more and more in the knowledge of truth. Therefore if he be

not free in his acts, the causes of these acts, which consist in

the recognition simply of such and such truth, are yet within his

mastery.

So that if a man is not free to do certain acts, he is yet free to

work toward the suppression of the moral causes which prevent their

performance. He may be likened to the engineer of a locomotive, who,

though not at liberty to change the past or present motion of his

engine, is yet free to determine its future progress.

No matter what an intelligent man may do, he adopts a certain course

of action only because he acknowledges to himself that at the moment

that course alone is the right one; or because he has formerly

recognized it as such, and now continues to act as he does through

force of habit, or through mental inertia.

Whether a man eats or abstains from food, whether he works or rests,

whether he avoids danger or seeks it, he acts as he does because he

considers it to be reasonable at the time, or because previously

he saw that the truth consisted in acting in that way and not in

another.

The admission or the denial of a certain truth depends not on

outward causes, but on certain conditions that man finds within

himself. Thus frequently, with all the outward and, as it may seem,

favorable conditions for recognizing the truth, one may reject it,

while another may receive it under the most unfavorable conditions,

and without apparent motives. As it is said in the gospel: "No

man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw

him;"--that is to say, the recognition of truth, which is the cause

of all the manifestations of a man's life, does not depend on

outward conditions, but on certain inherent qualities which escape

recognition.

Therefore a man who is not free in his acts still feels himself

free in regard to the cause of his acts; that is, in regard to the

recognition or non-recognition of truth.

Thus a man who, under the influence of passion, has committed a deed

contrary to the truth he knows, still remains free in recognizing

or denying the truth; in other words, denying the truth, he may

consider his act necessary and justify himself in committing it,

or, accepting the truth, he may acknowledge his deed to be evil and

himself guilty.

Thus a gambler or a drunkard, who has succumbed to his passion, is

free to acknowledge gambling or drunkenness either as evils, or as

amusements without consequence. In the first instance, if he cannot

get rid of his passion at once, he becomes free from it gradually,

according to the depth of his conviction of its evil. In the second

instance, his passion grows and gradually deprives him of all chance

of deliverance.

So, too, with a man who, unable to endure the scorching flames for

the rescue of his friend, himself escapes from a burning house,

while he recognizes the truth that a man should save the life of his

fellow-man at the peril of his own, is yet free to look upon his

act as evil, and therefore to condemn himself for it; or, denying

this truth, to judge his act to be both natural and necessary, and

so justify himself in his own opinion. In the first instance, his

recognition of the truth, even though he has not acted in accordance

with it, helps him to prepare for a series of self-sacrificing

actions that will inevitably follow such recognition. In the second

instance, he prepares for a series of actions just as selfish.

I do not say that a man is always free to recognize or not to

recognize every truth. Certain truths there are, long since

recognized by men, and transmitted by tradition, education, and

mere force of habit until they have become second nature; and there

are other truths which men perceive as but dimly and afar. A man

is not free not to recognize the first of these; he is not free to

recognize the second. But there is a third category of truths, which

have not as yet become unquestioned motors of his activity, but have

revealed themselves to man so unmistakably that he is unable to

disregard them; he must inevitably consider them, and either accept

or reject them. It is by his relation to these truths that a man's

freedom is manifested.

Each man in his perception of truth is like a wayfarer who walks by

the aid of a lantern whose light he casts before him: he does not

see what as yet has not been revealed by its beams, he does not see

the path he has left behind, merged again in the darkness; but at

any given point he sees that which the lantern reveals, and he is

always at liberty to choose one side of the road or the other.

There exist for each man certain concealed truths, as yet unrevealed

to his mental vision; certain others, which he has experienced,

assimilated, and forgotten; and yet others, that rise up before

him demanding immediate recognition from his reason. And it is in

the recognition or the disregard of these truths that what we call

freedom becomes evident.

All the apparent difficulty of the question of man's liberty comes

from the fact that those who seek to solve it represent man as

stationary in the presence of the truth.

Undoubtedly he is not free if we look upon him as a stationary

being; if we forget that the life of all humanity is an eternal

procession from darkness to light, from the lower conception of

truth to a higher one, from truth mingled with error to purer truth.

A man would not be free if he were ignorant of all truth; neither

would he be free, nor even have any conception of liberty, if the

truth were suddenly revealed to him in its entire purity and without

any admixture of error.

But man is not a stationary being. And as he advances in life, every

individual discovers an ever increasing proportion of truth, and

thus becomes less liable to error.

