Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

Literally, muzhiks. ↩

Kupésheskoe, merchant-like. ↩

In the very free French paraphrase of this parable the physician, without pausing, remarks that the Christians acknowleged no rulers, no authority, no laws. Julius replies that they claim that even without rulers, authorities, and laws, human life will be vastly better if men would only fulfil the law of Christ. The physician replies: “But what guarantee have we that men will fulfil that law. Absolutely none. They say: ‘You have made trial of life with authorities and laws, and it has always been a failure. Try it now without authorities and laws, and you will soon see it becoming perfect.’ You cannot deny this, not having tested it by experience. Here the sophistry of these impious men becomes evident. Are they any more logical than the farmer who should say: ‘You sow the seed in the ground, and then cover it up with soil, and yet the crop falls far below your desires. My advice is: sow it in the sea, and the result will be far more satisfactory.’ And do not attempt to deny this theory; you cannot do so, never having tested it by experience.” This is the argument that shakes Julius’ resolution; but it is all omitted from the Moscow edition of 1898. Probably the doctrine of Christian anarchy, thus advocated, caught the censor’s eye. —⁠N. H. Dole ↩

In the French translation, this sentence is replaced by another to the effect that the Christians, while acknowledging that discord and violence are a part of human nature, nevertheless take advantage of this organization of society. “The world has always existed by means of its rulers: they assume the responsibility of governing, they protect us from enemies, domestic and foreign. We subjects, in return for this, pay the rulers deference and homage, obey their commands, and assist them by serving the State when we are needed.” —⁠N. H. Dole ↩

Another long passage is here omitted: Pamphilius goes on to say that the union of men must be brought about by love, not violence. The violence of a brigand is as atrocious exactly as is that of troops against their enemies, or of the judge against the culprit, and Christians can have no part in either; their share consists in submitting to it without protest.

Julius interrupts him, and declares that while they are ready to be martyrs and eager to lay down their lives for the truth, in reality truth is not in them: they preach love, but the result of their preaching is savagery, retrogression to primitive conditions of murder, robbery, and every kind of violence.

Pamphilius denies that such is the case: murder, robbery, and violence existed long before Christianity, and men found no way of coping with them. When violence meets violence crimes are not checked, but are provoked, because feelings of anger and bitterness are aroused. In the mighty Roman Empire, where legislation has been raised to a science, and the laws are thoroughly studied and administered, and the office of judge is highly regarded, nevertheless debauchery and crime are everywhere prevalent; in the early days, when laws were not so numerous or so carefully administered, there was a higher standard of virtue; but simultaneously with the study and application of the laws, there has been going on in the Roman Empire a steady deterioration of morals, accompanied by a vast increase in the number and variety of criminal offenses.

The only way to grapple with such crimes and evil is the Christian way of love. The heathen weapons of vengeance, punishment, and violence are inefficacious. All the preventive and remedial laws and punishments in the world will fail to eradicate people’s propensities to do wrong. The root of the evil must be got at, and that is done by reaching the individual.

Most crimes are perpetrated by men who desire to get more of this world’s goods than they can rightfully acquire. Some of these⁠—as, for instance, monstrous commercial frauds⁠—are perpetrated under the protection of the law, and those that are punishable are so cleverly managed that they often escape the penalty. Christianity takes away all incentive to such crimes, because those that practise it refuse to take more than what is strictly needed for the support of life, and thereby give up to others their free labor. So that the sight of accumulated wealth is not a temptation, and those that are driven to desperation by hunger find what they need without having to use violent means of obtaining it. Some criminals avoid them altogether; others join them, and gradually become useful workers.

As regards the crimes provoked by the play of passions: jealousy, carnal love, anger, and hatred. Laws never restrain such criminals; obstacles only make them worse; but Christianity teaches men to curb their passions by a life of love and labor, so that the spiritual principle will overcome the fleshly; and as Christianity spreads, the number of crimes of this sort will diminish.

There is still another class of crimes, he goes on to say, which have their root in a sincere desire to help humanity. The wish to alleviate the sufferings of an entire people will impel certain men called revolutionists to kill a tyrant with the notion that they are benefiting a majority. The origin of such crimes is a mistaken conviction that evil may be done in order that good may follow. Crimes of this description are not lessened by laws against them, they are provoked by them. The men that commit crimes of this kind have a noble motive⁠—a desire to do good to others. Most men of this kind, though mistaken in their hopes and beliefs, are impelled by the noble motive of desire to do good to others, and they are ready to sacrifice their lives and all they have, and no danger or difficulty stands