 Chapter 4 of The Kingdom of God is within you. The Kingdom of God is within you by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett. Chapter 4 Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science Attitude of men of science to religions in general, what religion is and what is its significance for the life of humanity, three conceptions of life, Christian religion, the expression of the divine conception of life, misinterpretation of Christianity by men of science, who study it in its external manifestations due to their criticizing it from standpoint of social conception of life, opinion resulting from this misinterpretation that Christ's moral teaching is exaggerated and cannot be put into practice, expression of divine conception of life in the gospel, false ideas of men of science on Christianity proceed from their conviction that they have an infallible method of criticism, from which come two misconceptions in regard to Christian doctrine, first misconception that the teaching cannot be put into practice due to the Christian religion directing life in a way different from that of the social theory of life. Christianity holds up ideal does not lay down rules, to the animal force of man Christ adds the consciousness of a divine force, Christianity seems to destroy possibility of life only when the ideal held up is mistaken for rule, ideal must not be lowered, life according to Christ's teaching is movement, the ideal and the precepts, second misconception shown in replacing love and service of God by love and service of humanity. Men of science imagine their doctrine of service of humanity and Christianity are identical. Doctrine of service of humanity based on social conception of life, love for humanity logically deduced from love of self has no meaning because humanity is a fiction, Christian love deduced from love of God finds its object in the whole world not in humanity alone. Christianity teaches man to live in accordance with his divine nature, it shows that the essence of the soul of man is love and that his happiness ensues from love of God whom he recognizes as love within himself. Now I will speak of the other view of Christianity which hinders the true understanding of it, the scientific view. Churchmen substitute for Christianity the version they have framed of it for themselves and this view of Christianity they regard as the one infallibly true one. Men of science regard as Christianity only the tenets held by these different churches in the past and present and finding that these tenets have lost all the significance of Christianity they accepted as a religion which has outlived its age. To clearly see how impossible it is to understand the Christian teaching from such a point of view one must form for oneself an idea of the place actually held by religions in general by the Christian religion in particular in the life of mankind and of the significance attributed to them by science. Just as the individual man cannot live without having some theory of the meaning of his life and is always though often unconsciously framing his conduct in accordance with the meaning he attributes to his life so to associations of men living in similar conditions nation cannot but have theories of the meaning of their associated life and conduct ensuing from those theories and as the individual man when he attains a fresh stage of growth inevitably changes his philosophy of life and the grown up man sees a different meaning in it from the child so to associations of men nations are bound to change their philosophy of life and the conduct ensuing from their philosophy to correspond with their development. The difference as regards this between the individual man and humanity as a whole lies in the fact that the individual informing the view of life proper to the new period of life on which he is entering and the conduct resulting from it benefits by the experience of men who have lived before him who have already passed through the stage of growth upon which he is entering but humanity cannot have this aid because it is always moving along a hitherto untrodden track and has no one to ask how to understand life and to act in the conditions on which it is entering and through which no one has ever passed before. Nevertheless just as a man with wife and children cannot continue to look at life as he looked at it when he was a child so to in the face of the various changes that are taking place the greater density of population the establishment of communication between different peoples the improvements of the methods of the struggle with nature and the accumulation of knowledge humanity cannot continue to look at life as of old and it must frame a new theory of life from which conduct may follow adapted to the new conditions on which it has entered and is entering. To meet this need humanity has the special power of producing men who give new meaning to the whole of human life a theory of life from which follow new forms of activity quite different from all preceding them. The formation of this philosophy of life appropriate to humanity in the new conditions on which it is entering and of the practice resulting from it is what is called religion and therefore in the first place religion is not as science imagines a manifestation which at one time corresponded with the development of humanity but is afterward outgrown by it. It is a manifestation always inherent in the life of humanity and is as indispensable as inherent in humanity at the present time as at any other. Secondly religion is always the theory of the practice of the future and not of the past and therefore it is clear that investigation of past manifestations cannot in any case grasp the essence of religion. The essence of every religious teaching lies not in the desire for a symbolic expression of the forces of nature nor in the dread of these forces nor in the craving for the marvelous nor in the external forms in which it is manifested as men of science imagine. The essence of religion lies in the faculty of men of foreseeing and pointing out the path of life along which humanity must move in the discovery of a new theory of life as a result of which the whole future conduct of humanity is changed and different from all that has been before. This faculty of foreseeing the path along which humanity must move is common in a greater or less degree to all men but in all times there have been men in whom this faculty was especially strong and these men have given clear and definite expression to what all men felt vaguely and formed a new philosophy of life from which new lines of action followed for hundreds and thousands of years. Of such philosophies of life we know three, two have already been passed through by humanity and the third is that we are passing through now in Christianity. These philosophies of life are three in number and only three not because we have arbitrarily brought the various theories of life together under these three heads but because all men's actions are always based on one of these three views of life because we cannot view life otherwise than in these three ways. These three views of life are as follows. First embracing the individual or the animal view of life. Second embracing the society or the pagan view of life. Third embracing the whole world or the divine view of life. In the first theory of life a man's life is limited to his one individuality. The aim of life is the satisfaction of the will of this individuality. In the second theory of life a man's life is limited not to his own individuality but to certain societies and classes of individuals. To the tribe, the family, the clan, the nation. The aim of life is limited to the satisfaction of the will of those associations of individuals. In the third category of life a man's life is limited not to the societies and classes of individuals but extends to the principle and source of life to God. These three conceptions of life form the foundation of all the religions that exist or have existed. The savage recognizes life only in himself and his personal desires. His interest in life is concentrated on himself alone. The highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his desires. The motive power of his life is personal enjoyment. His religion consists in propagating his deity in worshiping his gods whom he imagines as persons living only for their personal aims. The civilized pagan recognizes life not in himself alone but in societies of men, in the tribe, the clan, the family, the kingdom, and sacrifices his personal good for these societies. The motive power of his life is glory. His religion consists in the exaltation of the glory of those who are allied to him, the founders of his family, his ancestors, his rulers, and in worshiping gods who are exclusively protectors of his clan, his family, his nation, his government. Footnote. The fact that so many varied forms of existence as the life of the family, of the tribe, of the clan, of the state, and even the life of humanity theoretically conceived by the positivists are founded on this social or pagan theory of life, does not destroy the unity of this theory of life. All these varied forms of life are founded on the same conception that the life of the individual is not a sufficient aim of life, that the meaning of life can be found only in societies of individuals. The man who holds the divine theory of life recognizes life not in his own individuality and not in societies of individualities, in the family, the clan, the nation, the tribe, or the government, but in the eternal, undying source of life in God, and to fulfill the will of God he is ready to sacrifice his individual and family and social welfare. The motor power of his life is love, and his religion is the worship indeed and in truth of the principle of the whole, God. The whole historic existence of mankind is nothing else than the gradual transition from the personal animal conception of life to the social conception of life and from the social conception of life to the divine conception of life. The whole history of the ancient peoples lasting through thousands of years and ending with the history of Rome is the history of the transition from the animal, personal view of life to the social view of life. The whole of history from the time of the Roman Empire and the appearance of Christianity is the history of the transition through which we are still passing now, from the social view of life to the divine view of life. This view of life is the last and founded upon it is the Christian teaching which is a guide for the whole of our life and lies at the root of all our activity, practical and theoretic, yet men of what is falsely called science, pseudo-scientific men, looking at it only in its externals regard it as something outgrown and having no value for us, reducing it to its dogmatic side only, to the doctrines of the trinity, the redemption, the miracles, the church, the sacraments and so on. Men of science regarded as only one of an immense number of religions which have arisen among mankind and now, they say, having played out its part in history. It is outliving its own age and fading away before the light of science and of true enlightenment. We