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

overthrow this sovereign power which seems so

powerful, and has held such an exalted position for so many

centuries. And yet social reformers are busy promulgating the

idea that it is not necessary and is even pernicious and immoral

for every man separately to work out his own freedom. As though,

while one set of men have been at work a long while turning a

river into a new channel, and had dug out a complete water-course

and had only to open the floodgates for the water to rush in and

do the rest, another set of men should come along and begin to

advise them that it would be much better, instead of letting the

water out, to construct a machine which would ladle the water up

from one side and pour it over the other side.

 

But the thing has gone too far. Already ruling governments feel

their weak and defenseless position, and men of Christian

principles are awakening from their apathy, and already begin to

feel their power.

 

“I am come to send a fire on the earth,” said Christ, “and what

will I, if it be already kindled?”

 

And this fire is beginning to burn.

 

CHAPTER X.

 

EVIL CANNOT BE SUPPRESSED BY THE PHYSICAL FORCE OF THE

GOVERNMENT—THE MORAL PROGRESS OF HUMANITY IS BROUGHT ABOUT NOT

ONLY BY INDIVIDUAL RECOGNITION OF TRUTH, BUT ALSO THROUGH THE

ESTABLISHMENT OF A PUBLIC OPINION.

 

Christianity Destroys the State—But Which is Most Necessary:

Christianity or the State?—There are Some who Assert the

Necessity of a State Organization, and Others who Deny it, both

Arguing from same First Principles—Neither Contention can be

Proved by Abstract Argument—The Question must be Decided by the

Stage in the Development of Conscience of Each Man, which will

either Prevent or Allow him to Support a Government Organization—

Recognition of the Futility and Immorality of Supporting a State

Organization Contrary to Christian Principles will Decide the

Question for Every Man, in Spite of any Action on Part of the

State—Argument of those who Defend the Government, that it is a

Form of Social Life, Needed to Protect the Good from the Wicked,

till all Nations and all Members of each Nation have Become

Christians—The Most Wicked are Always those in Power—The whole

History of Humanity is the History of the Forcible Appropriation

of Power by the Wicked and their Oppression of the Good—The

Recognition by Governments of the Necessity of Opposing Evil by

Force is Equivalent to Suicide on their Part—The Abolition of

State-violence cannot Increase the Sum Total of Acts of Violence—

The Suppression of the Use of Force is not only Possible, but is

even Taking Place before Our Eyes—But it will Never be Suppressed

by the Violence of Government, but through Men who have Attained

Power by Evidence Recognizing its Emptiness and Becoming Better

and Less Capable of Using Force—Individual Men and also Whole

Nations Pass Through this Process—By this Means Christianity is

Diffused Through Consciousness of Men, not only in Spite of Use of

Violence by Government, but even Through its Action,and therefore

the Suppression is not to be Dreaded, but is Brought About by the

National Progress of Life—Objection of those who Defend State

Organization that Universal Adoption of Christianity is hardly

Likely to be Realized at any Time—The General Adoption of the

Truths of Christianity is being Brought About not only by the

Gradual and Inward Means,that is, by Knowledge of the Truth,

Prophetic Insight, and Recognition of the Emptiness of Power, and

Renunciation of it by Individuals, but also by Another External

Means, the Acceptance of a New Truth by Whole Masses of Men on a

Lower Level of Development Through Simple Confidence in their

Leaders—When a Certain Stage in the Diffusion of a Truth has been

Reached, a Public Opinion is Created which Impels a Whole Mass of

Men, formerly Antagonistic to the New Truth, to Accept it—And

therefore all Men may Quickly be Brought to Renounce the use of

Violence when once a Christian Public Opinion is Established—The

Conviction of Force being Necessary Hinders the Establishment of a

Christian Public Opinion—The Use of Violence Leads Men to

Distrust the Spiritual Force which is the Only Force by which they

Advance—Neither Nations nor Individuals have been really

Subjugated by Force, but only by Public Opinion, which no Force

can Resist—Savage Nations and Savage Men can only be Subdued by

the Diffusion of a Christian Standard among them, while actually

Christian Nations in order to Subdue them do all they can to

Destroy a Christian Standard—These Fruitless Attempts to Civilize

Savages Cannot be Adduced as Proofs that Men Cannot be Subdued by

Christianity—Violence by Corrupting Public Opinion, only Hinders

the Social Organization from being What it Ought to Be—And by the

Use of Violence being Suppressed, a Christian Public Opinion would

be Established—Whatever might be the Result of the Suppression of

Use of Force, this Unknown Future could not be Worse than the

Present Condition, and so there is no Need to Dread it—To Attain

Knowledge of the Unknown, and to Move Toward it, is the Essence of

Life.

