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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Bethink Yourselves", by Leo Tolstoi
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: "Bethink Yourselves"
+
+Author: Leo Tolstoi
+
+Translator: V. Tchertkoff
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27189]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "BETHINK YOURSELVES" ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gerard Arthus, Jana Srna and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY
+
+                              NOW READY
+
+
+                 =Bloch's "The Future of War"=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 65 cents
+
+                 =Charles Sumner's Addresses on War=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents
+
+                 =Channing's Discourses on War=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents
+
+
+           Edited with introductions by Edwin D. Mead.
+           Published for the International Union by Ginn &
+           Company, Boston.
+
+
+
+
+                        "BETHINK YOURSELVES!"
+
+
+                                  BY
+                             LEO TOLSTOI
+
+
+
+
+                PUBLISHED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL UNION
+                        GINN & COMPANY, BOSTON
+                                 1904
+
+
+                  Reprinted from the _London Times_
+
+     Translated by V. Tchertkoff, Editor of the _Free Age Press_,
+                             and I. F. M.
+
+
+
+
+                        "BETHINK YOURSELVES!"
+
+   "This is your hour, and the power of darkness."--Luke xxii. 53.
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+
+Again war. Again sufferings, necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for;
+again fraud; again the universal stupefaction and brutalization of men.
+
+Men who are separated from each other by thousands of miles, hundreds of
+thousands of such men (on the one hand--Buddhists, whose law forbids the
+killing, not only of men, but of animals; on the other hand--Christians,
+professing the law of brotherhood and love) like wild beasts on land and
+on sea are seeking out each other, in order to kill, torture, and
+mutilate each other in the most cruel way. What can this be? Is it a
+dream or a reality? Something is taking place which should not, cannot
+be; one longs to believe that it is a dream and to awake from it. But no,
+it is not a dream, it is a dreadful reality!
+
+One could yet understand how a poor, uneducated, defrauded Japanese, torn
+from his field and taught that Buddhism consists not in compassion to all
+that lives, but in sacrifices to idols, and how a similar poor illiterate
+fellow from the neighborhood of Toula or Nijni Novgorod, who has been
+taught that Christianity consists in worshipping Christ, the Madonna,
+Saints, and their ikons--one could understand how these unfortunate men,
+brought by the violence and deceit of centuries to recognize the greatest
+crime in the world--the murder of one's brethren--as a virtuous act, can
+commit these dreadful deeds, without regarding themselves as being guilty
+in so doing.
+
+But how can so-called enlightened men preach war, support it, participate
+in it, and, worst of all, without suffering the dangers of war
+themselves, incite others to it, sending their unfortunate defrauded
+brothers to fight? These so-called enlightened men cannot possibly
+ignore, I do not say the Christian law, if they recognize themselves to
+be Christians, but all that has been written, is being written, has and
+is being said, about the cruelty, futility, and senselessness of war.
+They are regarded as enlightened men precisely because they know all
+this. The majority of them have themselves written and spoken about this.
+Not to mention The Hague Conference, which called forth universal praise,
+or all the books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and speeches
+demonstrating the possibility of the solution of international
+misunderstandings by international arbitration--no enlightened man can
+help knowing that the universal competition in the armaments of States
+must inevitably lead them to endless wars, or to a general bankruptcy, or
+to both the one and the other. They cannot but know that besides the
+senseless, purposeless expenditure of milliards of roubles, _i.e._ of
+human labor, on the preparations for war, during the wars themselves
+millions of the most energetic and vigorous men perish in that period of
+their life which is best for productive labor (during the past century
+wars have destroyed fourteen million men). Enlightened men cannot but
+know that occasions for war are always such as are not worth not only one
+human life, but not one hundredth part of all that which is spent upon
+wars (in fighting for the emancipation of the negroes much more was spent
+than it would have cost to redeem them from slavery).
+
+Every one knows and cannot help knowing that, above all, wars, calling
+forth the lowest animal passions, deprave and brutalize men. Every one
+knows the weakness of the arguments in favor of war, such as were
+brought forward by De Maistre, Moltke, and others, for they are all
+founded on the sophism that in every human calamity it is possible to
+find an advantageous element, or else upon the utterly arbitrary assertion
+that wars have always existed and therefore always must exist, as if the
+bad actions of men could be justified by the advantages or the
+usefulness which they realize, or by the consideration that they have
+been committed during a long period of time. All so-called enlightened
+men know all this. Then suddenly war begins, and all this is instantly
+forgotten, and the same men who but yesterday were proving the cruelty,
+futility, the senselessness of wars now think, speak, and write only
+about killing as many men as possible, about ruining and destroying the
+greatest possible amount of the productions of human labor, and about
+exciting as much as possible the passion of hatred in those peaceful,
+harmless, industrious men who by their labor feed, clothe, maintain these
+same pseudo-enlightened men, who compel them to commit those dreadful
+deeds contrary to their conscience, welfare, or faith.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+
+Something is taking place incomprehensible and impossible in its cruelty,
+falsehood, and stupidity. The Russian Tsar, the same man who exhorted all
+the nations in the cause of peace, publicly announces that,
+notwithstanding all his efforts to maintain the peace so dear to his
+heart (efforts which express themselves in the seizing of other peoples'
+lands and in the strengthening of armies for the defence of these stolen
+lands), he, owing to the attack of the Japanese, commands that the same
+shall be done to the Japanese as they had commenced doing to the
+Russians--_i.e._ that they should be slaughtered; and in announcing this
+call to murder he mentions God, asking the Divine blessing on the most
+dreadful crime in the world. The Japanese Emperor has proclaimed the same
+thing in relation to the Russians.
+
+Men of science and of law (Messieurs Muravieff and Martens) strenuously
+try to prove that in the recent call of all nations to universal peace
+and the present incitement to war, because of the seizure of other
+peoples' lands, there is no contradiction. Diplomatists, in their refined
+French language, publish and send out circulars in which they
+circumstantially and diligently prove (though they know no one believes
+them) that, after all its efforts to establish peaceful relations (in
+reality, after all its efforts to deceive other countries), the Russian
+Government has been compelled to have recourse to the only means for a
+rational solution of the question--_i.e._ to the murder of men. The same
+thing is written by Japanese diplomatists. Scientists, historians, and
+philosophers, on their side, comparing the present with the past, deduce
+from these comparisons profound conclusions, and argue interminably about
+the laws of the movement of nations, about the relation between the
+yellow and white races, or about Buddhism and Christianity, and on the
+basis of these deductions and arguments justify the slaughter of those
+belonging to the yellow race by Christians; while in the same way the
+Japanese scientists and philosophers justify the slaughter of those of
+the white race. Journalists, without concealing their joy, try to outdo
+each other, and, not hesitating at any falsehood, however impudent and
+transparent, prove in all possible ways that the Russians only are right
+and strong and good in every respect, and that all the Japanese are wrong
+and weak and bad in every respect, and that all those are also bad who
+are inimical or may become inimical toward the Russians--the English, the
+Americans; and the same is proved likewise by the Japanese and their
+supporters in relation to the Russians.
+
+Not to mention the military, who in the way of their profession prepare
+for murder, crowds of so-called enlightened people, such as professors,
+social reformers, students, nobles, merchants, without being forced
+thereto by anything or anybody, express the most bitter and contemptuous
+feelings toward the Japanese, the English, or the Americans, toward whom
+but yesterday they were either well-disposed or indifferent; while,
+without the least compulsion, they express the most abject, servile
+feelings toward the Tsar (to whom, to say the least, they were completely
+indifferent), assuring him of their unlimited love and readiness to
+sacrifice their lives in his interests.
+
+This unfortunate, entangled young man, recognized as the leader of one
+hundred and thirty millions of people, continually deceived and compelled
+to contradict himself, confidently thanks and blesses the troops whom he
+calls his own for murder in defence of lands which with yet less right he
+also calls his own. All present to each other hideous ikons in which not
+only no one amongst the educated believes, but which unlearned peasants
+are beginning to abandon; all bow down to the ground before these ikons,
+kiss them, and pronounce pompous and deceitful speeches in which no one
+really believes.
+
+Wealthy people contribute insignificant portions of their immorally
+acquired riches for this cause of murder or the organization of help in
+connection with the work of murder; while the poor, from whom the
+Government annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do
+likewise, giving their mites also. The Government incites and encourages
+crowds of idlers, who walk about the streets with the Tsar's portrait,
+singing, shouting hurrah! and who, under pretext of patriotism, are
+licensed in all kinds of excess. All over Russia, from the Palace to the
+remotest village, the pastors of churches, calling themselves Christians,
+appeal to that God who has enjoined love to one's enemies--to the God of
+Love Himself--to help the work of the devil to further the slaughter of
+men.
+
+Stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, by processions, pictures,
+and newspapers, the cannon's flesh, hundreds of thousands of men,
+uniformly dressed, carrying divers deadly weapons, leaving their parents,
+wives, children, with hearts of agony, but with artificial sprightliness,
+go where they, risking their own lives, will commit the most dreadful act
+of killing men whom they do not know and who have done them no harm. And
+they are followed by doctors and nurses, who somehow imagine that at home
+they cannot serve simple, peaceful, suffering people, but can only serve
+those who are engaged in slaughtering each other. Those who remain at
+home are gladdened by news of the murder of men, and when they learn that
+many Japanese have been killed they thank some one whom they call God.
+
+All this is not only regarded as the manifestation of elevated feeling,
+but those who refrain from such manifestations, if they endeavor to
+disabuse men, are deemed traitors and betrayers, and are in danger of
+being abused and beaten by a brutalized crowd which, in defence of its
+insanity and cruelty, can possess no other weapon than brute force.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+
+It is as if there had never existed either Voltaire, or Montaigne, or
+Pascal, or Swift, or Kant, or Spinoza, or hundreds of other writers who
+have exposed, with great force, the madness and futility of war, and have
+described its cruelty, immorality, and savagery; and, above all, it is as
+if there had never existed Jesus and his teaching of human brotherhood
+and love of God and of men.
+
+One recalls all this to mind and looks around on what is now taking
+place, and one experiences horror less at the abominations of war than at
+that which is the most horrible of all horrors--the consciousness of the
+impotency of human reason. That which alone distinguishes man from the
+animal, that which constitutes his merit--his reason--is found to be an
+unnecessary, and not only a useless, but a pernicious addition, which
+simply impedes action, like a bridle fallen from a horse's head, and
+entangled in his legs and only irritating him.
+
+It is comprehensible that a heathen, a Greek, a Roman, even a mediæval
+Christian, ignorant of the Gospel and blindly believing all the
+prescriptions of the Church, might fight and, fighting, pride himself on
+his military achievements; but how can a believing Christian, or even a
+sceptic, involuntarily permeated by the Christian ideals of human
+brotherhood and love which have inspired the works of the philosophers,
+moralists, and artists of our time,--how can such take a gun, or stand by
+a cannon, and aim at a crowd of his fellow-men, desiring to kill as many
+of them as possible?
+
+The Assyrians, Romans, or Greeks might be persuaded that in fighting they
+were acting not only according to their conscience, but even fulfilling a
+righteous deed. But, whether we wish it or not, we are Christians, and
+however Christianity may have been distorted, its general spirit cannot
+but lift us to that higher plane of reason whence we can no longer
+refrain from feeling with our whole being not only the senselessness and
+the cruelty of war, but its complete opposition to all that we regard as
+good and right. Therefore, we cannot do as they did, with assurance,
+firmness, and peace, and without a consciousness of our criminality,
+without the desperate feeling of a murderer, who, having begun to kill
+his victim, and feeling in the depths of his soul the guilt of his act,
+proceeds to try to stupefy or infuriate himself, to be able the better to
+complete his dreadful deed. All the unnatural, feverish, hot-headed,
+insane excitement which has now seized the idle upper ranks of Russian
+society is merely the symptom of their recognition of the criminality of
+the work which is being done. All these insolent, mendacious speeches
+about devotion to, and worship of, the Monarch, about readiness to
+sacrifice life (or one should say other people's lives, and not one's
+own); all these promises to defend with one's breast land which does not
+belong to one; all these senseless benedictions of each other with
+various banners and monstrous ikons; all these _Te Deums_; all these
+preparations of blankets and bandages; all these detachments of nurses;
+all these contributions to the fleet and to the Red Cross presented to
+the Government, whose direct duty is (whilst it has the possibility of
+collecting from the people as much money as it requires), having declared
+war, to organize the necessary fleet and necessary means for attending
+the wounded; all these Slavonic, pompous, senseless, and blasphemous
+prayers, the utterance of which in various towns is communicated in the
+papers as important news; all these processions, calls for the national
+hymn, cheers; all this dreadful, desperate newspaper mendacity, which,
+being universal, does not fear exposure; all this stupefaction and
+brutalization which has now taken hold of Russian society, and which is
+being transmitted by degrees also to the masses; all this is only a
+symptom of the guilty consciousness of that dreadful act which is being
+accomplished.
+
+Spontaneous feeling tells men that what they are doing should not be;
+but, as the murderer who has begun to assassinate his victim cannot stop,
+so also Russian people now imagine that the fact of the deadly work
+having been commenced is an unanswerable argument in favor of war. War
+has been begun, and therefore it should go on. Thus it seems to simple,
+benighted, unlearned men, acting under the influence of the petty
+passions and stupefaction to which they have been subjected. In exactly
+the same way the most educated men of our time argue to prove that man
+does not possess free will, and that, therefore, even were he to
+understand that the work he has commenced is evil, he can no longer cease
+to do it. And dazed, brutalized men continue their dreadful work.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+Ask a soldier, a private, a corporal, a non-commissioned officer, who has
+abandoned his old parents, his wife, his children, why he is preparing to
+kill men whom he does not know; he will at first be astonished at your
+question. He is a soldier, he has taken the oath, and it is his duty to
+fulfil the orders of his commanders. If you tell him that war--_i.e._ the
+slaughter of men--does not conform to the command, "Thou shalt not kill,"
+he will say: "And how if ours are attacked--For the King--For the
+Orthodox faith?" (One of them said in answer to my question: "And how if
+he attacks that which is sacred?" "What do you mean?" I asked. "Why,"
+said he, "the banner.") And if you endeavor to explain to such a soldier
+that God's Commandment is more important not only than the banner but
+than anything else in the world, he will become silent, or he will get
+angry and report you to the authorities.
+
+Ask an officer, a general, why he goes to the war. He will tell you that
+he is a military man, and that the military are indispensable for the
+defence of the fatherland. As to murder not conforming to the spirit of
+the Christian law, this does not trouble him, as either he does not
+believe in this law, or, if he does, it is not in the law itself, but in
+that explanation which has been given to this law. But, above all, he,
+like the soldier, in place of the personal question, what should he do
+himself, always put the general question about the State, or the
+fatherland. "At the present moment, when the fatherland is in danger, one
+should act, and not argue," he will say.
+
+Ask the diplomatists, who, by their deceits, prepare wars, why they do
+it. They will tell you that the object of their activity is the
+establishment of peace between nations, and that this object is attained,
+not by ideal, unrealizable theories, but by diplomatic action and
+readiness for war. And, just as the military, instead of the question
+concerning one's own action, place the general question, so also
+diplomatists will speak about the interests of Russia, about the
+unscrupulousness of other Powers, about the balance of power in Europe,
+but not about their own position and its activities.
+
+Ask the journalists why, by their writings, they incite men to war; they
+will say that wars in general are necessary and useful, especially the
+present war, and they will confirm this opinion of theirs by misty
+patriotic phrases, and, just like the military and diplomatist, to the
+question why he, a journalist, a particular individual, a living man,
+acts in a certain way, he will speak about the general interests of the
+nation, about the State, civilization, the white race. In the same way,
+all those who prepare war will explain their participation in that work.
+They will perhaps agree that it would be desirable to abolish war, but at
+present this is impossible. At present they as Russians and as men who
+occupy certain positions, such as heads of the nobility, representatives
+of local self-government, doctors, workers of the Red Cross, are called
+upon to act and not to argue. "There is no time to argue and to think of
+oneself," they will say, "when there is a great common work to be done."
+The same will be said by the Tsar, seemingly responsible for the whole
+thing. He, like the soldier, will be astonished at the question, whether
+war is now necessary. He does not even admit the idea that the war might
+yet be arrested. He will say that he cannot refrain from fulfilling that
+which is demanded of him by the whole nation, that, although he does
+recognize that war is a great evil, and has used, and is ready to use,
+all possible means for its abolition--in the present case he could not
+help declaring war, and cannot help continuing it. It is necessary for
+the welfare and glory of Russia.
+
+Every one of these men, to the question why he, so and so, Ivan, Peter,
+Nicholas, whilst recognizing as binding upon him the Christian law which
+not only forbids the killing of one's neighbor but demands that one
+should love him, serve him, why he permits himself to participate in war;
+_i.e._ in violence, loot, murder, will infallibly answer the same thing,
+that he is thus acting in the name of his fatherland, or faith, or oath,
+or honor, or civilization, or the future welfare of the whole of
+mankind--in general, of something abstract and indefinite. Moreover,
+these men are always so urgently occupied either by preparation for war,
+or by its organization, or discussions about it, that in their leisure
+time they can only rest from their labors, and have not time to occupy
+themselves with discussions about their life, regarding such discussions
+as idle.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+Men of our Christian world and of our time are like a man who, having
+missed the right turning, the further he goes the more he becomes
+convinced that he is going the wrong way. Yet the greater his doubts, the
+quicker and the more desperately does he hurry on, consoling himself with
+the thought that he will arrive somewhere. But the time comes when it
+becomes quite clear that the way along which he is going will lead to
+nothing but a precipice, which he is already beginning to discern before
+him.
+
+In such a position stands the Christian humanity of our time. It is
+perfectly evident that, if we continue to live as we are now living,
+guided in our private lives, as well as in the life of separate States,
+by the sole desire of welfare for ourselves and for our State, and will,
+as we do now, think to ensure this welfare by violence, then, inevitably
+increasing the means of violence of one against the other and of State
+against State, we shall, first, keep subjecting ourselves more and more,
+transferring the major portion of our productiveness to armaments; and,
+secondly, by killing in mutual wars the best physically developed men, we
+must become more and more degenerate and morally depraved.
+
+That this will be the case if we do not alter our life is as certain as
+it is mathematically certain that two non-parallel straight lines must
+meet. But not only is this theoretically certain in our time; it is
+becoming certain not only to thought, but also to the consciousness. The
+precipice which we approach is already becoming apparent to us, and the
+most simple, non-philosophizing, and uneducated men cannot but see that,
+by arming ourselves more and more against each other and slaughtering
+each other in war, we, like spiders in a jar, can come to nothing else
+but the destruction of each other.
+
+A sincere, serious, rational man can no longer console himself by the
+thought that matters can be mended, as was formerly supposed, by a
+universal empire such as that of Rome or of Charles the Great, or
+Napoleon, or by the mediæval spiritual power of the Pope, or by Holy
+Alliances, by the political balance of the European Concert, and by
+peaceful international tribunals, or, as some have thought, by the
+increase of military strength and the newly discovered powerful weapons
+of destruction.
+
+It is impossible to organize a universal empire or republic, consisting
+of European States, as different nationalities will never desire to unite
+into one State. To organize international tribunals for the solution of
+international disputes? But who will impose obedience to the decision of
+the tribunal upon a contending party who has an organized army of
+millions of men? To disarm? No one desires it or will begin it. To invent
+yet more dreadful means of destruction--balloons with bombs filled with
+suffocating gases, shells, which men will shower upon each other from
+above? Whatever may be invented, all States will furnish themselves with
+similar weapons of destruction. And cannon's flesh, as after cold weapons
+it submitted to bullets, and meekly exposed itself to shells, bombs,
+far-reaching guns, mitrailleuses, mines, so it will also submit to bombs
+charged with suffocating gases scattered down upon it from balloons.
+
+Nothing shows more evidently than the speeches of M. Muravieff and
+Professor Martens about the Japanese war not contradicting The Hague
+Peace Conference--nothing shows more obviously than these speeches to
+what an extent, amongst the men of our time, the means for the
+transmission of thought--speech--is distorted, and how the capacity for
+clear, rational thinking is completely lost. Thought and speech are used
+for the purpose, not of serving as a guide for human activity, but of
+justifying any activity, however criminal it may be. The late Boer war
+and the present Japanese war, which can at any moment pass into a
+universal slaughter, have proved this beyond all doubt. All anti-military
+discussions can as little contribute to the cessation of war as the most
+eloquent and persuasive considerations addressed to fighting dogs as to
+its being more advantageous to divide the piece of meat over which they
+are struggling than to mutilate each other and lose the piece of meat,
+which will be carried away by some passing dog not joining in the fight.
+We are dashing on toward the precipice, cannot stop, and we are
+approaching its edge.
+
+For every rational man who reflects upon the position in which humanity
+is now placed and upon that which it is inevitably approaching, it cannot
+but be obvious that there is no practical issue out of this position,
+that one cannot devise any combination or organization which would save
+us from the destruction toward which we are inevitably rushing. Not to
+mention the economical problems which become more and more complex, those
+mutual relations between the States arming themselves against each other
+and at any moment ready to break out into wars clearly point to the
+certain destruction toward which all so-called civilized humanity is
+being carried. Then what is to be done?
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+Two thousand years ago John the Baptist and then Jesus said to men: The
+time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand; (μετανοεῖτε)
+bethink yourselves and believe in the Gospel (Mark i. 15); and if you do
+not bethink yourselves you will all perish (Luke xiii. 5).
+
+But men did not listen to them, and the destruction they foretold is
+already near at hand. And we men of our time cannot but see it. We are
+already perishing, and, therefore, we cannot leave unheeded that--old in
+time, but for us new--means of salvation. We cannot but see that, besides
+all the other calamities which flow from our bad and irrational life,
+military preparations alone and the wars inevitably growing from them
+must infallibly destroy us. We cannot but see that all the means of
+escape invented by men from these evils are found and must be found to be
+ineffectual, and that the disastrous position of the nations arming
+themselves against each other cannot but go on advancing continually. And
+therefore the words of Jesus refer to us and our time more than to any
+time or to any one.
+
+Jesus said, "Bethink yourselves"--_i.e._ "Let every man interrupt the
+work he has begun and ask himself: Who am I? From whence have I appeared,
+and in what consists my destiny? And having answered these questions,
+according to the answer decide whether that which thou doest is in
+conformity with thy destiny." And every man of our world and time, that
+is, being acquainted with the essence of the Christian teaching, needs
+only for a minute to interrupt his activity, to forget the capacity in
+which he is regarded by men, be it of Emperor, soldier, minister, or
+journalist, and seriously ask himself who he is and what is his
+destiny--in order to begin to doubt the utility, lawfulness, and
+reasonableness of his actions. "Before I am Emperor, soldier, minister,
+or journalist," must say to himself every man of our time and of the
+Christian world, "before any of these, I am a man--_i.e._ an organic
+being sent by the Higher Will into a universe infinite in time and space,
+in order, after staying in it for an instant, to die--_i.e._ to disappear
+from it. And, therefore, all those personal, social, and even universal
+human aims which I may place before myself and which are placed before me
+by men are all insignificant, owing to the shortness of my life as well
+as to the infiniteness of the life of the universe, and should be
+subordinated to that higher aim for the attainment of which I am sent
+into the world. This ultimate aim, owing to my limitations, is
+inaccessible to me, but it does exist (as there must be a purpose in all
+that exists), and my business is that of being its instrument--_i.e._ my
+destiny, my vocation, is that of being a workman of God, of fulfilling
+His work." And having understood this destiny, every man of our world and
+time, from Emperor to soldier, cannot but regard differently those duties
+which he has taken upon himself or other men have imposed upon him.
+
+"Before I was crowned, recognized as Emperor," must the Emperor say to
+himself: "before I undertook to fulfil the duties of the head of the
+State, I, by the very fact that I live, have promised to fulfil that
+which is demanded of me by the Higher Will that sent me into life. These
+demands I not only know, but feel in my heart. They consist, as it is
+expressed in the Christian law, which I profess, in that I should submit
+to the will of God, and fulfil that which it requires of me, that I
+should love my neighbor, serve him, and act towards him as I would wish
+others to act towards me. Am I doing this?--ruling men, prescribing
+violence, executions, and, the most dreadful of all,--wars. Men tell me
+that I ought to do this. But God says that I ought to do something quite
+different. And, therefore, however much I may be told that, as the head
+of the State, I must direct acts of violence, the levying of taxes,
+executions and, above all, war, that is, the slaughter of one's neighbor,
+I do not wish to and cannot do these things."
+
+So must say to himself the soldier, who is taught that he must kill men,
+and the minister, who deemed it his duty to prepare for war, and the
+journalist who incited to war, and every man, who puts to himself the
+question, Who is he, what is his destination in life? And the moment the
+head of the State will cease to direct war, the soldier to fight, the
+minister to prepare means for war, the journalist to incite
+thereto--then, without any new institutions, adaptations, balance of
+power, tribunals, there will of itself be destroyed that hopeless
+position in which men have placed themselves, not only in relation to
+war, but also to all other calamities which they themselves inflict upon
+themselves.
+
+So that, however strange this may appear, the most effective and certain
+deliverance of men from all the calamities which they inflict upon
+themselves and from the most dreadful of all--war--is attainable, not by
+any external general measures, but merely by that simple appeal to the
+consciousness of each separate man which, nineteen hundred years ago, was
+proposed by Jesus--that every man bethink himself, and ask himself, who
+is he, why he lives, and what he should and should not do.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+
+The evil from which men of our time are suffering is produced by the fact
+that the majority live without that which alone affords a rational
+guidance for human activity--without religion; not that religion which
+consists in belief in dogmas, in the fulfilment of rites which afford a
+pleasant diversion, consolation, stimulant, but that religion which
+establishes the relation of man to the All, to God, and, therefore, gives
+a general higher direction to all human activity, and without which
+people stand on the plane of animals and even lower than they. This evil
+which is leading men to inevitable destruction has manifested itself with
+special power in our time, because, having lost all rational guidance in
+life, and having directed all efforts to discoveries and improvements
+principally in the sphere of technical knowledge, men of our time have
+developed in themselves enormous power over the forces of nature; but,
+not having any guidance for the rational adaptation of this power, they
+naturally have used it for the satisfaction of their lowest and most
+animal propensities.
+
+Bereft of religion, men possessing enormous power over the forces of
+nature are like children to whom powder or explosive gas has been given
+as a plaything. Considering this power which men of our time possess, and
+the way they use it, one feels that considering the degree of their moral
+development men have no right, not only to the use of railways, steam,
+electricity, telephones, photography, wireless telegraphs, but even to
+the simple art of manufacturing iron and steel, as all these improvements
+and arts they use only for the satisfaction of their lusts, for
+amusement, dissipation, and the destruction of each other.
+
+Then, what is to be done? To reject all these improvements of life, all
+this power acquired by humanity--to forget that which it has learnt? This
+is impossible, however perniciously these mental acquisitions are used;
+they still are acquisitions, and men cannot forget them. To alter those
+combinations of nations which have been formed during centuries and to
+establish new ones? To invent such new institutions as would hinder the
+minority from deceiving and exploiting the majority? To disseminate
+knowledge? All this has been tried, and is being done with great fervor.
+All these imaginary methods of improvement represent the chief methods of
+self-oblivion and of diverting one's attention from the consciousness of
+inevitable perdition. The boundaries of States are changed, institutions
+are altered, knowledge is disseminated; but within other boundaries, with
+other organizations, with increased knowledge, men remain the same
+beasts, ready any minute to tear each other to pieces, or the same slaves
+they have always been, and always will be, while they continue to be
+guided, not by religious consciousness, but by passions, theories, and
+external influences.
+
+Man has no choice; he must be the slave of the most unscrupulous and
+insolent amongst slaves, or else the servant of God, because for man
+there is only one way of being free--by uniting his will with the will of
+God. People bereft of religion, some repudiating religion itself, others
+recognizing as religion those external, monstrous forms which have
+superseded it, and guided only by their personal lusts, fear, human laws,
+and, above all, by mutual hypnotism, cannot cease to be animals or
+slaves, and no external efforts can extricate them from this state; for
+only religion makes a man free. And most of the people of our time are
+deprived of it.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+"But, in order to abolish the evil from which we are suffering," those
+will say who are preoccupied by various practical activities, "it would
+be necessary that not a few men only, but all men, should bethink
+themselves, and that, having done so, they should uniformly understand
+the destination of their lives, in the fulfilment of the will of God and
+in the service of one's neighbor.
+
+"Is this possible?" Not only possible, do I answer, but it is impossible
+that this should not take place. It is impossible for men not to bethink
+themselves--_i.e._ impossible that each man should not put to himself the
+question as to who he is and wherefore he lives; for man, as a rational
+being, cannot live without seeking to know why he lives, and he has
+always put to himself this question, and always, according to the degree
+of his development, has answered it in his religious teaching. In our
+time, the inner contradiction in which men feel themselves elicits this
+question with special insistence, and demands an answer. It is impossible
+for men of our time to answer this question otherwise than by recognizing
+the law of life in love to men and in the service of them, this being for
+our time the only rational answer as to the meaning of human life; and
+this answer nineteen hundred years ago has been expressed in the
+Christian religion and is likewise known to the vast majority of all
+mankind.
+
+This answer in a latent state lives in the consciousness of all men of
+the Christian world of our time; but it does not openly express itself
+and serve as guidance for our life, only because, on the one hand, those
+who enjoy the greatest authority, so-called scientists, being under the
+coarse error that religion is a temporary and outgrown step in the
+development of mankind and that men can live without religion, inculcate
+this error to those of the masses who are beginning to be educated; and,
+on the other hand, because those in power, sometimes consciously, but
+often unconsciously (being under the error that the Church faith is
+Christian religion), endeavor to support and excite in the people crude
+superstitions given out as the Christian religion. If only these two
+deceptions were to be destroyed, then true religion, already latent in
+men of our time, would become evident and obligatory.
+
+To bring this about it is necessary that, on the one hand, men of science
+should understand that the principle of the brotherhood of all men and
+the rule of not doing unto others what one does not wish for oneself is
+not one casual idea out of a multitude of human theories which can be
+subordinated to any other considerations, but is an incontestable
+principle, standing higher than the rest, and flowing from the changeless
+relation of man to that which is eternal, to God, and is religion, all
+religion, and, therefore, always obligatory.
+
+On the other hand, it is necessary that those who consciously or
+unconsciously preach crude superstitions under the guise of Christianity
+should understand that all these dogmas, sacraments, and rites which they
+support and preach are not only, as they think, harmless, but are in the
+highest degree pernicious, concealing from men that central religious
+truth which is expressed in the fulfilment of God's will, in the service
+of men, and that the rule of acting toward others as one would wish
+others to act toward oneself is not merely one of the prescriptions of
+the Christian religion, but is the whole of practical religion, as indeed
+is stated in the Gospels.
+
+To bring about that men of our time should uniformly place before
+themselves the question of the meaning of life, and uniformly answer it,
+it is only necessary that those who regard themselves as enlightened
+should cease to think and to inculcate to other generations that religion
+is atavism, the survival of a past wild state, and that for the good life
+of men the spreading of education is sufficient--_i.e._ the spread of the
+most varied knowledge which is in some way to bring men to justice and to
+a moral life. These men should understand instead that for the good life
+of humanity religion is vital, and that this religion already exists and
+lives in the consciousness of the men of our time. Men who are
+intentionally and unintentionally stupefying the people by church
+superstitions should cease to do so, and recognize that what is important
+and binding in Christianity is not baptism, nor Communion, nor profession
+of dogmas, etc., but only love to God and to one's neighbor, and the
+fulfilling of the commandment of acting toward others as one wishes
+others to act toward oneself--and that in this lies all the law and the
+prophets.
+
+If only both pseudo-Christians and men of science understood and preached
+to children and to the uneducated these simple, clear, and necessary
+truths as they now preach their complicated, confused, and unnecessary
+theories, all men would uniformly understand the meaning of their lives
+and recognize one and the same duties as flowing from this meaning.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+But "How are we to act now, immediately among ourselves, in Russia, at
+this moment, when our foes have already attacked us, are killing our
+people, and threatening us; what should be the action," I shall be asked,
+"of a Russian soldier, officer, general, Tsar, private individual? Are
+we, forsooth, to allow our enemies to ruin our possessions, to seize the
+productions of our labors, to carry away prisoners, or kill our men? What
+are we to do now that this thing has begun?"
+
+But before the work of war was commenced, by whomsoever it was
+commenced--every awakened man must answer--before all else the work of my
+life was commenced. And the work of my life has nothing in common with
+recognition of the rights of the Chinese, Japanese, or Russians to Port
+Arthur. The work of my life consists in fulfilling the will of Him who
+sent me into this life. This will is known to me. This will is that I
+should love my neighbor and serve him. Then why should I, following
+temporary, casual, irrational, and cruel demands, deviate from the known
+eternal and changeless law of all my life? If there be a God, He will not
+ask me when I die (which may happen at any moment) whether I retained
+Chi-nam-po with its timber stores, or Port Arthur, or even that
+conglomeration which is called the Russian Empire, which He did not
+confide to my care; but He will ask me what I have done with that life
+which He put at my disposal;--did I use it for the purpose for which it
+was predestined, and under the conditions for fulfilling which it was
+intrusted to me? Have I fulfilled His law?
+
+So that to this question as to what is to be done now, when war is
+commenced, for me, a man who understands his destiny, whatever position I
+may occupy, there can be no other answer than this, whatever be my
+circumstances, whether the war be commenced or not, whether thousands of
+Russians or Japanese be killed, whether not only Port Arthur be taken,
+but St. Petersburg and Moscow--I cannot act otherwise than as God demands
+of me, and that therefore I as a man can neither directly nor indirectly,
+neither by directing, nor by helping, nor by inciting to it, participate
+in war; I cannot, I do not wish to, and I will not. What will happen
+immediately or soon, from my ceasing to do that which is contrary to the
+will of God, I do not and cannot know; but I believe that from the
+fulfilment of the will of God there can follow nothing but that which is
+good for me and for all men.