come here upon what, in a large proportion of cases, forms the source of the grossest errors of mankind, men on a lower level of understanding when brought into contact with phenomena of a higher order, instead of making efforts to understand them, to raise themselves up to the point of view from which they must look at the subject. Judged from their lower standpoint, and the less they understand what they are talking about, the more confidently and unhesitatingly they pass judgment on it. To the majority of learned men, looking at the living, moral teaching of Christ from the lower standpoint of the state conception of life, this doctrine appears as nothing but a very indefinite and incongruous combination of Indian asceticism, stoic and neoplatonic philosophy, and insubstantial antisocial visions, which have no serious significance for our times. Its whole meaning is concentrated for them in its external manifestations, in Catholicism, Protestantism, in certain dogmas, or in the conflict with the temporal power. Estimating the view of Christianity by these phenomena is like a deaf man's judging of the character and quality of music by seeing the movements of the musicians. The result of this is that all these scientific men, from Kant, Strauss, Spencer, and Renault Down, do not understand the meaning of Christ's sayings, do not understand the significance the object or the reason of their utterance, do not understand even the question to which they form the answer. Yet without even taking the pains to enter into their meaning, they refuse, if unfavorably disposed, to recognize any reasonableness in his doctrines, or if they want to treat them indulgently, they condescend from the height of their superiority to correct them on the supposition that Christ meant to express precisely their own ideas, but did not succeed in doing so. They behave to his teachings much as self-assertive people talk to those whom they consider beneath them, often supplying their companion's words. Yes, you mean to say this and that. This correction is always with the aim of reducing the teachings of the higher, divine conception of life to the level of the lower, state conception of life. They usually say that the moral teaching of Christianity is very fine but over-exaggerated, that to make it quite right we must reject all in it that is superfluous and unnecessary to our manner of life. And the doctrine that asks too much and requires what cannot be performed is worse than that which requires of men what is possible and consistent with their powers. These learned interpreters of Christianity maintain repeating what was long ago asserted and could not but be asserted by those who crucified the teacher because they did not understand him, the Jews. It seems that in the judgment of the learned men of our time the Hebrew law, a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye, is a law of just retaliation known to mankind five thousand years before the law of holiness which Christ taught in its place. It seems that all that has been done by those men who understood Christ's teaching literally and lived in accordance with such an understanding of it, all that has been said and done by all true Christians, by all the Christian saints, all that is now reforming the world in the shape of socialism and communism is simply exaggeration not worth talking about. After eighteen hundred years of education in Christianity, the civilized world as represented by its most advanced thinkers holds the conviction that the Christian religion is a religion of dogmas, that its teaching in relation to life is unreasonable and is an exaggeration subversive of the real lawful obligations of morality consistent with the nature of man. And that very doctrine of retribution which Christ rejected and in place of which he put his teaching is more practically useful for us. To learned men the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force is exaggerated and even irrational. Christianity is much better without it they think, not observing closely what Christianity as represented by them amounts to. They do not see that to say that the doctrine of non-resistance to evil is an exaggeration in Christ's teaching is just like saying that the statement of the equality of the radii of a circle is an exaggeration in the definition of a circle. Those who speak thus are acting precisely like a man who having no idea of what a circle is should declare that this requirement that every point of the circumference should be an equal distance from the center is exaggerated. To advocate the rejection of Christ's command of non-resistance to evil or its adaptation to the needs of life implies a misunderstanding of the teaching of Christ. And those who do so certainly do not understand it. They do not understand that this teaching is the institution of a new theory of life corresponding to the new conditions on which men have entered now for 1800 years and also the definition of the new conduct of life which results from it. They do not believe that Christ meant to say what he said. For he seems to them to have said what he said in the Sermon on the Mount and in other places accidentally or through his lack of intelligence or of cultivation. Footnote here for example is a characteristic view of that kind from the American journal The Arena October 1890. New Basis of Church Life. Treating of the significance of the Sermon on the Mount and non-resistance to evil in particular the author being under no necessity like the churchman to hide its significance says. Christ in fact preached complete communism and anarchy but one must learn to regard Christ always in his historical and psychological significance like every advocate of the love of humanity Christ went to the furthest extreme in his teaching. Every step forward toward the moral perfection of humanity is always guided by men who see nothing but their vocation Christ in no disparaging sense be it said had the typical temperament of such a reformer and therefore we must remember that his precepts cannot be understood literally as a complete philosophy of life. We ought to analyze his words with respect for them but in the spirit of criticism accepting what is true etc Christ would have been happy to say what he ought but he was not able to express himself as exactly and clearly as we can in the spirit of criticism and therefore let us correct him all that he said about meekness sacrifice lowliness not caring for the morrow was said by accident through lack of knowing how to express himself scientifically Matthew 6 25 through 34 therefore I say unto you take no thought for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink nor yet for your body what ye shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body more than rainment behold the fowls of the air for they so not neither do they reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly father feedeth them are ye not much better than they which of you by taking thought can add one cubit onto his stature and why take ye thought for rainment consider the lilies of the field how they grow they toil not neither do they spend and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these wherefore if God so clothed the grass of the field which today is in tomorrow is cast into the oven shall he not much more clothed you a ye of little faith therefore take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed for after all these things do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things but seek ye the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take care of the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof Luke 12 33-34 sell that ye have and give alms provide yourselves bags which wax not old a treasure in the heavens that faileth not where no thief approacheth neither moth corrupteth for where your treasure is there will your heart be also sell all thou hast and follow me and he who will not leave father or mother or children or brothers or fields or house he cannot be my disciple deny thyself take up they cross each day and follow me my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to perform his works not my will but thine be done not what I will but as thou wilt life is to do not one's will but the will of God all these principles appear to men who regard them from the standpoint of a lower conception of life as the expression of an impulsive enthusiasm having no direct application to life these principles however follow from the Christian theory of life just as logically as the principles of paying a part of one's private gains to the Commonwealth and of sacrificing one's life in defense of one's country follow from the state theory of life as the man of the state conception of life said to the savage reflect be think yourself the life of your individuality cannot be true life because that life is pitiful and passing but the life of a society and succession of individuals family clan tribe or state goes on living and therefore a man must sacrifice his own individuality for the life of the family or the state in exactly the same way the Christian doctrine says to the man of the social state conception of life repent ye Greek word IE be think yourself or you will be ruined understand that this casual personal life which now comes into being and tomorrow is no more can have no permanence that no external means no construction of it can give it consecutiveness and permanence take thought and understand that the life you are living is not real life the life of the family of society of the state will not save you from annihilation the true the rational life is only possible for man according to the measure in which he can participate not in the family or the state but in the source of life the father according to the measure in which he can merge his life in the life of the father such is undoubtedly the Christian conception of life visible in every utterance of the gospel transcribes note the Greek word above used Greek letters spelled mu epsilon tau alpha new Omicron zeta epsilon tau epsilon one may not share this view of life one may reject it one may show its inaccuracy and its erroneousness but we cannot judge of the Christian teaching without mastering this view of life still less can one criticize a subject on a higher plane from a lower point of view from the basement one cannot judge of the effect of the spire but this is just what the learned critics of the day try to do for they share the erroneous idea of the orthodox believers that they are in possession of certain infallible means for investigating a subject they fancy if they apply their so-called scientific methods of criticism there can be no doubt of their conclusion being correct this testing the subject by the fancied infallible method of science is the principle obstacle to understanding the Christian religion for unbelievers for so-called educated people from this follow all the mistakes made by scientific men about the Christian religion and especially to strange misconceptions which more than anything else hinder them from a correct understanding of it one of these misconceptions is that the Christian moral teaching cannot be carried out and that therefore it has either no