The relations of man to truth are threefold. Some truths are so

familiar to him that they have become the unconscious springs of

action; others have only been dimly revealed to him; again others,

though still unfamiliar, are revealed to him so plainly that they

force themselves upon his attention, and inevitably, in one way or

another, he is obliged to consider them. He cannot ignore them, but

must either recognize or repudiate them.

And it is in the recognition or in the disregard of these truths

that man's free agency is manifested.

A man's freedom does not consist in a faculty of acting

independently of his environment and the various influences it

brings to bear upon his life, but in his power to become, through

recognizing and professing the truth that has been revealed to

him, a free and willing laborer at the eternal and infinite work

performed by God and his universe; or, in shutting his eyes to

truth, to become a slave and be forced against his will into a way

in which he is loath to go.

Not only does truth point out the direction a man's life _should_

take, but it opens the only road he _can_ take. Hence, all men will

invariably, free or not, follow the road of truth;--some willingly,

doing the work they have set themselves to do; others involuntarily,

by submitting in spite of themselves to the law of life. It is in

the power of choice that a man's freedom lies.

Freedom, in limits so narrow as these, appears to men so

insignificant that they fail to perceive it. The believers in

causation prefer to overlook it; the believers in unlimited free

will, keeping in view their own ideal, disdain a freedom to them

so insignificant. Freedom, confined between the limits of entire

ignorance of the truth, or of the knowledge of only a part of it,

does not seem to them to be freedom, the more so that whether a man

is or is not willing to recognize the truth revealed unto him, he

will inevitably be forced to obey it in life.

A horse harnessed to a load in company with other horses is not free

to remain in one place. If he does not pull the load, the load will

strike him and force him to move in the direction it is going, thus

compelling him to advance. Still, in spite of this limitation of

freedom, the horse is still free to pull the load of his own accord,

or be pushed forward by it. The same reasoning can be applied to

human freedom.

Be this freedom great or small as compared with the chimerical

freedom for which we sigh, it is the only true freedom, and through

it alone is to be found all the happiness accessible to man. And not

only does this freedom promote the happiness of men, but it is the

only means through which the work of the world can be accomplished.

According to the doctrine of Christ, a man who limits his

observation of life to the sphere in which there is no freedom--to

the sphere of effects--that is, of acts--does not live a true

life. He only lives a true life who has transferred his life

into the sphere in which freedom lies,--into the domain of first

causes,--that is to say, by the recognition and practice of the

truth revealed to him.

The man who consecrates his life to sensual acts is ever performing

acts that depend on temporary causes beyond his control. Of

himself he does nothing; it only seems to him that he is acting

independently, whereas in reality all that he imagines he is doing

by himself is done through him by a superior force; he is not the

creator of life, but its slave. But the man who devotes his life to

the acknowledgment and practice of the truth revealed to him unites

himself with the source of universal life, and accomplishes, not

personal, individual acts, that depend on the conditions of time and

space, but acts that have no causes, but are in themselves causes of

all else, and have an endless and unlimited significance.

Because of their setting aside the essence of true life, which

consists in the recognition and practice of the truth, and directing

their efforts toward the improvement of the external conditions

of life, men of the pagan life-conception may be likened to

passengers on a steamer, who should, in their anxiety to reach their

destination, extinguish the engine-fires, and instead of making use

of steam and screw, try during a storm to row with oars which cannot

reach the water.

The Kingdom of God is attained by effort, and it is only those who

make the effort that do attain it. It is this effort, which consists

in sacrificing outward conditions for the sake of the truth, by

which the Kingdom of God is attained,--an effort which can and ought

to be made now, in our own epoch.

Men have but to understand this: that they must cease to care for

material and external matters, in which they are not free; let them

apply one hundredth part of the energy now used by them in outward

concerns to those in which they are free,--to the recognition and

profession of the truth that confronts them, to the deliverance of

themselves and others from the falsehood and hypocrisy which conceal

the truth,--and then the false system of life which now torments us,

which threatens us with still greater suffering, will be destroyed

at once without struggle. Then the Kingdom of Heaven, at least in

that first stage for which men through the development of their

consciousness are already prepared, will be established.

As one shake is sufficient to precipitate into crystals a liquid

saturated with salt, so at the present time it may be that only the

least effort is needed in order that the truth, already revealed

to us, should spread among hundreds, thousands, millions of men,

and a public opinion become established in conformity with the

existing consciousness, and the entire social organization become

transformed. It depends upon us to make this effort.