 

Christianity in its true sense puts an end to government. So it

was understood at its very commencement; it was for that cause

that Christ was crucified. So it has always been understood by

people who were not under the necessity of justifying a Christian

government. Only from the time that the heads of government

assumed an external and nominal Christianity, men began to invent

all the impossible, cunningly devised theories by means of which

Christianity can be reconciled with government. But no honest and

serious-minded man of our day can help seeing the incompatibility

of true Christianity—the doctrine of meekness, forgiveness of

injuries, and love—with government, with its pomp, acts of

violence, executions, and wars. The profession of true

Christianity not only excludes the possibility of recognizing

government, but even destroys its very foundations.

 

But if it is so, and we are right in saying that Christianity is

incompatible with government, then the question naturally presents

itself: which is more necessary to the good of humanity, in which

way is men’s happiness best to be secured, by maintaining the

organization of government or by destroying it and replacing it by

Christianity?

 

Some people maintain that government is more necessary for

humanity, that the destruction of the state organization would

involve the destruction of all that humanity has gained, that the

state has been and still is the only form in which humanity can

develop. The evil which we see among peoples living under a

government organization they attribute not to that type of

society, but to its abuses, which, they say, can be corrected

without destroying it, and thus humanity, without discarding the

state organization, can develop and attain a high degree of

happiness. And men of this way of thinking bring forward in

support of their views arguments which they think irrefutable

drawn from history, philosophy, and even religion. But there are

men who hold on the contrary that, as there was a time when

humanity lived without government, such an organization is

temporary, and that a time must come when men need a new

organization, and that that time has come now. And men of this

way of thinking also bring forward in support of their views

arguments which they think irrefutable from philosophy, history,

and religion.

 

Volumes may be written in defense of the former view (and volumes

indeed have long ago been written and more will still be written

on that side), but much also can be written against it (and much

also, and most brilliantly, has been written—though more recently

—on this side).

 

And it cannot be proved, as the champions of the state maintain,

that the destruction of government involves a social chaos, mutual

spoliation and murder, the destruction of all social institutions,

and the return of mankind to barbarism. Nor can it be proved as

the opponents of government maintain that men have already become

so wise and good that they will not spoil or murder one another,

but will prefer peaceful associations to hostilities; that of

their own accord, unaided by the state, they will make all the

arrangements that they need, and that therefore government, far

from being any aid, under show of guarding men exerts a pernicious

and brutalizing influence over them. It is impossible to prove

either of these contentions by abstract reasoning. Still less

possible is it to prove them by experiment, since the whole matter

turns on the question, ought we to try the experiment? The

question whether or not the time has come to make an end of

government would be unanswerable, except that there exists another

living means of settling it beyond dispute.

 

We may dispute upon the question whether the nestlings are ready

to do without the mother-hen and to come out of the eggs, or

whether they are not yet advanced enough. But the young birds

will decide the question without any regard for our arguments when

they find themselves cramped for space in the eggs. Then they

will begin to try them with their beaks and come out of them of

their own accord.

 

It is the same with the question whether the time has come to do

away with the governmental type of society and to replace it by a

new type. If a man, through the growth of a higher conscience,

can no longer comply with the demands of government, he finds

himself cramped by it and at the same time no longer needs its

protection. When this comes to pass, the question whether men are

ready to discard the governmental type is solved. And the

conclusion will be as final for them as for the young birds

hatched out of the eggs. Just as no power in the world can put

them back into the shells, so can no power in the world bring men

again under the governmental type of society when once they have

outgrown it.

 

“It may well be that government was necessary and is still

necessary for all the advantages which you attribute to it,” says

the man who has mastered the Christian theory of life. “I only

know that on the one hand, government is no longer necessary for

ME, and on the other hand, I can no longer carry out the measures

that are necessary to the existence of a government. Settle for

yourselves what you need for your life. I cannot prove the need

or the harm of governments in general. I know only what I need

and do not need, what I can do and what I cannot. I know that I

do not need to divide myself off from other nations, and therefore

I cannot admit that I belong exclusively to any state or nation,

or that I owe allegiance to any government. I know that I do not

need all the government institutions organized within the state,

and therefore I cannot deprive people who need my labor to give it

in the form of taxes to institutions which I do not need, which

for all I know may be pernicious. I know that I have no need of

the administration or of courts of justice founded upon force, and

therefore I can take no part in either. I know that I do not need

to attack and slaughter other nations or to defend myself from

them with arms, and therefore I can take no part in wars or

preparations for wars. It may well be that there are people who

cannot help regarding all this as necessary and indispensable. I

cannot dispute the question with them, I can only speak for

myself; but I can say with absolute certainty that I do not need

it, and that I cannot do it. And I do not need this and I cannot

do it, not because