force at all that is it should not be accepted as the rule of conduct or it must be transformed adapted to the limits within which its fulfillment is possible in our society another misconception is that the Christian doctrine of love of God and therefore of his service is an obscure mystic principle which gives no definite object for love and should therefore be replaced by the more exact and comprehensible principles of love for men and the service of humanity the first misconception in regard to the impossibility of following the principle is the result of men of the state conception of life unconsciously taking that conception as the standard by which the Christian religion directs men and taking the Christian principle of perfection as the rule by which that life is to be ordered they think and say that to follow Christ's teaching is impossible because the complete fulfillment of all that is required by this teaching would put an end to life if a man were to carry out all that Christ teaches he would destroy his own life and if all men carried it out then the human race would come to an end they say if we take no thought for the moral what we shall eat and what we shall drink and wherewith all shall be clothed do not defend our life nor resist evil by force lay down our life for others and observe perfect chastity the human race cannot exist they say and they are perfectly right if they take the principle of perfection given by Christ's teaching as a rule which everyone is bound to fulfill just as in the state principles of life everyone is bound to carry out the rule of paying taxes supporting the law and so on this misconception is based precisely on the fact that the teaching of Christ guides men differently from the way in which the precepts founded on the lower conception of life guide men the precepts of the state conception of life only guide men by requiring them an exact fulfillment of rules or laws Christ's teaching guides men by pointing them to the infinite perfection of their heavenly father to which every man independently and voluntarily struggles whatever the degree of his imperfection in the present the misunderstanding of men who judge of the Christian principle from the point of view of the state principle consists in the fact that on the supposition that the perfection which Christ points to can be fully attained they ask themselves just as they ask the same question on the supposition that state laws will be carried out what will be the result of all this being carried out this supposition cannot be made because the perfection held up to Christians is infinite and can never be attained and Christ lays down his principle having in view the fact that absolute perfection can never be attained but that striving toward absolute infinite perfection will continually increase the blessedness of men and that this blessedness may be increased to infinity thereby Christ is teaching not angels but men living and moving in the animal life and so to this animal force of movement Christ as it were applies the new force the recognition of divine perfection and thereby directs the movement by the resultant of these two forces to suppose that human life is going in the direction to which Christ pointed it is just like supposing that a little boat afloat on a rapid river and directing its course almost exactly against the current will progress in that direction Christ recognizes the existence of both sides of the parallelogram of both eternal indestructible forces of which the life of man is compounded the force of his animal nature and the force of the consciousness of kinship to God saying nothing of the animal force which asserts itself remains always the same and is therefore independent of human will Christ speaks only of the divine force calling upon a man to know it more closely to set it more free from all that retards it and to carry it to a higher degree of intensity in the process of liberating of strengthening this force the true life of man according to Christ's teaching consists the true life according to preceding religions consists in carrying out rules the law according to Christ's teaching it consists in an ever closer approximation to the divine perfection held up before every man and recognized within himself by every man in an ever closer and closer approach to the perfect fusion of his will in the will of God that fusion towards which man strives and the attainment of which would be the destruction of the life we know the divine perfection is the asymptote of human life to which it is always striving and always approaching though it can only be reached in infinity the Christian religion seems to exclude the possibility of life only when men mistake the pointing to an ideal as the laying down of a rule it is only then that the principles presented in Christ's teaching appear to be destructive of life these principles on the contrary are the only ones that make true life possible without these principles true life could not be possible one ought not to expect so much is what people usually say in discussing the requirements of the Christian religion one cannot expect to take absolutely no thought for the morrow as is said in the gospel but only not to take too much thought for it one cannot give away all to the poor but one must give away a certain definite part one need not aim at virginity but one must avoid debauchery one need not forsake wife and children but one must not give too great a place to them in one's heart and so on but to speak like this is just like telling a man who is struggling on a swift river and is directing his course against the current that it is impossible to cross the river rowing against the current and that to cross it he must float in the direction of the point he wants to reach in reality in order to reach the place to which he wants to go he must row with all his strength toward a point much higher up to let go the requirements of the ideal means not only to diminish the possibility of perfection but to make an end of the ideal itself the ideal that has power over men is not an ideal invented by someone but the ideal that every man carries within his soul only this ideal of complete infinite perfection has power over men and stimulates them to action a moderate perfection loses its power of influencing men's hearts christ's teaching only has power when it demands absolute perfection that is the fusion of the divine nature which exists in every man's soul with the will of god the union of the son with the father life according to christ's teaching consists of nothing but this setting free of the son of god existing in every man from the animal and in bringing him closer to the father the animal existence of a man does not constitute human life alone life according to the will of god only is also not human life human life is a combination of the animal life and the divine life and the more this combination approaches to the divine life the more life there is in it life according to the christian religion is a progress toward the divine perfection no one condition according to this doctrine can be higher or lower than another every conditioned according to this doctrine is only a particular stage of no consequence in itself on the way toward unattainable perfection and therefore in itself it does not imply a greater or lesser degree of life increase of life according to this consists in nothing but the quickening of the progress toward perfection and therefore the progress toward perfection of the republican Zacchaeus of the woman that was a sinner and of the robber on the cross implies a higher degree of life than the stagnant righteousness of the Pharisee and therefore for this religion there cannot be rules which it is obligatory to obey the man who is at a lower level but is moving onward toward perfection is living a more moral a better life is more fully carrying out Christ's teaching than a man on a much higher level of morality who is not moving onward toward perfection it is in this sense that the lost sheep is dearer to the father than those that were not lost the prodigal son the peace of money lost and found again were more precious than those that were not lost the fulfillment of Christ's teaching consists in moving away from self toward God it is obvious that there cannot be definite laws and rules for this fulfillment of the teaching every degree of perfection and every degree of imperfection are equal in it no obedience to laws constitutes a fulfillment of this doctrine and therefore for it there can be no binding rules and laws from this fundamental distinction between the religion of Christ and all proceeding religions based on the state conception of life follows a corresponding difference in the special precepts of the state theory and the Christian precepts the precepts of the state theory of life insist for the most part on certain practical prescribed acts by which men are justified and secure of being right the Christian precepts the commandment of love is not a precept in the strict sense of the word but the expression of the very essence of the religion are the five commandments of the sermon on the mount all negative in character they show only what a certain stage of development of humanity men may not do these commandments are as it were signed posts on the endless road to perfection toward which humanity is moving showing the point of perfection which is possible at a certain period in the development of humanity christ has given expression in the sermon on the mount to the eternal ideal toward which men are spontaneously struggling and also the degree of attainment of it to which men may reach in our times the ideal is not to desire to do ill to anyone not to provoke ill will to love all men the precept showing the level below which we cannot fall in the attainment of this ideal is the prohibition of evil speaking and that is the first command the ideal is perfect chastity even in thought the precept showing the level below which we cannot fall in the attainment of this ideal is that a purity of married life avoidance of debauchery that is the second command the ideal is to take no thought for the future to live in the present moment the precept showing the level below which we cannot fall is the prohibition of swearing of promising anything in the future and that is the third command the ideal is never for any purpose to use force the precept showing the level below which we cannot fall is that of returning good for evil being patient under wrong giving the cloak also that is the fourth command the ideal is to love the enemies who hate us the precept showing the level below which we cannot fall is not to do evil to our enemies to speak well of them and to make no difference between them and our neighbors all these precepts are indications of what on our journey to perfection we are already fully able to avoid and what we must labor to attain now and what we ought by degrees to translate into instinctive and unconscious habits but these precepts far from constituting the whole of christ's teaching and exhausting it are simply stages on the way to perfection these precepts must and will be followed by higher and higher precepts on the way to the