If only each of us would try to understand and recognize the

Christian truth, which in the most varied forms surrounds us on

all sides, pleading to be admitted into our hearts; if we would

cease to lie and pretend that we do not see this truth, or that

we are anxious to fulfil it, excepting in the one thing that it

really demands; if we would only recognize this truth which calls

us, and would fearlessly profess it,--we should find forthwith that

hundreds, thousands, and millions of men are in the same position as

ourselves, fearing like ourselves to stand alone in its recognition,

and waiting only to hear its avowal from others.

If men would only cease to be hypocrites they would perceive at once

that this cruel organization of society, which alone hampers them

and yet appears to them like something immutable, necessary, and

sacred, established by God, is already wavering, and is maintained

only by the hypocrisy and the falsehood of ourselves and our

fellow-men.

But if it be true that it depends only on ourselves to change the

existing order of life, have we the right to do it without knowing

what we shall put in its place? What will become of the world if the

present system be destroyed?

"What is there beyond the walls of the world we leave behind us?

"Fear seizes us,--emptiness, space, freedom....--how is one to go

on, not knowing whither? How is one to lose, without the hope of

gain?...

"Had Columbus reasoned thus he never would have weighed anchor. It

was madness to attempt to cross an unknown ocean, to set sail for a

country whose very existence was doubtful. But he discovered a new

world through this madness. To be sure, if people had only to move

from one furnished house into another and a more commodious one, it

would be an easy matter, but the trouble lies in there being no one

to prepare the new apartments. The future looks more uncertain still

than the ocean,--it promises nothing,--it will only be what men and

circumstances make it.

"If you are content with the old world, try to preserve it; it is

sick, and will not live long. But if you can no longer live in the

eternal conflict between your convictions and life, thinking one way

and acting another, take it upon yourselves to leave the shelter

of the blanched and ruinous arches of the Middle Ages. I am aware

that this is not an easy matter. It is hard to part with all one has

been accustomed to from birth. Men are ready for great sacrifices,

but not those which the new life demands of them. Are they ready

to sacrifice their present civilization, their mode of life,

their religion, their conventional morality? Are they ready to be

deprived of all the results of such prolonged efforts, the results

we have boasted of for three centuries, of all the conveniences and

attractions of our existence, to give the preference to wild youth

rather than to civilized senility, to pull down the palace built

by our fathers simply for the pleasure of laying the foundation

of a new house, which, without doubt, will not be completed till

long after our time."[32] Thus wrote, almost half a century ago, a

Russian author, who, with penetrating vision, clearly discerned even

at that time what is recognized by every man to-day who reflects a

little,--the impossibility of continuing life on the former basis,

and the necessity of establishing some new mode of existence.

[32] Herzen, vol. v., p. 55.

It is plain from the simplest and most ordinary point of view that

it is folly to remain under a roof that threatens to fall, and

that one must leave it. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more

miserable situation than that of the present Christian world,

with its nations arrayed in arms one against the other, with its

ever increasing taxes for the purpose of supporting its growing

armaments, with the burning hatred of the working-classes for the

rich, with war suspended above all like the sword of Damocles ready

to fall, as it may, at any moment.

It is doubtful whether any revolution could be more disastrous than

the present social order, or rather disorder, with its perpetual

victims of overwork, misery, drunkenness, dissipation, with all the

horrors of impending war that in one year will sacrifice more lives

than all the revolutions of the present century.

What will become of mankind if each one fulfils that which God

demands through the conscience that is in him. Shall I be safe if,

under the orders of my master, I accomplish in his great workshop

the tasks he has set me, although, ignorant of his final plans, I

may think it strange? Nor is it alone the question of the future

that troubles men when they hesitate to do the master's bidding.

They are concerned about the question as to how they are to live

without the familiar conditions which we call science, art,

civilization, culture. We feel individually all the burden of our

present way of living; we see that were this order of things to

continue, it would inevitably ruin us; and yet we are anxious to

have these conditions continue, to have our science, our art, our

civilization, and culture remain unchanged. It is as though a man

who dwells in an old house, suffering from cold and discomfort, who

is moreover aware that its walls may tumble at any moment, should

consent to the remodeling of it, only on condition that he may be

allowed to remain there, a condition that is equivalent to a refusal

to have his dwelling rebuilt. "What, if I should leave my house,"

he says, "I should be temporarily deprived of its comforts; the

new house may not be built after all, or it may be constructed on

a new plan, which will lack the conveniences to which I have been

accustomed!" But if the materials and the workmen are ready, it is

probable that the new house will be built, and in a better manner

than the old one; while it is not only probable but certain that

the old house will soon fall into ruins, crushing those who remain

within its walls. In order that the old, everyday conditions of life

may disappear and make room for new and better ones, we must surely

leave behind the old conditions, which are at length become fatal

and impossible, and issue forth to meet the future.