The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy [books to read fiction .TXT] 📗

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dulling their sensibilities, half of mankind would shoot

themselves without delay, for to live in opposition to one’s

reason is the most intolerable condition. And that is the

condition of all men of the present day. All men of the modern

world exist in a state of continual and flagrant antagonism

between their conscience and their way of life. This antagonism

is apparent in economic as well as political life. But most

striking of all is the contradiction between the Christian law of

the brotherhood of men existing in the conscience and the

necessity under which all men are placed by compulsory military

service of being prepared for hatred and murder—of being at the

same time a Christian and a gladiator.

 

CHAPTER VI.

 

ATTITUDE OF MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY TO WAR.

 

People do not Try to Remove the Contradiction between Life and

Conscience by a Change of Life, but their Cultivated Leaders Exert

Every Effort to Obscure the Demands of Conscience, and justify

their Life; in this Way they Degrade Society below Paganism to a

State of Primeval Barbarism—Undefined Attitude of Modern Leaders

of Thought to War, to Universal Militarism, and to Compulsory

Service in Army—One Section Regards War as an Accidental

Political Phenomenon, to be Avoided by External Measures only—

Peace Congress—The Article in the REVUE DES REVUES—Proposition

of Maxime du Camp—Value of Boards of Arbitration and Suppression

of Armies—Attitude of Governments to Men of this Opinion and What

they Do—Another Section Regards War as Cruel, but Inevitable—

Maupassant—Rod—A Third Section Regard War as Necessary, and not

without its Advantages—Doucet-Claretie-Zola-Vog��.

 

The antagonism between life and the conscience may be removed in

two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience. And

there would seem there can be no doubt as to these alternatives.

 

A man may cease to do what he regards as wrong, but he cannot

cease to consider wrong what is wrong. Just in the same way all

humanity may cease to do what it regards as wrong, but far from

being able to change, it cannot even retard for a time the

continual growth of a clearer recognition of what is wrong and

therefore ought not to be. And therefore it would seem inevitable

for Christian men to abandon the pagan forms of society which they

condemn, and to reconstruct their social existence on the

Christian principles they profess.

 

So it would be were it not for the law of inertia, as immutable a

force in men and nations as in inanimate bodies. In men it takes

the form of the psychological principle, so truly expressed in the

words of the Gospel, “They have loved darkness better than light

because their deeds were evil.” This principle shows itself in

men not trying to recognize the truth, but to persuade themselves

that the life they are leading, which is what they like and are

used to, is a life perfectly consistent with truth.

 

Slavery was opposed to all the moral principles advocated by Plato

and Aristotle, yet neither of them saw that, because to renounce

slavery would have meant the break up of the life they were

living. We see the same thing in our modern world.

 

The division of men into two castes, as well as the use of force

in government and war, are opposed to every moral principle

professed by our modern society. Yet the cultivated and advanced

men of the day seem not to see it.

 

The majority, if not all, of the cultivated men of our day try

unconsciously to maintain the old social conception of life, which

justifies their position, and to hide from themselves and others

its insufficiency, and above all the necessity of adopting the

Christian conception of life, which will mean the break up of the

whole existing social order. They struggle to keep up the

organization based on the social conception of life, but do not

believe in it themselves, because it is extinct and it is

impossible to believe in it.

 

All modern literature—philosophical, political, and artistic—is

striking in this respect. What wealth of idea, of form, of color,

what erudition, what art, but what a lack of serious matter, what

dread of any exactitude of thought or expression! Subtleties,

allegories, humorous fancies, the widest generalizations, but

nothing simple and clear, nothing going straight to the point,

that is, to the problem of life.

 

But that is not all; besides these graceful frivolities, our

literature is full of simple nastiness and brutality, of arguments

which would lead men back in the most refined way to primeval

barbarism, to the principles not only of the pagan, but even of

the animal life, which we have left behind us five thousand years

ago.

 

And it could not be otherwise. In their dread of the Christian

conception of life which will destroy the social order, which some

cling to only from habit, others also from interest, men cannot

but be thrown back upon the pagan conception of life and the

principles based on it. Nowadays we see advocated not only

patriotism and aristocratic principles just as they were advocated

two thousand years ago, but even the coarsest epicureanism and

animalism, only with this difference, that the men who then

professed those views believed in them, while nowadays even the

advocates of such views do not believe in them, for they have no

meaning for the present day. No one can stand still when the

earth is shaking under his feet. If we do not go forward we must

go back. And strange and terrible to say, the cultivated men of

our day, the leaders of thought, are in reality with their subtle

reasoning drawing society back, not to paganism even, but to a

state of primitive barbarism.