+
+You speak with horror about what might happen if we Russians at this
+moment ceased to fight, and surrendered to the Japanese what they desire
+from us. But if it be true that the salvation of mankind from
+brutalization and self-destruction lies only in the establishment amongst
+men of that true religion which demands that we should love our neighbor
+and serve him (with which it is impossible to disagree), then every war,
+every hour of war, and my participation in it, only renders more
+difficult and distant the realization of this only possible salvation.
+
+So that, even if one places oneself on the unstable point of view of
+defining actions according to their presumed consequences--even then the
+surrender to the Japanese by the Russians of all which the former desire
+of us, besides the unquestionable advantage of the cessation of ruin and
+slaughter, would be an approach to the only means of the salvation of
+mankind from destruction; whereas the continuance of the war, however it
+may end, will be a postponement of that only means of salvation.
+
+"Yet even if this be so," it is replied, "wars can cease only when all
+men, or the majority, will refuse to participate in them. But the refusal
+of one man, whether he be Tsar or soldier, would only, unnecessarily, and
+without the slightest profit to any one, ruin his life. If the Russian
+Tsar were now to throw up the war, he would be dethroned, perhaps killed,
+in order to get rid of him; if an ordinary man were to refuse military
+service, he would be sent to a penal battalion and perhaps shot. Why,
+then, without the slightest use should one throw away one's life, which
+may be profitable to society?" is the common question of those who do not
+think of the destination of their life and therefore do not understand
+it.
+
+But this is not what is said and felt by any man who understands the
+destination of his life--_i.e._ by any religious man. Such a man is
+guided in his activity not by the presumed consequences of his action,
+but by the consciousness of the destination of his life. A factory
+workman goes to his factory and in it accomplishes the work which is
+allotted him without considering what will be the consequences of his
+labor. In the same way a soldier acts, carrying out the will of his
+commanders. So acts a religious man in fulfilling the work prescribed to
+him by God, without arguing as to what precisely will come of that work.
+Therefore for a religious man there is no question as to whether many or
+few men act as he does, or of what may happen to him if he does that
+which he should do. He knows that besides life and death nothing can
+happen, and that life and death are in the hands of God whom he obeys.
+
+A religious man acts thus and not otherwise, not because he desires to
+act thus, nor because it is advantageous to himself or to other men, but
+because, believing that his life is in the hands of God, he cannot act
+otherwise.
+
+In this lies the distinction of the activity of religious men; and
+therefore it is that the salvation of men from the calamities which they
+inflict upon themselves can be realized only in that degree in which they
+are guided in their lives, not by advantage nor arguments, but by
+religious consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+
+"But how about the enemies that attack us?"
+
+"Love your enemies, and ye will have none," is said in the teaching of
+the Twelve Apostles. This answer is not merely words, as those may
+imagine who are accustomed to think that the recommendation of love to
+one's enemies is something hyperbolical, and signifies not that which
+expressed, but something else. This answer is the indication of a very
+clear and definite activity, and of its consequences.
+
+To love one's enemies--the Japanese, the Chinese, those yellow people
+toward whom benighted men are now endeavoring to excite our hatred--to
+love them means not to kill them for the purpose of having the right of
+poisoning them with opium, as did the English; not to kill them in order
+to seize their land, as was done by the French, the Russians, and the
+Germans; not to bury them alive in punishment for injuring roads, not to
+tie them together by their hair, not to drown them in their river Amur,
+as did the Russians.
+
+"A disciple is not above his master.... It is enough for a disciple that
+he be as his master."
+
+To love the yellow people, whom we call our foes, means, not to teach
+them under the name of Christianity absurd superstitions about the fall
+of man, redemption, resurrection, etc., not to teach them the art of
+deceiving and killing others, but to teach them justice, unselfishness,
+compassion, love--and that not by words, but by the example of our own
+good life. And what have we been doing to them, and are still doing?
+
+If we did indeed love our enemies, if even now we began to love our
+enemies, the Japanese, we would have no enemy.
+
+Therefore, however strange it may appear to those occupied with military
+plans, preparations, diplomatic considerations, administrative,
+financial, economical measures, revolutionary, socialistic propaganda,
+and various unnecessary sciences, by which they think to save mankind
+from its calamities, the deliverance of man, not only from the calamities
+of war, but also from all the calamities which men inflict upon
+themselves, will take place not through emperors or kings instituting
+peace alliances, not through those who would dethrone emperors, kings, or
+restrain them by constitutions, or substitute republics for monarchies,
+not by peace conferences, not by the realization of socialistic
+programmes, not by victories or defeats on land or sea, not by libraries
+or universities, nor by those futile mental exercises which are now
+called science; but only by there being more and more of those simple men
+who, like the Dukhobors, Drojjin, Olkhovik, in Russia, the Nazarenes in
+Austria, Condatier in France, Tervey in Holland, and others, having
+placed as their object not external alterations of life, but the closest
+fulfilment in themselves of the will of Him who has sent them into life,
+will direct all their powers to this realization. Only such people
+realizing the Kingdom of God in themselves, in their souls, will
+establish, without directly aiming at this purpose, that external Kingdom
+of God which every human soul is longing for.
+
+Salvation will come to pass only in this one way and not in any other.
+Therefore what is now being done by those who, ruling men, inspire them
+with religious and patriotic superstitions, exciting in them
+exclusiveness, hatred, and murder, as well as by those who, for the
+purpose of freeing men from slavery and oppression, invoke them to
+violent external revolution, or think that the acquisition by men of very
+much incidental and for the most part unnecessary information will of
+itself bring them to a good life--all this, by distracting men from what
+alone they need, only removes them further from the possibility of
+salvation.
+
+The evil from which the men of the Christian world suffer is that they
+have temporarily lost religion.
+
+Some people, having come to see the discord between the existing religion
+and the degree of mental and scientific development attained by humanity
+at the present time, have decided that in general no religion whatever is
+necessary. They live without religion and preach the uselessness of any
+religion of whatever kind. Others, holding to that distorted form of the
+Christian religion which is now preached, likewise live without religion,
+professing empty external forms, which cannot serve as guidance for men.
+
+Yet a religion which answers to the demands of our time does exist and is
+known to all men, and in a latent state lives in the hearts of men of the
+Christian world. Therefore that this religion should become evident to
+and binding upon all men, it is only necessary that educated men--the
+leaders of the masses--should understand that religion is necessary to
+man, that without religion men cannot live a good life, and that what
+they call science cannot replace religion; and that those in power and
+who support the old empty forms of religion should understand that what
+they support and preach under the form of religion is not only not
+religion, but is the chief obstacle to men's appropriating the true
+religion which they already know, and which can alone deliver them from
+their calamities. So that the only certain means of man's salvation
+consists merely in ceasing to do that which hinders men from assimilating
+the true religion which already lives in their consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+
+I had finished this writing when news came of the destruction of six
+hundred innocent lives opposite Port Arthur. It would seem that the
+useless suffering and death of these unfortunate deluded men who have
+needlessly and so dreadfully perished ought to disabuse those who were
+the cause of this destruction. I am not alluding to Makaroff and other
+officers--all these men knew what they were doing, and wherefore, and
+they voluntarily, for personal advantage, for ambition, did as they did,
+disguising themselves in pretended patriotism, a pretence not condemned
+merely because it is universal. I allude rather to those unfortunate men
+drawn from all parts of Russia, who, by the help of religious fraud, and
+under fear of punishment, have been torn from an honest, reasonable,
+useful, laborious family life, driven to the other end of the world,
+placed on a cruel, senseless machine for slaughter, and torn to bits,
+drowned along with this stupid machine in a distant sea, without any need
+or any possibility of advantage from all their privations, efforts, and
+sufferings, or from the death which overtook them.
+
+In 1830, during the Polish war, the adjutant Vilijinsky sent to St.
+Petersburg by Klopitsky, in a conversation held in French with Dibitch,
+in answer to the latter's demand that the Russian troops should enter
+Poland, said to him:--
+
+"Monsieur le Maréchal, I think that in that case it will be quite
+impossible for the Polish nation to accept this manifesto...."
+
+"Believe me, the Emperor will make no further concessions."
+
+"Then I foresee that, unhappily, there will be war, that much blood will
+be shed, there will be many unfortunate victims."
+
+"Do not think so; at most there will be ten thousand who will perish on
+both sides, and that is all,"[1] said Dibitch in his German accent, quite
+confident that he, together with another man as cruel and foreign to
+Russian and Polish life as he was himself,--Nicholas I,--had the right to
+condemn or not to condemn to death ten or a hundred thousand Russians and
+Poles.
+
+  [1] Vilijinsky adds on his own behalf, "The Field-Marshal did not then
+      think that more than sixty thousand Russians alone would perish in
+      this war, not so much from the enemy's fire as from disease--nor
+      that he would himself be amongst their number."
+
+One hardly believes that this could have been, so senseless and dreadful
+is it,--and yet it was; sixty thousand maintainers of their families lost
+their lives owing to the will of those men. And now the same thing is
+taking place.
+
+In order not to let the Japanese into Manchuria, and to expel them from
+Korea, not ten thousand, but fifty and more thousands will, according to
+all probability, be necessary. I do not know whether Nicholas II and
+Kuropatkin say like Dibitch in so many words that not more than fifty
+thousand lives will be necessary for this on the Russian side alone, only
+and only that; but they think it--they cannot but think it, because the
+work they are doing speaks for itself; that ceaseless stream of
+unfortunate, deluded Russian peasants now being transported by thousands
+to the Far East--these are those same not more than fifty thousand live
+Russian men whom Nicholas Romanoff and Alexis Kuropatkin have decided
+they may get killed, and who will be killed, in support of those
+stupidities, robberies, and every kind of abomination which were
+accomplished in China and Korea by immoral ambitious men now sitting
+peacefully in their palaces and expecting new glory and new advantage and
+profit from the slaughter of these fifty thousand unfortunate, defrauded
+Russian workingmen guilty of nothing and gaining nothing by their
+sufferings and death. For other people's land, to which the Russians have
+no right, which has been criminally seized from its legitimate owners,
+and which, in reality, is not even necessary to the Russians--and also
+for certain dark dealings by speculators, who in Korea wished to gain
+money out of other people's forests--many millions of money are spent,
+_i.e._ a great part of the labor of the whole of the Russian people,
+while the future generations of this people are bound by debts, its best
+workmen are withdrawn from labor, and scores of thousands of its sons are
+mercilessly doomed to death; and the destruction of these unfortunate men
+is already begun. More than this: the war is being managed by those who
+have hatched it so badly, so negligently, all is so unexpected, so
+unprepared, that, as one paper admits, Russia's chief chance of success
+lies in the fact that it possesses inexhaustible human material. It is
+upon this that those rely who send to death scores of thousands of
+Russian men!
+
+It is frankly said that the regrettable reverses of our fleet must be
+compensated on the land. In plain language this means that if the
+authorities have badly directed things on sea, and by their negligence
+have destroyed not only the nation's millions, but thousands of lives, we
+can make it up by condemning to death on land several more scores of
+thousands!
+
+When crawling locusts cross rivers, it happens that the lower layers are
+drowned until from the bodies of the drowned is formed a bridge over
+which the upper ranks can pass. In the same way are the Russian people
+being disposed of. Thus the first lower layer is already beginning to
+drown, indicating the way to other thousands, who will all likewise
+perish.
+
+And are the originators, directors, and supporters of this dreadful work
+beginning to understand their sin, their crime? Not in the least. They
+are quite persuaded that they have fulfilled, and are fulfilling, their
+duty, and they are proud of their activity. People speak of the loss of
+the brave Makaroff, who, as all agree, was able to kill men very
+cleverly; they deplore the loss of a drowned excellent machine of
+slaughter which had cost so many millions of roubles; they discuss the
+question of how to find another murderer as capable as the poor benighted
+Makaroff; they invent new, still more efficacious, tools of slaughter;
+and all the guilty men engaged in this dreadful work, from the Tsar to
+the humblest journalist, all with one voice call for new insanities, new
+cruelties, for the increase of brutality and hatred of one's fellow-men.
+
+"Makaroff is not the only man in Russia, and every admiral placed in his
+position will follow in his steps and will continue the plan and the idea
+of Makaroff, who has nobly perished in the strife," writes the _Novoe
+Vremya_.
+
+"Let us earnestly pray God for those who have laid down their lives for
+the sacred Fatherland, without doubting for one moment that the
+Fatherland will give us new sons, equally virtuous, for the further
+struggle, and will find in them an inexhaustible store of strength for a
+worthy completion of the work," writes the St. Petersburg _Viedomosti_.
+
+"A ripe nation will draw no other conclusion from the defeat, however
+unprecedented, than that we should continue, develop, and conclude the
+strife; therefore let us find in ourselves new strength; new heroes of
+the spirit will arise," writes the _Russ_,--and so forth.
+
+So murder and every kind of crime go on with greater fury. People
+enthusiastically admire the martial spirit of the volunteers who, having
+come unexpectedly upon fifty of their fellow-men, slay all of them, or
+take possession of a village and slaughter all its population, or hang or
+shoot those accused of being spies--_i.e._ of doing the very same thing
+which is regarded as indispensable and is constantly done on our side.
+News about these crimes is reported in pompous telegrams to their chief
+director, the Tsar, who, in return, sends to his virtuous troops his
+blessing on the continuation of such deeds.
+
+Is it not evident that, if there be a salvation from this position, it is
+only one: that one which Jesus teaches?--"Seek ye first the Kingdom of
+God and His righteousness (that which is within you), and all the
+rest--_i.e._ all that practical welfare toward which man is
+striving--will of itself be realized."
+
+Such is the law of life: practical welfare is attained not when man
+strives toward this practical welfare--such striving, on the contrary,
+for the most part removes man from the attainment of what he seeks; but
+only when man, without thinking of the attainment of practical welfare,
+strives toward the most perfect fulfilment of that which before God,
+before the Source and Law of his life, he regards as right. Then only,
+incidentally, is practical welfare also attained.
+
+So that the true salvation of men is only one thing: the fulfilment of
+the will of God by each individual man within himself--_i.e._ in that
+portion of the universe which alone is subject to his power. In this is
+the chief, the only, destiny and duty of every individual man, and at the
+same time this is the only means by which every individual man can
+influence others; and, therefore, to this, and to this only, should all
+the efforts of every man be directed.
+
+May 2, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII
+
+
+I had only just despatched the last of the preceding pages of this paper
+when the dreadful news came of a new iniquity committed in regard to the
+Russian people by those light-minded men who, crazed with power, have
+appropriated the right of managing them. Again coarse and servile slaves
+of slaves, dressed up in various dazzling attires--varieties of Generals
+wishing to distinguish themselves, or to earn the right to add one more
+little star, fingle fangle, or scrap of ribbon to their idiotic glaring
+get-up, or else from stupidity or carelessness--again these miserable men
+have destroyed amid dreadful sufferings thousands of those honorable,
+kind, hard-working laborers who feed them. And again this iniquity not
+only does not cause those responsible for it to reflect and repent, but
+one hears and reads only about its being necessary as speedily as
+possible to mutilate and slaughter a greater number of men, and to ruin
+still more families, both Russian and Japanese.
+
+More than this, to prepare men for fresh iniquities of this kind, the
+perpetrators of these crimes, far from recognizing what is evident to
+all--viz. that for the Russians this event, even from their patriotic,
+military point of view, was a scandalous defeat--endeavor to assure
+credulous people that these unfortunate Russian laboring men--lured into
+a trap like cattle into a slaughterhouse, of whom several thousands have
+been killed and maimed merely because one General did not understand what
+another General had said--have performed an act of heroism because those
+who could not run away were killed and those who did run away remained
+alive. As to the fact that one of these immoral and cruel men,
+distinguished by the titles of Generals, Admirals, drowned a quantity of
+peaceful Japanese, this is also described as a great and glorious act of
+heroism, which must gladden the hearts of Russians. And in all the papers
+are reprinted this awful appeal to murder:--
+
+"Let the two thousand Russian soldiers killed on the Yalu, together with
+the maimed _Retvisan_ and her sister ships, with our lost torpedo-boats,
+teach our cruisers with what devastation they must break in upon the
+shores of base Japan. She has sent her soldiers to shed Russian blood,
+and no quarter should be afforded her. Now one cannot--it is sinful--be
+sentimental; we must fight; we must direct such heavy blows that the
+memory of them shall freeze the treacherous hearts of the Japanese. Now
+is the time for the cruisers to go out to sea to reduce to ashes the
+towns of Japan, flying as a dreadful calamity along its shores. No more
+sentimentality."
+
+The frightful work commenced is continued. Loot, violence, murder,
+hypocrisy, theft, and, above all, the most fearful fraud--the distortion
+of religious teachings, both Christian and Buddhistic--continue. The
+Tsar, the chief responsible person, continues to review the troops, to
+thank, reward, and encourage them; he issues an edict for the calling out
+of the reserves; his faithful subjects again and again lay down their
+property and lives at the feet of him they call, only with their lips,
+their adored Monarch. On the other hand, desiring to distinguish
+themselves before each other in deeds and not in words only, they tear
+away the fathers and the bread-winners from their orphaned families,
+preparing them for slaughter. The worse the position of Russia, the more
+recklessly do the journalists lie, transforming shameful defeats into
+victories, knowing that no one will contradict them; and they quietly
+collect money from subscriptions and sales. The more money and labor of
+the people is devoted to the war, the more is grabbed by various
+authorities and speculators, who know that no one will convict them
+because every one is doing the same. The military, trained for murder,
+having passed years in a school of inhumanity, coarseness, and idleness,
+rejoice--poor men--because, besides an increase of their salary, the
+slaughter of superiors opens vacancies for their promotion. Christian
+pastors continue to invite men to the greatest of crimes, continue to
+commit sacrilege, praying God to help the work of war; and, instead of
+condemning, they justify and praise that pastor who, with the cross in
+his hands on the very scene of murder, encouraged men to the crime. The
+same thing is going on in Japan. The benighted Japanese go in for murder
+with yet greater fervor, owing to their victories; the Mikado also
+reviews and rewards his troops; various Generals boast of their bravery,
+imagining that, having learned to kill, they have acquired enlightenment.
+So, too, groan the unfortunate working people torn from useful labor and
+from their families. So their journalists also lie and rejoice over their
+gains. Also probably--for where murder is elevated into virtue every kind
+of vice is bound to flourish--also probably all kinds of commanders and
+speculators earn money; and Japanese theologians and religious teachers
+no less than the masters in the techniques of armament do not remain
+behind the Europeans in the techniques of religious deceit and sacrilege,
+but distort the great Buddhistic teaching by not only permitting but
+justifying that murder which Buddha forbade. The Buddhistic scientist,
+Soyen-Shaku, ruling over eight hundred monasteries, explains that
+although Buddha forbade manslaughter he also said he could never be at
+peace until all beings are united in the infinitely loving heart of all
+things, and that, therefore, in order to bring into harmony that which is
+discordant it is necessary to fight and to kill men.[2]
+
+  [2] In the article it is said: "This triple world is my own possession.
+      All the things therein are my own children ... the ten thousand
+      things in this world are no more than the reflections of my own
+      self. They come from the one source. They partake of the one body.
+      Therefore I cannot rest, until every being, even the smallest
+      possible fragment of existence, is settled down to its proper
+      appointment.... This is the position taken by the Buddha, and we,
+      his humble followers, are but to walk in his wake. Why, then, do we
+      fight at all? Because we do not find this world as it ought to be.
+      Because there are here so many perverted creatures, so many wayward
+      thoughts, so many ill-directed hearts, due to ignorant
+      subjectivity. For this reason Buddhists are never tired of
+      combating all productions of ignorance, and their fight must be to
+      the bitter end. They will show no quarter. They will mercilessly
+      destroy the very root from which arises the misery of this life. To
+      accomplish this end, they will never be afraid of sacrificing their
+      lives...." There follow, just as is usual with us, entangled
+      arguments about self-sacrifice and kindness, about the
+      transmigration of souls and about much else--all this for the sole
+      purpose of concealing the simple and clear commandment of Buddha:
+      not to kill. Further it is said: "The hand that is raised to strike
+      and the eye that is fixed to take aim do not belong to the
+      individual, but are the instruments utilized by a principle higher
+      than transient existence." ("The Open Court," May, 1904. "Buddhist
+      Views of War," by the Right Rev. Soyen-Shaku.)
+
+It is as if there never had existed the Christian and Buddhistic teaching
+about the unity of the human spirit, the brotherhood of men, love,
+compassion, the sacredness of human life. Men, both Japanese and
+Russians, already enlightened by the truth, yet like wild animals, nay,
+worse than wild animals, throw themselves upon each other with the sole
+desire to destroy as many lives as possible. Thousands of unfortunates
+groan and writhe in cruel sufferings and die in agony in Japanese and
+Russian field hospitals, asking themselves in bewilderment why this
+fearful thing was done with them, while other thousands are already
+rotting in the earth or on the earth, or floating in the sea, in swollen
+decomposition. And scores of thousands of wives, fathers, mothers,
+children, are bemoaning their bread-winners; uselessly destroyed. Yet all
+this is still too little; new and newer victims are being prepared. The
+chief concern of the Russian organizers of slaughter is that on the
+Russian side the stream of food for cannon--three thousand men per day
+doomed to destruction--should not be interrupted for one minute. The
+Japanese are preoccupied with the same thing. The locusts are incessantly
+being driven down into the river in order that the rows behind may pass
+over the bodies.
+
+When will this cease, and the deceived people at last recover themselves
+and say: "Well, go you yourselves, you heartless Tsars, Mikados,
+Ministers, Bishops, priests, generals, editors, speculators, or however
+you may be called, go you yourselves under these shells and bullets, but
+we do not wish to go and we will not go. Leave us in peace, to plough,
+and sow, and build,--and also to feed you." It would be so natural to say
+this now, when amongst us in Russia resounds the weeping and wailing of
+hundreds of thousands of mothers, wives, and children, from whom are
+being snatched away their bread-earners, the so-called "reserve." These
+same men, the majority of the reserve, are able to read; they know what
+the Far East is; they know that war is going on, not for anything which
+is in the least necessary to Russia, but for some dealings in strange
+land, leased lands, as they themselves call them, on which it seemed
+advantageous to some corrupt speculators to build railways and so gain
+profit; also they know, or might know, that they will be killed like
+sheep in a slaughterhouse, since the Japanese possess the latest
+improvements in tools of murder, which we do not, as the Russian
+authorities who are sending these people to death had not thought in time
+of furnishing themselves with the same weapons as the Japanese. Knowing
+all this, it would indeed be so natural to say, "Go you, those who have
+brought on this work, all you to whom war is necessary, and who justify
+it; go you, and face the Japanese bullets and mines, but we will not go,
+because we not only do not need to do this, but we cannot understand how
+it can be necessary to any one."
+
+But no, they do not say this; they go, and they will continue to go; they
+cannot but go as long as they fear that which ruins the body and not that
+which ruins both the body and the soul. "Whether we shall be killed,"
+they argue, "or maimed in these chinnampos, or whatever they are called,
+whither we are driven, we do not know; it yet may happen that we shall
+get through safely, and, moreover, with rewards and glory, like those
+sailors who are now being feasted all over Russia because the Japanese
+bombs and bullets did not hit them, but somebody else; whereas should we
+refuse, we should be certainly sent to prison, starved, beaten, exiled to
+the province of Yakoutsk, perhaps even killed immediately." So with
+despair in their hearts, leaving behind a good rational life, leaving
+their wives and their children,--they go.
+
+Yesterday I met a Reservist soldier accompanied by his mother and wife.
+All three were riding in a cart; he had had a drop too much; his wife's
+face was swollen with tears. He turned to me:--
+
+"Good-by to thee! Lyof Nikolaevitch, off to the Far East."
+
+"Well, art thou going to fight?"
+
+"Well, some one has to fight!"
+
+"No one need fight!"
+
+He reflected for a moment. "But what is one to do; where can one
+escape?"
+
+I saw that he had understood me, had understood that the work to which he
+was being sent was an evil work.
+
+"Where can one escape?" That is the precise expression of that mental
+condition which in the official and journalistic world is translated into
+the words--"For the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland." Those who,
+abandoning their hungry families, go to suffering, to death, say as they
+feel, "Where can one escape?" Whereas those who sit in safety in their
+luxurious palaces say that all Russian men are ready to sacrifice their
+lives for their adored Monarch, and for the glory and greatness of
+Russia.
+
+Yesterday, from a peasant I know, I received two letters, one after the
+other. This is the first:--
+
+"Dear Lyof Nikolaevitch,--Well, to-day I have received the official
+announcement of my call to the Service; to-morrow I must present myself
+at the headquarters. That is all. And after that--to the Far East to meet
+the Japanese bullets. About my own and my household's grief I will not
+tell you; it is not you who will fail to understand all the horror of my
+position and the horrors of war; all this you have long ago painfully
+realized, and you understand it all. How I have longed to visit you, to
+have a talk with you! I had written to you a long letter in which I
+described the torments of my soul; but I had not had time to copy it,
+when I received my summons. What is my wife to do now with her four
+children? As an old man, of course, you cannot do anything yourself for
+my folks, but you might ask some of your friends in their leisure to
+visit my orphaned family. I beg you earnestly that if my wife proves
+unable to bear the agony of her helplessness with her burden of children
+and makes up her mind to go to you for help and counsel, you will receive
+and console her. Although she does not know you personally, she believes
+in your word, and that means much. I was not able to resist the summons,
+but I say beforehand that through me not one Japanese family shall be
+orphaned. My God! how dreadful is all this--how distressing and painful
+to abandon all by which one lives and in which one is concerned."
+
+The second letter is as follows: "Kindest Lyof Nikolaevitch, Only one day
+of actual service has passed, and I have already lived through an
+eternity of most desperate torments. From 8 o'clock in the morning till 9
+in the evening we have been crowded and knocked about to and fro in the
+barrack yard, like a herd of cattle. The comedy of medical examination
+was three times repeated, and those who had reported themselves ill did
+not receive even ten minutes' attention before they were marked
+'Satisfactory.' When we, these two thousand satisfactory individuals,
+were driven from the military commander to the barracks, along the road
+spread out for almost a verst stood a crowd of relatives, mothers, and
+wives with infants in arms; and if you had only heard and seen how they
+clasped their fathers, husbands, sons, and hanging round their necks
+wailed hopelessly! Generally I behave in a reserved way and can restrain
+my feelings, but I could not hold out, and I also wept. [In journalistic
+language this same is expressed thus: "The upheaval of patriotic feeling
+is immense."] Where is the standard that can measure all this immensity
+of woe now spreading itself over almost one-third of the world? And we,
+we are now that food for cannon, which in the near future will be offered
+as sacrifice to the God of vengeance and horror. I cannot manage to
+establish my inner balance. Oh! how I execrate myself for this
+double-mindedness which prevents my serving one Master and God."
+
+This man does not yet sufficiently believe that what destroys the body is
+not dreadful, but that which destroys both the body and the soul,
+therefore he cannot refuse to go; yet while leaving his own family he
+promises beforehand that through him not one Japanese family shall be
+orphaned; he believes in the chief law of God, the law of all
+religions--to act toward others as one wishes others to act toward
+oneself. Of such men more or less consciously recognizing this law, there
+are in our time, not in the Christian world alone, but in the Buddhistic,
+Mahomedan, Confucian, and Brahminic world, not only thousands but
+millions.
+
+There exist true heroes, not those who are now being fêted because,
+having wished to kill others, they were not killed themselves, but true
+heroes, who are now confined in prisons and in the province of Yakoutsk
+for having categorically refused to enter the ranks of murderers, and who
+have preferred martyrdom to this departure from the law of Jesus. There
+are also such as he who writes to me, who go, but who will not kill. But
+also that majority which goes without thinking, and endeavors not to
+think of what it is doing, still in the depth of its soul does now
+already feel that it is doing an evil deed by obeying authorities who
+tear men from labor and from their families and send them to needless
+slaughter of men, repugnant to their soul and their faith; and they go
+only because they are so entangled on all sides that--"Where can one
+escape?"
+
+Meanwhile those who remain at home not only feel this, but know and
+express it. Yesterday in the high road I met some peasants returning from
+Toula. One of them was reading a leaflet as he walked by the side of his
+cart.
+
+I asked, "What is that--a telegram?"
+
+"This is yesterday's,--but here is one of to-day." He took another out of
+his pocket. We stopped. I read it.
+
+"You should have seen what took place yesterday at the station," he said;
+"it was dreadful. Wives, children, more than a thousand of them, weeping.
+They surrounded the train, but were allowed no further. Strangers wept,
+looking on. One woman from Toula gasped and fell down dead. Five
+children. They have since been placed in various institutions; but the
+father was driven away all the same.... What do we want with this
+Manchuria, or whatever it is called? There is sufficient land here. And
+what a lot of people and of property has been destroyed."
+
+Yes, the relation of men to war is now quite different from that which
+formerly existed, even so lately as the year '77. That which is now
+taking place never took place before.
+
+The papers set forth that, during the receptions of the Tsar, who is
+travelling about Russia for the purpose of hypnotizing the men who are
+being sent to murder, indescribable enthusiasm is manifested amongst the
+people. As a matter of fact, something quite different is being
+manifested. From all sides one hears reports that in one place three
+Reservists have hanged themselves; in another spot, two more; in yet
+another, about a woman whose husband had been taken away bringing her
+children to the conscription committee-room and leaving them there; while
+another hanged herself in the yard of the military commander. All are
+dissatisfied, gloomy, exasperated. The words, "For the Faith, the King,
+and the Fatherland," the National Anthem, and shouts of "Hurrah" no
+longer act upon people as they once did. Another warfare of a different
+kind--the struggling consciousness of the deceit and sinfulness of the
+work to which people are being called--is more and more taking possession
+of the people.
+
+Yes, the great strife of our time is not that now taking place between
+the Japanese and the Russians, nor that which may blaze up between the
+white and yellow races, not that strife which is carried on by mines,
+bombs, bullets, but that spiritual strife which without ceasing has gone
+on and is now going on between the enlightened consciousness of mankind
+now waiting for manifestation and that darkness and that burden which
+surrounds and oppresses mankind.
+
+In His own time Jesus yearned in expectation, and said, "I came to cast
+fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled." Luke
+xii. 49.
+
+That which Jesus longed for is being accomplished, the fire is being
+kindled. Then do not let us check it, but let us spread and serve it.
+
+13 May, 1904.
+
+I should never finish this paper if I were to continue to add to it all
+that corroborates its essential idea. Yesterday the news came in of the
+sinking of the Japanese ironclads; and in the so-called higher circles of
+Russian fashionable, rich, intellectual society they are, without the
+slightest conscientious scruples, rejoicing at the destruction of a
+thousand human lives. Yet to-day I have received from a simple seaman, a
+man standing on the lowest plane of society, the following letter:[3]
+
+"Much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch, I greet you with a low bow, with love,
+much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch. I have read your book. It was very
+pleasant reading for me. I have been a great lover of reading your works.
+Well, Lyof Nikolaevitch, we are now in a state of war, please write to me
+whether it is agreeable to God or not that our commanders compel us to
+kill. I beg you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, write to me please whether or not the
+truth now exists on earth. Tell me, Lyof Nikolaevitch. In church here a
+prayer is being read, the priest mentions the Christ-loving army. Is it
+true or not that God loves war? I pray you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, have you
+got any books from which I could see whether truth exists on earth or
+not? Send me such books. What they cost, I will pay. I beg you, Lyof
+Nikolaevitch, do not neglect my request. If there are no books then send
+me a letter. I will be very glad when I receive a letter from you. I will
+await your letter with impatience. Good-by for the present. I remain
+alive and well and wish the same to you from the Lord God. Good health
+and good success in your work."
+
+
+  [3] The letter is written in a most illiterate way, filled with
+      mistakes in orthography and punctuation.
+                                                              (Trans.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "Bethink Yourselves", by Leo Tolstoi
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diff --git a/27189-0.zip b/27189-0.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Bethink Yourselves", by Leo Tolstoi
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: "Bethink Yourselves"
+
+Author: Leo Tolstoi
+
+Translator: V. Tchertkoff
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27189]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "BETHINK YOURSELVES" ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gerard Arthus, Jana Srna and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY
+
+                              NOW READY
+
+
+                 =Bloch's "The Future of War"=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 65 cents
+
+                 =Charles Sumner's Addresses on War=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents
+
+                 =Channing's Discourses on War=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents
+
+
+           Edited with introductions by Edwin D. Mead.
+           Published for the International Union by Ginn &
+           Company, Boston.
+
+
+
+
+                        "BETHINK YOURSELVES!"
+
+
+                                  BY
+                             LEO TOLSTOI
+
+
+
+
+                PUBLISHED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL UNION
+                        GINN & COMPANY, BOSTON
+                                 1904
+
+
+                  Reprinted from the _London Times_
+
+     Translated by V. Tchertkoff, Editor of the _Free Age Press_,
+                             and I. F. M.
+
+
+
+
+                        "BETHINK YOURSELVES!"
+
+   "This is your hour, and the power of darkness."--Luke xxii. 53.
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+
+Again war. Again sufferings, necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for;
+again fraud; again the universal stupefaction and brutalization of men.