perfection held up by the religion and therefore it is essentially a part of the christian religion to make demands higher than those expressed in its precepts and by no means to diminish the demands either of the ideal itself or of the precepts as people imagine who judge it from the standpoint of the social conception of life so much for one misunderstanding of the scientific men in relation to the import and aim of christ's teaching another misunderstanding arising from the same source consists in substituting love for men the service of humanity for the christian principles of love for god and his service the christian doctrine to love god and serve him and only as a result of that love to love and serve one's neighbor seems to scientific men obscure mystic and arbitrary and they would absolutely exclude the obligation of love and service of god holding that the doctrine of love for men for humanity alone is far more clear tangible and reasonable scientific men teach in theory that the only good and rational life is that which is devoted to the service of the whole of humanity that is for them the import of the christian doctrine and to that they reduce christ's teaching they seek confirmation of their own doctrine in the gospel on the supposition that the two doctrines are really the same this idea is an absolutely mistaken one the christian doctrine has nothing in common with the doctrine of the positivists communists and all the apostles of the universal brotherhood of mankind based on the general advantage of such a brotherhood they differ from one another especially in christianities having a firm and clear basis in the human soul while love for humanity is only a theoretical deduction from analogy the doctrine of love for humanity alone is based on the social conception of life the essence of the social conception of life consists in the transference of the aim of the individual life to the life of societies of individuals family clan tribe or state this transference is accomplished easily and naturally in its earliest forms in the transference of the aim of life from the individual to the family and the clan the transference to the tribe or the nation is more difficult and requires special training and the transference of the sentiment to the state is the furthest limit which the process can reach to love oneself is natural to everyone and no one needs any encouragement to do so to love one's clan who support and protect one to love one's wife the joy and help of one's existence one's children the hope and consolation of one's life and one's parents who have given one life and education is natural and such love though far from being so strong as love of self is met with pretty often to love for one's own sake through personal pride one's tribe one's nation though not so natural is nevertheless common love of one's own people who are of the same blood the same tongue and the same religion as oneself is possible though far from being so strong as love of self or even love of family or clan but love for a state such as turkey germany england austria or russia is a thing almost impossible and though it is zealously inculcated it is only an imagined sentiment it has no existence in reality and at that limit man's power of transferring his interest ceases and he cannot feel any direct sentiment for that fictitious entity the positivists however and all the apostles of fraternity on scientific principles without taking into consideration the weakening of sentiment in proportion to the extension of its object draw further deductions in theory in the same direction since they say it was for the advantage of the individual to extend his personal interest to the family the tribe and subsequently to the nation and the state it would be still more advantageous to extend his interest in societies of men to the whole of mankind and so all to live for humanity just as men live for the family or the state theoretically it follows indeed having extended the love and interest for the personality to the family the tribe and thence to the nation and the state it would be perfectly logical for men to save themselves the strife and calamities which result from the division of mankind into nations and states by extending their love to the whole of humanity this would be most logical and theoretically nothing would appear more natural to its advocates who do not observe that love is a sentiment which may or may not be felt but which it is useless to advocate and moreover that love must have an object and that humanity is not an object it is nothing but a fiction the family the tribe even the state were not invented by men but formed themselves spontaneously like ant hills or swarms of bees and have a real existence the man who for the sake of his own animal personality loves his family knows whom he loves anna dolly john peter and so on the man who loves his tribe and takes pride in it knows that he loves all the guliffs or all the gibbalines the man who loves the state knows that he loves France bounded by the Rhine and the Pyrenees and its principal city Paris and its history and so on but the man who loves humanity what does he love there is such a thing as a state as a nation there is the abstract conception of man but humanity as a concrete idea does not and cannot exist humanity what is the definition of humanity where does it end and where does it begin does humanity end with the savage the idiot the dipsomaniac or the madman if we draw a line excluding from humanity its lowest representatives where are we to draw the line shall we exclude the negroes like the americans or the hindus like some englishmen or the jews like some others if we include all men without exception why should we not include also the higher animals many of whom are superior to the lowest specimens of the human race we know nothing of humanity as an eternal object and we know nothing of its limits humanity is a fiction and it is impossible to love it it would doubtless be very advantageous if men could love humanity just as they love their family it would be very advantageous as communists advocate to replicate the competitive individualistic organization of men's activity by a social universal organization so that each would be for all in all for each only there are no motives to lead men to do this the positivists the communists and all the apostles of fraternity on scientific principles advocate the extension to the whole of humanity of the love men feel for themselves their families and the state they forget that the love of which they are discussing is a personal love which might expand in a rarefied form to embrace a man's native country but which disappears before it can embrace an artificial state such as austria england or turkey and which we cannot even conceive of in relation to all humanity an absolutely mystic conception a man loves himself his animal personality he loves his family he even loves his native country why should he not love humanity that would be such an excellent thing and by the way it is precisely what is taught by christianity so think the advocates of positivist communistic or socialistic fraternity it would indeed be an excellent thing but it can never be for the love that is based on a personal or social conception of life can never rise beyond love for the state the fallacy of the argument lies in the fact that the social conception of life on which love for family and nation is founded rests itself on love of self and that love grows weaker and weaker as it is extended from self to family tribe nationality and state and in the state we reach the furthest limit beyond which it cannot go the necessity of extending the sphere of love is beyond dispute but in reality the possibility of this love is destroyed by the necessity of extending its object indefinitely and thus the insufficiency of personal human love is made manifest and here the advocates of positivist communistic socialistic fraternity propose to draw upon christian love to make up the default of this bankrupt human love but christian love only in its results not in its foundations they propose to love humanity alone apart from love for god but such love cannot exist there is no motive to produce it christian love is the result only of the christian conception of life in which the aim of life is to love and serve god the social conception of life has led men by a natural transition from love of self and then of family tribe nation and state to a consciousness of the necessity of love for humanity a conception which has no definite limits and extends to all living things and this necessity for love of what awakens no kind of sentiment in a man is a contradiction which cannot be solved by the social theory of life the christian doctrine in its full significance can alone solve it by giving a new meaning to life christianity recognizes love of self of family of nation and of humanity and not only of humanity but of everything living everything existing it recognizes the necessity of an infinite extension of the sphere of love but the object of this love is not found outside self in societies of individuals nor in the external world but within self in the divine self whose essence is that very love which the animal self is brought to feel the need of through its consciousness of its own perishable nature the difference between christian doctrine and those which preceded it is that the social doctrine said live in opposition to your nature understanding by this only the animal nature make it subject to the external law of family society in state christianity says live according to your nature understanding by this the divine nature do not make it subject to anything neither you an animal self nor that of others and you will attain the very aim to which you are striving when you subject your external self the christian doctrine brings a man to the elementary consciousness of self only not of the animal self but of the divine self the divine spark the self as the son of god as much god as the father himself though confined in an animal husk the consciousness of being the son of god whose chief characteristic is love satisfies the need for the extension of the sphere of love to which the man of the social conception of life has been brought for the latter the welfare of the personality demanded an ever widening extension of the sphere of love love was a necessity and was confined to certain objects self family society with the christian conception of life love is not a necessity and is confined to no object it is the essential faculty of the human soul man loves not because it is his interest to love this or that but because love is the essence of his soul because he cannot but love the christian doctrine shows man that the essence of his soul is love that his happiness depends not on loving this or that object but on loving the principle of the whole god whom he recognizes within himself as love and therefore he loves all things and all men in this is the fundamental difference between the christian doctrine and the doctrine of the positivists and all the theorizers about universal brotherhood on non-christian principles such are the two principle misunderstandings relating to the christian