 

This tendency on the part of the leading thinkers of the day is

nowhere more apparent than in their attitude to the phenomenon in

which all the insufficiency of the social conception of life is

presented in the most concentrated form—in their attitude, that

is, to war, to the general arming of nations, and to universal

compulsory service.

 

The undefined, if not disingenuous, attitude of modern thinkers to

this phenomenon is striking. It takes three forms in cultivated

society. One section look at it as an incidental phenomenon,

arising out of the special political situation of Europe, and

consider that this state of things can be reformed without a

revolution in the whole internal social order of nations, by

external measures of international diplomacy. Another section

regard it as something cruel and hideous, but at the same time

fated and inevitable, like disease and death. A third party with

cool indifference consider war as an inevitable phenomenon,

beneficial in its effects and therefore desirable.

 

Men look at the subject from different points of view, but all

alike talk of war as though it were something absolutely

independent of the will of those who take part in it. And

consequently they do not even admit the natural question which

presents itself to every simple man: “How about me—ought I to

take any part in it?” In their view no question of this kind even

exists, and every man, however he may regard war from a personal

standpoint, must slavishly submit to the requirements of the

authorities on the subject.

 

The attitude of the first section of thinkers, those who see a way

out of war in international diplomatic measures, is well expressed

in the report of the last Peace Congress in London, and the

articles and letters upon war that appeared in No. 8 of the REVUE

DES REVUES, 1891. The congress after gathering together from

various quarters the verbal and written opinion of learned men

opened the proceedings by a religious service, and after listening

to addresses for five whole days, concluded them by a public

dinner and speeches. They adopted the following resolutions:

 

“1. The congress affirms its belief that the brotherhood of man

involves as a necessary consequence a brotherhood of nations.

 

“2. The congress recognizes the important influence that

Christianity exercises on the moral and political progress of

mankind, and earnestly urges upon ministers of the Gospel and

other religious teachers the duty of setting forth the

principles of peace and good will toward men. AND IT RECOMMENDS

THAT THE THIRD SUNDAY IN DECEMBER BE SET APART FOR THA

PURPOSE.

 

“3. The congress expresses the opinion that all teachers of

history should call the attention of the young to the grave

evils inflicted on mankind in all ages by war, and to the fact

that such war has been waged for most inadequate causes.

 

“4. The congress protests against the use of military drill in

schools by way of physical exercise, and suggests the formation

of brigades for saving life rather than of a quasi-military

character; and urges the desirability of impressing on the

Board of Examiners who formulate the questions for examination

the propriety of guiding the minds of children in the

principles of peace.

 

“5. The congress holds that the doctrine of the Rights of Man

requires that the aboriginal and weaker races, their

territories and liberties, shall be guarded from injustice and

fraud, and that these races shall be shielded against the vices

so prevalent among the so-called advanced races of men. It

further expresses its conviction that there should be concert

of action among the nations for the accomplishment of these

ends. The congress expresses its hearty appreciation of the

resolutions of the Anti-slavery Conference held recently at

Brussels for the amelioration of the condition of the peoples

of Africa.

 

“6. The congress believes that the warlike prejudices and

traditions which are still fostered in the various

nationalities, and the misrepresentations by leaders of public

opinion in legislative assemblies or through the press, are

often indirect causes of war, and that these evils should be

counteracted by the publication of accurate information tending

to the removal of misunderstanding between nations, and

recommends the importance of considering the question of

commencing an international newspaper with such a purpose.

 

“7. The congress proposes to the Inter-parliamentary Conference

that the utmost support should be given to every project for

unification of weights and measures, coinage, tariff, postage,

and telegraphic arrangements, etc., which would assist in

constituting a commercial, industrial, and scientific union of

the peoples.

 

“8. The congress, in view of the vast social and moral

influence of woman, urges upon every woman to sustain the

things that make for peace, as otherwise she incurs grave

responsibility for the continuance of the systems of

militarism.

 

“9. The congress expresses the hope that the Financial Reform

Association and other similar societies in Europe and America

should unite in considering means for establishing equitable

commercial relations between states, by the reduction of import

duties. The congress feels that it can affirm that the whole

of Europe desires peace, and awaits with impatience the

suppression of armaments, which, under the plea of defense,

become in their turn a danger by keeping alive mutual distrust,

and are, at the same time, the cause of that general economic

disturbance which stands in the way of settling in a

satisfactory manner the problems of labor and poverty, which

ought to take precedence of all others.

 

“10. The congress, recognizing that a general disarmament would

be the best guarantee of peace and would lead to the solution

of the questions which now most divide states, expresses the

wish that a congress of representatives of all the states of

Europe may be assembled as soon as possible to consider the

means of effecting a gradual general disarmament.

 

“11. The congress, in consideration of the fact that the

timidity of a single power might delay the convocation of the

above-mentioned congress, is of opinion that the government

which should first dismiss any considerable number