+
+Men who are separated from each other by thousands of miles, hundreds of
+thousands of such men (on the one hand--Buddhists, whose law forbids the
+killing, not only of men, but of animals; on the other hand--Christians,
+professing the law of brotherhood and love) like wild beasts on land and
+on sea are seeking out each other, in order to kill, torture, and
+mutilate each other in the most cruel way. What can this be? Is it a
+dream or a reality? Something is taking place which should not, cannot
+be; one longs to believe that it is a dream and to awake from it. But no,
+it is not a dream, it is a dreadful reality!
+
+One could yet understand how a poor, uneducated, defrauded Japanese, torn
+from his field and taught that Buddhism consists not in compassion to all
+that lives, but in sacrifices to idols, and how a similar poor illiterate
+fellow from the neighborhood of Toula or Nijni Novgorod, who has been
+taught that Christianity consists in worshipping Christ, the Madonna,
+Saints, and their ikons--one could understand how these unfortunate men,
+brought by the violence and deceit of centuries to recognize the greatest
+crime in the world--the murder of one's brethren--as a virtuous act, can
+commit these dreadful deeds, without regarding themselves as being guilty
+in so doing.
+
+But how can so-called enlightened men preach war, support it, participate
+in it, and, worst of all, without suffering the dangers of war
+themselves, incite others to it, sending their unfortunate defrauded
+brothers to fight? These so-called enlightened men cannot possibly
+ignore, I do not say the Christian law, if they recognize themselves to
+be Christians, but all that has been written, is being written, has and
+is being said, about the cruelty, futility, and senselessness of war.
+They are regarded as enlightened men precisely because they know all
+this. The majority of them have themselves written and spoken about this.
+Not to mention The Hague Conference, which called forth universal praise,
+or all the books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and speeches
+demonstrating the possibility of the solution of international
+misunderstandings by international arbitration--no enlightened man can
+help knowing that the universal competition in the armaments of States
+must inevitably lead them to endless wars, or to a general bankruptcy, or
+to both the one and the other. They cannot but know that besides the
+senseless, purposeless expenditure of milliards of roubles, _i.e._ of
+human labor, on the preparations for war, during the wars themselves
+millions of the most energetic and vigorous men perish in that period of
+their life which is best for productive labor (during the past century
+wars have destroyed fourteen million men). Enlightened men cannot but
+know that occasions for war are always such as are not worth not only one
+human life, but not one hundredth part of all that which is spent upon
+wars (in fighting for the emancipation of the negroes much more was spent
+than it would have cost to redeem them from slavery).
+
+Every one knows and cannot help knowing that, above all, wars, calling
+forth the lowest animal passions, deprave and brutalize men. Every one
+knows the weakness of the arguments in favor of war, such as were
+brought forward by De Maistre, Moltke, and others, for they are all
+founded on the sophism that in every human calamity it is possible to
+find an advantageous element, or else upon the utterly arbitrary assertion
+that wars have always existed and therefore always must exist, as if the
+bad actions of men could be justified by the advantages or the
+usefulness which they realize, or by the consideration that they have
+been committed during a long period of time. All so-called enlightened
+men know all this. Then suddenly war begins, and all this is instantly
+forgotten, and the same men who but yesterday were proving the cruelty,
+futility, the senselessness of wars now think, speak, and write only
+about killing as many men as possible, about ruining and destroying the
+greatest possible amount of the productions of human labor, and about
+exciting as much as possible the passion of hatred in those peaceful,
+harmless, industrious men who by their labor feed, clothe, maintain these
+same pseudo-enlightened men, who compel them to commit those dreadful
+deeds contrary to their conscience, welfare, or faith.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+
+Something is taking place incomprehensible and impossible in its cruelty,
+falsehood, and stupidity. The Russian Tsar, the same man who exhorted all
+the nations in the cause of peace, publicly announces that,
+notwithstanding all his efforts to maintain the peace so dear to his
+heart (efforts which express themselves in the seizing of other peoples'
+lands and in the strengthening of armies for the defence of these stolen
+lands), he, owing to the attack of the Japanese, commands that the same
+shall be done to the Japanese as they had commenced doing to the
+Russians--_i.e._ that they should be slaughtered; and in announcing this
+call to murder he mentions God, asking the Divine blessing on the most
+dreadful crime in the world. The Japanese Emperor has proclaimed the same
+thing in relation to the Russians.
+
+Men of science and of law (Messieurs Muravieff and Martens) strenuously
+try to prove that in the recent call of all nations to universal peace
+and the present incitement to war, because of the seizure of other
+peoples' lands, there is no contradiction. Diplomatists, in their refined
+French language, publish and send out circulars in which they
+circumstantially and diligently prove (though they know no one believes
+them) that, after all its efforts to establish peaceful relations (in
+reality, after all its efforts to deceive other countries), the Russian
+Government has been compelled to have recourse to the only means for a
+rational solution of the question--_i.e._ to the murder of men. The same
+thing is written by Japanese diplomatists. Scientists, historians, and
+philosophers, on their side, comparing the present with the past, deduce
+from these comparisons profound conclusions, and argue interminably about
+the laws of the movement of nations, about the relation between the
+yellow and white races, or about Buddhism and Christianity, and on the
+basis of these deductions and arguments justify the slaughter of those
+belonging to the yellow race by Christians; while in the same way the
+Japanese scientists and philosophers justify the slaughter of those of
+the white race. Journalists, without concealing their joy, try to outdo
+each other, and, not hesitating at any falsehood, however impudent and
+transparent, prove in all possible ways that the Russians only are right
+and strong and good in every respect, and that all the Japanese are wrong
+and weak and bad in every respect, and that all those are also bad who
+are inimical or may become inimical toward the Russians--the English, the
+Americans; and the same is proved likewise by the Japanese and their
+supporters in relation to the Russians.
+
+Not to mention the military, who in the way of their profession prepare
+for murder, crowds of so-called enlightened people, such as professors,
+social reformers, students, nobles, merchants, without being forced
+thereto by anything or anybody, express the most bitter and contemptuous
+feelings toward the Japanese, the English, or the Americans, toward whom
+but yesterday they were either well-disposed or indifferent; while,
+without the least compulsion, they express the most abject, servile
+feelings toward the Tsar (to whom, to say the least, they were completely
+indifferent), assuring him of their unlimited love and readiness to
+sacrifice their lives in his interests.
+
+This unfortunate, entangled young man, recognized as the leader of one
+hundred and thirty millions of people, continually deceived and compelled
+to contradict himself, confidently thanks and blesses the troops whom he
+calls his own for murder in defence of lands which with yet less right he
+also calls his own. All present to each other hideous ikons in which not
+only no one amongst the educated believes, but which unlearned peasants
+are beginning to abandon; all bow down to the ground before these ikons,
+kiss them, and pronounce pompous and deceitful speeches in which no one
+really believes.
+
+Wealthy people contribute insignificant portions of their immorally
+acquired riches for this cause of murder or the organization of help in
+connection with the work of murder; while the poor, from whom the
+Government annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do
+likewise, giving their mites also. The Government incites and encourages
+crowds of idlers, who walk about the streets with the Tsar's portrait,
+singing, shouting hurrah! and who, under pretext of patriotism, are
+licensed in all kinds of excess. All over Russia, from the Palace to the
+remotest village, the pastors of churches, calling themselves Christians,
+appeal to that God who has enjoined love to one's enemies--to the God of
+Love Himself--to help the work of the devil to further the slaughter of
+men.
+
+Stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, by processions, pictures,
+and newspapers, the cannon's flesh, hundreds of thousands of men,
+uniformly dressed, carrying divers deadly weapons, leaving their parents,
+wives, children, with hearts of agony, but with artificial sprightliness,
+go where they, risking their own lives, will commit the most dreadful act
+of killing men whom they do not know and who have done them no harm. And
+they are followed by doctors and nurses, who somehow imagine that at home
+they cannot serve simple, peaceful, suffering people, but can only serve
+those who are engaged in slaughtering each other. Those who remain at
+home are gladdened by news of the murder of men, and when they learn that
+many Japanese have been killed they thank some one whom they call God.
+
+All this is not only regarded as the manifestation of elevated feeling,
+but those who refrain from such manifestations, if they endeavor to
+disabuse men, are deemed traitors and betrayers, and are in danger of
+being abused and beaten by a brutalized crowd which, in defence of its
+insanity and cruelty, can possess no other weapon than brute force.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+
+It is as if there had never existed either Voltaire, or Montaigne, or
+Pascal, or Swift, or Kant, or Spinoza, or hundreds of other writers who
+have exposed, with great force, the madness and futility of war, and have
+described its cruelty, immorality, and savagery; and, above all, it is as
+if there had never existed Jesus and his teaching of human brotherhood
+and love of God and of men.
+
+One recalls all this to mind and looks around on what is now taking
+place, and one experiences horror less at the abominations of war than at
+that which is the most horrible of all horrors--the consciousness of the
+impotency of human reason. That which alone distinguishes man from the
+animal, that which constitutes his merit--his reason--is found to be an
+unnecessary, and not only a useless, but a pernicious addition, which
+simply impedes action, like a bridle fallen from a horse's head, and
+entangled in his legs and only irritating him.
+
+It is comprehensible that a heathen, a Greek, a Roman, even a mediæval
+Christian, ignorant of the Gospel and blindly believing all the
+prescriptions of the Church, might fight and, fighting, pride himself on
+his military achievements; but how can a believing Christian, or even a
+sceptic, involuntarily permeated by the Christian ideals of human
+brotherhood and love which have inspired the works of the philosophers,
+moralists, and artists of our time,--how can such take a gun, or stand by
+a cannon, and aim at a crowd of his fellow-men, desiring to kill as many
+of them as possible?
+
+The Assyrians, Romans, or Greeks might be persuaded that in fighting they
+were acting not only according to their conscience, but even fulfilling a
+righteous deed. But, whether we wish it or not, we are Christians, and
+however Christianity may have been distorted, its general spirit cannot
+but lift us to that higher plane of reason whence we can no longer
+refrain from feeling with our whole being not only the senselessness and
+the cruelty of war, but its complete opposition to all that we regard as
+good and right. Therefore, we cannot do as they did, with assurance,
+firmness, and peace, and without a consciousness of our criminality,
+without the desperate feeling of a murderer, who, having begun to kill
+his victim, and feeling in the depths of his soul the guilt of his act,
+proceeds to try to stupefy or infuriate himself, to be able the better to
+complete his dreadful deed. All the unnatural, feverish, hot-headed,
+insane excitement which has now seized the idle upper ranks of Russian
+society is merely the symptom of their recognition of the criminality of
+the work which is being done. All these insolent, mendacious speeches
+about devotion to, and worship of, the Monarch, about readiness to
+sacrifice life (or one should say other people's lives, and not one's
+own); all these promises to defend with one's breast land which does not
+belong to one; all these senseless benedictions of each other with
+various banners and monstrous ikons; all these _Te Deums_; all these
+preparations of blankets and bandages; all these detachments of nurses;
+all these contributions to the fleet and to the Red Cross presented to
+the Government, whose direct duty is (whilst it has the possibility of
+collecting from the people as much money as it requires), having declared
+war, to organize the necessary fleet and necessary means for attending
+the wounded; all these Slavonic, pompous, senseless, and blasphemous
+prayers, the utterance of which in various towns is communicated in the
+papers as important news; all these processions, calls for the national
+hymn, cheers; all this dreadful, desperate newspaper mendacity, which,
+being universal, does not fear exposure; all this stupefaction and
+brutalization which has now taken hold of Russian society, and which is
+being transmitted by degrees also to the masses; all this is only a
+symptom of the guilty consciousness of that dreadful act which is being
+accomplished.
+
+Spontaneous feeling tells men that what they are doing should not be;
+but, as the murderer who has begun to assassinate his victim cannot stop,
+so also Russian people now imagine that the fact of the deadly work
+having been commenced is an unanswerable argument in favor of war. War
+has been begun, and therefore it should go on. Thus it seems to simple,
+benighted, unlearned men, acting under the influence of the petty
+passions and stupefaction to which they have been subjected. In exactly
+the same way the most educated men of our time argue to prove that man
+does not possess free will, and that, therefore, even were he to
+understand that the work he has commenced is evil, he can no longer cease
+to do it. And dazed, brutalized men continue their dreadful work.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+Ask a soldier, a private, a corporal, a non-commissioned officer, who has
+abandoned his old parents, his wife, his children, why he is preparing to
+kill men whom he does not know; he will at first be astonished at your
+question. He is a soldier, he has taken the oath, and it is his duty to
+fulfil the orders of his commanders. If you tell him that war--_i.e._ the
+slaughter of men--does not conform to the command, "Thou shalt not kill,"
+he will say: "And how if ours are attacked--For the King--For the
+Orthodox faith?" (One of them said in answer to my question: "And how if
+he attacks that which is sacred?" "What do you mean?" I asked. "Why,"
+said he, "the banner.") And if you endeavor to explain to such a soldier
+that God's Commandment is more important not only than the banner but
+than anything else in the world, he will become silent, or he will get
+angry and report you to the authorities.
+
+Ask an officer, a general, why he goes to the war. He will tell you that
+he is a military man, and that the military are indispensable for the
+defence of the fatherland. As to murder not conforming to the spirit of
+the Christian law, this does not trouble him, as either he does not
+believe in this law, or, if he does, it is not in the law itself, but in
+that explanation which has been given to this law. But, above all, he,
+like the soldier, in place of the personal question, what should he do
+himself, always put the general question about the State, or the
+fatherland. "At the present moment, when the fatherland is in danger, one
+should act, and not argue," he will say.
+
+Ask the diplomatists, who, by their deceits, prepare wars, why they do
+it. They will tell you that the object of their activity is the
+establishment of peace between nations, and that this object is attained,
+not by ideal, unrealizable theories, but by diplomatic action and
+readiness for war. And, just as the military, instead of the question
+concerning one's own action, place the general question, so also
+diplomatists will speak about the interests of Russia, about the
+unscrupulousness of other Powers, about the balance of power in Europe,
+but not about their own position and its activities.
+
+Ask the journalists why, by their writings, they incite men to war; they
+will say that wars in general are necessary and useful, especially the
+present war, and they will confirm this opinion of theirs by misty
+patriotic phrases, and, just like the military and diplomatist, to the
+question why he, a journalist, a particular individual, a living man,
+acts in a certain way, he will speak about the general interests of the
+nation, about the State, civilization, the white race. In the same way,
+all those who prepare war will explain their participation in that work.
+They will perhaps agree that it would be desirable to abolish war, but at
+present this is impossible. At present they as Russians and as men who
+occupy certain positions, such as heads of the nobility, representatives
+of local self-government, doctors, workers of the Red Cross, are called
+upon to act and not to argue. "There is no time to argue and to think of
+oneself," they will say, "when there is a great common work to be done."
+The same will be said by the Tsar, seemingly responsible for the whole
+thing. He, like the soldier, will be astonished at the question, whether
+war is now necessary. He does not even admit the idea that the war might
+yet be arrested. He will say that he cannot refrain from fulfilling that
+which is demanded of him by the whole nation, that, although he does
+recognize that war is a great evil, and has used, and is ready to use,
+all possible means for its abolition--in the present case he could not
+help declaring war, and cannot help continuing it. It is necessary for
+the welfare and glory of Russia.
+
+Every one of these men, to the question why he, so and so, Ivan, Peter,
+Nicholas, whilst recognizing as binding upon him the Christian law which
+not only forbids the killing of one's neighbor but demands that one
+should love him, serve him, why he permits himself to participate in war;
+_i.e._ in violence, loot, murder, will infallibly answer the same thing,
+that he is thus acting in the name of his fatherland, or faith, or oath,
+or honor, or civilization, or the future welfare of the whole of
+mankind--in general, of something abstract and indefinite. Moreover,
+these men are always so urgently occupied either by preparation for war,
+or by its organization, or discussions about it, that in their leisure
+time they can only rest from their labors, and have not time to occupy
+themselves with discussions about their life, regarding such discussions
+as idle.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+Men of our Christian world and of our time are like a man who, having
+missed the right turning, the further he goes the more he becomes
+convinced that he is going the wrong way. Yet the greater his doubts, the
+quicker and the more desperately does he hurry on, consoling himself with
+the thought that he will arrive somewhere. But the time comes when it
+becomes quite clear that the way along which he is going will lead to
+nothing but a precipice, which he is already beginning to discern before
+him.
+
+In such a position stands the Christian humanity of our time. It is
+perfectly evident that, if we continue to live as we are now living,
+guided in our private lives, as well as in the life of separate States,
+by the sole desire of welfare for ourselves and for our State, and will,
+as we do now, think to ensure this welfare by violence, then, inevitably
+increasing the means of violence of one against the other and of State
+against State, we shall, first, keep subjecting ourselves more and more,
+transferring the major portion of our productiveness to armaments; and,
+secondly, by killing in mutual wars the best physically developed men, we
+must become more and more degenerate and morally depraved.
+
+That this will be the case if we do not alter our life is as certain as
+it is mathematically certain that two non-parallel straight lines must
+meet. But not only is this theoretically certain in our time; it is
+becoming certain not only to thought, but also to the consciousness. The
+precipice which we approach is already becoming apparent to us, and the
+most simple, non-philosophizing, and uneducated men cannot but see that,
+by arming ourselves more and more against each other and slaughtering
+each other in war, we, like spiders in a jar, can come to nothing else
+but the destruction of each other.
+
+A sincere, serious, rational man can no longer console himself by the
+thought that matters can be mended, as was formerly supposed, by a
+universal empire such as that of Rome or of Charles the Great, or
+Napoleon, or by the mediæval spiritual power of the Pope, or by Holy
+Alliances, by the political balance of the European Concert, and by
+peaceful international tribunals, or, as some have thought, by the
+increase of military strength and the newly discovered powerful weapons
+of destruction.
+
+It is impossible to organize a universal empire or republic, consisting
+of European States, as different nationalities will never desire to unite
+into one State. To organize international tribunals for the solution of
+international disputes? But who will impose obedience to the decision of
+the tribunal upon a contending party who has an organized army of
+millions of men? To disarm? No one desires it or will begin it. To invent
+yet more dreadful means of destruction--balloons with bombs filled with
+suffocating gases, shells, which men will shower upon each other from
+above? Whatever may be invented, all States will furnish themselves with
+similar weapons of destruction. And cannon's flesh, as after cold weapons
+it submitted to bullets, and meekly exposed itself to shells, bombs,
+far-reaching guns, mitrailleuses, mines, so it will also submit to bombs
+charged with suffocating gases scattered down upon it from balloons.
+
+Nothing shows more evidently than the speeches of M. Muravieff and
+Professor Martens about the Japanese war not contradicting The Hague
+Peace Conference--nothing shows more obviously than these speeches to
+what an extent, amongst the men of our time, the means for the
+transmission of thought--speech--is distorted, and how the capacity for
+clear, rational thinking is completely lost. Thought and speech are used
+for the purpose, not of serving as a guide for human activity, but of
+justifying any activity, however criminal it may be. The late Boer war
+and the present Japanese war, which can at any moment pass into a
+universal slaughter, have proved this beyond all doubt. All anti-military
+discussions can as little contribute to the cessation of war as the most
+eloquent and persuasive considerations addressed to fighting dogs as to
+its being more advantageous to divide the piece of meat over which they
+are struggling than to mutilate each other and lose the piece of meat,
+which will be carried away by some passing dog not joining in the fight.
+We are dashing on toward the precipice, cannot stop, and we are
+approaching its edge.
+
+For every rational man who reflects upon the position in which humanity
+is now placed and upon that which it is inevitably approaching, it cannot
+but be obvious that there is no practical issue out of this position,
+that one cannot devise any combination or organization which would save
+us from the destruction toward which we are inevitably rushing. Not to
+mention the economical problems which become more and more complex, those
+mutual relations between the States arming themselves against each other
+and at any moment ready to break out into wars clearly point to the
+certain destruction toward which all so-called civilized humanity is
+being carried. Then what is to be done?
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+Two thousand years ago John the Baptist and then Jesus said to men: The
+time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand; (/metanoeite/)
+bethink yourselves and believe in the Gospel (Mark i. 15); and if you do
+not bethink yourselves you will all perish (Luke xiii. 5).
+
+But men did not listen to them, and the destruction they foretold is
+already near at hand. And we men of our time cannot but see it. We are
+already perishing, and, therefore, we cannot leave unheeded that--old in
+time, but for us new--means of salvation. We cannot but see that, besides
+all the other calamities which flow from our bad and irrational life,
+military preparations alone and the wars inevitably growing from them
+must infallibly destroy us. We cannot but see that all the means of
+escape invented by men from these evils are found and must be found to be
+ineffectual, and that the disastrous position of the nations arming
+themselves against each other cannot but go on advancing continually. And
+therefore the words of Jesus refer to us and our time more than to any
+time or to any one.
+
+Jesus said, "Bethink yourselves"--_i.e._ "Let every man interrupt the
+work he has begun and ask himself: Who am I? From whence have I appeared,
+and in what consists my destiny? And having answered these questions,
+according to the answer decide whether that which thou doest is in
+conformity with thy destiny." And every man of our world and time, that
+is, being acquainted with the essence of the Christian teaching, needs
+only for a minute to interrupt his activity, to forget the capacity in
+which he is regarded by men, be it of Emperor, soldier, minister, or
+journalist, and seriously ask himself who he is and what is his
+destiny--in order to begin to doubt the utility, lawfulness, and
+reasonableness of his actions. "Before I am Emperor, soldier, minister,
+or journalist," must say to himself every man of our time and of the
+Christian world, "before any of these, I am a man--_i.e._ an organic
+being sent by the Higher Will into a universe infinite in time and space,
+in order, after staying in it for an instant, to die--_i.e._ to disappear
+from it. And, therefore, all those personal, social, and even universal
+human aims which I may place before myself and which are placed before me
+by men are all insignificant, owing to the shortness of my life as well
+as to the infiniteness of the life of the universe, and should be
+subordinated to that higher aim for the attainment of which I am sent
+into the world. This ultimate aim, owing to my limitations, is
+inaccessible to me, but it does exist (as there must be a purpose in all
+that exists), and my business is that of being its instrument--_i.e._ my
+destiny, my vocation, is that of being a workman of God, of fulfilling
+His work." And having understood this destiny, every man of our world and
+time, from Emperor to soldier, cannot but regard differently those duties
+which he has taken upon himself or other men have imposed upon him.
+
+"Before I was crowned, recognized as Emperor," must the Emperor say to
+himself: "before I undertook to fulfil the duties of the head of the
+State, I, by the very fact that I live, have promised to fulfil that
+which is demanded of me by the Higher Will that sent me into life. These
+demands I not only know, but feel in my heart. They consist, as it is
+expressed in the Christian law, which I profess, in that I should submit
+to the will of God, and fulfil that which it requires of me, that I
+should love my neighbor, serve him, and act towards him as I would wish
+others to act towards me. Am I doing this?--ruling men, prescribing
+violence, executions, and, the most dreadful of all,--wars. Men tell me
+that I ought to do this. But God says that I ought to do something quite
+different. And, therefore, however much I may be told that, as the head
+of the State, I must direct acts of violence, the levying of taxes,
+executions and, above all, war, that is, the slaughter of one's neighbor,
+I do not wish to and cannot do these things."
+
+So must say to himself the soldier, who is taught that he must kill men,
+and the minister, who deemed it his duty to prepare for war, and the
+journalist who incited to war, and every man, who puts to himself the
+question, Who is he, what is his destination in life? And the moment the
+head of the State will cease to direct war, the soldier to fight, the
+minister to prepare means for war, the journalist to incite
+thereto--then, without any new institutions, adaptations, balance of
+power, tribunals, there will of itself be destroyed that hopeless
+position in which men have placed themselves, not only in relation to
+war, but also to all other calamities which they themselves inflict upon
+themselves.
+
+So that, however strange this may appear, the most effective and certain
+deliverance of men from all the calamities which they inflict upon
+themselves and from the most dreadful of all--war--is attainable, not by
+any external general measures, but merely by that simple appeal to the
+consciousness of each separate man which, nineteen hundred years ago, was
+proposed by Jesus--that every man bethink himself, and ask himself, who
+is he, why he lives, and what he should and should not do.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+
+The evil from which men of our time are suffering is produced by the fact
+that the majority live without that which alone affords a rational
+guidance for human activity--without religion; not that religion which
+consists in belief in dogmas, in the fulfilment of rites which afford a
+pleasant diversion, consolation, stimulant, but that religion which
+establishes the relation of man to the All, to God, and, therefore, gives
+a general higher direction to all human activity, and without which
+people stand on the plane of animals and even lower than they. This evil
+which is leading men to inevitable destruction has manifested itself with
+special power in our time, because, having lost all rational guidance in
+life, and having directed all efforts to discoveries and improvements
+principally in the sphere of technical knowledge, men of our time have
+developed in themselves enormous power over the forces of nature; but,
+not having any guidance for the rational adaptation of this power, they
+naturally have used it for the satisfaction of their lowest and most
+animal propensities.
+
+Bereft of religion, men possessing enormous power over the forces of
+nature are like children to whom powder or explosive gas has been given
+as a plaything. Considering this power which men of our time possess, and
+the way they use it, one feels that considering the degree of their moral
+development men have no right, not only to the use of railways, steam,
+electricity, telephones, photography, wireless telegraphs, but even to
+the simple art of manufacturing iron and steel, as all these improvements
+and arts they use only for the satisfaction of their lusts, for
+amusement, dissipation, and the destruction of each other.
+
+Then, what is to be done? To reject all these improvements of life, all
+this power acquired by humanity--to forget that which it has learnt? This
+is impossible, however perniciously these mental acquisitions are used;
+they still are acquisitions, and men cannot forget them. To alter those
+combinations of nations which have been formed during centuries and to
+establish new ones? To invent such new institutions as would hinder the
+minority from deceiving and exploiting the majority? To disseminate
+knowledge? All this has been tried, and is being done with great fervor.
+All these imaginary methods of improvement represent the chief methods of
+self-oblivion and of diverting one's attention from the consciousness of
+inevitable perdition. The boundaries of States are changed, institutions
+are altered, knowledge is disseminated; but within other boundaries, with
+other organizations, with increased knowledge, men remain the same
+beasts, ready any minute to tear each other to pieces, or the same slaves
+they have always been, and always will be, while they continue to be
+guided, not by religious consciousness, but by passions, theories, and
+external influences.
+
+Man has no choice; he must be the slave of the most unscrupulous and
+insolent amongst slaves, or else the servant of God, because for man
+there is only one way of being free--by uniting his will with the will of
+God. People bereft of religion, some repudiating religion itself, others
+recognizing as religion those external, monstrous forms which have
+superseded it, and guided only by their personal lusts, fear, human laws,
+and, above all, by mutual hypnotism, cannot cease to be animals or
+slaves, and no external efforts can extricate them from this state; for
+only religion makes a man free. And most of the people of our time are
+deprived of it.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+"But, in order to abolish the evil from which we are suffering," those
+will say who are preoccupied by various practical activities, "it would
+be necessary that not a few men only, but all men, should bethink
+themselves, and that, having done so, they should uniformly understand
+the destination of their lives, in the fulfilment of the will of God and
+in the service of one's neighbor.
+
+"Is this possible?" Not only possible, do I answer, but it is impossible
+that this should not take place. It is impossible for men not to bethink
+themselves--_i.e._ impossible that each man should not put to himself the
+question as to who he is and wherefore he lives; for man, as a rational
+being, cannot live without seeking to know why he lives, and he has
+always put to himself this question, and always, according to the degree
+of his development, has answered it in his religious teaching. In our
+time, the inner contradiction in which men feel themselves elicits this
+question with special insistence, and demands an answer. It is impossible
+for men of our time to answer this question otherwise than by recognizing
+the law of life in love to men and in the service of them, this being for
+our time the only rational answer as to the meaning of human life; and
+this answer nineteen hundred years ago has been expressed in the
+Christian religion and is likewise known to the vast majority of all
+mankind.
+
+This answer in a latent state lives in the consciousness of all men of
+the Christian world of our time; but it does not openly express itself
+and serve as guidance for our life, only because, on the one hand, those
+who enjoy the greatest authority, so-called scientists, being under the
+coarse error that religion is a temporary and outgrown step in the
+development of mankind and that men can live without religion, inculcate
+this error to those of the masses who are beginning to be educated; and,
+on the other hand, because those in power, sometimes consciously, but
+often unconsciously (being under the error that the Church faith is
+Christian religion), endeavor to support and excite in the people crude
+superstitions given out as the Christian religion. If only these two
+deceptions were to be destroyed, then true religion, already latent in
+men of our time, would become evident and obligatory.
+
+To bring this about it is necessary that, on the one hand, men of science
+should understand that the principle of the brotherhood of all men and
+the rule of not doing unto others what one does not wish for oneself is
+not one casual idea out of a multitude of human theories which can be
+subordinated to any other considerations, but is an incontestable
+principle, standing higher than the rest, and flowing from the changeless
+relation of man to that which is eternal, to God, and is religion, all
+religion, and, therefore, always obligatory.
+
+On the other hand, it is necessary that those who consciously or
+unconsciously preach crude superstitions under the guise of Christianity
+should understand that all these dogmas, sacraments, and rites which they
+support and preach are not only, as they think, harmless, but are in the
+highest degree pernicious, concealing from men that central religious
+truth which is expressed in the fulfilment of God's will, in the service
+of men, and that the rule of acting toward others as one would wish
+others to act toward oneself is not merely one of the prescriptions of
+the Christian religion, but is the whole of practical religion, as indeed
+is stated in the Gospels.
+
+To bring about that men of our time should uniformly place before
+themselves the question of the meaning of life, and uniformly answer it,
+it is only necessary that those who regard themselves as enlightened
+should cease to think and to inculcate to other generations that religion
+is atavism, the survival of a past wild state, and that for the good life
+of men the spreading of education is sufficient--_i.e._ the spread of the
+most varied knowledge which is in some way to bring men to justice and to
+a moral life. These men should understand instead that for the good life
+of humanity religion is vital, and that this religion already exists and
+lives in the consciousness of the men of our time. Men who are
+intentionally and unintentionally stupefying the people by church
+superstitions should cease to do so, and recognize that what is important
+and binding in Christianity is not baptism, nor Communion, nor profession
+of dogmas, etc., but only love to God and to one's neighbor, and the
+fulfilling of the commandment of acting toward others as one wishes
+others to act toward oneself--and that in this lies all the law and the
+prophets.
+
+If only both pseudo-Christians and men of science understood and preached
+to children and to the uneducated these simple, clear, and necessary
+truths as they now preach their complicated, confused, and unnecessary
+theories, all men would uniformly understand the meaning of their lives
+and recognize one and the same duties as flowing from this meaning.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+But "How are we to act now, immediately among ourselves, in Russia, at
+this moment, when our foes have already attacked us, are killing our
+people, and threatening us; what should be the action," I shall be asked,
+"of a Russian soldier, officer, general, Tsar, private individual? Are
+we, forsooth, to allow our enemies to ruin our possessions, to seize the
+productions of our labors, to carry away prisoners, or kill our men? What
+are we to do now that this thing has begun?"
+
+But before the work of war was commenced, by whomsoever it was
+commenced--every awakened man must answer--before all else the work of my
+life was commenced. And the work of my life has nothing in common with
+recognition of the rights of the Chinese, Japanese, or Russians to Port
+Arthur. The work of my life consists in fulfilling the will of Him who
+sent me into this life. This will is known to me. This will is that I
+should love my neighbor and serve him. Then why should I, following
+temporary, casual, irrational, and cruel demands, deviate from the known
+eternal and changeless law of all my life? If there be a God, He will not
+ask me when I die (which may happen at any moment) whether I retained
+Chi-nam-po with its timber stores, or Port Arthur, or even that
+conglomeration which is called the Russian Empire, which He did not
+confide to my care; but He will ask me what I have done with that life
+which He put at my disposal;--did I use it for the purpose for which it
+was predestined, and under the conditions for fulfilling which it was
+intrusted to me? Have I fulfilled His law?
+
+So that to this question as to what is to be done now, when war is
+commenced, for me, a man who understands his destiny, whatever position I
+may occupy, there can be no other answer than this, whatever be my
+circumstances, whether the war be commenced or not, whether thousands of
+Russians or Japanese be killed, whether not only Port Arthur be taken,
+but St. Petersburg and Moscow--I cannot act otherwise than as God demands
+of me, and that therefore I as a man can neither directly nor indirectly,
+neither by directing, nor by helping, nor by inciting to it, participate
+in war; I cannot, I do not wish to, and I will not. What will happen
+immediately or soon, from my ceasing to do that which is contrary to the
+will of God, I do not and cannot know; but I believe that from the
+fulfilment of the will of God there can follow nothing but that which is
+good for me and for all men.
+
+You speak with horror about what might happen if we Russians at this
+moment ceased to fight, and surrendered to the Japanese what they desire
+from us. But if it be true that the salvation of mankind from
+brutalization and self-destruction lies only in the establishment amongst
+men of that true religion which demands that we should love our neighbor
+and serve him (with which it is impossible to disagree), then every war,
+every hour of war, and my participation in it, only renders more
+difficult and distant the realization of this only possible salvation.
+
+So that, even if one places oneself on the unstable point of view of
+defining actions according to their presumed consequences--even then the
+surrender to the Japanese by the Russians of all which the former desire
+of us, besides the unquestionable advantage of the cessation of ruin and
+slaughter, would be an approach to the only means of the salvation of
+mankind from destruction; whereas the continuance of the war, however it
+may end, will be a postponement of that only means of salvation.