religion from which the greater number of false reasonings about it proceed the first consists in the belief that christ's teaching instructs men like all previous religions by rules which they are bound to follow and that these rules cannot be fulfilled the second is the idea that the whole purport of christianity is to teach men to live advantageously together as one family and that to attain this we need only follow the rule of love to humanity dismissing all thoughts of love of god altogether the mistaken notion of scientific men that the essence of christianity consists in the supernatural and that its moral teaching is impracticable constitutes another reason of the failure of men of the present day to understand christianity end of chapter four recorded by nickie sullivan chicago chapter five of the kingdom of god is within you this is a libra box recording all libra box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra box dot org the kingdom of god is within you by leo tollstoy translated by constants garnet chapter five contradiction between our life and our christian conscience men think they can accept christianity without altering their life pagan conception of life does not correspond with present stage of development of humanity and christian conception alone can accord with it christian conception of life not yet understood by men but the progress of life itself will lead them inevitably to adopt it the requirements of a new theory of life always seem incomprehensible mystic and supernatural so seem the requirements of the christian theory of life to the majority of men the absorption of the christian conception of life will inevitably be brought about as the result of material and spiritual causes the fact of men knowing the requirements of the higher view of life and yet continuing to preserve inferior organizations of life leads to contradictions and sufferings which embitter existence and must result in its transformation the contradictions of our life the economic contradiction and the suffering induced by it for rich and poor alike the political contradiction and the sufferings induced by obedience to the laws of the state the international contradiction and the recognition of it by contemporaries komarovsky fairy booth passie lawson wilson bartlett de forney menetta the striking character of the military contradiction there are many reasons why christ teaching is not understood one reason is that people suppose they have understood it when they have decided as the church men do that it was revealed by supernatural means or when they have studied as the scientific men do the external forms in which it has been manifested another reason is the mistaken notion that it is impracticable and not to be replaced by the doctrine of love for humanity but the principal reason which is the source of all the other mistaken ideas about it is the notion that christianity is a doctrine which can be accepted or rejected without any change of life men who are used to the existing order of things who like it and dread it's being changed try to take the doctrine as a collection of revelations and rules which one can accept without their modifying one's life while christ's teaching is not only a doctrine which gives rules which a man must follow it unfolds a new meaning in life and defines a whole world of human activity quite different from all that has proceeded it and appropriate to the period on which man is entering the life of humanity changes and advances like the life of the individual by stages and every stage has a theory of life appropriate to it which is inevitably absorbed by men those who do not absorb it consciously absorb it unconsciously it is the same with the changes in the beliefs of peoples and of all humanity as it is with the changes of belief of individuals if the father of a family continues to be guided in his conduct by his childish conceptions of life life becomes so difficult for him that he involuntarily seeks another philosophy and readily absorbs that which is appropriate to his age that is just what is happening now to humanity at this time of transition through which we are passing from the pagan conception of life to the christian the socialized man of the present day is brought by experience of life itself to the necessity of abandoning the pagan conception of life which is inappropriate to the present stage of humanity and of submitting to the obligation of the christian doctrines the truths of which however corrupt and misinterpreted are still known to him and alone offer him the solution of the contradictions surrounding him if the requirements of the christian doctrine seems strange and even alarming to the man of the social theory of life no less strange incomprehensible and alarming to the savage of ancient times seemed the requirements of the social doctrine when it was not fully understood and could not be foreseen in its results it is unreasonable said the savage to sacrifice my peace of mind or my life in defense of something incomprehensible impalpable and conventional family tribe nation and above all it is unsafe to put oneself at the disposal of the power of others but the time came when the savage on one hand felt though vaguely the value of the social conception of life and of its chief motor power social censure or social approbation glory and when on the other hand the difficulties of his personal life became so great that he could not continue to believe in the value of his old theory of life then he accepted the social state theory of life and submitted to it that is just what the man of the social theory of life is passing through now it is unreasonable says the socialized man to sacrifice my welfare and that of my family and my country in order to fulfill some higher law which requires me to renounce my most natural and virtuous feelings of love of self of family of kindred and of country and above all it is unsafe to part with the security of life afforded by the organization of government but the time is coming when on one hand the vague consciousness in his soul of the higher law of love to God and his neighbor and on the other hand the suffering resulting from the contradictions of life will force the man to reject the social theory and to assimilate the new one prepared ready for him which solves all the contradictions and removes all his sufferings the christian theory of life and this time has now come we who thousands of years ago passed through the transition from the personal animal view of life to the socialized view imagine that that transition was an inevitable and natural one but this transition through which we have been passing for the last 1800 years seems arbitrary unnatural and alarming but we only fancy this because that first transition has been so fully completed that the practice attained by it has become unconscious and instinctive in us while the present transition is not yet over and we have to complete it consciously it took ages thousands of years for the social conception of life to permeate men's consciousness it went through various forms and has now passed into the region of the instinctive through inheritance education and habit and therefore it seems natural to us but 5000 years ago it seemed as unnatural and alarming to men as the christian doctrine in its true sense seems today we think today that the requirements of the christian doctrine of universal brotherhood suppression of national distinctions abolition of private property and the strange injunction of non-resistance to evil by force demand what is impossible but it was just the same thousands of years ago with every social or even family duty such as the duty of parents to support their children of the young to maintain the old of fidelity and marriage still more strange and even unreasonable seemed the state duties of submitting to the appointed authority and paying taxes and fighting in defense of the country and so on all such requirements seem simple comprehensible and natural to us today and we see nothing mysterious or alarming in them but three or five thousand years ago they seemed to require what was impossible the social conception of life served as the basis of religion because at the time when it was first presented to men it seemed to them absolutely incomprehensible mystic and supernatural now that we have outlived that phase of the life of humanity we understand the rational grounds for uniting men and families communities and states but in antiquity the duties involved by such association were presented under cover of the supernatural and were confirmed by it the patriarchal religions exalted the family the tribe the nation state religions deified emperors and states even now most ignorant people like our peasants who call the czar and earthly god obey state laws not through any rational recognition of their necessity nor because they have any conception of the meaning of state but through a religious sentiment in precisely the same way the christian doctrine is presented to men of the social or heathen theory of life today in the guise of a supernatural religion though there is in reality nothing mysterious mystic or supernatural about it it is simply the theory of life which is appropriate to the present degree of material development the present stage of growth of humanity and which must therefore inevitably be accepted the time will come it is already coming when the christian principles of equality and fraternity community of property non-resistance of evil by force will appear just as natural and simple as the principles of family or social life seem to us now humanity can no more go backward in its development than the individual man men have outlived the social family and state conceptions of life now they must go forward and assimilate the next and higher conception of life which is what is now taking place this change is brought about in two ways consciously through spiritual causes and unconsciously through material causes just as the individual man very rarely changes his way of life at the dictates of his reason alone but generally continues to live as before in spite of the new interests and aims revealed to him by his reason and only alters his way of living when it has become absolutely opposed to his conscience and consequently intolerable to him so too humanity long after it has learned through its religions the new interests and aims of life toward which it must strive continues in the majority of its representatives to live as before and is only brought to accept the new conception by finding it impossible to go on living its old life as before though the need of a change of life is preached by the religious leaders and recognized and realized by the most intelligent man the majority in spite of their reverential attitude to their leaders that is their faith in their teaching continue to be guided by the old theory of life in their present complex existence as though the father of a family knowing how he ought to behave at his age should yet continue through habit and thoughtlessness to live in the same childish way as he did in boyhood that is just what is happening in the transition of humanity from one stage to another through which we are passing now humanity has outgrown its social stage and has entered upon a new period it recognizes the doctrine which ought to be made the basis of life in this new period but through inertia it continues to keep up the old forms of life from this inconsistency between the new conception of life and the practical life follows a whole succession of contradictions and sufferings which embitter our life and necessitate its alteration one need only compare the practice of life with the theory of it to be dismayed at the glaring antagonism between our conditions of life and our conscience our whole life is in flat contradiction with all we know and with all we regard as necessary and right this contradiction runs through everything in economic life in political life and in international life as though we had forgotten what we knew and put away for a time the principles we believe in we cannot help still believing in them because they are the only foundation we have to base our life on we do the very opposite of all that our conscience and our common sense require of us we are guided in economical political and international questions by the principles which were appropriate to men of three or five thousand years ago though they are directly opposed to our conscience and the conditions of life in which we are placed today it was very well for the man of ancient times to live in a society based on the division of mankind into masters and slaves because he believed that such a distinction was decreed by god and must always exist but is such a belief possible in these days the man of antiquity could believe that he had the right to enjoy the good things of this world at the expense of other men and to keep them in misery for generations since he believed that men came from different origins were base or noble in blood children of ham or of jay fit the greatest sages of the world the teachers of humanity played oh and Aristotle justified the existence of slaves and demonstrated the lawfulness of slavery and even three centuries ago the men who described an imaginary society of the future utopia could not conceive of it without slaves men of ancient and medieval times believed firmly believed that men were not equal that the only true men were persians or Greeks or Romans or Franks but we cannot believe that now and people who sacrifice themselves for the principles of aristocracy and of patriotism today don't believe and can't believe what they assert we all know and cannot help knowing even though we may never have heard the idea clearly expressed may never have read of it and may never have put it into words still through unconsciously imbibing the christian sentiments that are in the air with our whole heart we know and cannot escape knowing the fundamental truth of the christian doctrine that we are all sons of one father wherever we may live in whatever language we may speak we are all brothers and are subject to the same law of love implanted by our common father in our hearts whatever the opinions and degree of education of a man today whatever his shade of liberalism whatever his school of philosophy or of science or of economics however ignorant or superstitious he may be every man of the present day knows that all men have an equal right to life and the good things of life and that one set of people are no better nor worse than another that all are equal everyone knows this beyond doubt everyone feels it in his whole being yet at the same time everyone sees all around him the division of men into two casts the one laboring oppressed poor and suffering the other idle oppressing luxurious and profligate and everyone not only sees this but voluntarily or involuntarily in one way or another he takes part in maintaining this distinction which his conscience condemns and he cannot help suffering from the consciousness of this contradiction and his share in it whether he be master or slave the man of today cannot help constantly feeling the painful opposition between his conscience and actual life and the miseries resulting from it the toiling masses the immense majority of mankind who are suffering under the incessant meaningless and hopeless toil and privation in which their whole life is followed up still find their keenest suffering in the glaring contrast between what is and what ought to be according to all the beliefs held by themselves and those who have brought them to that condition and keep them in it they know that they are in slavery and condemned to privation and darkness to minister to the lusts of the minority who keep them down they know it and they say so plainly and this knowledge increases their sufferings and constitutes its bitterest sting the slave of antiquity knew that he was a slave by nature but our laborer while he feels he is a slave knows that he ought not to be and so he tastes the agony of tantalists forever desiring and never gaining what might and ought to be his the sufferings of the working classes springing from the contradiction between what is and what ought to be are increased tenfold by the envy and hatred engendered by their consciousness of it the laborer of the present day would not cease to suffer even if his toil were much lighter than that of the slave of ancient times even if he gained an eight hour working day and a wage of three dollars a day for he is working at the manufacture of things which he will not enjoy working not by his own will for his own benefit but through necessity to satisfy the desires of luxurious and idle people in general and for the profit of a single rich man the owner of a factory or workshop in particular and he knows that all this is going on in a world in which it is a recognized scientific principle that labor alone creates wealth and that to profit by the labor of others is immoral dishonest and punishable by law in a world moreover which professes to believe christ's doctrine that we are all brothers and that true merit and dignity is to be found in serving one's neighbor not in exploiting him all this he knows and he cannot but suffer keenly from the sharp contrast between what is and what ought to be according to all principles according to all i know and what everyone professes the workman says to himself i ought to be free equal to everyone else and loved and i am a slave humiliated and hated and he too is filled with hatred and tries to find means to escape from his position to shake off the enemy who is over riding him and to oppress him in turn people say workmen have no business to try to become capitalists the poor to try to put themselves in the place of the rich that is a mistake the working men and the poor would be wrong if they tried to do so in a world in which slaves and masters were regarded as different species created by god but they are living in a world which professes the faith of the gospel that all are alike sons of god and so brothers and equal and however men may try to conceal it one of the first conditions of christian life is love not in words but in deeds the men of the so-called educated classes lives in still more glaring inconsistency and suffering every educated man if he believes in anything believes in the brotherhood of all men or at least he has a sentiment of humanity or else of justice or else he believes in science and all the while he knows that his whole life is framed on principles in direct opposition to it all to all the principles of christianity humanity justice and science he knows that all the habits in which he has been brought up in which he could not give up without suffering can only be satisfied through the exhausting often fatal toil of oppressed laborers that is through the most obvious and brutal violation of the principles of christianity humanity and justice and even of science that is economic science he advocates the principles of fraternity humanity justice and science and yet he lives so that he is dependent on the oppression of the working classes which he denounces and his whole life is based on the advantages gained by their oppression moreover he is directing every effort to maintaining this state of things so flatly opposed to all his beliefs we are all brothers and yet every morning a brother or a sister must empty the bedroom slops for me we are all brothers but every morning i must have a cigar a sweet meat and ice and such things which my brothers and sisters have been wasting their health in manufacturing and i enjoy these things and demand them we are all brothers yet i live by working in a bank or mercantile house or shop at making all goods dearer for my brothers we are all brothers but i live on a salary paid me for prosecuting judging and condemning the thief or the prostitute whose existence the whole tenor of my life tends to bring about and who i know ought not to be punished but reformed we are all brothers but i live on the salary i gain by collecting taxes from needy laborers to be spent on the luxuries of the rich and idle we are all brothers but i take a stipend for preaching a false christian religion which i do not myself believe in and which only serves to hinder men from understanding true christianity i take a stipend as priest or bishop for deceiving men in the matter of the greatest importance to them we are all brothers but i will not give the poor the benefit of my educational medical or literary labors except for money we are all brothers yet i take a salary for being ready to commit murder for teaching men to murder or making firearms gunpowder or fortifications the whole life of the upper classes is a constant inconsistency the more delicate a man's conscience is the more painful this contradiction is to him a man of sensitive conscience cannot but suffer if he lives such a life the only means by which he can escape from the suffering is by blunting his conscience but even if some men succeed in dulling their conscience they cannot dull their fears the men of the higher dominating classes whose conscience is naturally not sensitive or has become blunted if they don't suffer through conscience suffer from fear and hatred they are bound to suffer they know all the hatred of them existing and inevitably existing in the working classes they are aware that the working classes know that they are deceived and exploited and that they are beginning to organize themselves to shake off oppression and revenge themselves on their oppressors the higher classes see the unions the strikes the mayday celebrations and feel the calamity that is threatening them and their terror passes into an instinct of self-defense and hatred they know that if for one instant they are worsted in the struggle with their oppressed slaves they will perish because the slaves are exasperated and their exasperation is growing more intense with every day of oppression the oppressors even if they wished to do so could not make an end to oppression they know that they themselves will perish directly they even relax the harshness of their oppression and they do not relax it in spite of all their pretended care for the welfare of the working classes for the eight hour day for regulation of the labor of minors and of women for savings banks and pensions all that is humbug or else simply anxiety to keep the slave fit