+
+"Yet even if this be so," it is replied, "wars can cease only when all
+men, or the majority, will refuse to participate in them. But the refusal
+of one man, whether he be Tsar or soldier, would only, unnecessarily, and
+without the slightest profit to any one, ruin his life. If the Russian
+Tsar were now to throw up the war, he would be dethroned, perhaps killed,
+in order to get rid of him; if an ordinary man were to refuse military
+service, he would be sent to a penal battalion and perhaps shot. Why,
+then, without the slightest use should one throw away one's life, which
+may be profitable to society?" is the common question of those who do not
+think of the destination of their life and therefore do not understand
+it.
+
+But this is not what is said and felt by any man who understands the
+destination of his life--_i.e._ by any religious man. Such a man is
+guided in his activity not by the presumed consequences of his action,
+but by the consciousness of the destination of his life. A factory
+workman goes to his factory and in it accomplishes the work which is
+allotted him without considering what will be the consequences of his
+labor. In the same way a soldier acts, carrying out the will of his
+commanders. So acts a religious man in fulfilling the work prescribed to
+him by God, without arguing as to what precisely will come of that work.
+Therefore for a religious man there is no question as to whether many or
+few men act as he does, or of what may happen to him if he does that
+which he should do. He knows that besides life and death nothing can
+happen, and that life and death are in the hands of God whom he obeys.
+
+A religious man acts thus and not otherwise, not because he desires to
+act thus, nor because it is advantageous to himself or to other men, but
+because, believing that his life is in the hands of God, he cannot act
+otherwise.
+
+In this lies the distinction of the activity of religious men; and
+therefore it is that the salvation of men from the calamities which they
+inflict upon themselves can be realized only in that degree in which they
+are guided in their lives, not by advantage nor arguments, but by
+religious consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+
+"But how about the enemies that attack us?"
+
+"Love your enemies, and ye will have none," is said in the teaching of
+the Twelve Apostles. This answer is not merely words, as those may
+imagine who are accustomed to think that the recommendation of love to
+one's enemies is something hyperbolical, and signifies not that which
+expressed, but something else. This answer is the indication of a very
+clear and definite activity, and of its consequences.
+
+To love one's enemies--the Japanese, the Chinese, those yellow people
+toward whom benighted men are now endeavoring to excite our hatred--to
+love them means not to kill them for the purpose of having the right of
+poisoning them with opium, as did the English; not to kill them in order
+to seize their land, as was done by the French, the Russians, and the
+Germans; not to bury them alive in punishment for injuring roads, not to
+tie them together by their hair, not to drown them in their river Amur,
+as did the Russians.
+
+"A disciple is not above his master.... It is enough for a disciple that
+he be as his master."
+
+To love the yellow people, whom we call our foes, means, not to teach
+them under the name of Christianity absurd superstitions about the fall
+of man, redemption, resurrection, etc., not to teach them the art of
+deceiving and killing others, but to teach them justice, unselfishness,
+compassion, love--and that not by words, but by the example of our own
+good life. And what have we been doing to them, and are still doing?
+
+If we did indeed love our enemies, if even now we began to love our
+enemies, the Japanese, we would have no enemy.
+
+Therefore, however strange it may appear to those occupied with military
+plans, preparations, diplomatic considerations, administrative,
+financial, economical measures, revolutionary, socialistic propaganda,
+and various unnecessary sciences, by which they think to save mankind
+from its calamities, the deliverance of man, not only from the calamities
+of war, but also from all the calamities which men inflict upon
+themselves, will take place not through emperors or kings instituting
+peace alliances, not through those who would dethrone emperors, kings, or
+restrain them by constitutions, or substitute republics for monarchies,
+not by peace conferences, not by the realization of socialistic
+programmes, not by victories or defeats on land or sea, not by libraries
+or universities, nor by those futile mental exercises which are now
+called science; but only by there being more and more of those simple men
+who, like the Dukhobors, Drojjin, Olkhovik, in Russia, the Nazarenes in
+Austria, Condatier in France, Tervey in Holland, and others, having
+placed as their object not external alterations of life, but the closest
+fulfilment in themselves of the will of Him who has sent them into life,
+will direct all their powers to this realization. Only such people
+realizing the Kingdom of God in themselves, in their souls, will
+establish, without directly aiming at this purpose, that external Kingdom
+of God which every human soul is longing for.
+
+Salvation will come to pass only in this one way and not in any other.
+Therefore what is now being done by those who, ruling men, inspire them
+with religious and patriotic superstitions, exciting in them
+exclusiveness, hatred, and murder, as well as by those who, for the
+purpose of freeing men from slavery and oppression, invoke them to
+violent external revolution, or think that the acquisition by men of very
+much incidental and for the most part unnecessary information will of
+itself bring them to a good life--all this, by distracting men from what
+alone they need, only removes them further from the possibility of
+salvation.
+
+The evil from which the men of the Christian world suffer is that they
+have temporarily lost religion.
+
+Some people, having come to see the discord between the existing religion
+and the degree of mental and scientific development attained by humanity
+at the present time, have decided that in general no religion whatever is
+necessary. They live without religion and preach the uselessness of any
+religion of whatever kind. Others, holding to that distorted form of the
+Christian religion which is now preached, likewise live without religion,
+professing empty external forms, which cannot serve as guidance for men.
+
+Yet a religion which answers to the demands of our time does exist and is
+known to all men, and in a latent state lives in the hearts of men of the
+Christian world. Therefore that this religion should become evident to
+and binding upon all men, it is only necessary that educated men--the
+leaders of the masses--should understand that religion is necessary to
+man, that without religion men cannot live a good life, and that what
+they call science cannot replace religion; and that those in power and
+who support the old empty forms of religion should understand that what
+they support and preach under the form of religion is not only not
+religion, but is the chief obstacle to men's appropriating the true
+religion which they already know, and which can alone deliver them from
+their calamities. So that the only certain means of man's salvation
+consists merely in ceasing to do that which hinders men from assimilating
+the true religion which already lives in their consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+
+I had finished this writing when news came of the destruction of six
+hundred innocent lives opposite Port Arthur. It would seem that the
+useless suffering and death of these unfortunate deluded men who have
+needlessly and so dreadfully perished ought to disabuse those who were
+the cause of this destruction. I am not alluding to Makaroff and other
+officers--all these men knew what they were doing, and wherefore, and
+they voluntarily, for personal advantage, for ambition, did as they did,
+disguising themselves in pretended patriotism, a pretence not condemned
+merely because it is universal. I allude rather to those unfortunate men
+drawn from all parts of Russia, who, by the help of religious fraud, and
+under fear of punishment, have been torn from an honest, reasonable,
+useful, laborious family life, driven to the other end of the world,
+placed on a cruel, senseless machine for slaughter, and torn to bits,
+drowned along with this stupid machine in a distant sea, without any need
+or any possibility of advantage from all their privations, efforts, and
+sufferings, or from the death which overtook them.
+
+In 1830, during the Polish war, the adjutant Vilijinsky sent to St.
+Petersburg by Klopitsky, in a conversation held in French with Dibitch,
+in answer to the latter's demand that the Russian troops should enter
+Poland, said to him:--
+
+"Monsieur le Maréchal, I think that in that case it will be quite
+impossible for the Polish nation to accept this manifesto...."
+
+"Believe me, the Emperor will make no further concessions."
+
+"Then I foresee that, unhappily, there will be war, that much blood will
+be shed, there will be many unfortunate victims."
+
+"Do not think so; at most there will be ten thousand who will perish on
+both sides, and that is all,"[1] said Dibitch in his German accent, quite
+confident that he, together with another man as cruel and foreign to
+Russian and Polish life as he was himself,--Nicholas I,--had the right to
+condemn or not to condemn to death ten or a hundred thousand Russians and
+Poles.
+
+  [1] Vilijinsky adds on his own behalf, "The Field-Marshal did not then
+      think that more than sixty thousand Russians alone would perish in
+      this war, not so much from the enemy's fire as from disease--nor
+      that he would himself be amongst their number."
+
+One hardly believes that this could have been, so senseless and dreadful
+is it,--and yet it was; sixty thousand maintainers of their families lost
+their lives owing to the will of those men. And now the same thing is
+taking place.
+
+In order not to let the Japanese into Manchuria, and to expel them from
+Korea, not ten thousand, but fifty and more thousands will, according to
+all probability, be necessary. I do not know whether Nicholas II and
+Kuropatkin say like Dibitch in so many words that not more than fifty
+thousand lives will be necessary for this on the Russian side alone, only
+and only that; but they think it--they cannot but think it, because the
+work they are doing speaks for itself; that ceaseless stream of
+unfortunate, deluded Russian peasants now being transported by thousands
+to the Far East--these are those same not more than fifty thousand live
+Russian men whom Nicholas Romanoff and Alexis Kuropatkin have decided
+they may get killed, and who will be killed, in support of those
+stupidities, robberies, and every kind of abomination which were
+accomplished in China and Korea by immoral ambitious men now sitting
+peacefully in their palaces and expecting new glory and new advantage and
+profit from the slaughter of these fifty thousand unfortunate, defrauded
+Russian workingmen guilty of nothing and gaining nothing by their
+sufferings and death. For other people's land, to which the Russians have
+no right, which has been criminally seized from its legitimate owners,
+and which, in reality, is not even necessary to the Russians--and also
+for certain dark dealings by speculators, who in Korea wished to gain
+money out of other people's forests--many millions of money are spent,
+_i.e._ a great part of the labor of the whole of the Russian people,
+while the future generations of this people are bound by debts, its best
+workmen are withdrawn from labor, and scores of thousands of its sons are
+mercilessly doomed to death; and the destruction of these unfortunate men
+is already begun. More than this: the war is being managed by those who
+have hatched it so badly, so negligently, all is so unexpected, so
+unprepared, that, as one paper admits, Russia's chief chance of success
+lies in the fact that it possesses inexhaustible human material. It is
+upon this that those rely who send to death scores of thousands of
+Russian men!
+
+It is frankly said that the regrettable reverses of our fleet must be
+compensated on the land. In plain language this means that if the
+authorities have badly directed things on sea, and by their negligence
+have destroyed not only the nation's millions, but thousands of lives, we
+can make it up by condemning to death on land several more scores of
+thousands!
+
+When crawling locusts cross rivers, it happens that the lower layers are
+drowned until from the bodies of the drowned is formed a bridge over
+which the upper ranks can pass. In the same way are the Russian people
+being disposed of. Thus the first lower layer is already beginning to
+drown, indicating the way to other thousands, who will all likewise
+perish.
+
+And are the originators, directors, and supporters of this dreadful work
+beginning to understand their sin, their crime? Not in the least. They
+are quite persuaded that they have fulfilled, and are fulfilling, their
+duty, and they are proud of their activity. People speak of the loss of
+the brave Makaroff, who, as all agree, was able to kill men very
+cleverly; they deplore the loss of a drowned excellent machine of
+slaughter which had cost so many millions of roubles; they discuss the
+question of how to find another murderer as capable as the poor benighted
+Makaroff; they invent new, still more efficacious, tools of slaughter;
+and all the guilty men engaged in this dreadful work, from the Tsar to
+the humblest journalist, all with one voice call for new insanities, new
+cruelties, for the increase of brutality and hatred of one's fellow-men.
+
+"Makaroff is not the only man in Russia, and every admiral placed in his
+position will follow in his steps and will continue the plan and the idea
+of Makaroff, who has nobly perished in the strife," writes the _Novoe
+Vremya_.
+
+"Let us earnestly pray God for those who have laid down their lives for
+the sacred Fatherland, without doubting for one moment that the
+Fatherland will give us new sons, equally virtuous, for the further
+struggle, and will find in them an inexhaustible store of strength for a
+worthy completion of the work," writes the St. Petersburg _Viedomosti_.
+
+"A ripe nation will draw no other conclusion from the defeat, however
+unprecedented, than that we should continue, develop, and conclude the
+strife; therefore let us find in ourselves new strength; new heroes of
+the spirit will arise," writes the _Russ_,--and so forth.
+
+So murder and every kind of crime go on with greater fury. People
+enthusiastically admire the martial spirit of the volunteers who, having
+come unexpectedly upon fifty of their fellow-men, slay all of them, or
+take possession of a village and slaughter all its population, or hang or
+shoot those accused of being spies--_i.e._ of doing the very same thing
+which is regarded as indispensable and is constantly done on our side.
+News about these crimes is reported in pompous telegrams to their chief
+director, the Tsar, who, in return, sends to his virtuous troops his
+blessing on the continuation of such deeds.
+
+Is it not evident that, if there be a salvation from this position, it is
+only one: that one which Jesus teaches?--"Seek ye first the Kingdom of
+God and His righteousness (that which is within you), and all the
+rest--_i.e._ all that practical welfare toward which man is
+striving--will of itself be realized."
+
+Such is the law of life: practical welfare is attained not when man
+strives toward this practical welfare--such striving, on the contrary,
+for the most part removes man from the attainment of what he seeks; but
+only when man, without thinking of the attainment of practical welfare,
+strives toward the most perfect fulfilment of that which before God,
+before the Source and Law of his life, he regards as right. Then only,
+incidentally, is practical welfare also attained.
+
+So that the true salvation of men is only one thing: the fulfilment of
+the will of God by each individual man within himself--_i.e._ in that
+portion of the universe which alone is subject to his power. In this is
+the chief, the only, destiny and duty of every individual man, and at the
+same time this is the only means by which every individual man can
+influence others; and, therefore, to this, and to this only, should all
+the efforts of every man be directed.
+
+May 2, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII
+
+
+I had only just despatched the last of the preceding pages of this paper
+when the dreadful news came of a new iniquity committed in regard to the
+Russian people by those light-minded men who, crazed with power, have
+appropriated the right of managing them. Again coarse and servile slaves
+of slaves, dressed up in various dazzling attires--varieties of Generals
+wishing to distinguish themselves, or to earn the right to add one more
+little star, fingle fangle, or scrap of ribbon to their idiotic glaring
+get-up, or else from stupidity or carelessness--again these miserable men
+have destroyed amid dreadful sufferings thousands of those honorable,
+kind, hard-working laborers who feed them. And again this iniquity not
+only does not cause those responsible for it to reflect and repent, but
+one hears and reads only about its being necessary as speedily as
+possible to mutilate and slaughter a greater number of men, and to ruin
+still more families, both Russian and Japanese.
+
+More than this, to prepare men for fresh iniquities of this kind, the
+perpetrators of these crimes, far from recognizing what is evident to
+all--viz. that for the Russians this event, even from their patriotic,
+military point of view, was a scandalous defeat--endeavor to assure
+credulous people that these unfortunate Russian laboring men--lured into
+a trap like cattle into a slaughterhouse, of whom several thousands have
+been killed and maimed merely because one General did not understand what
+another General had said--have performed an act of heroism because those
+who could not run away were killed and those who did run away remained
+alive. As to the fact that one of these immoral and cruel men,
+distinguished by the titles of Generals, Admirals, drowned a quantity of
+peaceful Japanese, this is also described as a great and glorious act of
+heroism, which must gladden the hearts of Russians. And in all the papers
+are reprinted this awful appeal to murder:--
+
+"Let the two thousand Russian soldiers killed on the Yalu, together with
+the maimed _Retvisan_ and her sister ships, with our lost torpedo-boats,
+teach our cruisers with what devastation they must break in upon the
+shores of base Japan. She has sent her soldiers to shed Russian blood,
+and no quarter should be afforded her. Now one cannot--it is sinful--be
+sentimental; we must fight; we must direct such heavy blows that the
+memory of them shall freeze the treacherous hearts of the Japanese. Now
+is the time for the cruisers to go out to sea to reduce to ashes the
+towns of Japan, flying as a dreadful calamity along its shores. No more
+sentimentality."
+
+The frightful work commenced is continued. Loot, violence, murder,
+hypocrisy, theft, and, above all, the most fearful fraud--the distortion
+of religious teachings, both Christian and Buddhistic--continue. The
+Tsar, the chief responsible person, continues to review the troops, to
+thank, reward, and encourage them; he issues an edict for the calling out
+of the reserves; his faithful subjects again and again lay down their
+property and lives at the feet of him they call, only with their lips,
+their adored Monarch. On the other hand, desiring to distinguish
+themselves before each other in deeds and not in words only, they tear
+away the fathers and the bread-winners from their orphaned families,
+preparing them for slaughter. The worse the position of Russia, the more
+recklessly do the journalists lie, transforming shameful defeats into
+victories, knowing that no one will contradict them; and they quietly
+collect money from subscriptions and sales. The more money and labor of
+the people is devoted to the war, the more is grabbed by various
+authorities and speculators, who know that no one will convict them
+because every one is doing the same. The military, trained for murder,
+having passed years in a school of inhumanity, coarseness, and idleness,
+rejoice--poor men--because, besides an increase of their salary, the
+slaughter of superiors opens vacancies for their promotion. Christian
+pastors continue to invite men to the greatest of crimes, continue to
+commit sacrilege, praying God to help the work of war; and, instead of
+condemning, they justify and praise that pastor who, with the cross in
+his hands on the very scene of murder, encouraged men to the crime. The
+same thing is going on in Japan. The benighted Japanese go in for murder
+with yet greater fervor, owing to their victories; the Mikado also
+reviews and rewards his troops; various Generals boast of their bravery,
+imagining that, having learned to kill, they have acquired enlightenment.
+So, too, groan the unfortunate working people torn from useful labor and
+from their families. So their journalists also lie and rejoice over their
+gains. Also probably--for where murder is elevated into virtue every kind
+of vice is bound to flourish--also probably all kinds of commanders and
+speculators earn money; and Japanese theologians and religious teachers
+no less than the masters in the techniques of armament do not remain
+behind the Europeans in the techniques of religious deceit and sacrilege,
+but distort the great Buddhistic teaching by not only permitting but
+justifying that murder which Buddha forbade. The Buddhistic scientist,
+Soyen-Shaku, ruling over eight hundred monasteries, explains that
+although Buddha forbade manslaughter he also said he could never be at
+peace until all beings are united in the infinitely loving heart of all
+things, and that, therefore, in order to bring into harmony that which is
+discordant it is necessary to fight and to kill men.[2]
+
+  [2] In the article it is said: "This triple world is my own possession.
+      All the things therein are my own children ... the ten thousand
+      things in this world are no more than the reflections of my own
+      self. They come from the one source. They partake of the one body.
+      Therefore I cannot rest, until every being, even the smallest
+      possible fragment of existence, is settled down to its proper
+      appointment.... This is the position taken by the Buddha, and we,
+      his humble followers, are but to walk in his wake. Why, then, do we
+      fight at all? Because we do not find this world as it ought to be.
+      Because there are here so many perverted creatures, so many wayward
+      thoughts, so many ill-directed hearts, due to ignorant
+      subjectivity. For this reason Buddhists are never tired of
+      combating all productions of ignorance, and their fight must be to
+      the bitter end. They will show no quarter. They will mercilessly
+      destroy the very root from which arises the misery of this life. To
+      accomplish this end, they will never be afraid of sacrificing their
+      lives...." There follow, just as is usual with us, entangled
+      arguments about self-sacrifice and kindness, about the
+      transmigration of souls and about much else--all this for the sole
+      purpose of concealing the simple and clear commandment of Buddha:
+      not to kill. Further it is said: "The hand that is raised to strike
+      and the eye that is fixed to take aim do not belong to the
+      individual, but are the instruments utilized by a principle higher
+      than transient existence." ("The Open Court," May, 1904. "Buddhist
+      Views of War," by the Right Rev. Soyen-Shaku.)
+
+It is as if there never had existed the Christian and Buddhistic teaching
+about the unity of the human spirit, the brotherhood of men, love,
+compassion, the sacredness of human life. Men, both Japanese and
+Russians, already enlightened by the truth, yet like wild animals, nay,
+worse than wild animals, throw themselves upon each other with the sole
+desire to destroy as many lives as possible. Thousands of unfortunates
+groan and writhe in cruel sufferings and die in agony in Japanese and
+Russian field hospitals, asking themselves in bewilderment why this
+fearful thing was done with them, while other thousands are already
+rotting in the earth or on the earth, or floating in the sea, in swollen
+decomposition. And scores of thousands of wives, fathers, mothers,
+children, are bemoaning their bread-winners; uselessly destroyed. Yet all
+this is still too little; new and newer victims are being prepared. The
+chief concern of the Russian organizers of slaughter is that on the
+Russian side the stream of food for cannon--three thousand men per day
+doomed to destruction--should not be interrupted for one minute. The
+Japanese are preoccupied with the same thing. The locusts are incessantly
+being driven down into the river in order that the rows behind may pass
+over the bodies.
+
+When will this cease, and the deceived people at last recover themselves
+and say: "Well, go you yourselves, you heartless Tsars, Mikados,
+Ministers, Bishops, priests, generals, editors, speculators, or however
+you may be called, go you yourselves under these shells and bullets, but
+we do not wish to go and we will not go. Leave us in peace, to plough,
+and sow, and build,--and also to feed you." It would be so natural to say
+this now, when amongst us in Russia resounds the weeping and wailing of
+hundreds of thousands of mothers, wives, and children, from whom are
+being snatched away their bread-earners, the so-called "reserve." These
+same men, the majority of the reserve, are able to read; they know what
+the Far East is; they know that war is going on, not for anything which
+is in the least necessary to Russia, but for some dealings in strange
+land, leased lands, as they themselves call them, on which it seemed
+advantageous to some corrupt speculators to build railways and so gain
+profit; also they know, or might know, that they will be killed like
+sheep in a slaughterhouse, since the Japanese possess the latest
+improvements in tools of murder, which we do not, as the Russian
+authorities who are sending these people to death had not thought in time
+of furnishing themselves with the same weapons as the Japanese. Knowing
+all this, it would indeed be so natural to say, "Go you, those who have
+brought on this work, all you to whom war is necessary, and who justify
+it; go you, and face the Japanese bullets and mines, but we will not go,
+because we not only do not need to do this, but we cannot understand how
+it can be necessary to any one."
+
+But no, they do not say this; they go, and they will continue to go; they
+cannot but go as long as they fear that which ruins the body and not that
+which ruins both the body and the soul. "Whether we shall be killed,"
+they argue, "or maimed in these chinnampos, or whatever they are called,
+whither we are driven, we do not know; it yet may happen that we shall
+get through safely, and, moreover, with rewards and glory, like those
+sailors who are now being feasted all over Russia because the Japanese
+bombs and bullets did not hit them, but somebody else; whereas should we
+refuse, we should be certainly sent to prison, starved, beaten, exiled to
+the province of Yakoutsk, perhaps even killed immediately." So with
+despair in their hearts, leaving behind a good rational life, leaving
+their wives and their children,--they go.
+
+Yesterday I met a Reservist soldier accompanied by his mother and wife.
+All three were riding in a cart; he had had a drop too much; his wife's
+face was swollen with tears. He turned to me:--
+
+"Good-by to thee! Lyof Nikolaevitch, off to the Far East."
+
+"Well, art thou going to fight?"
+
+"Well, some one has to fight!"
+
+"No one need fight!"
+
+He reflected for a moment. "But what is one to do; where can one
+escape?"
+
+I saw that he had understood me, had understood that the work to which he
+was being sent was an evil work.
+
+"Where can one escape?" That is the precise expression of that mental
+condition which in the official and journalistic world is translated into
+the words--"For the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland." Those who,
+abandoning their hungry families, go to suffering, to death, say as they
+feel, "Where can one escape?" Whereas those who sit in safety in their
+luxurious palaces say that all Russian men are ready to sacrifice their
+lives for their adored Monarch, and for the glory and greatness of
+Russia.
+
+Yesterday, from a peasant I know, I received two letters, one after the
+other. This is the first:--
+
+"Dear Lyof Nikolaevitch,--Well, to-day I have received the official
+announcement of my call to the Service; to-morrow I must present myself
+at the headquarters. That is all. And after that--to the Far East to meet
+the Japanese bullets. About my own and my household's grief I will not
+tell you; it is not you who will fail to understand all the horror of my
+position and the horrors of war; all this you have long ago painfully
+realized, and you understand it all. How I have longed to visit you, to
+have a talk with you! I had written to you a long letter in which I
+described the torments of my soul; but I had not had time to copy it,
+when I received my summons. What is my wife to do now with her four
+children? As an old man, of course, you cannot do anything yourself for
+my folks, but you might ask some of your friends in their leisure to
+visit my orphaned family. I beg you earnestly that if my wife proves
+unable to bear the agony of her helplessness with her burden of children
+and makes up her mind to go to you for help and counsel, you will receive
+and console her. Although she does not know you personally, she believes
+in your word, and that means much. I was not able to resist the summons,
+but I say beforehand that through me not one Japanese family shall be
+orphaned. My God! how dreadful is all this--how distressing and painful
+to abandon all by which one lives and in which one is concerned."
+
+The second letter is as follows: "Kindest Lyof Nikolaevitch, Only one day
+of actual service has passed, and I have already lived through an
+eternity of most desperate torments. From 8 o'clock in the morning till 9
+in the evening we have been crowded and knocked about to and fro in the
+barrack yard, like a herd of cattle. The comedy of medical examination
+was three times repeated, and those who had reported themselves ill did
+not receive even ten minutes' attention before they were marked
+'Satisfactory.' When we, these two thousand satisfactory individuals,
+were driven from the military commander to the barracks, along the road
+spread out for almost a verst stood a crowd of relatives, mothers, and
+wives with infants in arms; and if you had only heard and seen how they
+clasped their fathers, husbands, sons, and hanging round their necks
+wailed hopelessly! Generally I behave in a reserved way and can restrain
+my feelings, but I could not hold out, and I also wept. [In journalistic
+language this same is expressed thus: "The upheaval of patriotic feeling
+is immense."] Where is the standard that can measure all this immensity
+of woe now spreading itself over almost one-third of the world? And we,
+we are now that food for cannon, which in the near future will be offered
+as sacrifice to the God of vengeance and horror. I cannot manage to
+establish my inner balance. Oh! how I execrate myself for this
+double-mindedness which prevents my serving one Master and God."
+
+This man does not yet sufficiently believe that what destroys the body is
+not dreadful, but that which destroys both the body and the soul,
+therefore he cannot refuse to go; yet while leaving his own family he
+promises beforehand that through him not one Japanese family shall be
+orphaned; he believes in the chief law of God, the law of all
+religions--to act toward others as one wishes others to act toward
+oneself. Of such men more or less consciously recognizing this law, there
+are in our time, not in the Christian world alone, but in the Buddhistic,
+Mahomedan, Confucian, and Brahminic world, not only thousands but
+millions.
+
+There exist true heroes, not those who are now being fêted because,
+having wished to kill others, they were not killed themselves, but true
+heroes, who are now confined in prisons and in the province of Yakoutsk
+for having categorically refused to enter the ranks of murderers, and who
+have preferred martyrdom to this departure from the law of Jesus. There
+are also such as he who writes to me, who go, but who will not kill. But
+also that majority which goes without thinking, and endeavors not to
+think of what it is doing, still in the depth of its soul does now
+already feel that it is doing an evil deed by obeying authorities who
+tear men from labor and from their families and send them to needless
+slaughter of men, repugnant to their soul and their faith; and they go
+only because they are so entangled on all sides that--"Where can one
+escape?"
+
+Meanwhile those who remain at home not only feel this, but know and
+express it. Yesterday in the high road I met some peasants returning from
+Toula. One of them was reading a leaflet as he walked by the side of his
+cart.
+
+I asked, "What is that--a telegram?"
+
+"This is yesterday's,--but here is one of to-day." He took another out of
+his pocket. We stopped. I read it.
+
+"You should have seen what took place yesterday at the station," he said;
+"it was dreadful. Wives, children, more than a thousand of them, weeping.
+They surrounded the train, but were allowed no further. Strangers wept,
+looking on. One woman from Toula gasped and fell down dead. Five
+children. They have since been placed in various institutions; but the
+father was driven away all the same.... What do we want with this
+Manchuria, or whatever it is called? There is sufficient land here. And
+what a lot of people and of property has been destroyed."
+
+Yes, the relation of men to war is now quite different from that which
+formerly existed, even so lately as the year '77. That which is now
+taking place never took place before.
+
+The papers set forth that, during the receptions of the Tsar, who is
+travelling about Russia for the purpose of hypnotizing the men who are
+being sent to murder, indescribable enthusiasm is manifested amongst the
+people. As a matter of fact, something quite different is being
+manifested. From all sides one hears reports that in one place three
+Reservists have hanged themselves; in another spot, two more; in yet
+another, about a woman whose husband had been taken away bringing her
+children to the conscription committee-room and leaving them there; while
+another hanged herself in the yard of the military commander. All are
+dissatisfied, gloomy, exasperated. The words, "For the Faith, the King,
+and the Fatherland," the National Anthem, and shouts of "Hurrah" no
+longer act upon people as they once did. Another warfare of a different
+kind--the struggling consciousness of the deceit and sinfulness of the
+work to which people are being called--is more and more taking possession
+of the people.
+
+Yes, the great strife of our time is not that now taking place between
+the Japanese and the Russians, nor that which may blaze up between the
+white and yellow races, not that strife which is carried on by mines,
+bombs, bullets, but that spiritual strife which without ceasing has gone
+on and is now going on between the enlightened consciousness of mankind
+now waiting for manifestation and that darkness and that burden which
+surrounds and oppresses mankind.
+
+In His own time Jesus yearned in expectation, and said, "I came to cast
+fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled." Luke
+xii. 49.
+
+That which Jesus longed for is being accomplished, the fire is being
+kindled. Then do not let us check it, but let us spread and serve it.
+
+13 May, 1904.
+
+I should never finish this paper if I were to continue to add to it all
+that corroborates its essential idea. Yesterday the news came in of the
+sinking of the Japanese ironclads; and in the so-called higher circles of
+Russian fashionable, rich, intellectual society they are, without the
+slightest conscientious scruples, rejoicing at the destruction of a
+thousand human lives. Yet to-day I have received from a simple seaman, a
+man standing on the lowest plane of society, the following letter:[3]
+
+"Much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch, I greet you with a low bow, with love,
+much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch. I have read your book. It was very
+pleasant reading for me. I have been a great lover of reading your works.
+Well, Lyof Nikolaevitch, we are now in a state of war, please write to me
+whether it is agreeable to God or not that our commanders compel us to
+kill. I beg you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, write to me please whether or not the
+truth now exists on earth. Tell me, Lyof Nikolaevitch. In church here a
+prayer is being read, the priest mentions the Christ-loving army. Is it
+true or not that God loves war? I pray you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, have you
+got any books from which I could see whether truth exists on earth or
+not? Send me such books. What they cost, I will pay. I beg you, Lyof
+Nikolaevitch, do not neglect my request. If there are no books then send
+me a letter. I will be very glad when I receive a letter from you. I will
+await your letter with impatience. Good-by for the present. I remain
+alive and well and wish the same to you from the Lord God. Good health
+and good success in your work."
+
+
+  [3] The letter is written in a most illiterate way, filled with
+      mistakes in orthography and punctuation.
+                                                              (Trans.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "Bethink Yourselves", by Leo Tolstoi
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Bethink Yourselves", by Leo Tolstoi
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: "Bethink Yourselves"
+
+Author: Leo Tolstoi
+
+Translator: V. Tchertkoff
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27189]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "BETHINK YOURSELVES" ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gerard Arthus, Jana Srna and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
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+
+
+
+</pre>
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+<hr style="width: 6em; margin: 1em auto; color: black; background-color: black; height: 1px; border: none;"/>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 1.5em; font-size: 0.8em;">Edited with introductions by Edwin D. Mead.
+Published for the International Union by Ginn &amp;
+Company, Boston.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3em; page-break-before: always;">&ldquo;BETHINK YOURSELVES!&rdquo;</h1>
+
+<p class="center" style="line-height: 2em;">BY
+LEO TOLSTOI</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 8em; line-height: 1.5em;"><small>PUBLISHED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL UNION</small><br/>
+GINN &amp; COMPANY, BOSTON<br/>
+1904</p>
+
+<div style="font-size: 0.8em; margin: 16em auto; page-break-before: always;">
+<p class="center">Reprinted from the <i>London Times</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Translated by <span class="smcap">V. Tchertkoff</span>, Editor of the <i>Free Age Press</i>,<br/>
+and I. F. M.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style="page-break-before: always;"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1">1</a></span></div>
+<p class="center">&ldquo;BETHINK YOURSELVES!&rdquo;</p>
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 1em; font-size: 0.8em;">&ldquo;This is your hour, and the power of darkness.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Luke</span> xxii. 53.</p>
+
+<h2 style="margin-top: 1.5em;">I</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Again</span> war. Again sufferings, necessary to nobody,
+utterly uncalled for; again fraud; again the universal
+stupefaction and brutalization of men.</p>
+<p>Men who are separated from each other by thousands
+of miles, hundreds of thousands of such men (on the
+one hand&mdash;Buddhists, whose law forbids the killing,
+not only of men, but of animals; on the other hand&mdash;Christians,
+professing the law of brotherhood and love)
+like wild beasts on land and on sea are seeking out each
+other, in order to kill, torture, and mutilate each other
+in the most cruel way. What can this be? Is it a
+dream or a reality? Something is taking place which
+should not, cannot be; one longs to believe that it is a
+dream and to awake from it. But no, it is not a dream,
+it is a dreadful reality!</p>
+<p>One could yet understand how a poor, uneducated,
+defrauded Japanese, torn from his field and taught that
+Buddhism consists not in compassion to all that lives,
+but in sacrifices to idols, and how a similar poor illiterate
+fellow from the neighborhood of Toula or Nijni Novgorod,
+who has been taught that Christianity consists
+in worshipping Christ, the Madonna, Saints, and their
+ikons&mdash;one could understand how these unfortunate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2">2</a></span>
+men, brought by the violence and deceit of centuries to
+recognize the greatest crime in the world&mdash;the murder
+of one's brethren&mdash;as a virtuous act, can commit these
+dreadful deeds, without regarding themselves as being
+guilty in so doing.</p>
+<p>But how can so-called enlightened men preach war,
+support it, participate in it, and, worst of all, without
+suffering the dangers of war themselves, incite others
+to it, sending their unfortunate defrauded brothers to
+fight? These so-called enlightened men cannot possibly
+ignore, I do not say the Christian law, if they recognize
+themselves to be Christians, but all that has been
+written, is being written, has and is being said, about the
+cruelty, futility, and senselessness of war. They are regarded
+as enlightened men precisely because they know
+all this. The majority of them have themselves written
+and spoken about this. Not to mention The Hague Conference,
+which called forth universal praise, or all the
+books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and speeches
+demonstrating the possibility of the solution of international
+misunderstandings by international arbitration&mdash;no
+enlightened man can help knowing that the
+universal competition in the armaments of States
+must inevitably lead them to endless wars, or to a
+general bankruptcy, or to both the one and the other.
+They cannot but know that besides the senseless, purposeless
+expenditure of milliards of roubles, <i>i.e.</i> of
+human labor, on the preparations for war, during the
+wars themselves millions of the most energetic and
+vigorous men perish in that period of their life which
+is best for productive labor (during the past century
+wars have destroyed fourteen million men). Enlightened
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3">3</a></span>
+men cannot but know that occasions for war are
+always such as are not worth not only one human life,
+but not one hundredth part of all that which is spent
+upon wars (in fighting for the emancipation of the
+negroes much more was spent than it would have cost
+to redeem them from slavery).</p>
+<p>Every one knows and cannot help knowing that,
+above all, wars, calling forth the lowest animal passions,
+deprave and brutalize men. Every one knows
+the weakness of the arguments in favor of war, such
+as were brought forward by De Maistre, Moltke, and
+others, for they are all founded on the sophism that in
+every human calamity it is possible to find an advantageous
+element, or else upon the utterly arbitrary
+assertion that wars have always existed and therefore
+always must exist, as if the bad actions of men could
+be justified by the advantages or the usefulness which
+they realize, or by the consideration that they have
+been committed during a long period of time. All
+so-called enlightened men know all this. Then suddenly
+war begins, and all this is instantly forgotten,
+and the same men who but yesterday were proving
+the cruelty, futility, the senselessness of wars now
+think, speak, and write only about killing as many
+men as possible, about ruining and destroying the
+greatest possible amount of the productions of human
+labor, and about exciting as much as possible the
+passion of hatred in those peaceful, harmless, industrious
+men who by their labor feed, clothe, maintain
+these same pseudo-enlightened men, who compel them
+to commit those dreadful deeds contrary to their conscience,
+welfare, or faith.</p>
+
+<div class="new-h2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4">4</a></span></p>
+<h2>II</h2>
+
+<p>Something is taking place incomprehensible and
+impossible in its cruelty, falsehood, and stupidity.
+The Russian Tsar, the same man who exhorted all the
+nations in the cause of peace, publicly announces
+that, notwithstanding all his efforts to maintain the
+peace so dear to his heart (efforts which express themselves
+in the seizing of other peoples' lands and in the
+strengthening of armies for the defence of these stolen
+lands), he, owing to the attack of the Japanese, commands
+that the same shall be done to the Japanese
+as they had commenced doing to the Russians&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>
+that they should be slaughtered; and in announcing
+this call to murder he mentions God, asking the Divine
+blessing on the most dreadful crime in the world. The
+Japanese Emperor has proclaimed the same thing in
+relation to the Russians.</p>
+<p>Men of science and of law (Messieurs Muravieff and
+Martens) strenuously try to prove that in the recent
+call of all nations to universal peace and the present
+incitement to war, because of the seizure of other
+peoples' lands, there is no contradiction. Diplomatists,
+in their refined French language, publish and send
+out circulars in which they circumstantially and diligently
+prove (though they know no one believes them)
+that, after all its efforts to establish peaceful relations
+(in reality, after all its efforts to deceive other countries),
+the Russian Government has been compelled to
+have recourse to the only means for a rational solution
+of the question&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> to the murder of men. The
+same thing is written by Japanese diplomatists. Scientists,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5">5</a></span>
+historians, and philosophers, on their side, comparing
+the present with the past, deduce from these
+comparisons profound conclusions, and argue interminably
+about the laws of the movement of nations,
+about the relation between the yellow and white races,
+or about Buddhism and Christianity, and on the basis of
+these deductions and arguments justify the slaughter
+of those belonging to the yellow race by Christians;
+while in the same way the Japanese scientists and
+philosophers justify the slaughter of those of the white
+race. Journalists, without concealing their joy, try
+to outdo each other, and, not hesitating at any falsehood,
+however impudent and transparent, prove in all
+possible ways that the Russians only are right and
+strong and good in every respect, and that all the
+Japanese are wrong and weak and bad in every respect,
+and that all those are also bad who are inimical or may
+become inimical toward the Russians&mdash;the English,
+the Americans; and the same is proved likewise by
+the Japanese and their supporters in relation to the
+Russians.</p>
+<p>Not to mention the military, who in the way of their
+profession prepare for murder, crowds of so-called enlightened
+people, such as professors, social reformers,
+students, nobles, merchants, without being forced thereto
+by anything or anybody, express the most bitter and
+contemptuous feelings toward the Japanese, the English,
+or the Americans, toward whom but yesterday
+they were either well-disposed or indifferent; while,
+without the least compulsion, they express the most
+abject, servile feelings toward the Tsar (to whom, to
+say the least, they were completely indifferent), assuring
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6">6</a></span>
+him of their unlimited love and readiness to sacrifice
+their lives in his interests.</p>
+<p>This unfortunate, entangled young man, recognized as
+the leader of one hundred and thirty millions of people,
+continually deceived and compelled to contradict himself,
+confidently thanks and blesses the troops whom he
+calls his own for murder in defence of lands which with
+yet less right he also calls his own. All present to each
+other hideous ikons in which not only no one amongst
+the educated believes, but which unlearned peasants are
+beginning to abandon; all bow down to the ground
+before these ikons, kiss them, and pronounce pompous
+and deceitful speeches in which no one really believes.</p>
+<p>Wealthy people contribute insignificant portions of
+their immorally acquired riches for this cause of murder
+or the organization of help in connection with the work
+of murder; while the poor, from whom the Government
+annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do
+likewise, giving their mites also. The Government
+incites and encourages crowds of idlers, who walk about
+the streets with the Tsar's portrait, singing, shouting
+hurrah! and who, under pretext of patriotism, are
+licensed in all kinds of excess. All over Russia, from
+the Palace to the remotest village, the pastors of
+churches, calling themselves Christians, appeal to that
+God who has enjoined love to one's enemies&mdash;to the
+God of Love Himself&mdash;to help the work of the devil
+to further the slaughter of men.</p>
+<p>Stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, by processions,
+pictures, and newspapers, the cannon's flesh,
+hundreds of thousands of men, uniformly dressed, carrying
+divers deadly weapons, leaving their parents, wives,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7">7</a></span>
+children, with hearts of agony, but with artificial sprightliness,
+go where they, risking their own lives, will
+commit the most dreadful act of killing men whom
+they do not know and who have done them no harm.
+And they are followed by doctors and nurses, who
+somehow imagine that at home they cannot serve simple,
+peaceful, suffering people, but can only serve those who
+are engaged in slaughtering each other. Those who
+remain at home are gladdened by news of the murder
+of men, and when they learn that many Japanese have
+been killed they thank some one whom they call God.</p>
+<p>All this is not only regarded as the manifestation of
+elevated feeling, but those who refrain from such manifestations,
+if they endeavor to disabuse men, are deemed
+traitors and betrayers, and are in danger of being abused
+and beaten by a brutalized crowd which, in defence of
+its insanity and cruelty, can possess no other weapon
+than brute force.</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">III</h2>
+
+<p>It is as if there had never existed either Voltaire, or
+Montaigne, or Pascal, or Swift, or Kant, or Spinoza, or
+hundreds of other writers who have exposed, with great
+force, the madness and futility of war, and have described
+its cruelty, immorality, and savagery; and,
+above all, it is as if there had never existed Jesus and
+his teaching of human brotherhood and love of God
+and of men.</p>
+<p>One recalls all this to mind and looks around on what
+is now taking place, and one experiences horror less at
+the abominations of war than at that which is the
+most horrible of all horrors&mdash;the consciousness of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8">8</a></span>
+impotency of human reason. That which alone distinguishes
+man from the animal, that which constitutes
+his merit&mdash;his reason&mdash;is found to be an unnecessary,
+and not only a useless, but a pernicious addition, which
+simply impedes action, like a bridle fallen from a
+horse's head, and entangled in his legs and only irritating
+him.</p>
+<p>It is comprehensible that a heathen, a Greek, a Roman,
+even a mediæval Christian, ignorant of the Gospel
+and blindly believing all the prescriptions of the
+Church, might fight and, fighting, pride himself on his
+military achievements; but how can a believing Christian,
+or even a sceptic, involuntarily permeated by the
+Christian ideals of human brotherhood and love which
+have inspired the works of the philosophers, moralists,
+and artists of our time,&mdash;how can such take a gun, or
+stand by a cannon, and aim at a crowd of his fellow-men,
+desiring to kill as many of them as possible?</p>
+<p>The Assyrians, Romans, or Greeks might be persuaded
+that in fighting they were acting not only
+according to their conscience, but even fulfilling a
+righteous deed. But, whether we wish it or not, we
+are Christians, and however Christianity may have been
+distorted, its general spirit cannot but lift us to that
+higher plane of reason whence we can no longer refrain
+from feeling with our whole being not only the senselessness
+and the cruelty of war, but its complete opposition
+to all that we regard as good and right. Therefore,
+we cannot do as they did, with assurance, firmness, and
+peace, and without a consciousness of our criminality,
+without the desperate feeling of a murderer, who, having
+begun to kill his victim, and feeling in the depths
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9">9</a></span>
+of his soul the guilt of his act, proceeds to try to
+stupefy or infuriate himself, to be able the better to
+complete his dreadful deed. All the unnatural, feverish,
+hot-headed, insane excitement which has now
+seized the idle upper ranks of Russian society is merely
+the symptom of their recognition of the criminality of
+the work which is being done. All these insolent,
+mendacious speeches about devotion to, and worship
+of, the Monarch, about readiness to sacrifice life (or
+one should say other people's lives, and not one's
+own); all these promises to defend with one's breast
+land which does not belong to one; all these senseless
+benedictions of each other with various banners and
+monstrous ikons; all these <i>Te Deums</i>; all these preparations
+of blankets and bandages; all these detachments
+of nurses; all these contributions to the fleet and to
+the Red Cross presented to the Government, whose
+direct duty is (whilst it has the possibility of collecting
+from the people as much money as it requires), having
+declared war, to organize the necessary fleet and necessary
+means for attending the wounded; all these Slavonic,
+pompous, senseless, and blasphemous prayers,
+the utterance of which in various towns is communicated
+in the papers as important news; all these processions,
+calls for the national hymn, cheers; all this
+dreadful, desperate newspaper mendacity, which, being
+universal, does not fear exposure; all this stupefaction
+and brutalization which has now taken hold of Russian
+society, and which is being transmitted by degrees also
+to the masses; all this is only a symptom of the guilty
+consciousness of that dreadful act which is being
+accomplished.</p>
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10">10</a></span></div>
+<p>Spontaneous feeling tells men that what they are doing
+should not be; but, as the murderer who has begun
+to assassinate his victim cannot stop, so also Russian
+people now imagine that the fact of the deadly work
+having been commenced is an unanswerable argument
+in favor of war. War has been begun, and therefore
+it should go on. Thus it seems to simple, benighted,
+unlearned men, acting under the influence of the petty
+passions and stupefaction to which they have been subjected.
+In exactly the same way the most educated
+men of our time argue to prove that man does not
+possess free will, and that, therefore, even were he to
+understand that the work he has commenced is evil, he
+can no longer cease to do it. And dazed, brutalized
+men continue their dreadful work.</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">IV</h2>
+
+<p>Ask a soldier, a private, a corporal, a non-commissioned
+officer, who has abandoned his old parents, his
+wife, his children, why he is preparing to kill men whom
+he does not know; he will at first be astonished at your
+question. He is a soldier, he has taken the oath, and
+it is his duty to fulfil the orders of his commanders. If
+you tell him that war&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> the slaughter of men&mdash;does
+not conform to the command, &ldquo;Thou shalt not
+kill,&rdquo; he will say: &ldquo;And how if ours are attacked&mdash;For
+the King&mdash;For the Orthodox faith?&rdquo; (One of them
+said in answer to my question: &ldquo;And how if he
+attacks that which is sacred?&rdquo; &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+I asked. &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the banner.&rdquo;) And if you
+endeavor to explain to such a soldier that God's Commandment
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11">11</a></span>
+is more important not only than the banner
+but than anything else in the world, he will become
+silent, or he will get angry and report you to the
+authorities.</p>
+<p>Ask an officer, a general, why he goes to the war.
+He will tell you that he is a military man, and that
+the military are indispensable for the defence of the
+fatherland. As to murder not conforming to the spirit
+of the Christian law, this does not trouble him, as either
+he does not believe in this law, or, if he does, it is not
+in the law itself, but in that explanation which has been
+given to this law. But, above all, he, like the soldier,
+in place of the personal question, what should he do
+himself, always put the general question about the State,
+or the fatherland. &ldquo;At the present moment, when the
+fatherland is in danger, one should act, and not argue,&rdquo;
+he will say.</p>
+<p>Ask the diplomatists, who, by their deceits, prepare
+wars, why they do it. They will tell you that the object
+of their activity is the establishment of peace between
+nations, and that this object is attained, not by ideal,
+unrealizable theories, but by diplomatic action and
+readiness for war. And, just as the military, instead
+of the question concerning one's own action, place the
+general question, so also diplomatists will speak about
+the interests of Russia, about the unscrupulousness of
+other Powers, about the balance of power in Europe,
+but not about their own position and its activities.</p>
+<p>Ask the journalists why, by their writings, they
+incite men to war; they will say that wars in general are
+necessary and useful, especially the present war, and
+they will confirm this opinion of theirs by misty patriotic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12">12</a></span>
+phrases, and, just like the military and diplomatist,
+to the question why he, a journalist, a particular
+individual, a living man, acts in a certain way, he will
+speak about the general interests of the nation, about
+the State, civilization, the white race. In the same
+way, all those who prepare war will explain their
+participation in that work. They will perhaps agree
+that it would be desirable to abolish war, but at present
+this is impossible. At present they as Russians and as
+men who occupy certain positions, such as heads of the
+nobility, representatives of local self-government, doctors,
+workers of the Red Cross, are called upon to act
+and not to argue. &ldquo;There is no time to argue and to
+think of oneself,&rdquo; they will say, &ldquo;when there is a great
+common work to be done.&rdquo; The same will be said by
+the Tsar, seemingly responsible for the whole thing.
+He, like the soldier, will be astonished at the question,
+whether war is now necessary. He does not even
+admit the idea that the war might yet be arrested. He
+will say that he cannot refrain from fulfilling that
+which is demanded of him by the whole nation, that,
+although he does recognize that war is a great evil,
+and has used, and is ready to use, all possible means
+for its abolition&mdash;in the present case he could not help
+declaring war, and cannot help continuing it. It is
+necessary for the welfare and glory of Russia.</p>
+<p>Every one of these men, to the question why he, so
+and so, Ivan, Peter, Nicholas, whilst recognizing as
+binding upon him the Christian law which not only
+forbids the killing of one's neighbor but demands that
+one should love him, serve him, why he permits himself
+to participate in war; <i>i.e.</i> in violence, loot,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13">13</a></span>
+murder, will infallibly answer the same thing, that
+he is thus acting in the name of his fatherland, or faith,
+or oath, or honor, or civilization, or the future welfare
+of the whole of mankind&mdash;in general, of something
+abstract and indefinite. Moreover, these men are
+always so urgently occupied either by preparation for
+war, or by its organization, or discussions about it, that
+in their leisure time they can only rest from their
+labors, and have not time to occupy themselves with
+discussions about their life, regarding such discussions
+as idle.</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">V</h2>
+
+<p>Men of our Christian world and of our time are like
+a man who, having missed the right turning, the further
+he goes the more he becomes convinced that he is
+going the wrong way. Yet the greater his doubts, the
+quicker and the more desperately does he hurry on,
+consoling himself with the thought that he will arrive
+somewhere. But the time comes when it becomes quite
+clear that the way along which he is going will lead to
+nothing but a precipice, which he is already beginning
+to discern before him.</p>
+<p>In such a position stands the Christian humanity of
+our time. It is perfectly evident that, if we continue
+to live as we are now living, guided in our private lives,
+as well as in the life of separate States, by the sole
+desire of welfare for ourselves and for our State, and
+will, as we do now, think to ensure this welfare by
+violence, then, inevitably increasing the means of violence
+of one against the other and of State against
+State, we shall, first, keep subjecting ourselves more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14">14</a></span>
+and more, transferring the major portion of our productiveness
+to armaments; and, secondly, by killing in
+mutual wars the best physically developed men, we
+must become more and more degenerate and morally
+depraved.</p>
+<p>That this will be the case if we do not alter our life
+is as certain as it is mathematically certain that two
+non-parallel straight lines must meet. But not only
+is this theoretically certain in our time; it is becoming
+certain not only to thought, but also to the consciousness.
+The precipice which we approach is already
+becoming apparent to us, and the most simple, non-philosophizing,
+and uneducated men cannot but see
+that, by arming ourselves more and more against each
+other and slaughtering each other in war, we, like
+spiders in a jar, can come to nothing else but the
+destruction of each other.</p>
+<p>A sincere, serious, rational man can no longer console
+himself by the thought that matters can be mended, as
+was formerly supposed, by a universal empire such as
+that of Rome or of Charles the Great, or Napoleon, or
+by the mediæval spiritual power of the Pope, or by
+Holy Alliances, by the political balance of the European
+Concert, and by peaceful international tribunals,
+or, as some have thought, by the increase of military
+strength and the newly discovered powerful weapons
+of destruction.</p>
+<p>It is impossible to organize a universal empire or
+republic, consisting of European States, as different
+nationalities will never desire to unite into one State.
+To organize international tribunals for the solution
+of international disputes? But who will impose
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15">15</a></span>
+obedience to the decision of the tribunal upon a contending
+party who has an organized army of millions
+of men? To disarm? No one desires it or will begin
+it. To invent yet more dreadful means of destruction&mdash;balloons
+with bombs filled with suffocating gases,
+shells, which men will shower upon each other from
+above? Whatever may be invented, all States will
+furnish themselves with similar weapons of destruction.
+And cannon's flesh, as after cold weapons it submitted
+to bullets, and meekly exposed itself to shells, bombs,
+far-reaching guns, mitrailleuses, mines, so it will also
+submit to bombs charged with suffocating gases scattered
+down upon it from balloons.</p>
+<p>Nothing shows more evidently than the speeches of
+M. Muravieff and Professor Martens about the Japanese
+war not contradicting The Hague Peace Conference&mdash;nothing
+shows more obviously than these
+speeches to what an extent, amongst the men of our
+time, the means for the transmission of thought&mdash;speech&mdash;is
+distorted, and how the capacity for clear,
+rational thinking is completely lost. Thought and
+speech are used for the purpose, not of serving as a
+guide for human activity, but of justifying any activity,
+however criminal it may be. The late Boer war
+and the present Japanese war, which can at any moment
+pass into a universal slaughter, have proved this
+beyond all doubt. All anti-military discussions can as
+little contribute to the cessation of war as the most
+eloquent and persuasive considerations addressed to
+fighting dogs as to its being more advantageous to
+divide the piece of meat over which they are struggling
+than to mutilate each other and lose the piece of meat,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16">16</a></span>
+which will be carried away by some passing dog not
+joining in the fight. We are dashing on toward the
+precipice, cannot stop, and we are approaching its
+edge.</p>
+<p>For every rational man who reflects upon the position
+in which humanity is now placed and upon that which
+it is inevitably approaching, it cannot but be obvious
+that there is no practical issue out of this position, that
+one cannot devise any combination or organization
+which would save us from the destruction toward
+which we are inevitably rushing. Not to mention the
+economical problems which become more and more
+complex, those mutual relations between the States
+arming themselves against each other and at any
+moment ready to break out into wars clearly point to
+the certain destruction toward which all so-called civilized
+humanity is being carried. Then what is to be
+done?</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">VI</h2>
+
+<p>Two thousand years ago John the Baptist and then
+Jesus said to men: The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom
+of God is at hand; (<ins class="greek" title="metanoeite">&mu;&epsilon;&tau;&alpha;&nu;&omicron;&epsilon;&#x1fd6;&tau;&epsilon;</ins>) bethink yourselves
+and believe in the Gospel (Mark i. 15); and if you
+do not bethink yourselves you will all perish (Luke
+xiii. 5).</p>
+<p>But men did not listen to them, and the destruction
+they foretold is already near at hand. And we men of
+our time cannot but see it. We are already perishing,
+and, therefore, we cannot leave unheeded that&mdash;old in
+time, but for us new&mdash;means of salvation. We cannot
+but see that, besides all the other calamities which flow
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17">17</a></span>
+from our bad and irrational life, military preparations
+alone and the wars inevitably growing from them must
+infallibly destroy us. We cannot but see that all the
+means of escape invented by men from these evils are
+found and must be found to be ineffectual, and that the
+disastrous position of the nations arming themselves
+against each other cannot but go on advancing continually.
+And therefore the words of Jesus refer to us
+and our time more than to any time or to any one.</p>
+<p>Jesus said, &ldquo;Bethink yourselves&rdquo;&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> &ldquo;Let every
+man interrupt the work he has begun and ask himself:
+Who am I? From whence have I appeared, and in what
+consists my destiny? And having answered these
+questions, according to the answer decide whether that
+which thou doest is in conformity with thy destiny.&rdquo;
+And every man of our world and time, that is, being
+acquainted with the essence of the Christian teaching,
+needs only for a minute to interrupt his activity, to forget
+the capacity in which he is regarded by men, be it
+of Emperor, soldier, minister, or journalist, and seriously
+ask himself who he is and what is his destiny&mdash;in
+order to begin to doubt the utility, lawfulness,
+and reasonableness of his actions. &ldquo;Before I am Emperor,
+soldier, minister, or journalist,&rdquo; must say to himself
+every man of our time and of the Christian world,
+&ldquo;before any of these, I am a man&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> an organic
+being sent by the Higher Will into a universe infinite
+in time and space, in order, after staying in it for an instant,
+to die&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> to disappear from it. And, therefore,
+all those personal, social, and even universal human
+aims which I may place before myself and which are
+placed before me by men are all insignificant, owing to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18">18</a></span>
+the shortness of my life as well as to the infiniteness of
+the life of the universe, and should be subordinated to
+that higher aim for the attainment of which I am sent
+into the world. This ultimate aim, owing to my limitations,
+is inaccessible to me, but it does exist (as there
+must be a purpose in all that exists), and my business is
+that of being its instrument&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> my destiny, my
+vocation, is that of being a workman of God, of
+fulfilling His work.&rdquo; And having understood this
+destiny, every man of our world and time, from
+Emperor to soldier, cannot but regard differently those
+duties which he has taken upon himself or other men
+have imposed upon him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Before I was crowned, recognized as Emperor,&rdquo;
+must the Emperor say to himself: &ldquo;before I undertook
+to fulfil the duties of the head of the State, I, by the
+very fact that I live, have promised to fulfil that which
+is demanded of me by the Higher Will that sent me
+into life. These demands I not only know, but feel in
+my heart. They consist, as it is expressed in the
+Christian law, which I profess, in that I should submit
+to the will of God, and fulfil that which it requires of
+me, that I should love my neighbor, serve him, and act
+towards him as I would wish others to act towards me.
+Am I doing this?&mdash;ruling men, prescribing violence,
+executions, and, the most dreadful of all,&mdash;wars. Men
+tell me that I ought to do this. But God says that
+I ought to do something quite different. And, therefore,
+however much I may be told that, as the head
+of the State, I must direct acts of violence, the levying
+of taxes, executions and, above all, war, that is,
+the slaughter of one's neighbor, I do not wish to and
+cannot do these things.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19">19</a></span></div>
+<p>So must say to himself the soldier, who is taught
+that he must kill men, and the minister, who deemed it
+his duty to prepare for war, and the journalist who
+incited to war, and every man, who puts to himself the
+question, Who is he, what is his destination in life?
+And the moment the head of the State will cease to
+direct war, the soldier to fight, the minister to prepare
+means for war, the journalist to incite thereto&mdash;then,
+without any new institutions, adaptations, balance of
+power, tribunals, there will of itself be destroyed that
+hopeless position in which men have placed themselves,
+not only in relation to war, but also to all other calamities
+which they themselves inflict upon themselves.</p>
+<p>So that, however strange this may appear, the most
+effective and certain deliverance of men from all the
+calamities which they inflict upon themselves and from
+the most dreadful of all&mdash;war&mdash;is attainable, not by
+any external general measures, but merely by that
+simple appeal to the consciousness of each separate
+man which, nineteen hundred years ago, was proposed
+by Jesus&mdash;that every man bethink himself, and
+ask himself, who is he, why he lives, and what he should
+and should not do.</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">VII</h2>
+
+<p>The evil from which men of our time are suffering
+is produced by the fact that the majority live without
+that which alone affords a rational guidance for human
+activity&mdash;without religion; not that religion which
+consists in belief in dogmas, in the fulfilment of rites
+which afford a pleasant diversion, consolation, stimulant,
+but that religion which establishes the relation of man
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20">20</a></span>
+to the All, to God, and, therefore, gives a general higher
+direction to all human activity, and without which
+people stand on the plane of animals and even lower
+than they. This evil which is leading men to inevitable
+destruction has manifested itself with special power
+in our time, because, having lost all rational guidance
+in life, and having directed all efforts to discoveries and
+improvements principally in the sphere of technical
+knowledge, men of our time have developed in themselves
+enormous power over the forces of nature; but,
+not having any guidance for the rational adaptation of
+this power, they naturally have used it for the satisfaction
+of their lowest and most animal propensities.</p>
+<p>Bereft of religion, men possessing enormous power
+over the forces of nature are like children to whom
+powder or explosive gas has been given as a plaything.
+Considering this power which men of our time possess,
+and the way they use it, one feels that considering the
+degree of their moral development men have no right,
+not only to the use of railways, steam, electricity, telephones,
+photography, wireless telegraphs, but even to
+the simple art of manufacturing iron and steel, as all
+these improvements and arts they use only for the
+satisfaction of their lusts, for amusement, dissipation,
+and the destruction of each other.</p>
+<p>Then, what is to be done? To reject all these improvements
+of life, all this power acquired by humanity&mdash;to
+forget that which it has learnt? This is impossible,
+however perniciously these mental acquisitions are
+used; they still are acquisitions, and men cannot forget
+them. To alter those combinations of nations which
+have been formed during centuries and to establish new
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21">21</a></span>
+ones? To invent such new institutions as would hinder
+the minority from deceiving and exploiting the majority?
+To disseminate knowledge? All this has been tried, and
+is being done with great fervor. All these imaginary
+methods of improvement represent the chief methods
+of self-oblivion and of diverting one's attention from
+the consciousness of inevitable perdition. The boundaries
+of States are changed, institutions are altered,
+knowledge is disseminated; but within other boundaries,
+with other organizations, with increased knowledge,
+men remain the same beasts, ready any minute
+to tear each other to pieces, or the same slaves they
+have always been, and always will be, while they continue
+to be guided, not by religious consciousness, but
+by passions, theories, and external influences.</p>
+<p>Man has no choice; he must be the slave of the most
+unscrupulous and insolent amongst slaves, or else the
+servant of God, because for man there is only one way
+of being free&mdash;by uniting his will with the will of God.
+People bereft of religion, some repudiating religion itself,
+others recognizing as religion those external, monstrous
+forms which have superseded it, and guided only
+by their personal lusts, fear, human laws, and, above all,
+by mutual hypnotism, cannot cease to be animals or
+slaves, and no external efforts can extricate them from
+this state; for only religion makes a man free. And
+most of the people of our time are deprived of it.</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">VIII</h2>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, in order to abolish the evil from which we are
+suffering,&rdquo; those will say who are preoccupied by various
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22">22</a></span>
+practical activities, &ldquo;it would be necessary that not
+a few men only, but all men, should bethink themselves,
+and that, having done so, they should uniformly understand
+the destination of their lives, in the fulfilment of
+the will of God and in the service of one's neighbor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is this possible?&rdquo; Not only possible, do I answer,
+but it is impossible that this should not take place.
+It is impossible for men not to bethink themselves&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>
+impossible that each man should not put to himself
+the question as to who he is and wherefore he
+lives; for man, as a rational being, cannot live without
+seeking to know why he lives, and he has always
+put to himself this question, and always, according
+to the degree of his development, has answered it in
+his religious teaching. In our time, the inner contradiction
+in which men feel themselves elicits this question
+with special insistence, and demands an answer.
+It is impossible for men of our time to answer this
+question otherwise than by recognizing the law of life
+in love to men and in the service of them, this being
+for our time the only rational answer as to the meaning
+of human life; and this answer nineteen hundred
+years ago has been expressed in the Christian
+religion and is likewise known to the vast majority of
+all mankind.</p>
+<p>This answer in a latent state lives in the consciousness
+of all men of the Christian world of our time;
+but it does not openly express itself and serve as
+guidance for our life, only because, on the one hand,
+those who enjoy the greatest authority, so-called scientists,
+being under the coarse error that religion is a
+temporary and outgrown step in the development of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23">23</a></span>
+mankind and that men can live without religion, inculcate
+this error to those of the masses who are beginning
+to be educated; and, on the other hand, because those
+in power, sometimes consciously, but often unconsciously
+(being under the error that the Church faith
+is Christian religion), endeavor to support and excite
+in the people crude superstitions given out as the
+Christian religion. If only these two deceptions were
+to be destroyed, then true religion, already latent in
+men of our time, would become evident and obligatory.</p>
+<p>To bring this about it is necessary that, on the one
+hand, men of science should understand that the principle
+of the brotherhood of all men and the rule of not
+doing unto others what one does not wish for oneself
+is not one casual idea out of a multitude of human
+theories which can be subordinated to any other considerations,
+but is an incontestable principle, standing
+higher than the rest, and flowing from the changeless
+relation of man to that which is eternal, to God, and is
+religion, all religion, and, therefore, always obligatory.</p>
+<p>On the other hand, it is necessary that those who
+consciously or unconsciously preach crude superstitions
+under the guise of Christianity should understand that
+all these dogmas, sacraments, and rites which they support
+and preach are not only, as they think, harmless,
+but are in the highest degree pernicious, concealing
+from men that central religious truth which is expressed
+in the fulfilment of God's will, in the service of men,
+and that the rule of acting toward others as one would
+wish others to act toward oneself is not merely one of
+the prescriptions of the Christian religion, but is the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24">24</a></span>
+whole of practical religion, as indeed is stated in the
+Gospels.</p>
+<p>To bring about that men of our time should uniformly
+place before themselves the question of the
+meaning of life, and uniformly answer it, it is only
+necessary that those who regard themselves as enlightened
+should cease to think and to inculcate to other
+generations that religion is atavism, the survival of a
+past wild state, and that for the good life of men the
+spreading of education is sufficient&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> the spread of
+the most varied knowledge which is in some way to
+bring men to justice and to a moral life. These men
+should understand instead that for the good life of humanity
+religion is vital, and that this religion already
+exists and lives in the consciousness of the men of our
+time. Men who are intentionally and unintentionally
+stupefying the people by church superstitions should
+cease to do so, and recognize that what is important and
+binding in Christianity is not baptism, nor Communion,
+nor profession of dogmas, etc., but only love to God
+and to one's neighbor, and the fulfilling of the commandment
+of acting toward others as one wishes
+others to act toward oneself&mdash;and that in this lies
+all the law and the prophets.</p>
+<p>If only both pseudo-Christians and men of science
+understood and preached to children and to the uneducated
+these simple, clear, and necessary truths as they
+now preach their complicated, confused, and unnecessary
+theories, all men would uniformly understand the
+meaning of their lives and recognize one and the same
+duties as flowing from this meaning.</p>
+
+<div class="new-h2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25">25</a></span></p>
+<h2>IX</h2>
+
+<p>But &ldquo;How are we to act now, immediately among
+ourselves, in Russia, at this moment, when our foes
+have already attacked us, are killing our people, and
+threatening us; what should be the action,&rdquo; I shall be
+asked, &ldquo;of a Russian soldier, officer, general, Tsar, private
+individual? Are we, forsooth, to allow our enemies
+to ruin our possessions, to seize the productions
+of our labors, to carry away prisoners, or kill our
+men? What are we to do now that this thing has
+begun?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But before the work of war was commenced, by
+whomsoever it was commenced&mdash;every awakened man
+must answer&mdash;before all else the work of my life was
+commenced. And the work of my life has nothing in
+common with recognition of the rights of the Chinese,
+Japanese, or Russians to Port Arthur. The work of
+my life consists in fulfilling the will of Him who sent
+me into this life. This will is known to me. This will
+is that I should love my neighbor and serve him.