to do his work but the slave is still a slave and the master who cannot live without a slave is less disposed to set him free than ever the attitude of the ruling classes to the laborers is that of a man who has felt his adversary to the earth and holds him down not so much because he wants to hold him down as because he knows that if he let him go even for a second he would himself be stabbed for his adversary is infuriated and has a knife in his hand and therefore whether their conscience is tender or the reverse our rich men cannot enjoy the wealth they have built from the poor as the ancients did who believed in their right to it their whole life and all their enjoyments are embittered either by the stings of conscience or by terror so much for the economic contradiction the political contradiction is even more striking all men are brought up to the habit of obeying the laws of the state before everything the whole existence of modern times is defined by laws a man marries and is divorced educates his children and even in many countries professes his religious faith in accordance with the law what about the law then which defines our whole existence do men believe in it do they regard it as good not at all in the majority of cases people of the present time do not believe in the justice of the law they despise it but still they obey it it is very well for the men of the ancient world to observe their laws they firmly believed that their law it was generally of a religious character was the only just law which everyone ought to obey but is it so with us we know and cannot help knowing that the law of our country is not the one eternal law that it is only one of the many laws of different countries which are equally imperfect often obviously wrong and unjust and are criticized from every point of view in the newspapers the jew might well obey his laws since he had not the slightest doubt that god had written them with his finger the roman too might well obey the laws which he thought had been dictated by the nymph agaria men might well observe the laws if they believed the zars who made them were gods anointed or even if they thought they were the work of assemblies of law givers who had the power and the desire to make them as good as possible but we all know how our laws are made we have all been behind the scenes we know that they are the product of covetousness trickery and party struggles that there is not and cannot be any real justice in them and so modern men cannot believe that obedience to civic or political laws can satisfy the demands of the reason or of human nature men have long ago recognized that it is irrational to obey a law the justice of which is very doubtful and so they cannot but suffer in obeying a law which they do not accept as judicious and binding a man cannot but suffer when his whole life is defined beforehand for him by laws which he must obey under threat of punishment though he does not believe in their wisdom or justice and often clearly perceives their injustice cruelty and artificiality we recognize the uselessness of customs and import duties and are obliged to pay them we recognize the uselessness of the expenditure on the maintenance of the court and other members of government and we regard the teaching of the church as injurious but we are obliged to bear our share of the expenses of these institutions we regard the punishments inflicted by law as cruel and shameless but we must assist in supporting them we regard as unjust and pernicious the distribution of landed property but we are obliged to submit to it we see no necessity for wars and armies but we must bear terribly heavy burdens in support of troops and war expenses but this contradiction is nothing in comparison with the contradiction which confronts us when we turn to international questions and which demands a solution under pain of the loss of the sanity or even the existence of the human race that is the contradiction between the christian conscience and war we are all christian nations living the same spiritual life so that every noble and pregnant thought springing up at one end of the world is at once communicated to the whole of christian humanity and evokes everywhere the same emotion at pride and rejoicing without distinction of nationalities we who love thinkers philanthropists poets and scientific men of foreign origin and are as proud of the exploits of father damien as we are of one of ourselves we who have a simple love for men of foreign nationalities frenchmen germans americans and englishmen who respect their qualities are glad to meet them and make them so warmly welcome cannot regard war with them as anything heroic we cannot even imagine without horror the possibility of a disagreement between these people and ourselves which would call for reciprocal murder yet we are all bound to take a hand in this slaughter which is bound to come to pass tomorrow if not today it was very well for the jew the greek and the roman to defend the independence of his nation by murder for he piously believed that his people was the only true fine and good people dear to god and all the rest were philistines barbarians men of medieval times even up to the end of the last and beginning of this century might continue to hold this belief but however much we work upon ourselves we cannot believe it and this contradiction for men of the present day has become so full of horror that without its solution life is no longer possible we live in a time which is full of inconsistencies writes count komarovsky the professor of international law in his learned treatise the press of all countries is continually expressing the universal desire for peace and the general sense of its necessity for all nations representatives of governments private persons and official organs say the same thing it is repeated in parliamentary debates diplomatic correspondence and even in state treaties at the same time governments are increasing the strength of their armies every year levying fresh taxes raising loans and leaving as a bequest to future generations the duty of repairing the blunders of the senseless policy of the present what a striking contrast between words and deeds of course governments will plead in justification of these measures that all their expenditure and armament are exclusively for purposes of defense but it remains a mystery to every disinterested man once they can expect attacks if all the great powers are single-hearted in their policy in pursuing nothing but self-defense in reality it looks as if each of the great powers were every instant anticipating an attack on the part of the others and this results in a general feeling of insecurity and superhuman efforts on the part of each government to increase their forces beyond those of the other powers such a competition of itself increases the danger of war nations cannot endure the constant increase of armies for long and sooner or later they will prefer war to all the disadvantages of their present position and the constant menace of war then the most trifling pretext will be sufficient to throw the whole of europe into the fire of universal war and it is a mistaken idea that such a crisis might deliver us from the political and economical troubles that are crushing us the experience of the wars of latter years teaches us that every war has only intensified national hatreds made military burdens more crushing and insupportable and rendered the political and economical grievous and insoluble modern europe keeps under arms an active army of nine millions of men writes in rico ferry besides 15 millions of reserve with an outlay of 400 millions of francs per annum by continual increase of the armed force the sources of social and individual prosperity are paralyzed and the state of the modern world may be compared to that of a man who condemns himself to wasting from lack of nutrition in order to provide himself with arms losing thereby the strength to use the arms he provides under the weight of which he will at last succumb charles booth in his paper read in london before the association of the reform and codification of the law of nations june 26 1887 says the same thing after referring to the same number nine millions of the active army and 15 millions of reserve and the enormous expenditure of governments on the support and arming of these forces he says these figures represent only a small part of the real cost because besides the recognized expenditure of the war budget of the various nations we ought also to take into account the enormous loss to society involved in withdrawing from it such an immense number of its most vigorous men who are taken from industrial pursuits and every kind of labor as well as the enormous interest on the sums expended on military preparations without any return the inevitable result of this expenditure on war and preparations for war is a continually growing national debt the greater number of loans raised by the governments of europe were with a view to war their total sum amounts to 400 millions sterling and these debts are increasing every year the same professor comorowski says in another place we live in troubled times everywhere we hear complaints of the depression of trade and manufacturers and the wretchedness of the economic position generally the miserable conditions of existence of the working classes and the universal impoverishment of the masses but in spite of this governments in their efforts to maintain their independence rush to the greatest extremes of senselessness new taxes and duties are being devised everywhere and the financial oppression of the nations knows no limits if we glance at the budgets of the states of europe for the last hundred years what strikes us most of all is their rapid and continually growing increase how can we explain this extraordinary phenomenon which sooner or later threatens us all with inevitable bankruptcy it is caused beyond dispute by the expenditure for the maintenance of armaments which swallows up a third and even a half of all the expenditure of european states and the most melancholy thing is that one can foresee no limit to this augmentation of the budget and impoverishment of the masses what is socialism but a protest against this abnormal position in which the greater proportion of the population of our world is placed we are ruining ourselves says frederick passie in a letter read before the last congress of universal peace in 1890 in london we are ruining ourselves in order to be able to take part in the senseless wars of the future or to pay the interest on debts we have incurred by the senseless and criminal wars of the past we are dying of hunger so as to secure the means of killing each other speaking later on of the way the subject is looked at in france he says we believe that a hundred years after the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen the time has come to recognize the rights of nations and to renounce it once and forever all those undertakings based on fraud and force which under the name of conquests are veritable crimes against humanity and which whatever the vanity of monarchs and the pride of nations may think of them only weaken even those who are triumphant