+Then why should I, following temporary, casual, irrational,
+and cruel demands, deviate from the known
+eternal and changeless law of all my life? If there be
+a God, He will not ask me when I die (which may
+happen at any moment) whether I retained Chi-nam-po
+with its timber stores, or Port Arthur, or even that conglomeration
+which is called the Russian Empire, which
+He did not confide to my care; but He will ask me
+what I have done with that life which He put at my
+disposal;&mdash;did I use it for the purpose for which it
+was predestined, and under the conditions for fulfilling
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26">26</a></span>
+which it was intrusted to me? Have I fulfilled His
+law?</p>
+<p>So that to this question as to what is to be done now,
+when war is commenced, for me, a man who understands
+his destiny, whatever position I may occupy, there
+can be no other answer than this, whatever be my circumstances,
+whether the war be commenced or not,
+whether thousands of Russians or Japanese be killed,
+whether not only Port Arthur be taken, but St. Petersburg
+and Moscow&mdash;I cannot act otherwise than as God
+demands of me, and that therefore I as a man can neither
+directly nor indirectly, neither by directing, nor by helping,
+nor by inciting to it, participate in war; I cannot,
+I do not wish to, and I will not. What will happen
+immediately or soon, from my ceasing to do that which
+is contrary to the will of God, I do not and cannot
+know; but I believe that from the fulfilment of the
+will of God there can follow nothing but that which
+is good for me and for all men.</p>
+<p>You speak with horror about what might happen
+if we Russians at this moment ceased to fight, and
+surrendered to the Japanese what they desire from us.
+But if it be true that the salvation of mankind from
+brutalization and self-destruction lies only in the establishment
+amongst men of that true religion which
+demands that we should love our neighbor and serve
+him (with which it is impossible to disagree), then
+every war, every hour of war, and my participation in
+it, only renders more difficult and distant the realization
+of this only possible salvation.</p>
+<p>So that, even if one places oneself on the unstable
+point of view of defining actions according to their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27">27</a></span>
+presumed consequences&mdash;even then the surrender to
+the Japanese by the Russians of all which the former
+desire of us, besides the unquestionable advantage
+of the cessation of ruin and slaughter, would be an
+approach to the only means of the salvation of mankind
+from destruction; whereas the continuance of the
+war, however it may end, will be a postponement of
+that only means of salvation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yet even if this be so,&rdquo; it is replied, &ldquo;wars can
+cease only when all men, or the majority, will refuse
+to participate in them. But the refusal of one man,
+whether he be Tsar or soldier, would only, unnecessarily,
+and without the slightest profit to any one, ruin his life.
+If the Russian Tsar were now to throw up the war, he
+would be dethroned, perhaps killed, in order to get rid
+of him; if an ordinary man were to refuse military service,
+he would be sent to a penal battalion and perhaps
+shot. Why, then, without the slightest use should
+one throw away one's life, which may be profitable to
+society?&rdquo; is the common question of those who do not
+think of the destination of their life and therefore do
+not understand it.</p>
+<p>But this is not what is said and felt by any man who
+understands the destination of his life&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> by any
+religious man. Such a man is guided in his activity
+not by the presumed consequences of his action, but by
+the consciousness of the destination of his life. A factory
+workman goes to his factory and in it accomplishes
+the work which is allotted him without considering
+what will be the consequences of his labor. In the
+same way a soldier acts, carrying out the will of his
+commanders. So acts a religious man in fulfilling the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28">28</a></span>
+work prescribed to him by God, without arguing as to
+what precisely will come of that work. Therefore for
+a religious man there is no question as to whether many
+or few men act as he does, or of what may happen to
+him if he does that which he should do. He knows
+that besides life and death nothing can happen, and that
+life and death are in the hands of God whom he obeys.</p>
+<p>A religious man acts thus and not otherwise, not because
+he desires to act thus, nor because it is advantageous
+to himself or to other men, but because, believing
+that his life is in the hands of God, he cannot act otherwise.</p>
+<p>In this lies the distinction of the activity of religious
+men; and therefore it is that the salvation of men from
+the calamities which they inflict upon themselves can
+be realized only in that degree in which they are guided
+in their lives, not by advantage nor arguments, but by
+religious consciousness.</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">X</h2>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But how about the enemies that attack us?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Love your enemies, and ye will have none,&rdquo; is said
+in the teaching of the Twelve Apostles. This answer
+is not merely words, as those may imagine who are
+accustomed to think that the recommendation of love
+to one's enemies is something hyperbolical, and signifies
+not that which expressed, but something else. This
+answer is the indication of a very clear and definite
+activity, and of its consequences.</p>
+<p>To love one's enemies&mdash;the Japanese, the Chinese,
+those yellow people toward whom benighted men are
+now endeavoring to excite our hatred&mdash;to love them
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29">29</a></span>
+means not to kill them for the purpose of having the
+right of poisoning them with opium, as did the English;
+not to kill them in order to seize their land, as was
+done by the French, the Russians, and the Germans;
+not to bury them alive in punishment for injuring roads,
+not to tie them together by their hair, not to drown
+them in their river Amur, as did the Russians.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A disciple is not above his master.&hellip; It is
+enough for a disciple that he be as his master.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>To love the yellow people, whom we call our foes,
+means, not to teach them under the name of Christianity
+absurd superstitions about the fall of man, redemption,
+resurrection, etc., not to teach them the art of deceiving
+and killing others, but to teach them justice, unselfishness,
+compassion, love&mdash;and that not by words, but by
+the example of our own good life. And what have we
+been doing to them, and are still doing?</p>
+<p>If we did indeed love our enemies, if even now we
+began to love our enemies, the Japanese, we would have
+no enemy.</p>
+<p>Therefore, however strange it may appear to those
+occupied with military plans, preparations, diplomatic
+considerations, administrative, financial, economical
+measures, revolutionary, socialistic propaganda, and
+various unnecessary sciences, by which they think to
+save mankind from its calamities, the deliverance of
+man, not only from the calamities of war, but also from
+all the calamities which men inflict upon themselves,
+will take place not through emperors or kings instituting
+peace alliances, not through those who would
+dethrone emperors, kings, or restrain them by constitutions,
+or substitute republics for monarchies, not by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30">30</a></span>
+peace conferences, not by the realization of socialistic
+programmes, not by victories or defeats on land or sea,
+not by libraries or universities, nor by those futile
+mental exercises which are now called science; but
+only by there being more and more of those simple
+men who, like the Dukhobors, Drojjin, Olkhovik, in
+Russia, the Nazarenes in Austria, Condatier in France,
+Tervey in Holland, and others, having placed as their
+object not external alterations of life, but the closest
+fulfilment in themselves of the will of Him who has
+sent them into life, will direct all their powers to this
+realization. Only such people realizing the Kingdom
+of God in themselves, in their souls, will establish,
+without directly aiming at this purpose, that external
+Kingdom of God which every human soul is longing
+for.</p>
+<p>Salvation will come to pass only in this one way and
+not in any other. Therefore what is now being done
+by those who, ruling men, inspire them with religious
+and patriotic superstitions, exciting in them exclusiveness,
+hatred, and murder, as well as by those who, for
+the purpose of freeing men from slavery and oppression,
+invoke them to violent external revolution, or think
+that the acquisition by men of very much incidental
+and for the most part unnecessary information will of
+itself bring them to a good life&mdash;all this, by distracting
+men from what alone they need, only removes them
+further from the possibility of salvation.</p>
+<p>The evil from which the men of the Christian world
+suffer is that they have temporarily lost religion.</p>
+<p>Some people, having come to see the discord between
+the existing religion and the degree of mental and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31">31</a></span>
+scientific development attained by humanity at the
+present time, have decided that in general no religion
+whatever is necessary. They live without religion and
+preach the uselessness of any religion of whatever kind.
+Others, holding to that distorted form of the Christian
+religion which is now preached, likewise live without
+religion, professing empty external forms, which cannot
+serve as guidance for men.</p>
+<p>Yet a religion which answers to the demands of our
+time does exist and is known to all men, and in a latent
+state lives in the hearts of men of the Christian world.
+Therefore that this religion should become evident to
+and binding upon all men, it is only necessary that educated
+men&mdash;the leaders of the masses&mdash;should understand
+that religion is necessary to man, that without
+religion men cannot live a good life, and that what
+they call science cannot replace religion; and that
+those in power and who support the old empty forms
+of religion should understand that what they support
+and preach under the form of religion is not only not
+religion, but is the chief obstacle to men's appropriating
+the true religion which they already know, and which
+can alone deliver them from their calamities. So that
+the only certain means of man's salvation consists
+merely in ceasing to do that which hinders men from
+assimilating the true religion which already lives in
+their consciousness.</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">XI</h2>
+
+<p>I had finished this writing when news came of the
+destruction of six hundred innocent lives opposite Port
+Arthur. It would seem that the useless suffering and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32">32</a></span>
+death of these unfortunate deluded men who have needlessly
+and so dreadfully perished ought to disabuse
+those who were the cause of this destruction. I am not
+alluding to Makaroff and other officers&mdash;all these men
+knew what they were doing, and wherefore, and they
+voluntarily, for personal advantage, for ambition, did as
+they did, disguising themselves in pretended patriotism,
+a pretence not condemned merely because it is universal.
+I allude rather to those unfortunate men drawn
+from all parts of Russia, who, by the help of religious
+fraud, and under fear of punishment, have been torn
+from an honest, reasonable, useful, laborious family life,
+driven to the other end of the world, placed on a cruel,
+senseless machine for slaughter, and torn to bits, drowned
+along with this stupid machine in a distant sea, without
+any need or any possibility of advantage from all their
+privations, efforts, and sufferings, or from the death
+which overtook them.</p>
+<p>In 1830, during the Polish war, the adjutant Vilijinsky
+sent to St. Petersburg by Klopitsky, in a conversation
+held in French with Dibitch, in answer to the
+latter's demand that the Russian troops should enter
+Poland, said to him:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Monsieur le Maréchal, I think that in that case it
+will be quite impossible for the Polish nation to accept
+this manifesto.&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Believe me, the Emperor will make no further
+concessions.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I foresee that, unhappily, there will be war,
+that much blood will be shed, there will be many unfortunate
+victims.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do not think so; at most there will be ten thousand
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33">33</a></span>
+who will perish on both sides, and that is all,&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> said
+Dibitch in his German accent, quite confident that he,
+together with another man as cruel and foreign to Russian
+and Polish life as he was himself,&mdash;Nicholas I,&mdash;had the
+right to condemn or not to condemn to death ten or a
+hundred thousand Russians and Poles.</p>
+<p>One hardly believes that this could have been, so
+senseless and dreadful is it,&mdash;and yet it was; sixty
+thousand maintainers of their families lost their lives
+owing to the will of those men. And now the same
+thing is taking place.</p>
+<p>In order not to let the Japanese into Manchuria, and
+to expel them from Korea, not ten thousand, but fifty
+and more thousands will, according to all probability,
+be necessary. I do not know whether Nicholas II and
+Kuropatkin say like Dibitch in so many words that
+not more than fifty thousand lives will be necessary for
+this on the Russian side alone, only and only that; but
+they think it&mdash;they cannot but think it, because the
+work they are doing speaks for itself; that ceaseless
+stream of unfortunate, deluded Russian peasants now
+being transported by thousands to the Far East&mdash;these
+are those same not more than fifty thousand
+live Russian men whom Nicholas Romanoff and Alexis
+Kuropatkin have decided they may get killed, and who
+will be killed, in support of those stupidities, robberies,
+and every kind of abomination which were accomplished
+in China and Korea by immoral ambitious men
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34">34</a></span>
+now sitting peacefully in their palaces and expecting
+new glory and new advantage and profit from the
+slaughter of these fifty thousand unfortunate, defrauded
+Russian workingmen guilty of nothing and gaining
+nothing by their sufferings and death. For other
+people's land, to which the Russians have no right,
+which has been criminally seized from its legitimate
+owners, and which, in reality, is not even necessary
+to the Russians&mdash;and also for certain dark dealings
+by speculators, who in Korea wished to gain money
+out of other people's forests&mdash;many millions of money
+are spent, <i>i.e.</i> a great part of the labor of the whole
+of the Russian people, while the future generations of
+this people are bound by debts, its best workmen are
+withdrawn from labor, and scores of thousands of its
+sons are mercilessly doomed to death; and the destruction
+of these unfortunate men is already begun.
+More than this: the war is being managed by those
+who have hatched it so badly, so negligently, all is so
+unexpected, so unprepared, that, as one paper admits,
+Russia's chief chance of success lies in the fact that
+it possesses inexhaustible human material. It is upon
+this that those rely who send to death scores of thousands
+of Russian men!</p>
+<p>It is frankly said that the regrettable reverses of
+our fleet must be compensated on the land. In plain
+language this means that if the authorities have badly
+directed things on sea, and by their negligence have
+destroyed not only the nation's millions, but thousands
+of lives, we can make it up by condemning to death
+on land several more scores of thousands!</p>
+<p>When crawling locusts cross rivers, it happens that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35">35</a></span>
+the lower layers are drowned until from the bodies of
+the drowned is formed a bridge over which the upper
+ranks can pass. In the same way are the Russian
+people being disposed of. Thus the first lower layer
+is already beginning to drown, indicating the way to
+other thousands, who will all likewise perish.</p>
+<p>And are the originators, directors, and supporters
+of this dreadful work beginning to understand their
+sin, their crime? Not in the least. They are quite
+persuaded that they have fulfilled, and are fulfilling,
+their duty, and they are proud of their activity. People
+speak of the loss of the brave Makaroff, who, as
+all agree, was able to kill men very cleverly; they
+deplore the loss of a drowned excellent machine of
+slaughter which had cost so many millions of roubles;
+they discuss the question of how to find another murderer
+as capable as the poor benighted Makaroff; they
+invent new, still more efficacious, tools of slaughter; and
+all the guilty men engaged in this dreadful work,
+from the Tsar to the humblest journalist, all with one
+voice call for new insanities, new cruelties, for the
+increase of brutality and hatred of one's fellow-men.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Makaroff is not the only man in Russia, and every
+admiral placed in his position will follow in his steps
+and will continue the plan and the idea of Makaroff,
+who has nobly perished in the strife,&rdquo; writes the <i>Novoe
+Vremya</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let us earnestly pray God for those who have laid
+down their lives for the sacred Fatherland, without
+doubting for one moment that the Fatherland will
+give us new sons, equally virtuous, for the further
+struggle, and will find in them an inexhaustible store
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36">36</a></span>
+of strength for a worthy completion of the work,&rdquo; writes
+the St. Petersburg <i>Viedomosti</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A ripe nation will draw no other conclusion from
+the defeat, however unprecedented, than that we
+should continue, develop, and conclude the strife;
+therefore let us find in ourselves new strength; new
+heroes of the spirit will arise,&rdquo; writes the <i>Russ</i>,&mdash;and
+so forth.</p>
+<p>So murder and every kind of crime go on with
+greater fury. People enthusiastically admire the
+martial spirit of the volunteers who, having come
+unexpectedly upon fifty of their fellow-men, slay all of
+them, or take possession of a village and slaughter all
+its population, or hang or shoot those accused of being
+spies&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> of doing the very same thing which is
+regarded as indispensable and is constantly done on
+our side. News about these crimes is reported in pompous
+telegrams to their chief director, the Tsar, who, in
+return, sends to his virtuous troops his blessing on the
+continuation of such deeds.</p>
+<p>Is it not evident that, if there be a salvation from this
+position, it is only one: that one which Jesus teaches?&mdash;&ldquo;Seek
+ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness
+(that which is within you), and all the rest&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>
+all that practical welfare toward which man is
+striving&mdash;will of itself be realized.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Such is the law of life: practical welfare is attained
+not when man strives toward this practical welfare&mdash;such
+striving, on the contrary, for the most part
+removes man from the attainment of what he seeks;
+but only when man, without thinking of the attainment
+of practical welfare, strives toward the most perfect
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37">37</a></span>
+fulfilment of that which before God, before the Source
+and Law of his life, he regards as right. Then only,
+incidentally, is practical welfare also attained.</p>
+<p>So that the true salvation of men is only one thing:
+the fulfilment of the will of God by each individual
+man within himself&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> in that portion of the universe
+which alone is subject to his power. In this is
+the chief, the only, destiny and duty of every individual
+man, and at the same time this is the only
+means by which every individual man can influence
+others; and, therefore, to this, and to this only, should
+all the efforts of every man be directed.</p>
+<p>May 2, 1904.</p>
+
+<h2 class="new-h2">XII</h2>
+
+<p>I had only just despatched the last of the preceding
+pages of this paper when the dreadful news came of a
+new iniquity committed in regard to the Russian people
+by those light-minded men who, crazed with power,
+have appropriated the right of managing them. Again
+coarse and servile slaves of slaves, dressed up in various
+dazzling attires&mdash;varieties of Generals wishing to distinguish
+themselves, or to earn the right to add one
+more little star, fingle fangle, or scrap of ribbon to
+their idiotic glaring get-up, or else from stupidity or
+carelessness&mdash;again these miserable men have destroyed
+amid dreadful sufferings thousands of those
+honorable, kind, hard-working laborers who feed them.
+And again this iniquity not only does not cause those
+responsible for it to reflect and repent, but one hears
+and reads only about its being necessary as speedily
+as possible to mutilate and slaughter a greater number
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38">38</a></span>
+of men, and to ruin still more families, both Russian
+and Japanese.</p>
+<p>More than this, to prepare men for fresh iniquities
+of this kind, the perpetrators of these crimes, far from
+recognizing what is evident to all&mdash;viz. that for the Russians
+this event, even from their patriotic, military point
+of view, was a scandalous defeat&mdash;endeavor to assure
+credulous people that these unfortunate Russian laboring
+men&mdash;lured into a trap like cattle into a slaughterhouse,
+of whom several thousands have been killed and
+maimed merely because one General did not understand
+what another General had said&mdash;have performed an
+act of heroism because those who could not run away
+were killed and those who did run away remained
+alive. As to the fact that one of these immoral and
+cruel men, distinguished by the titles of Generals,
+Admirals, drowned a quantity of peaceful Japanese,
+this is also described as a great and glorious act of
+heroism, which must gladden the hearts of Russians.
+And in all the papers are reprinted this awful appeal
+to murder:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let the two thousand Russian soldiers killed on the
+Yalu, together with the maimed <i>Retvisan</i> and her
+sister ships, with our lost torpedo-boats, teach our
+cruisers with what devastation they must break in upon
+the shores of base Japan. She has sent her soldiers to
+shed Russian blood, and no quarter should be afforded
+her. Now one cannot&mdash;it is sinful&mdash;be sentimental;
+we must fight; we must direct such heavy blows that
+the memory of them shall freeze the treacherous hearts
+of the Japanese. Now is the time for the cruisers to
+go out to sea to reduce to ashes the towns of Japan,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39">39</a></span>
+flying as a dreadful calamity along its shores. No
+more sentimentality.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The frightful work commenced is continued. Loot,
+violence, murder, hypocrisy, theft, and, above all, the
+most fearful fraud&mdash;the distortion of religious teachings,
+both Christian and Buddhistic&mdash;continue. The
+Tsar, the chief responsible person, continues to review
+the troops, to thank, reward, and encourage them; he
+issues an edict for the calling out of the reserves;
+his faithful subjects again and again lay down their
+property and lives at the feet of him they call, only
+with their lips, their adored Monarch. On the other
+hand, desiring to distinguish themselves before each
+other in deeds and not in words only, they tear away
+the fathers and the bread-winners from their orphaned
+families, preparing them for slaughter. The worse the
+position of Russia, the more recklessly do the journalists
+lie, transforming shameful defeats into victories, knowing
+that no one will contradict them; and they quietly
+collect money from subscriptions and sales. The more
+money and labor of the people is devoted to the war,
+the more is grabbed by various authorities and speculators,
+who know that no one will convict them because
+every one is doing the same. The military, trained for
+murder, having passed years in a school of inhumanity,
+coarseness, and idleness, rejoice&mdash;poor men&mdash;because,
+besides an increase of their salary, the slaughter of
+superiors opens vacancies for their promotion. Christian
+pastors continue to invite men to the greatest of
+crimes, continue to commit sacrilege, praying God to
+help the work of war; and, instead of condemning, they
+justify and praise that pastor who, with the cross in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40">40</a></span>
+his hands on the very scene of murder, encouraged men
+to the crime. The same thing is going on in Japan.
+The benighted Japanese go in for murder with yet
+greater fervor, owing to their victories; the Mikado
+also reviews and rewards his troops; various Generals
+boast of their bravery, imagining that, having learned to
+kill, they have acquired enlightenment. So, too, groan
+the unfortunate working people torn from useful labor
+and from their families. So their journalists also lie and
+rejoice over their gains. Also probably&mdash;for where
+murder is elevated into virtue every kind of vice is
+bound to flourish&mdash;also probably all kinds of commanders
+and speculators earn money; and Japanese theologians
+and religious teachers no less than the masters in
+the techniques of armament do not remain behind the
+Europeans in the techniques of religious deceit and
+sacrilege, but distort the great Buddhistic teaching by
+not only permitting but justifying that murder which
+Buddha forbade. The Buddhistic scientist, Soyen-Shaku,
+ruling over eight hundred monasteries, explains
+that although Buddha forbade manslaughter he also
+said he could never be at peace until all beings are
+united in the infinitely loving heart of all things, and
+that, therefore, in order to bring into harmony that
+which is discordant it is necessary to fight and to kill
+men.<a name="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41">41</a></span></div>
+<p>It is as if there never had existed the Christian and
+Buddhistic teaching about the unity of the human spirit,
+the brotherhood of men, love, compassion, the sacredness
+of human life. Men, both Japanese and Russians,
+already enlightened by the truth, yet like wild animals,
+nay, worse than wild animals, throw themselves upon
+each other with the sole desire to destroy as many lives
+as possible. Thousands of unfortunates groan and
+writhe in cruel sufferings and die in agony in Japanese
+and Russian field hospitals, asking themselves in bewilderment
+why this fearful thing was done with them,
+while other thousands are already rotting in the earth
+or on the earth, or floating in the sea, in swollen decomposition.
+And scores of thousands of wives, fathers,
+mothers, children, are bemoaning their bread-winners;
+uselessly destroyed. Yet all this is still too little; new
+and newer victims are being prepared. The chief
+concern of the Russian organizers of slaughter is that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42">42</a></span>
+on the Russian side the stream of food for cannon&mdash;three
+thousand men per day doomed to destruction&mdash;should
+not be interrupted for one minute. The Japanese
+are preoccupied with the same thing. The locusts are
+incessantly being driven down into the river in order
+that the rows behind may pass over the bodies.</p>
+<p>When will this cease, and the deceived people at last
+recover themselves and say: &ldquo;Well, go you yourselves,
+you heartless Tsars, Mikados, Ministers, Bishops, priests,
+generals, editors, speculators, or however you may be
+called, go you yourselves under these shells and bullets,
+but we do not wish to go and we will not go. Leave
+us in peace, to plough, and sow, and build,&mdash;and also
+to feed you.&rdquo; It would be so natural to say this now,
+when amongst us in Russia resounds the weeping and
+wailing of hundreds of thousands of mothers, wives,
+and children, from whom are being snatched away their
+bread-earners, the so-called &ldquo;reserve.&rdquo; These same
+men, the majority of the reserve, are able to read; they
+know what the Far East is; they know that war is going
+on, not for anything which is in the least necessary to
+Russia, but for some dealings in strange land, leased
+lands, as they themselves call them, on which it seemed
+advantageous to some corrupt speculators to build railways
+and so gain profit; also they know, or might
+know, that they will be killed like sheep in a slaughterhouse,
+since the Japanese possess the latest improvements
+in tools of murder, which we do not, as the
+Russian authorities who are sending these people to
+death had not thought in time of furnishing themselves
+with the same weapons as the Japanese. Knowing all
+this, it would indeed be so natural to say, &ldquo;Go you,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43">43</a></span>
+those who have brought on this work, all you to whom
+war is necessary, and who justify it; go you, and face
+the Japanese bullets and mines, but we will not go,
+because we not only do not need to do this, but we
+cannot understand how it can be necessary to any one.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But no, they do not say this; they go, and they will
+continue to go; they cannot but go as long as they fear
+that which ruins the body and not that which ruins both
+the body and the soul. &ldquo;Whether we shall be killed,&rdquo;
+they argue, &ldquo;or maimed in these chinnampos, or whatever
+they are called, whither we are driven, we do not
+know; it yet may happen that we shall get through
+safely, and, moreover, with rewards and glory, like
+those sailors who are now being feasted all over Russia
+because the Japanese bombs and bullets did not hit
+them, but somebody else; whereas should we refuse,
+we should be certainly sent to prison, starved, beaten,
+exiled to the province of Yakoutsk, perhaps even killed
+immediately.&rdquo; So with despair in their hearts, leaving
+behind a good rational life, leaving their wives and
+their children,&mdash;they go.</p>
+<p>Yesterday I met a Reservist soldier accompanied by
+his mother and wife. All three were riding in a cart;
+he had had a drop too much; his wife's face was swollen
+with tears. He turned to me:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good-by to thee! Lyof Nikolaevitch, off to the
+Far East.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, art thou going to fight?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, some one has to fight!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No one need fight!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He reflected for a moment. &ldquo;But what is one to do;
+where can one escape?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44">44</a></span></div>
+<p>I saw that he had understood me, had understood
+that the work to which he was being sent was an evil
+work.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where can one escape?&rdquo; That is the precise expression
+of that mental condition which in the official and
+journalistic world is translated into the words&mdash;&ldquo;For
+the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland.&rdquo; Those who,
+abandoning their hungry families, go to suffering, to
+death, say as they feel, &ldquo;Where can one escape?&rdquo;
+Whereas those who sit in safety in their luxurious
+palaces say that all Russian men are ready to sacrifice
+their lives for their adored Monarch, and for the glory
+and greatness of Russia.</p>
+<p>Yesterday, from a peasant I know, I received two
+letters, one after the other. This is the first:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear Lyof Nikolaevitch,&mdash;Well, to-day I have
+received the official announcement of my call to the
+Service; to-morrow I must present myself at the headquarters.
+That is all. And after that&mdash;to the Far
+East to meet the Japanese bullets. About my own
+and my household's grief I will not tell you; it is not
+you who will fail to understand all the horror of my
+position and the horrors of war; all this you have long
+ago painfully realized, and you understand it all. How
+I have longed to visit you, to have a talk with you!
+I had written to you a long letter in which I described
+the torments of my soul; but I had not had time to
+copy it, when I received my summons. What is my
+wife to do now with her four children? As an old
+man, of course, you cannot do anything yourself for
+my folks, but you might ask some of your friends in
+their leisure to visit my orphaned family. I beg you
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45">45</a></span>
+earnestly that if my wife proves unable to bear the
+agony of her helplessness with her burden of children
+and makes up her mind to go to you for help and
+counsel, you will receive and console her. Although
+she does not know you personally, she believes in your
+word, and that means much. I was not able to resist
+the summons, but I say beforehand that through me
+not one Japanese family shall be orphaned. My God!
+how dreadful is all this&mdash;how distressing and painful
+to abandon all by which one lives and in which one is
+concerned.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The second letter is as follows: &ldquo;Kindest Lyof
+Nikolaevitch, Only one day of actual service has passed,
+and I have already lived through an eternity of most
+desperate torments. From 8 o'clock in the morning
+till 9 in the evening we have been crowded and knocked
+about to and fro in the barrack yard, like a herd of
+cattle. The comedy of medical examination was three
+times repeated, and those who had reported themselves
+ill did not receive even ten minutes' attention before
+they were marked &lsquo;Satisfactory.&rsquo; When we, these two
+thousand satisfactory individuals, were driven from
+the military commander to the barracks, along the road
+spread out for almost a verst stood a crowd of relatives,
+mothers, and wives with infants in arms; and if you
+had only heard and seen how they clasped their fathers,
+husbands, sons, and hanging round their necks wailed
+hopelessly! Generally I behave in a reserved way and
+can restrain my feelings, but I could not hold out, and
+I also wept. [In journalistic language this same is
+expressed thus: &ldquo;The upheaval of patriotic feeling is
+immense.&rdquo;] Where is the standard that can measure
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46">46</a></span>
+all this immensity of woe now spreading itself over
+almost one-third of the world? And we, we are now
+that food for cannon, which in the near future will
+be offered as sacrifice to the God of vengeance and
+horror. I cannot manage to establish my inner balance.
+Oh! how I execrate myself for this double-mindedness
+which prevents my serving one Master and God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This man does not yet sufficiently believe that what
+destroys the body is not dreadful, but that which
+destroys both the body and the soul, therefore he cannot
+refuse to go; yet while leaving his own family he
+promises beforehand that through him not one Japanese
+family shall be orphaned; he believes in the chief law
+of God, the law of all religions&mdash;to act toward others
+as one wishes others to act toward oneself. Of such
+men more or less consciously recognizing this law, there
+are in our time, not in the Christian world alone, but
+in the Buddhistic, Mahomedan, Confucian, and Brahminic
+world, not only thousands but millions.</p>
+<p>There exist true heroes, not those who are now being
+fêted because, having wished to kill others, they
+were not killed themselves, but true heroes, who are
+now confined in prisons and in the province of Yakoutsk
+for having categorically refused to enter the ranks of
+murderers, and who have preferred martyrdom to this
+departure from the law of Jesus. There are also such
+as he who writes to me, who go, but who will not kill.
+But also that majority which goes without thinking,
+and endeavors not to think of what it is doing, still
+in the depth of its soul does now already feel that it is
+doing an evil deed by obeying authorities who tear men
+from labor and from their families and send them to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47">47</a></span>
+needless slaughter of men, repugnant to their soul and
+their faith; and they go only because they are so entangled
+on all sides that&mdash;&ldquo;Where can one escape?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Meanwhile those who remain at home not only feel
+this, but know and express it. Yesterday in the high
+road I met some peasants returning from Toula. One
+of them was reading a leaflet as he walked by the side
+of his cart.</p>
+<p>I asked, &ldquo;What is that&mdash;a telegram?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is yesterday's,&mdash;but here is one of to-day.&rdquo;
+He took another out of his pocket. We stopped. I
+read it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You should have seen what took place yesterday
+at the station,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it was dreadful. Wives,
+children, more than a thousand of them, weeping.
+They surrounded the train, but were allowed no further.
+Strangers wept, looking on. One woman from
+Toula gasped and fell down dead. Five children.
+They have since been placed in various institutions; but
+the father was driven away all the same.&hellip; What
+do we want with this Manchuria, or whatever it is
+called? There is sufficient land here. And what a
+lot of people and of property has been destroyed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Yes, the relation of men to war is now quite different
+from that which formerly existed, even so lately as the
+year '77. That which is now taking place never took
+place before.</p>
+<p>The papers set forth that, during the receptions of
+the Tsar, who is travelling about Russia for the purpose
+of hypnotizing the men who are being sent to murder,
+indescribable enthusiasm is manifested amongst the
+people. As a matter of fact, something quite different
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48">48</a></span>
+is being manifested. From all sides one hears reports
+that in one place three Reservists have hanged themselves;
+in another spot, two more; in yet another, about
+a woman whose husband had been taken away bringing
+her children to the conscription committee-room and
+leaving them there; while another hanged herself in
+the yard of the military commander. All are dissatisfied,
+gloomy, exasperated. The words, &ldquo;For the Faith,
+the King, and the Fatherland,&rdquo; the National Anthem,
+and shouts of &ldquo;Hurrah&rdquo; no longer act upon people as
+they once did. Another warfare of a different kind&mdash;the
+struggling consciousness of the deceit and sinfulness
+of the work to which people are being called&mdash;is more
+and more taking possession of the people.</p>
+<p>Yes, the great strife of our time is not that now taking
+place between the Japanese and the Russians, nor
+that which may blaze up between the white and yellow
+races, not that strife which is carried on by mines,
+bombs, bullets, but that spiritual strife which without
+ceasing has gone on and is now going on between the
+enlightened consciousness of mankind now waiting for
+manifestation and that darkness and that burden which
+surrounds and oppresses mankind.</p>
+<p>In His own time Jesus yearned in expectation, and
+said, &ldquo;I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how
+I wish that it were already kindled.&rdquo; Luke xii. 49.</p>
+<p>That which Jesus longed for is being accomplished,
+the fire is being kindled. Then do not let us check it,
+but let us spread and serve it.</p>
+<p>13 May, 1904.</p>
+<p>I should never finish this paper if I were to continue
+to add to it all that corroborates its essential idea.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49">49</a></span>
+Yesterday the news came in of the sinking of the
+Japanese ironclads; and in the so-called higher circles
+of Russian fashionable, rich, intellectual society they
+are, without the slightest conscientious scruples, rejoicing
+at the destruction of a thousand human lives. Yet
+to-day I have received from a simple seaman, a man
+standing on the lowest plane of society, the following
+letter:<a name="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch, I greet you with
+a low bow, with love, much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch.
+I have read your book. It was very pleasant
+reading for me. I have been a great lover of reading
+your works. Well, Lyof Nikolaevitch, we are now in a
+state of war, please write to me whether it is agreeable
+to God or not that our commanders compel us to kill.
+I beg you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, write to me please
+whether or not the truth now exists on earth. Tell
+me, Lyof Nikolaevitch. In church here a prayer is
+being read, the priest mentions the Christ-loving
+army. Is it true or not that God loves war? I pray
+you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, have you got any books from
+which I could see whether truth exists on earth or not?
+Send me such books. What they cost, I will pay. I
+beg you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, do not neglect my request.
+If there are no books then send me a letter. I will
+be very glad when I receive a letter from you. I will
+await your letter with impatience. Good-by for the
+present. I remain alive and well and wish the same to
+you from the Lord God. Good health and good success
+in your work.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a>
+Vilijinsky adds on his own behalf, &ldquo;The Field-Marshal did not
+then think that more than sixty thousand Russians alone would perish
+in this war, not so much from the enemy's fire as from disease&mdash;nor
+that he would himself be amongst their number.&rdquo;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a>
+In the article it is said: &ldquo;This triple world is my own possession.
+All the things therein are my own children &hellip; the ten thousand
+things in this world are no more than the reflections of my own self.
+They come from the one source. They partake of the one body.
+Therefore I cannot rest, until every being, even the smallest possible
+fragment of existence, is settled down to its proper appointment.&hellip;
+This is the position taken by the Buddha, and we, his humble followers,
+are but to walk in his wake. Why, then, do we fight at all?
+Because we do not find this world as it ought to be. Because there
+are here so many perverted creatures, so many wayward thoughts, so
+many ill-directed hearts, due to ignorant subjectivity. For this reason
+Buddhists are never tired of combating all productions of ignorance,
+and their fight must be to the bitter end. They will show no quarter.
+They will mercilessly destroy the very root from which arises the misery
+of this life. To accomplish this end, they will never be afraid of
+sacrificing their lives.&hellip;&rdquo; There follow, just as is usual with us,
+entangled arguments about self-sacrifice and kindness, about the transmigration
+of souls and about much else&mdash;all this for the sole purpose
+of concealing the simple and clear commandment of Buddha: not to
+kill. Further it is said: &ldquo;The hand that is raised to strike and the
+eye that is fixed to take aim do not belong to the individual, but are
+the instruments utilized by a principle higher than transient existence.&rdquo;
+(&ldquo;The Open Court,&rdquo; May, 1904. &ldquo;Buddhist Views of War,&rdquo; by the
+Right Rev. Soyen-Shaku.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><a name="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a>
+The letter is written in a most illiterate way, filled with mistakes
+in orthography and punctuation.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right; margin-top: 0em;">(Trans.)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "Bethink Yourselves", by Leo Tolstoi
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Bethink Yourselves", by Leo Tolstoi
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: "Bethink Yourselves"
+
+Author: Leo Tolstoi
+
+Translator: V. Tchertkoff
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27189]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "BETHINK YOURSELVES" ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gerard Arthus, Jana Srna and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY
+
+                              NOW READY
+
+
+                 =Bloch's "The Future of War"=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 65 cents
+
+                 =Charles Sumner's Addresses on War=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents
+
+                 =Channing's Discourses on War=
+                 Price, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents
+
+
+           Edited with introductions by Edwin D. Mead.
+           Published for the International Union by Ginn &
+           Company, Boston.
+
+
+
+
+                        "BETHINK YOURSELVES!"
+
+
+                                  BY
+                             LEO TOLSTOI
+
+
+
+
+                PUBLISHED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL UNION
+                        GINN & COMPANY, BOSTON
+                                 1904
+
+
+                  Reprinted from the _London Times_
+
+     Translated by V. Tchertkoff, Editor of the _Free Age Press_,
+                             and I. F. M.
+
+
+
+
+                        "BETHINK YOURSELVES!"
+
+   "This is your hour, and the power of darkness."--Luke xxii. 53.
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+
+Again war. Again sufferings, necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for;
+again fraud; again the universal stupefaction and brutalization of men.
+
+Men who are separated from each other by thousands of miles, hundreds of
+thousands of such men (on the one hand--Buddhists, whose law forbids the
+killing, not only of men, but of animals; on the other hand--Christians,
+professing the law of brotherhood and love) like wild beasts on land and
+on sea are seeking out each other, in order to kill, torture, and
+mutilate each other in the most cruel way. What can this be? Is it a
+dream or a reality? Something is taking place which should not, cannot
+be; one longs to believe that it is a dream and to awake from it. But no,
+it is not a dream, it is a dreadful reality!
+
+One could yet understand how a poor, uneducated, defrauded Japanese, torn
+from his field and taught that Buddhism consists not in compassion to all
+that lives, but in sacrifices to idols, and how a similar poor illiterate
+fellow from the neighborhood of Toula or Nijni Novgorod, who has been
+taught that Christianity consists in worshipping Christ, the Madonna,
+Saints, and their ikons--one could understand how these unfortunate men,
+brought by the violence and deceit of centuries to recognize the greatest
+crime in the world--the murder of one's brethren--as a virtuous act, can
+commit these dreadful deeds, without regarding themselves as being guilty
+in so doing.
+
+But how can so-called enlightened men preach war, support it, participate
+in it, and, worst of all, without suffering the dangers of war
+themselves, incite others to it, sending their unfortunate defrauded
+brothers to fight? These so-called enlightened men cannot possibly
+ignore, I do not say the Christian law, if they recognize themselves to
+be Christians, but all that has been written, is being written, has and
+is being said, about the cruelty, futility, and senselessness of war.
+They are regarded as enlightened men precisely because they know all
+this. The majority of them have themselves written and spoken about this.
+Not to mention The Hague Conference, which called forth universal praise,
+or all the books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and speeches
+demonstrating the possibility of the solution of international
+misunderstandings by international arbitration--no enlightened man can
+help knowing that the universal competition in the armaments of States
+must inevitably lead them to endless wars, or to a general bankruptcy, or
+to both the one and the other. They cannot but know that besides the
+senseless, purposeless expenditure of milliards of roubles, _i.e._ of
+human labor, on the preparations for war, during the wars themselves
+millions of the most energetic and vigorous men perish in that period of
+their life which is best for productive labor (during the past century
+wars have destroyed fourteen million men). Enlightened men cannot but
+know that occasions for war are always such as are not worth not only one
+human life, but not one hundredth part of all that which is spent upon
+wars (in fighting for the emancipation of the negroes much more was spent
+than it would have cost to redeem them from slavery).
+
+Every one knows and cannot help knowing that, above all, wars, calling
+forth the lowest animal passions, deprave and brutalize men. Every one
+knows the weakness of the arguments in favor of war, such as were
+brought forward by De Maistre, Moltke, and others, for they are all
+founded on the sophism that in every human calamity it is possible to
+find an advantageous element, or else upon the utterly arbitrary assertion
+that wars have always existed and therefore always must exist, as if the
+bad actions of men could be justified by the advantages or the
+usefulness which they realize, or by the consideration that they have
+been committed during a long period of time. All so-called enlightened
+men know all this. Then suddenly war begins, and all this is instantly
+forgotten, and the same men who but yesterday were proving the cruelty,
+futility, the senselessness of wars now think, speak, and write only
+about killing as many men as possible, about ruining and destroying the
+greatest possible amount of the productions of human labor, and about
+exciting as much as possible the passion of hatred in those peaceful,
+harmless, industrious men who by their labor feed, clothe, maintain these
+same pseudo-enlightened men, who compel them to commit those dreadful
+deeds contrary to their conscience, welfare, or faith.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+
+Something is taking place incomprehensible and impossible in its cruelty,
+falsehood, and stupidity. The Russian Tsar, the same man who exhorted all
+the nations in the cause of peace, publicly announces that,
+notwithstanding all his efforts to maintain the peace so dear to his
+heart (efforts which express themselves in the seizing of other peoples'
+lands and in the strengthening of armies for the defence of these stolen
+lands), he, owing to the attack of the Japanese, commands that the same
+shall be done to the Japanese as they had commenced doing to the
+Russians--_i.e._ that they should be slaughtered; and in announcing this
+call to murder he mentions God, asking the Divine blessing on the most
+dreadful crime in the world. The Japanese Emperor has proclaimed the same
+thing in relation to the Russians.
+
+Men of science and of law (Messieurs Muravieff and Martens) strenuously
+try to prove that in the recent call of all nations to universal peace
+and the present incitement to war, because of the seizure of other
+peoples' lands, there is no contradiction. Diplomatists, in their refined
+French language, publish and send out circulars in which they
+circumstantially and diligently prove (though they know no one believes
+them) that, after all its efforts to establish peaceful relations (in
+reality, after all its efforts to deceive other countries), the Russian
+Government has been compelled to have recourse to the only means for a
+rational solution of the question--_i.e._ to the murder of men. The same
+thing is written by Japanese diplomatists. Scientists, historians, and
+philosophers, on their side, comparing the present with the past, deduce
+from these comparisons profound conclusions, and argue interminably about
+the laws of the movement of nations, about the relation between the
+yellow and white races, or about Buddhism and Christianity, and on the
+basis of these deductions and arguments justify the slaughter of those
+belonging to the yellow race by Christians; while in the same way the
+Japanese scientists and philosophers justify the slaughter of those of
+the white race. Journalists, without concealing their joy, try to outdo
+each other, and, not hesitating at any falsehood, however impudent and
+transparent, prove in all possible ways that the Russians only are right
+and strong and good in every respect, and that all the Japanese are wrong
+and weak and bad in every respect, and that all those are also bad who
+are inimical or may become inimical toward the Russians--the English, the
+Americans; and the same is proved likewise by the Japanese and their
+supporters in relation to the Russians.
+
+Not to mention the military, who in the way of their profession prepare
+for murder, crowds of so-called enlightened people, such as professors,
+social reformers, students, nobles, merchants, without being forced
+thereto by anything or anybody, express the most bitter and contemptuous
+feelings toward the Japanese, the English, or the Americans, toward whom
+but yesterday they were either well-disposed or indifferent; while,
+without the least compulsion, they express the most abject, servile
+feelings toward the Tsar (to whom, to say the least, they were completely
+indifferent), assuring him of their unlimited love and readiness to
+sacrifice their lives in his interests.
+
+This unfortunate, entangled young man, recognized as the leader of one
+hundred and thirty millions of people, continually deceived and compelled
+to contradict himself, confidently thanks and blesses the troops whom he
+calls his own for murder in defence of lands which with yet less right he
+also calls his own. All present to each other hideous ikons in which not
+only no one amongst the educated believes, but which unlearned peasants
+are beginning to abandon; all bow down to the ground before these ikons,
+kiss them, and pronounce pompous and deceitful speeches in which no one
+really believes.
+
+Wealthy people contribute insignificant portions of their immorally
+acquired riches for this cause of murder or the organization of help in
+connection with the work of murder; while the poor, from whom the
+Government annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do
+likewise, giving their mites also. The Government incites and encourages
+crowds of idlers, who walk about the streets with the Tsar's portrait,
+singing, shouting hurrah! and who, under pretext of patriotism, are
+licensed in all kinds of excess. All over Russia, from the Palace to the
+remotest village, the pastors of churches, calling themselves Christians,
+appeal to that God who has enjoined love to one's enemies--to the God of
+Love Himself--to help the work of the devil to further the slaughter of
+men.
+
+Stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, by processions, pictures,
+and newspapers, the cannon's flesh, hundreds of thousands of men,
+uniformly dressed, carrying divers deadly weapons, leaving their parents,
+wives, children, with hearts of agony, but with artificial sprightliness,
+go where they, risking their own lives, will commit the most dreadful act
+of killing men whom they do not know and who have done them no harm. And
+they are followed by doctors and nurses, who somehow imagine that at home
+they cannot serve simple, peaceful, suffering people, but can only serve
+those who are engaged in slaughtering each other. Those who remain at
+home are gladdened by news of the murder of men, and when they learn that
+many Japanese have been killed they thank some one whom they call God.
+
+All this is not only regarded as the manifestation of elevated feeling,
+but those who refrain from such manifestations, if they endeavor to
+disabuse men, are deemed traitors and betrayers, and are in danger of
+being abused and beaten by a brutalized crowd which, in defence of its
+insanity and cruelty, can possess no other weapon than brute force.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+
+It is as if there had never existed either Voltaire, or Montaigne, or
+Pascal, or Swift, or Kant, or Spinoza, or hundreds of other writers who
+have exposed, with great force, the madness and futility of war, and have
+described its cruelty, immorality, and savagery; and, above all, it is as
+if there had never existed Jesus and his teaching of human brotherhood
+and love of God and of men.
+
+One recalls all this to mind and looks around on what is now taking
+place, and one experiences horror less at the abominations of war than at
+that which is the most horrible of all horrors--the consciousness of the
+impotency of human reason. That which alone distinguishes man from the
+animal, that which constitutes his merit--his reason--is found to be an
+unnecessary, and not only a useless, but a pernicious addition, which
+simply impedes action, like a bridle fallen from a horse's head, and
+entangled in his legs and only irritating him.
+
+It is comprehensible that a heathen, a Greek, a Roman, even a mediaeval
+Christian, ignorant of the Gospel and blindly believing all the
+prescriptions of the Church, might fight and, fighting, pride himself on
+his military achievements; but how can a believing Christian, or even a
+sceptic, involuntarily permeated by the Christian ideals of human
+brotherhood and love which have inspired the works of the philosophers,
+moralists, and artists of our time,--how can such take a gun, or stand by
+a cannon, and aim at a crowd of his fellow-men, desiring to kill as many
+of them as possible?
+
+The Assyrians, Romans, or Greeks might be persuaded that in fighting they
+were acting not only according to their conscience, but even fulfilling a
+righteous deed. But, whether we wish it or not, we are Christians, and
+however Christianity may have been distorted, its general spirit cannot
+but lift us to that higher plane of reason whence we can no longer
+refrain from feeling with our whole being not only the senselessness and
+the cruelty of war, but its complete opposition to all that we regard as
+good and right. Therefore, we cannot do as they did, with assurance,
+firmness, and peace, and without a consciousness of our criminality,
+without the desperate feeling of a murderer, who, having begun to kill
+his victim, and feeling in the depths of his soul the guilt of his act,
+proceeds to try to stupefy or infuriate himself, to be able the better to
+complete his dreadful deed. All the unnatural, feverish, hot-headed,
+insane excitement which has now seized the idle upper ranks of Russian
+society is merely the symptom of their recognition of the criminality of
+the work which is being done. All these insolent, mendacious speeches
+about devotion to, and worship of, the Monarch, about readiness to
+sacrifice life (or one should say other people's lives, and not one's
+own); all these promises to defend with one's breast land which does not
+belong to one; all these senseless benedictions of each other with
+various banners and monstrous ikons; all these _Te Deums_; all these
+preparations of blankets and bandages; all these detachments of nurses;
+all these contributions to the fleet and to the Red Cross presented to
+the Government, whose direct duty is (whilst it has the possibility of
+collecting from the people as much money as it requires), having declared
+war, to organize the necessary fleet and necessary means for attending
+the wounded; all these Slavonic, pompous, senseless, and blasphemous
+prayers, the utterance of which in various towns is communicated in the
+papers as important news; all these processions, calls for the national
+hymn, cheers; all this dreadful, desperate newspaper mendacity, which,
+being universal, does not fear exposure; all this stupefaction and
+brutalization which has now taken hold of Russian society, and which is
+being transmitted by degrees also to the masses; all this is only a
+symptom of the guilty consciousness of that dreadful act which is being
+accomplished.
+
+Spontaneous feeling tells men that what they are doing should not be;
+but, as the murderer who has begun to assassinate his victim cannot stop,
+so also Russian people now imagine that the fact of the deadly work
+having been commenced is an unanswerable argument in favor of war. War
+has been begun, and therefore it should go on. Thus it seems to simple,
+benighted, unlearned men, acting under the influence of the petty
+passions and stupefaction to which they have been subjected. In exactly
+the same way the most educated men of our time argue to prove that man
+does not possess free will, and that, therefore, even were he to
+understand that the work he has commenced is evil, he can no longer cease
+to do it. And dazed, brutalized men continue their dreadful work.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+Ask a soldier, a private, a corporal, a non-commissioned officer, who has
+abandoned his old parents, his wife, his children, why he is preparing to
+kill men whom he does not know; he will at first be astonished at your
+question. He is a soldier, he has taken the oath, and it is his duty to
+fulfil the orders of his commanders. If you tell him that war--_i.e._ the
+slaughter of men--does not conform to the command, "Thou shalt not kill,"
+he will say: "And how if ours are attacked--For the King--For the
+Orthodox faith?" (One of them said in answer to my question: "And how if
+he attacks that which is sacred?" "What do you mean?" I asked. "Why,"
+said he, "the banner.") And if you endeavor to explain to such a soldier
+that God's Commandment is more important not only than the banner but
+than anything else in the world, he will become silent, or he will get
+angry and report you to the authorities.
+
+Ask an officer, a general, why he goes to the war. He will tell you that
+he is a military man, and that the military are indispensable for the
+defence of the fatherland. As to murder not conforming to the spirit of
+the Christian law, this does not trouble him, as either he does not
+believe in this law, or, if he does, it is not in the law itself, but in
+that explanation which has been given to this law. But, above all, he,
+like the soldier, in place of the personal question, what should he do
+himself, always put the general question about the State, or the
+fatherland. "At the present moment, when the fatherland is in danger, one
+should act, and not argue," he will say.
+
+Ask the diplomatists, who, by their deceits, prepare wars, why they do
+it. They will tell you that the object of their activity is the
+establishment of peace between nations, and that this object is attained,
+not by ideal, unrealizable theories, but by diplomatic action and
+readiness for war. And, just as the military, instead of the question
+concerning one's own action, place the general question, so also
+diplomatists will speak about the interests of Russia, about the
+unscrupulousness of other Powers, about the balance of power in Europe,
+but not about their own position and its activities.
+
+Ask the journalists why, by their writings, they incite men to war; they
+will say that wars in general are necessary and useful, especially the
+present war, and they will confirm this opinion of theirs by misty
+patriotic phrases, and, just like the military and diplomatist, to the
+question why he, a journalist, a particular individual, a living man,
+acts in a certain way, he will speak about the general interests of the
+nation, about the State, civilization, the white race. In the same way,
+all those who prepare war will explain their participation in that work.
+They will perhaps agree that it would be desirable to abolish war, but at
+present this is impossible. At present they as Russians and as men who
+occupy certain positions, such as heads of the nobility, representatives
+of local self-government, doctors, workers of the Red Cross, are called
+upon to act and not to argue. "There is no time to argue and to think of
+oneself," they will say, "when there is a great common work to be done."
+The same will be said by the Tsar, seemingly responsible for the whole
+thing. He, like the soldier, will be astonished at the question, whether
+war is now necessary. He does not even admit the idea that the war might
+yet be arrested. He will say that he cannot refrain from fulfilling that
+which is demanded of him by the whole nation, that, although he does
+recognize that war is a great evil, and has used, and is ready to use,
+all possible means for its abolition--in the present case he could not
+help declaring war, and cannot help continuing it. It is necessary for
+the welfare and glory of Russia.
+
+Every one of these men, to the question why he, so and so, Ivan, Peter,
+Nicholas, whilst recognizing as binding upon him the Christian law which
+not only forbids the killing of one's neighbor but demands that one
+should love him, serve him, why he permits himself to participate in war;
+_i.e._ in violence, loot, murder, will infallibly answer the same thing,
+that he is thus acting in the name of his fatherland, or faith, or oath,
+or honor, or civilization, or the future welfare of the whole of
+mankind--in general, of something abstract and indefinite. Moreover,
+these men are always so urgently occupied either by preparation for war,
+or by its organization, or discussions about it, that in their leisure
+time they can only rest from their labors, and have not time to occupy
+themselves with discussions about their life, regarding such discussions
+as idle.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+Men of our Christian world and of our time are like a man who, having
+missed the right turning, the further he goes the more he becomes
+convinced that he is going the wrong way. Yet the greater his doubts, the
+quicker and the more desperately does he hurry on, consoling himself with
+the thought that he will arrive somewhere. But the time comes when it
+becomes quite clear that the way along which he is going will lead to
+nothing but a precipice, which he is already beginning to discern before
+him.
+
+In such a position stands the Christian humanity of our time. It is
+perfectly evident that, if we continue to live as we are now living,
+guided in our private lives, as well as in the life of separate States,
+by the sole desire of welfare for ourselves and for our State, and will,
+as we do now, think to ensure this welfare by violence, then, inevitably
+increasing the means of violence of one against the other and of State
+against State, we shall, first, keep subjecting ourselves more and more,
+transferring the major portion of our productiveness to armaments; and,
+secondly, by killing in mutual wars the best physically developed men, we
+must become more and more degenerate and morally depraved.
+
+That this will be the case if we do not alter our life is as certain as
+it is mathematically certain that two non-parallel straight lines must
+meet. But not only is this theoretically certain in our time; it is
+becoming certain not only to thought, but also to the consciousness. The
+precipice which we approach is already becoming apparent to us, and the
+most simple, non-philosophizing, and uneducated men cannot but see that,
+by arming ourselves more and more against each other and slaughtering
+each other in war, we, like spiders in a jar, can come to nothing else
+but the destruction of each other.
+
+A sincere, serious, rational man can no longer console himself by the
+thought that matters can be mended, as was formerly supposed, by a
+universal empire such as that of Rome or of Charles the Great, or
+Napoleon, or by the mediaeval spiritual power of the Pope, or by Holy
+Alliances, by the political balance of the European Concert, and by
+peaceful international tribunals, or, as some have thought, by the
+increase of military strength and the newly discovered powerful weapons
+of destruction.
+
+It is impossible to organize a universal empire or republic, consisting
+of European States, as different nationalities will never desire to unite
+into one State. To organize international tribunals for the solution of
+international disputes? But who will impose obedience to the decision of
+the tribunal upon a contending party who has an organized army of
+millions of men? To disarm? No one desires it or will begin it. To invent
+yet more dreadful means of destruction--balloons with bombs filled with
+suffocating gases, shells, which men will shower upon each other from
+above? Whatever may be invented, all States will furnish themselves with
+similar weapons of destruction. And cannon's flesh, as after cold weapons
+it submitted to bullets, and meekly exposed itself to shells, bombs,
+far-reaching guns, mitrailleuses, mines, so it will also submit to bombs
+charged with suffocating gases scattered down upon it from balloons.
+
+Nothing shows more evidently than the speeches of M. Muravieff and
+Professor Martens about the Japanese war not contradicting The Hague
+Peace Conference--nothing shows more obviously than these speeches to
+what an extent, amongst the men of our time, the means for the
+transmission of thought--speech--is distorted, and how the capacity for
+clear, rational thinking is completely lost. Thought and speech are used
+for the purpose, not of serving as a guide for human activity, but of
+justifying any activity, however criminal it may be. The late Boer war
+and the present Japanese war, which can at any moment pass into a
+universal slaughter, have proved this beyond all doubt. All anti-military
+discussions can as little contribute to the cessation of war as the most
+eloquent and persuasive considerations addressed to fighting dogs as to
+its being more advantageous to divide the piece of meat over which they
+are struggling than to mutilate each other and lose the piece of meat,
+which will be carried away by some passing dog not joining in the fight.
+We are dashing on toward the precipice, cannot stop, and we are
+approaching its edge.
+
+For every rational man who reflects upon the position in which humanity
+is now placed and upon that which it is inevitably approaching, it cannot
+but be obvious that there is no practical issue out of this position,
+that one cannot devise any combination or organization which would save
+us from the destruction toward which we are inevitably rushing. Not to
+mention the economical problems which become more and more complex, those
+mutual relations between the States arming themselves against each other
+and at any moment ready to break out into wars clearly point to the
+certain destruction toward which all so-called civilized humanity is
+being carried. Then what is to be done?
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+Two thousand years ago John the Baptist and then Jesus said to men: The
+time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand; (/metanoeite/)
+bethink yourselves and believe in the Gospel (Mark i. 15); and if you do
+not bethink yourselves you will all perish (Luke xiii. 5).
+
+But men did not listen to them, and the destruction they foretold is
+already near at hand. And we men of our time cannot but see it. We are
+already perishing, and, therefore, we cannot leave unheeded that--old in
+time, but for us new--means of salvation. We cannot but see that, besides
+all the other calamities which flow from our bad and irrational life,
+military preparations alone and the wars inevitably growing from them
+must infallibly destroy us. We cannot but see that all the means of
+escape invented by men from these evils are found and must be found to be
+ineffectual, and that the disastrous position of the nations arming
+themselves against each other cannot but go on advancing continually. And
+therefore the words of Jesus refer to us and our time more than to any
+time or to any one.
+
+Jesus said, "Bethink yourselves"--_i.e._ "Let every man interrupt the
+work he has begun and ask himself: Who am I? From whence have I appeared,
+and in what consists my destiny? And having answered these questions,
+according to the answer decide whether that which thou doest is in
+conformity with thy destiny." And every man of our world and time, that
+is, being acquainted with the essence of the Christian teaching, needs
+only for a minute to interrupt his activity, to forget the capacity in
+which he is regarded by men, be it of Emperor, soldier, minister, or
+journalist, and seriously ask himself who he is and what is his
+destiny--in order to begin to doubt the utility, lawfulness, and
+reasonableness of his actions. "Before I am Emperor, soldier, minister,
+or journalist," must say to himself every man of our time and of the
+Christian world, "before any of these, I am a man--_i.e._ an organic
+being sent by the Higher Will into a universe infinite in time and space,
+in order, after staying in it for an instant, to die--_i.e._ to disappear
+from it. And, therefore, all those personal, social, and even universal
+human aims which I may place before myself and which are placed before me
+by men are all insignificant, owing to the shortness of my life as well
+as to the infiniteness of the life of the universe, and should be
+subordinated to that higher aim for the attainment of which I am sent
+into the world. This ultimate aim, owing to my limitations, is
+inaccessible to me, but it does exist (as there must be a purpose in all
+that exists), and my business is that of being its instrument--_i.e._ my
+destiny, my vocation, is that of being a workman of God, of fulfilling
+His work." And having understood this destiny, every man of our world and
+time, from Emperor to soldier, cannot but regard differently those duties
+which he has taken upon himself or other men have imposed upon him.
+
+"Before I was crowned, recognized as Emperor," must the Emperor say to
+himself: "before I undertook to fulfil the duties of the head of the
+State, I, by the very fact that I live, have promised to fulfil that
+which is demanded of me by the Higher Will that sent me into life. These
+demands I not only know, but feel in my heart. They consist, as it is
+expressed in the Christian law, which I profess, in that I should submit
+to the will of God, and fulfil that which it requires of me, that I
+should love my neighbor, serve him, and act towards him as I would wish
+others to act towards me. Am I doing this?--ruling men, prescribing
+violence, executions, and, the most dreadful of all,--wars. Men tell me
+that I ought to do this. But God says that I ought to do something quite
+different. And, therefore, however much I may be told that, as the head
+of the State, I must direct acts of violence, the levying of taxes,
+executions and, above all, war, that is, the slaughter of one's neighbor,
+I do not wish to and cannot do these things."
+
+So must say to himself the soldier, who is taught that he must kill men,
+and the minister, who deemed it his duty to prepare for war, and the
+journalist who incited to war, and every man, who puts to himself the
+question, Who is he, what is his destination in life? And the moment the
+head of the State will cease to direct war, the soldier to fight, the
+minister to prepare means for war, the journalist to incite
+thereto--then, without any new institutions, adaptations, balance of
+power, tribunals, there will of itself be destroyed that hopeless
+position in which men have placed themselves, not only in relation to
+war, but also to all other calamities which they themselves inflict upon
+themselves.
+
+So that, however strange this may appear, the most effective and certain
+deliverance of men from all the calamities which they inflict upon
+themselves and from the most dreadful of all--war--is attainable, not by
+any external general measures, but merely by that simple appeal to the
+consciousness of each separate man which, nineteen hundred years ago, was
+proposed by Jesus--that every man bethink himself, and ask himself, who
+is he, why he lives, and what he should and should not do.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+
+The evil from which men of our time are suffering is produced by the fact
+that the majority live without that which alone affords a rational
+guidance for human activity--without religion; not that religion which
+consists in belief in dogmas, in the fulfilment of rites which afford a
+pleasant diversion, consolation, stimulant, but that religion which
+establishes the relation of man to the All, to God, and, therefore, gives
+a general higher direction to all human activity, and without which
+people stand on the plane of animals and even lower than they. This evil
+which is leading men to inevitable destruction has manifested itself with
+special power in our time, because, having lost all rational guidance in
+life, and having directed all efforts to discoveries and improvements
+principally in the sphere of technical knowledge, men of our time have
+developed in themselves enormous power over the forces of nature; but,
+not having any guidance for the rational adaptation of this power, they
+naturally have used it for the satisfaction of their lowest and most
+animal propensities.
+
+Bereft of religion, men possessing enormous power over the forces of
+nature are like children to whom powder or explosive gas has been given
+as a plaything. Considering this power which men of our time possess, and
+the way they use it, one feels that considering the degree of their moral
+development men have no right, not only to the use of railways, steam,
+electricity, telephones, photography, wireless telegraphs, but even to
+the simple art of manufacturing iron and steel, as all these improvements
+and arts they use only for the satisfaction of their lusts, for
+amusement, dissipation, and the destruction of each other.
+
+Then, what is to be done? To reject all these improvements of life, all
+this power acquired by humanity--to forget that which it has learnt? This
+is impossible, however perniciously these mental acquisitions are used;
+they still are acquisitions, and men cannot forget them. To alter those
+combinations of nations which have been formed during centuries and to
+establish new ones? To invent such new institutions as would hinder the
+minority from deceiving and exploiting the majority? To disseminate
+knowledge? All this has been tried, and is being done with great fervor.
+All these imaginary methods of improvement represent the chief methods of
+self-oblivion and of diverting one's attention from the consciousness of
+inevitable perdition. The boundaries of States are changed, institutions
+are altered, knowledge is disseminated; but within other boundaries, with
+other organizations, with increased knowledge, men remain the same
+beasts, ready any minute to tear each other to pieces, or the same slaves
+they have always been, and always will be, while they continue to be
+guided, not by religious consciousness, but by passions, theories, and
+external influences.
+
+Man has no choice; he must be the slave of the most unscrupulous and
+insolent amongst slaves, or else the servant of God, because for man
+there is only one way of being free--by uniting his will with the will of
+God. People bereft of religion, some repudiating religion itself, others
+recognizing as religion those external, monstrous forms which have
+superseded it, and guided only by their personal lusts, fear, human laws,
+and, above all, by mutual hypnotism, cannot cease to be animals or
+slaves, and no external efforts can extricate them from this state; for
+only religion makes a man free. And most of the people of our time are
+deprived of it.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+"But, in order to abolish the evil from which we are suffering," those
+will say who are preoccupied by various practical activities, "it would
+be necessary that not a few men only, but all men, should bethink
+themselves, and that, having done so, they should uniformly understand
+the destination of their lives, in the fulfilment of the will of God and
+in the service of one's neighbor.
+
+"Is this possible?" Not only possible, do I answer, but it is impossible
+that this should not take place. It is impossible for men not to bethink
+themselves--_i.e._ impossible that each man should not put to himself the
+question as to who he is and wherefore he lives; for man, as a rational
+being, cannot live without seeking to know why he lives, and he has
+always put to himself this question, and always, according to the degree
+of his development, has answered it in his religious teaching. In our
+time, the inner contradiction in which men feel themselves elicits this
+question with special insistence, and demands an answer. It is impossible
+for men of our time to answer this question otherwise than by recognizing
+the law of life in love to men and in the service of them, this being for
+our time the only rational answer as to the meaning of human life; and
+this answer nineteen hundred years ago has been expressed in the
+Christian religion and is likewise known to the vast majority of all
+mankind.
+
+This answer in a latent state lives in the consciousness of all men of
+the Christian world of our time; but it does not openly express itself
+and serve as guidance for our life, only because, on the one hand, those
+who enjoy the greatest authority, so-called scientists, being under the
+coarse error that religion is a temporary and outgrown step in the
+development of mankind and that men can live without religion, inculcate
+this error to those of the masses who are beginning to be educated; and,
+on the other hand, because those in power, sometimes consciously, but
+often unconsciously (being under the error that the Church faith is
+Christian religion), endeavor to support and excite in the people crude
+superstitions given out as the Christian religion. If only these two
+deceptions were to be destroyed, then true religion, already latent in
+men of our time, would become evident and obligatory.
+
+To bring this about it is necessary that, on the one hand, men of science
+should understand that the principle of the brotherhood of all men and
+the rule of not doing unto others what one does not wish for oneself is
+not one casual idea out of a multitude of human theories which can be
+subordinated to any other considerations, but is an incontestable
+principle, standing higher than the rest, and flowing from the changeless
+relation of man to that which is eternal, to God, and is religion, all
+religion, and, therefore, always obligatory.
+
+On the other hand, it is necessary that those who consciously or
+unconsciously preach crude superstitions under the guise of Christianity
+should understand that all these dogmas, sacraments, and rites which they
+support and preach are not only, as they think, harmless, but are in the
+highest degree pernicious, concealing from men that central religious
+truth which is expressed in the fulfilment of God's will, in the service
+of men, and that the rule of acting toward others as one would wish
+others to act toward oneself is not merely one of the prescriptions of
+the Christian religion, but is the whole of practical religion, as indeed
+is stated in the Gospels.
+
+To bring about that men of our time should uniformly place before
+themselves the question of the meaning of life, and uniformly answer it,
+it is only necessary that those who regard themselves as enlightened
+should cease to think and to inculcate to other generations that religion
+is atavism, the survival of a past wild state, and that for the good life
+of men the spreading of education is sufficient--_i.e._ the spread of the
+most varied knowledge which is in some way to bring men to justice and to
+a moral life. These men should understand instead that for the good life
+of humanity religion is vital, and that this religion already exists and
+lives in the consciousness of the men of our time. Men who are
+intentionally and unintentionally stupefying the people by church
+superstitions should cease to do so, and recognize that what is important
+and binding in Christianity is not baptism, nor Communion, nor profession
+of dogmas, etc., but only love to God and to one's neighbor, and the
+fulfilling of the commandment of acting toward others as one wishes
+others to act toward oneself--and that in this lies all the law and the
+prophets.
+
+If only both pseudo-Christians and men of science understood and preached
+to children and to the uneducated these simple, clear, and necessary
+truths as they now preach their complicated, confused, and unnecessary
+theories, all men would uniformly understand the meaning of their lives
+and recognize one and the same duties as flowing from this meaning.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+But "How are we to act now, immediately among ourselves, in Russia, at
+this moment, when our foes have already attacked us, are killing our
+people, and threatening us; what should be the action," I shall be asked,
+"of a Russian soldier, officer, general, Tsar, private individual? Are
+we, forsooth, to allow our enemies to ruin our possessions, to seize the
+productions of our labors, to carry away prisoners, or kill our men? What
+are we to do now that this thing has begun?"