over them i am surprised at the way religion is carried on in this country said sir wilfred loson at the same congress you send a boy to sunday school and you tell him dear boy you must love your enemies if another boy strikes you you mustn't hit him back but try to reform him by loving him well the boy stays in the sunday school till he is 14 or 15 and then his friend sent him him into the army what has he to do in the army he certainly won't love his enemy quite the contrary if he can only get at him he will run him through with his bayonet that is the nature of all religious teaching in this country i do not think that it is a very good way of carrying out the precepts of religion i think if it is a good thing for a boy to love his enemy it is good for a grown-up man there are in europe 28 millions of men under arms says wilson to decide disputes not by discussion but by murdering one another that is the accepted method for deciding disputes among christian nations this method is at the same time very expensive for according to the statistics i have read the nations of europe spent in the year 1872 150 millions sterling on preparations for deciding disputes by means of murder it seems to me therefore that in such a state of things one of two alternatives must be admitted either christianity is a failure or those who have undertaken to expound it have failed in doing so until our warriors are disarmed and our armies disbanded we have not the right to call ourselves a christian nation in a conference on the subject of the duty of christian ministers to preach against war gd bartlett said among other things if i understand the scriptures i say that men are only playing with christianity so long as they ignore the question of war i have lived a longish life and have heard our ministers preach on universal peace hardly half a dozen times 20 years ago in a drawing room i dared in the presence of 40 persons to moot the proposition that war was incompatible with christianity i was regarded as an errant fanatic the idea that we could get on without war was regarded as unmitigated weakness and folly the catholic priest di forney has expressed himself in the same spirit one of the first precepts of the eternal law inscribed in the consciences of all men says the abbey di forney is the prohibition of taking the life or shedding the blood of a fellow creature without sufficient cause without being forced into the necessity of it this is one of the commandments which is most deeply stamped in the heart of man but so soon as it is a question of war that is of shedding blood and torrents men of the present day do not trouble themselves about a sufficient cause those who take part in wars do not even think of asking themselves whether there is any justification for these innumerable murders whether they are justifiable or unjustifiable lawful or unlawful innocent or criminal whether they are breaking that fundamental commandment which forbids killing without lawful cause but their conscience is mute war has ceased to be something dependent on moral considerations in warfare men have in all the toil and dangers they endure no other pleasure than that of being conquerors no sorrow other than that of being conquered don't tell me that they are serving their country a great genius answered that long ago in the words that have become a proverb without justice what is an empire but a great band of brigands and is not every band of brigands a little empire they too have their laws and they too make war to gain booty and even for honor the aim of the proposed institution the institution of an international board of arbitration is that the nations of europe may cease to be nations of robbers and their armies bands of brigands and one must add not only brigands but slaves for our armies are simply gangs of slaves at the disposal of one or two commanders or ministers who exercise a despotic control over them without any real responsibility as we very well know the peculiarity of a slave is that he is a mere tool in the hands of his master a thing not a man that is just what soldiers officers and generals are going to murder and be murdered at the will of a ruler or rulers military slavery is an actual fact and it is the worst form of slavery especially now when by means of compulsory service it lays its feathers on the necks of all the strong and capable men of a nation to make them instruments of murder butchers of human flesh for that is all they are taken and trained to do the rulers two or three in number meet together in cabinets secretly deliberate without registers without publicity and consequently without responsibility and send men to be murdered protests against armaments burdensome to the people have not originated in our times says senior e.g. moneta here what montesquieu wrote in his day france and one might say europe will be ruined by soldiers a new plague is spreading throughout europe it attacks sovereigns and forces them to maintain an incredible number of armed men this plague is infectious and spreads because directly one government increases its armament all the others do likewise so that nothing is gained by it but general ruin every government maintains as great an army as it possibly could maintain if its people were threatened with extermination and people call peace the state of tension of all against all and therefore europe is so ruined that if private persons were in the position of the governments of our continent the richest of them would not have enough to live on we are poor though we have the wealth and trade of the whole world that was written almost 150 years ago the picture seems drawn from the world of today one thing only has changed the form of government in montesquieu's time it was said that the cause of the maintenance of great armaments was the despotic power of kings who made war in the hope of augmenting by conquest their personal revenues and gaining glory people used to say then if only people could elect those who would have the right to refuse governments the soldiers and the money then there would be an end to military politics now there are representative governments in almost the whole of europe and in spite of that war expenditures and the preparations for war have increased to alarming proportions it is evident that the insanity of sovereigns has gained possession of the ruling classes war is not made now because one king has been wanting in civility to the mistress of another king as it was in louis the 14th time but the natural and honorable sentiments of national honor and patriotism are so exaggerated and the public opinion of one nation so excited against another that it is enough for a statement to be made even though it may be a false report that the ambassador of one state was not received by the principal personage of another state to cause the outbreak of the most awful and destructive war there has ever been seen europe keeps more soldiers under arms today than in the time of the great napoleonic wars all citizens with few exceptions are forced to spend some years in barracks fortresses arsenals and ships are built new weapons are constantly being invented to be replaced in a short time by fresh ones for a sad to say science which ought always to be aiming at the good of humanity assists in the work of destruction and is constantly inventing new means for killing the greatest number of men in the shortest time and to maintain so great a multitude of soldiers and to make such vast preparations for murder hundreds of millions are spent annually sums which would be sufficient for the education of the people and for immense works of public utility and which would make it possible to find a peaceful solution of the social question europe then is in this respect in spite of all the conquests of science in the same position as in the darkest and most barbarous days of the middle ages all deplore the state of things neither peace nor war and all would be glad to escape from it the heads of governments all declare that they wish for peace and buy with one another in the most solemn protestations of peaceful intentions but the same day or the next day they will lay a scheme for the increase of the armament before their legislative assembly saying that these are the preventive measures they take for the very purpose of securing peace but this is not the kind of peace we want and the nations are not deceived by it true peace is based on mutual confidence while these huge armaments show open and utter lack of confidence if not concealed hostility between states what should we say of a man who wanting to show his friendly feelings for his neighbor should invite him to discuss their differences with a loaded revolver in his hand it is just this flagrant contradiction between the peaceful professions and the warlike policy of governments which all good citizens desire to put an end to at any cost people are astonished that every year there are 60 000 cases of suicide in europe and those only the recognized and recorded cases and excluding russia and turkey but one ought rather to be surprised that there are so few every man of the present day if we go deep enough into the contradiction between his conscience and his life is in a state of despair not to speak of all the other contradictions between modern life and the conscience the permanently armed condition of europe together with its profession of christianity is elone enough to drive any man to despair to doubt of the sanity of mankind and to terminate an existence in the senseless and brutal world this contradiction which is a quintessence of all the other contradictions is so terrible that to live and take part in it is only possible if one does not think of it if one is able to forget it what all of us christians not only profess to love one another but do actually live one common life we whose social existence beats with one common pause we aid one another learn from one another draw ever closer to one another to our mutual happiness and spend in this closeness the whole meaning of life and tomorrow some crazy ruler will say some stupidity and another will answer in the same spirit and then i must go expose myself to being murdered and murder men who have done me no harm and more than that whom i love and this is not a remote contingency but the very thing we are all preparing for which is not only probable but an inevitable certainty to recognize this clearly is enough to drive a man out of his senses or to make him shoot himself and this is just what does happen and especially often among military men a man need only come to himself for an instant to be impelled inevitably to such an end and this is the only explanation of the dreadful intensity with which men of modern times strive to stupify themselves with spirits tobacco opium cards reading newspapers traveling and all sorts of spectacles and amusements these pursuits are followed up as an important serious business and indeed they are a serious business if there were no external means of dulling their sensibilities half of mankind would shoot themselves without delay or 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 the 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 end of chapter five