+
+But before the work of war was commenced, by whomsoever it was
+commenced--every awakened man must answer--before all else the work of my
+life was commenced. And the work of my life has nothing in common with
+recognition of the rights of the Chinese, Japanese, or Russians to Port
+Arthur. The work of my life consists in fulfilling the will of Him who
+sent me into this life. This will is known to me. This will is that I
+should love my neighbor and serve him. Then why should I, following
+temporary, casual, irrational, and cruel demands, deviate from the known
+eternal and changeless law of all my life? If there be a God, He will not
+ask me when I die (which may happen at any moment) whether I retained
+Chi-nam-po with its timber stores, or Port Arthur, or even that
+conglomeration which is called the Russian Empire, which He did not
+confide to my care; but He will ask me what I have done with that life
+which He put at my disposal;--did I use it for the purpose for which it
+was predestined, and under the conditions for fulfilling which it was
+intrusted to me? Have I fulfilled His law?
+
+So that to this question as to what is to be done now, when war is
+commenced, for me, a man who understands his destiny, whatever position I
+may occupy, there can be no other answer than this, whatever be my
+circumstances, whether the war be commenced or not, whether thousands of
+Russians or Japanese be killed, whether not only Port Arthur be taken,
+but St. Petersburg and Moscow--I cannot act otherwise than as God demands
+of me, and that therefore I as a man can neither directly nor indirectly,
+neither by directing, nor by helping, nor by inciting to it, participate
+in war; I cannot, I do not wish to, and I will not. What will happen
+immediately or soon, from my ceasing to do that which is contrary to the
+will of God, I do not and cannot know; but I believe that from the
+fulfilment of the will of God there can follow nothing but that which is
+good for me and for all men.
+
+You speak with horror about what might happen if we Russians at this
+moment ceased to fight, and surrendered to the Japanese what they desire
+from us. But if it be true that the salvation of mankind from
+brutalization and self-destruction lies only in the establishment amongst
+men of that true religion which demands that we should love our neighbor
+and serve him (with which it is impossible to disagree), then every war,
+every hour of war, and my participation in it, only renders more
+difficult and distant the realization of this only possible salvation.
+
+So that, even if one places oneself on the unstable point of view of
+defining actions according to their presumed consequences--even then the
+surrender to the Japanese by the Russians of all which the former desire
+of us, besides the unquestionable advantage of the cessation of ruin and
+slaughter, would be an approach to the only means of the salvation of
+mankind from destruction; whereas the continuance of the war, however it
+may end, will be a postponement of that only means of salvation.
+
+"Yet even if this be so," it is replied, "wars can cease only when all
+men, or the majority, will refuse to participate in them. But the refusal
+of one man, whether he be Tsar or soldier, would only, unnecessarily, and
+without the slightest profit to any one, ruin his life. If the Russian
+Tsar were now to throw up the war, he would be dethroned, perhaps killed,
+in order to get rid of him; if an ordinary man were to refuse military
+service, he would be sent to a penal battalion and perhaps shot. Why,
+then, without the slightest use should one throw away one's life, which
+may be profitable to society?" is the common question of those who do not
+think of the destination of their life and therefore do not understand
+it.
+
+But this is not what is said and felt by any man who understands the
+destination of his life--_i.e._ by any religious man. Such a man is
+guided in his activity not by the presumed consequences of his action,
+but by the consciousness of the destination of his life. A factory
+workman goes to his factory and in it accomplishes the work which is
+allotted him without considering what will be the consequences of his
+labor. In the same way a soldier acts, carrying out the will of his
+commanders. So acts a religious man in fulfilling the work prescribed to
+him by God, without arguing as to what precisely will come of that work.
+Therefore for a religious man there is no question as to whether many or
+few men act as he does, or of what may happen to him if he does that
+which he should do. He knows that besides life and death nothing can
+happen, and that life and death are in the hands of God whom he obeys.
+
+A religious man acts thus and not otherwise, not because he desires to
+act thus, nor because it is advantageous to himself or to other men, but
+because, believing that his life is in the hands of God, he cannot act
+otherwise.
+
+In this lies the distinction of the activity of religious men; and
+therefore it is that the salvation of men from the calamities which they
+inflict upon themselves can be realized only in that degree in which they
+are guided in their lives, not by advantage nor arguments, but by
+religious consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+
+"But how about the enemies that attack us?"
+
+"Love your enemies, and ye will have none," is said in the teaching of
+the Twelve Apostles. This answer is not merely words, as those may
+imagine who are accustomed to think that the recommendation of love to
+one's enemies is something hyperbolical, and signifies not that which
+expressed, but something else. This answer is the indication of a very
+clear and definite activity, and of its consequences.
+
+To love one's enemies--the Japanese, the Chinese, those yellow people
+toward whom benighted men are now endeavoring to excite our hatred--to
+love them means not to kill them for the purpose of having the right of
+poisoning them with opium, as did the English; not to kill them in order
+to seize their land, as was done by the French, the Russians, and the
+Germans; not to bury them alive in punishment for injuring roads, not to
+tie them together by their hair, not to drown them in their river Amur,
+as did the Russians.
+
+"A disciple is not above his master.... It is enough for a disciple that
+he be as his master."
+
+To love the yellow people, whom we call our foes, means, not to teach
+them under the name of Christianity absurd superstitions about the fall
+of man, redemption, resurrection, etc., not to teach them the art of
+deceiving and killing others, but to teach them justice, unselfishness,
+compassion, love--and that not by words, but by the example of our own
+good life. And what have we been doing to them, and are still doing?
+
+If we did indeed love our enemies, if even now we began to love our
+enemies, the Japanese, we would have no enemy.
+
+Therefore, however strange it may appear to those occupied with military
+plans, preparations, diplomatic considerations, administrative,
+financial, economical measures, revolutionary, socialistic propaganda,
+and various unnecessary sciences, by which they think to save mankind
+from its calamities, the deliverance of man, not only from the calamities
+of war, but also from all the calamities which men inflict upon
+themselves, will take place not through emperors or kings instituting
+peace alliances, not through those who would dethrone emperors, kings, or
+restrain them by constitutions, or substitute republics for monarchies,
+not by peace conferences, not by the realization of socialistic
+programmes, not by victories or defeats on land or sea, not by libraries
+or universities, nor by those futile mental exercises which are now
+called science; but only by there being more and more of those simple men
+who, like the Dukhobors, Drojjin, Olkhovik, in Russia, the Nazarenes in
+Austria, Condatier in France, Tervey in Holland, and others, having
+placed as their object not external alterations of life, but the closest
+fulfilment in themselves of the will of Him who has sent them into life,
+will direct all their powers to this realization. Only such people
+realizing the Kingdom of God in themselves, in their souls, will
+establish, without directly aiming at this purpose, that external Kingdom
+of God which every human soul is longing for.
+
+Salvation will come to pass only in this one way and not in any other.
+Therefore what is now being done by those who, ruling men, inspire them
+with religious and patriotic superstitions, exciting in them
+exclusiveness, hatred, and murder, as well as by those who, for the
+purpose of freeing men from slavery and oppression, invoke them to
+violent external revolution, or think that the acquisition by men of very
+much incidental and for the most part unnecessary information will of
+itself bring them to a good life--all this, by distracting men from what
+alone they need, only removes them further from the possibility of
+salvation.
+
+The evil from which the men of the Christian world suffer is that they
+have temporarily lost religion.
+
+Some people, having come to see the discord between the existing religion
+and the degree of mental and scientific development attained by humanity
+at the present time, have decided that in general no religion whatever is
+necessary. They live without religion and preach the uselessness of any
+religion of whatever kind. Others, holding to that distorted form of the
+Christian religion which is now preached, likewise live without religion,
+professing empty external forms, which cannot serve as guidance for men.
+
+Yet a religion which answers to the demands of our time does exist and is
+known to all men, and in a latent state lives in the hearts of men of the
+Christian world. Therefore that this religion should become evident to
+and binding upon all men, it is only necessary that educated men--the
+leaders of the masses--should understand that religion is necessary to
+man, that without religion men cannot live a good life, and that what
+they call science cannot replace religion; and that those in power and
+who support the old empty forms of religion should understand that what
+they support and preach under the form of religion is not only not
+religion, but is the chief obstacle to men's appropriating the true
+religion which they already know, and which can alone deliver them from
+their calamities. So that the only certain means of man's salvation
+consists merely in ceasing to do that which hinders men from assimilating
+the true religion which already lives in their consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+
+I had finished this writing when news came of the destruction of six
+hundred innocent lives opposite Port Arthur. It would seem that the
+useless suffering and death of these unfortunate deluded men who have
+needlessly and so dreadfully perished ought to disabuse those who were
+the cause of this destruction. I am not alluding to Makaroff and other
+officers--all these men knew what they were doing, and wherefore, and
+they voluntarily, for personal advantage, for ambition, did as they did,
+disguising themselves in pretended patriotism, a pretence not condemned
+merely because it is universal. I allude rather to those unfortunate men
+drawn from all parts of Russia, who, by the help of religious fraud, and
+under fear of punishment, have been torn from an honest, reasonable,
+useful, laborious family life, driven to the other end of the world,
+placed on a cruel, senseless machine for slaughter, and torn to bits,
+drowned along with this stupid machine in a distant sea, without any need
+or any possibility of advantage from all their privations, efforts, and
+sufferings, or from the death which overtook them.
+
+In 1830, during the Polish war, the adjutant Vilijinsky sent to St.
+Petersburg by Klopitsky, in a conversation held in French with Dibitch,
+in answer to the latter's demand that the Russian troops should enter
+Poland, said to him:--
+
+"Monsieur le Marechal, I think that in that case it will be quite
+impossible for the Polish nation to accept this manifesto...."
+
+"Believe me, the Emperor will make no further concessions."
+
+"Then I foresee that, unhappily, there will be war, that much blood will
+be shed, there will be many unfortunate victims."
+
+"Do not think so; at most there will be ten thousand who will perish on
+both sides, and that is all,"[1] said Dibitch in his German accent, quite
+confident that he, together with another man as cruel and foreign to
+Russian and Polish life as he was himself,--Nicholas I,--had the right to
+condemn or not to condemn to death ten or a hundred thousand Russians and
+Poles.
+
+  [1] Vilijinsky adds on his own behalf, "The Field-Marshal did not then
+      think that more than sixty thousand Russians alone would perish in
+      this war, not so much from the enemy's fire as from disease--nor
+      that he would himself be amongst their number."
+
+One hardly believes that this could have been, so senseless and dreadful
+is it,--and yet it was; sixty thousand maintainers of their families lost
+their lives owing to the will of those men. And now the same thing is
+taking place.
+
+In order not to let the Japanese into Manchuria, and to expel them from
+Korea, not ten thousand, but fifty and more thousands will, according to
+all probability, be necessary. I do not know whether Nicholas II and
+Kuropatkin say like Dibitch in so many words that not more than fifty
+thousand lives will be necessary for this on the Russian side alone, only
+and only that; but they think it--they cannot but think it, because the
+work they are doing speaks for itself; that ceaseless stream of
+unfortunate, deluded Russian peasants now being transported by thousands
+to the Far East--these are those same not more than fifty thousand live
+Russian men whom Nicholas Romanoff and Alexis Kuropatkin have decided
+they may get killed, and who will be killed, in support of those
+stupidities, robberies, and every kind of abomination which were
+accomplished in China and Korea by immoral ambitious men now sitting
+peacefully in their palaces and expecting new glory and new advantage and
+profit from the slaughter of these fifty thousand unfortunate, defrauded
+Russian workingmen guilty of nothing and gaining nothing by their
+sufferings and death. For other people's land, to which the Russians have
+no right, which has been criminally seized from its legitimate owners,
+and which, in reality, is not even necessary to the Russians--and also
+for certain dark dealings by speculators, who in Korea wished to gain
+money out of other people's forests--many millions of money are spent,
+_i.e._ a great part of the labor of the whole of the Russian people,
+while the future generations of this people are bound by debts, its best
+workmen are withdrawn from labor, and scores of thousands of its sons are
+mercilessly doomed to death; and the destruction of these unfortunate men
+is already begun. More than this: the war is being managed by those who
+have hatched it so badly, so negligently, all is so unexpected, so
+unprepared, that, as one paper admits, Russia's chief chance of success
+lies in the fact that it possesses inexhaustible human material. It is
+upon this that those rely who send to death scores of thousands of
+Russian men!
+
+It is frankly said that the regrettable reverses of our fleet must be
+compensated on the land. In plain language this means that if the
+authorities have badly directed things on sea, and by their negligence
+have destroyed not only the nation's millions, but thousands of lives, we
+can make it up by condemning to death on land several more scores of
+thousands!
+
+When crawling locusts cross rivers, it happens that the lower layers are
+drowned until from the bodies of the drowned is formed a bridge over
+which the upper ranks can pass. In the same way are the Russian people
+being disposed of. Thus the first lower layer is already beginning to
+drown, indicating the way to other thousands, who will all likewise
+perish.
+
+And are the originators, directors, and supporters of this dreadful work
+beginning to understand their sin, their crime? Not in the least. They
+are quite persuaded that they have fulfilled, and are fulfilling, their
+duty, and they are proud of their activity. People speak of the loss of
+the brave Makaroff, who, as all agree, was able to kill men very
+cleverly; they deplore the loss of a drowned excellent machine of
+slaughter which had cost so many millions of roubles; they discuss the
+question of how to find another murderer as capable as the poor benighted
+Makaroff; they invent new, still more efficacious, tools of slaughter;
+and all the guilty men engaged in this dreadful work, from the Tsar to
+the humblest journalist, all with one voice call for new insanities, new
+cruelties, for the increase of brutality and hatred of one's fellow-men.
+
+"Makaroff is not the only man in Russia, and every admiral placed in his
+position will follow in his steps and will continue the plan and the idea
+of Makaroff, who has nobly perished in the strife," writes the _Novoe
+Vremya_.
+
+"Let us earnestly pray God for those who have laid down their lives for
+the sacred Fatherland, without doubting for one moment that the
+Fatherland will give us new sons, equally virtuous, for the further
+struggle, and will find in them an inexhaustible store of strength for a
+worthy completion of the work," writes the St. Petersburg _Viedomosti_.
+
+"A ripe nation will draw no other conclusion from the defeat, however
+unprecedented, than that we should continue, develop, and conclude the
+strife; therefore let us find in ourselves new strength; new heroes of
+the spirit will arise," writes the _Russ_,--and so forth.
+
+So murder and every kind of crime go on with greater fury. People
+enthusiastically admire the martial spirit of the volunteers who, having
+come unexpectedly upon fifty of their fellow-men, slay all of them, or
+take possession of a village and slaughter all its population, or hang or
+shoot those accused of being spies--_i.e._ of doing the very same thing
+which is regarded as indispensable and is constantly done on our side.
+News about these crimes is reported in pompous telegrams to their chief
+director, the Tsar, who, in return, sends to his virtuous troops his
+blessing on the continuation of such deeds.
+
+Is it not evident that, if there be a salvation from this position, it is
+only one: that one which Jesus teaches?--"Seek ye first the Kingdom of
+God and His righteousness (that which is within you), and all the
+rest--_i.e._ all that practical welfare toward which man is
+striving--will of itself be realized."
+
+Such is the law of life: practical welfare is attained not when man
+strives toward this practical welfare--such striving, on the contrary,
+for the most part removes man from the attainment of what he seeks; but
+only when man, without thinking of the attainment of practical welfare,
+strives toward the most perfect fulfilment of that which before God,
+before the Source and Law of his life, he regards as right. Then only,
+incidentally, is practical welfare also attained.
+
+So that the true salvation of men is only one thing: the fulfilment of
+the will of God by each individual man within himself--_i.e._ in that
+portion of the universe which alone is subject to his power. In this is
+the chief, the only, destiny and duty of every individual man, and at the
+same time this is the only means by which every individual man can
+influence others; and, therefore, to this, and to this only, should all
+the efforts of every man be directed.
+
+May 2, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII
+
+
+I had only just despatched the last of the preceding pages of this paper
+when the dreadful news came of a new iniquity committed in regard to the
+Russian people by those light-minded men who, crazed with power, have
+appropriated the right of managing them. Again coarse and servile slaves
+of slaves, dressed up in various dazzling attires--varieties of Generals
+wishing to distinguish themselves, or to earn the right to add one more
+little star, fingle fangle, or scrap of ribbon to their idiotic glaring
+get-up, or else from stupidity or carelessness--again these miserable men
+have destroyed amid dreadful sufferings thousands of those honorable,
+kind, hard-working laborers who feed them. And again this iniquity not
+only does not cause those responsible for it to reflect and repent, but
+one hears and reads only about its being necessary as speedily as
+possible to mutilate and slaughter a greater number of men, and to ruin
+still more families, both Russian and Japanese.
+
+More than this, to prepare men for fresh iniquities of this kind, the
+perpetrators of these crimes, far from recognizing what is evident to
+all--viz. that for the Russians this event, even from their patriotic,
+military point of view, was a scandalous defeat--endeavor to assure
+credulous people that these unfortunate Russian laboring men--lured into
+a trap like cattle into a slaughterhouse, of whom several thousands have
+been killed and maimed merely because one General did not understand what
+another General had said--have performed an act of heroism because those
+who could not run away were killed and those who did run away remained
+alive. As to the fact that one of these immoral and cruel men,
+distinguished by the titles of Generals, Admirals, drowned a quantity of
+peaceful Japanese, this is also described as a great and glorious act of
+heroism, which must gladden the hearts of Russians. And in all the papers
+are reprinted this awful appeal to murder:--
+
+"Let the two thousand Russian soldiers killed on the Yalu, together with
+the maimed _Retvisan_ and her sister ships, with our lost torpedo-boats,
+teach our cruisers with what devastation they must break in upon the
+shores of base Japan. She has sent her soldiers to shed Russian blood,
+and no quarter should be afforded her. Now one cannot--it is sinful--be
+sentimental; we must fight; we must direct such heavy blows that the
+memory of them shall freeze the treacherous hearts of the Japanese. Now
+is the time for the cruisers to go out to sea to reduce to ashes the
+towns of Japan, flying as a dreadful calamity along its shores. No more
+sentimentality."
+
+The frightful work commenced is continued. Loot, violence, murder,
+hypocrisy, theft, and, above all, the most fearful fraud--the distortion
+of religious teachings, both Christian and Buddhistic--continue. The
+Tsar, the chief responsible person, continues to review the troops, to
+thank, reward, and encourage them; he issues an edict for the calling out
+of the reserves; his faithful subjects again and again lay down their
+property and lives at the feet of him they call, only with their lips,
+their adored Monarch. On the other hand, desiring to distinguish
+themselves before each other in deeds and not in words only, they tear
+away the fathers and the bread-winners from their orphaned families,
+preparing them for slaughter. The worse the position of Russia, the more
+recklessly do the journalists lie, transforming shameful defeats into
+victories, knowing that no one will contradict them; and they quietly
+collect money from subscriptions and sales. The more money and labor of
+the people is devoted to the war, the more is grabbed by various
+authorities and speculators, who know that no one will convict them
+because every one is doing the same. The military, trained for murder,
+having passed years in a school of inhumanity, coarseness, and idleness,
+rejoice--poor men--because, besides an increase of their salary, the
+slaughter of superiors opens vacancies for their promotion. Christian
+pastors continue to invite men to the greatest of crimes, continue to
+commit sacrilege, praying God to help the work of war; and, instead of
+condemning, they justify and praise that pastor who, with the cross in
+his hands on the very scene of murder, encouraged men to the crime. The
+same thing is going on in Japan. The benighted Japanese go in for murder
+with yet greater fervor, owing to their victories; the Mikado also
+reviews and rewards his troops; various Generals boast of their bravery,
+imagining that, having learned to kill, they have acquired enlightenment.
+So, too, groan the unfortunate working people torn from useful labor and
+from their families. So their journalists also lie and rejoice over their
+gains. Also probably--for where murder is elevated into virtue every kind
+of vice is bound to flourish--also probably all kinds of commanders and
+speculators earn money; and Japanese theologians and religious teachers
+no less than the masters in the techniques of armament do not remain
+behind the Europeans in the techniques of religious deceit and sacrilege,
+but distort the great Buddhistic teaching by not only permitting but
+justifying that murder which Buddha forbade. The Buddhistic scientist,
+Soyen-Shaku, ruling over eight hundred monasteries, explains that
+although Buddha forbade manslaughter he also said he could never be at
+peace until all beings are united in the infinitely loving heart of all
+things, and that, therefore, in order to bring into harmony that which is
+discordant it is necessary to fight and to kill men.[2]
+
+  [2] In the article it is said: "This triple world is my own possession.
+      All the things therein are my own children ... the ten thousand
+      things in this world are no more than the reflections of my own
+      self. They come from the one source. They partake of the one body.
+      Therefore I cannot rest, until every being, even the smallest
+      possible fragment of existence, is settled down to its proper
+      appointment.... This is the position taken by the Buddha, and we,
+      his humble followers, are but to walk in his wake. Why, then, do we
+      fight at all? Because we do not find this world as it ought to be.
+      Because there are here so many perverted creatures, so many wayward
+      thoughts, so many ill-directed hearts, due to ignorant
+      subjectivity. For this reason Buddhists are never tired of
+      combating all productions of ignorance, and their fight must be to
+      the bitter end. They will show no quarter. They will mercilessly
+      destroy the very root from which arises the misery of this life. To
+      accomplish this end, they will never be afraid of sacrificing their
+      lives...." There follow, just as is usual with us, entangled
+      arguments about self-sacrifice and kindness, about the
+      transmigration of souls and about much else--all this for the sole
+      purpose of concealing the simple and clear commandment of Buddha:
+      not to kill. Further it is said: "The hand that is raised to strike
+      and the eye that is fixed to take aim do not belong to the
+      individual, but are the instruments utilized by a principle higher
+      than transient existence." ("The Open Court," May, 1904. "Buddhist
+      Views of War," by the Right Rev. Soyen-Shaku.)
+
+It is as if there never had existed the Christian and Buddhistic teaching
+about the unity of the human spirit, the brotherhood of men, love,
+compassion, the sacredness of human life. Men, both Japanese and
+Russians, already enlightened by the truth, yet like wild animals, nay,
+worse than wild animals, throw themselves upon each other with the sole
+desire to destroy as many lives as possible. Thousands of unfortunates
+groan and writhe in cruel sufferings and die in agony in Japanese and
+Russian field hospitals, asking themselves in bewilderment why this
+fearful thing was done with them, while other thousands are already
+rotting in the earth or on the earth, or floating in the sea, in swollen
+decomposition. And scores of thousands of wives, fathers, mothers,
+children, are bemoaning their bread-winners; uselessly destroyed. Yet all
+this is still too little; new and newer victims are being prepared. The
+chief concern of the Russian organizers of slaughter is that on the
+Russian side the stream of food for cannon--three thousand men per day
+doomed to destruction--should not be interrupted for one minute. The
+Japanese are preoccupied with the same thing. The locusts are incessantly
+being driven down into the river in order that the rows behind may pass
+over the bodies.
+
+When will this cease, and the deceived people at last recover themselves
+and say: "Well, go you yourselves, you heartless Tsars, Mikados,
+Ministers, Bishops, priests, generals, editors, speculators, or however
+you may be called, go you yourselves under these shells and bullets, but
+we do not wish to go and we will not go. Leave us in peace, to plough,
+and sow, and build,--and also to feed you." It would be so natural to say
+this now, when amongst us in Russia resounds the weeping and wailing of
+hundreds of thousands of mothers, wives, and children, from whom are
+being snatched away their bread-earners, the so-called "reserve." These
+same men, the majority of the reserve, are able to read; they know what
+the Far East is; they know that war is going on, not for anything which
+is in the least necessary to Russia, but for some dealings in strange
+land, leased lands, as they themselves call them, on which it seemed
+advantageous to some corrupt speculators to build railways and so gain
+profit; also they know, or might know, that they will be killed like
+sheep in a slaughterhouse, since the Japanese possess the latest
+improvements in tools of murder, which we do not, as the Russian
+authorities who are sending these people to death had not thought in time
+of furnishing themselves with the same weapons as the Japanese. Knowing
+all this, it would indeed be so natural to say, "Go you, those who have
+brought on this work, all you to whom war is necessary, and who justify
+it; go you, and face the Japanese bullets and mines, but we will not go,
+because we not only do not need to do this, but we cannot understand how
+it can be necessary to any one."
+
+But no, they do not say this; they go, and they will continue to go; they
+cannot but go as long as they fear that which ruins the body and not that
+which ruins both the body and the soul. "Whether we shall be killed,"
+they argue, "or maimed in these chinnampos, or whatever they are called,
+whither we are driven, we do not know; it yet may happen that we shall
+get through safely, and, moreover, with rewards and glory, like those
+sailors who are now being feasted all over Russia because the Japanese
+bombs and bullets did not hit them, but somebody else; whereas should we
+refuse, we should be certainly sent to prison, starved, beaten, exiled to
+the province of Yakoutsk, perhaps even killed immediately." So with
+despair in their hearts, leaving behind a good rational life, leaving
+their wives and their children,--they go.
+
+Yesterday I met a Reservist soldier accompanied by his mother and wife.
+All three were riding in a cart; he had had a drop too much; his wife's
+face was swollen with tears. He turned to me:--
+
+"Good-by to thee! Lyof Nikolaevitch, off to the Far East."
+
+"Well, art thou going to fight?"
+
+"Well, some one has to fight!"
+
+"No one need fight!"
+
+He reflected for a moment. "But what is one to do; where can one
+escape?"
+
+I saw that he had understood me, had understood that the work to which he
+was being sent was an evil work.
+
+"Where can one escape?" That is the precise expression of that mental
+condition which in the official and journalistic world is translated into
+the words--"For the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland." Those who,
+abandoning their hungry families, go to suffering, to death, say as they
+feel, "Where can one escape?" Whereas those who sit in safety in their
+luxurious palaces say that all Russian men are ready to sacrifice their
+lives for their adored Monarch, and for the glory and greatness of
+Russia.
+
+Yesterday, from a peasant I know, I received two letters, one after the
+other. This is the first:--
+
+"Dear Lyof Nikolaevitch,--Well, to-day I have received the official
+announcement of my call to the Service; to-morrow I must present myself
+at the headquarters. That is all. And after that--to the Far East to meet
+the Japanese bullets. About my own and my household's grief I will not
+tell you; it is not you who will fail to understand all the horror of my
+position and the horrors of war; all this you have long ago painfully
+realized, and you understand it all. How I have longed to visit you, to
+have a talk with you! I had written to you a long letter in which I
+described the torments of my soul; but I had not had time to copy it,
+when I received my summons. What is my wife to do now with her four
+children? As an old man, of course, you cannot do anything yourself for
+my folks, but you might ask some of your friends in their leisure to
+visit my orphaned family. I beg you earnestly that if my wife proves
+unable to bear the agony of her helplessness with her burden of children
+and makes up her mind to go to you for help and counsel, you will receive
+and console her. Although she does not know you personally, she believes
+in your word, and that means much. I was not able to resist the summons,
+but I say beforehand that through me not one Japanese family shall be
+orphaned. My God! how dreadful is all this--how distressing and painful
+to abandon all by which one lives and in which one is concerned."
+
+The second letter is as follows: "Kindest Lyof Nikolaevitch, Only one day
+of actual service has passed, and I have already lived through an
+eternity of most desperate torments. From 8 o'clock in the morning till 9
+in the evening we have been crowded and knocked about to and fro in the
+barrack yard, like a herd of cattle. The comedy of medical examination
+was three times repeated, and those who had reported themselves ill did
+not receive even ten minutes' attention before they were marked
+'Satisfactory.' When we, these two thousand satisfactory individuals,
+were driven from the military commander to the barracks, along the road
+spread out for almost a verst stood a crowd of relatives, mothers, and
+wives with infants in arms; and if you had only heard and seen how they
+clasped their fathers, husbands, sons, and hanging round their necks
+wailed hopelessly! Generally I behave in a reserved way and can restrain
+my feelings, but I could not hold out, and I also wept. [In journalistic
+language this same is expressed thus: "The upheaval of patriotic feeling
+is immense."] Where is the standard that can measure all this immensity
+of woe now spreading itself over almost one-third of the world? And we,
+we are now that food for cannon, which in the near future will be offered
+as sacrifice to the God of vengeance and horror. I cannot manage to
+establish my inner balance. Oh! how I execrate myself for this
+double-mindedness which prevents my serving one Master and God."
+
+This man does not yet sufficiently believe that what destroys the body is
+not dreadful, but that which destroys both the body and the soul,
+therefore he cannot refuse to go; yet while leaving his own family he
+promises beforehand that through him not one Japanese family shall be
+orphaned; he believes in the chief law of God, the law of all
+religions--to act toward others as one wishes others to act toward
+oneself. Of such men more or less consciously recognizing this law, there
+are in our time, not in the Christian world alone, but in the Buddhistic,
+Mahomedan, Confucian, and Brahminic world, not only thousands but
+millions.
+
+There exist true heroes, not those who are now being feted because,
+having wished to kill others, they were not killed themselves, but true
+heroes, who are now confined in prisons and in the province of Yakoutsk
+for having categorically refused to enter the ranks of murderers, and who
+have preferred martyrdom to this departure from the law of Jesus. There
+are also such as he who writes to me, who go, but who will not kill. But
+also that majority which goes without thinking, and endeavors not to
+think of what it is doing, still in the depth of its soul does now
+already feel that it is doing an evil deed by obeying authorities who
+tear men from labor and from their families and send them to needless
+slaughter of men, repugnant to their soul and their faith; and they go
+only because they are so entangled on all sides that--"Where can one
+escape?"
+
+Meanwhile those who remain at home not only feel this, but know and
+express it. Yesterday in the high road I met some peasants returning from
+Toula. One of them was reading a leaflet as he walked by the side of his
+cart.
+
+I asked, "What is that--a telegram?"
+
+"This is yesterday's,--but here is one of to-day." He took another out of
+his pocket. We stopped. I read it.
+
+"You should have seen what took place yesterday at the station," he said;
+"it was dreadful. Wives, children, more than a thousand of them, weeping.
+They surrounded the train, but were allowed no further. Strangers wept,
+looking on. One woman from Toula gasped and fell down dead. Five
+children. They have since been placed in various institutions; but the
+father was driven away all the same.... What do we want with this
+Manchuria, or whatever it is called? There is sufficient land here. And
+what a lot of people and of property has been destroyed."
+
+Yes, the relation of men to war is now quite different from that which
+formerly existed, even so lately as the year '77. That which is now
+taking place never took place before.
+
+The papers set forth that, during the receptions of the Tsar, who is
+travelling about Russia for the purpose of hypnotizing the men who are
+being sent to murder, indescribable enthusiasm is manifested amongst the
+people. As a matter of fact, something quite different is being
+manifested. From all sides one hears reports that in one place three
+Reservists have hanged themselves; in another spot, two more; in yet
+another, about a woman whose husband had been taken away bringing her
+children to the conscription committee-room and leaving them there; while
+another hanged herself in the yard of the military commander. All are
+dissatisfied, gloomy, exasperated. The words, "For the Faith, the King,
+and the Fatherland," the National Anthem, and shouts of "Hurrah" no
+longer act upon people as they once did. Another warfare of a different
+kind--the struggling consciousness of the deceit and sinfulness of the
+work to which people are being called--is more and more taking possession
+of the people.
+
+Yes, the great strife of our time is not that now taking place between
+the Japanese and the Russians, nor that which may blaze up between the
+white and yellow races, not that strife which is carried on by mines,
+bombs, bullets, but that spiritual strife which without ceasing has gone
+on and is now going on between the enlightened consciousness of mankind
+now waiting for manifestation and that darkness and that burden which
+surrounds and oppresses mankind.
+
+In His own time Jesus yearned in expectation, and said, "I came to cast
+fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled." Luke
+xii. 49.
+
+That which Jesus longed for is being accomplished, the fire is being
+kindled. Then do not let us check it, but let us spread and serve it.
+
+13 May, 1904.
+
+I should never finish this paper if I were to continue to add to it all
+that corroborates its essential idea. Yesterday the news came in of the
+sinking of the Japanese ironclads; and in the so-called higher circles of
+Russian fashionable, rich, intellectual society they are, without the
+slightest conscientious scruples, rejoicing at the destruction of a
+thousand human lives. Yet to-day I have received from a simple seaman, a
+man standing on the lowest plane of society, the following letter:[3]
+
+"Much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch, I greet you with a low bow, with love,
+much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch. I have read your book. It was very
+pleasant reading for me. I have been a great lover of reading your works.
+Well, Lyof Nikolaevitch, we are now in a state of war, please write to me
+whether it is agreeable to God or not that our commanders compel us to
+kill. I beg you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, write to me please whether or not the
+truth now exists on earth. Tell me, Lyof Nikolaevitch. In church here a
+prayer is being read, the priest mentions the Christ-loving army. Is it
+true or not that God loves war? I pray you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, have you
+got any books from which I could see whether truth exists on earth or
+not? Send me such books. What they cost, I will pay. I beg you, Lyof
+Nikolaevitch, do not neglect my request. If there are no books then send
+me a letter. I will be very glad when I receive a letter from you. I will
+await your letter with impatience. Good-by for the present. I remain
+alive and well and wish the same to you from the Lord God. Good health
+and good success in your work."
+
+
+  [3] The letter is written in a most illiterate way, filled with
+      mistakes in orthography and punctuation.
+                                                              (Trans.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "Bethink Yourselves", by Leo Tolstoi
+
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