The men who go over to the new truth, once it has gained a certain hold, go overen masse, of one accord, much as ballast is rapidly put into a ship to maintain its equilibrium. If not ballasted, the vessel would not be sufficiently immersed, and would change its position every moment. This ballast, which at first may seem superfluous and a hindrance to the progress of the ship, is indispensable to its equipoise and motion.
Thus it is with the masses when, under the influence of some new idea that has won social approval, they abandon one system to adopt another, not singly, but in a body. It is the inertia of this mass which impedes the rapid and frequent transition from one system of life, not ratified by wisdom, to another; and which for a long time arrests the progress of every truth destined to become a part of human consciousness.
It is erroneous, then, to argue that because only a small percentage of the human race has in these eighteen centuries adopted the Christian doctrine, that many, many times eighteen centuries must elapse before the whole world will accept it,—a period of time so remote that we who are now living can have no interest in it. It is unfair, because those men who stand on a lower plane of development, whom the partizans of the existing order represent as hindrances to the realization of the Christian system of life, are those men who always go over in a body to a truth accepted by those above them.
And therefore that change in the life of mankind, when the powerful will give up their power without finding any to assume it in their stead, will come to pass whenthe Christian life-conception, rendered familiar, conquers, not merely men one by one, but masses at a time.
"But even if it were true," the advocates of the existing order may say, "that public opinion has the power to convert the inert non-Christian mass of men, as well as the corrupt and gross who are to be found in every Christian community, how shall we know that a Christian mode of life is born, and that State violence will be rendered useless?
"After renouncing the despotism by which the existing order has been maintained, in order to trust to the vague and indefinite force of public opinion, we risk permitting those savages, those existing among us, as well as those outside, to commit robbery, murder, and other outrages upon Christians.
"If even with the help of authority we have a hard struggle against the anti-Christian elements ever ready to overpower us, and destroy all the progress made by civilization, how then could public opinion prove an efficient substitute for the use of force, and avail for our protection? To rely upon public opinion alone would be as foolhardy as to let loose all the wild beasts of a menagerie, because they seem inoffensive when in their cages and held in awe by red-hot irons.
"Those men entrusted with authority, or born to rule over others by the divine will of God, have no right to imperil all the results of civilization, simply to make an experiment, and learn whether public opinion can or cannot be substituted for the safeguard of authority."
Alphonse Karr, a French writer, forgotten to-day, once said, in trying to prove the impossibility of abolishing the death penalty: "Que Messieurs les assassins commencent par nous donner l'exemple." And I have often heard this witticism quoted by persons who really believed they were using a convincing and intellectual argument against the suppression of the penalty of death. Nevertheless, there could be no better argument against the violence of government.
"Let the assassins begin by showing us an example," say the defenders of government authority. The assassinssay the same, but with more justice. They say: "Let those who have set themselves up as teachers and guides show us an example by the suppression of legal assassination, and we will imitate it." And this they say, not by way of a jest, but in all seriousness, for such is in reality the situation.
"We cannot cease to use violence while we are surrounded by those who commit violence."
There is no more insuperable barrier at the present time to the progress of humanity, and to the establishment of a system that shall be in harmony with its present conception of life, than this erroneous argument.
Those holding positions of authority are fully convinced that men are to be influenced and controlled by force alone, and therefore to preserve the existing system they do not hesitate to employ it. And yet this very system is supported, not by violence, but by public opinion, the action of which is compromised by violence. The action of violence actually weakens and destroys that which it wishes to support.
At best, violence, if not employed as a vehicle for the ambition of those in high places, condemns in the inflexible form a law which public opinion has most probably long ago repudiated and condemned; but there is this difference, that while public opinion rejects and condemns all acts that are opposed to the moral law, the law supported by force repudiates and condemns only a certain limited number of acts, seeming thus to justify all acts of a like order which have not been included in its formula.
From the time of Moses public opinion has regarded covetousness, lust, and cruelty as crimes, and condemned them as such. It condemns and repudiates every form that covetousness may assume, not only the acquisition of another man's property by violence, fraud, or cunning, but the cruel abuse of wealth as well. It condemns all kinds of lust, let it be impudicity with a mistress, a slave, a divorced wife, or with one's wife; it condemns all cruelty,—blows, bad usage, murder,—all cruelty, not only toward human beings, but toward animals. Whereas, the law,based upon violence, attacks only certain forms of covetousness, such as theft and fraud, and certain forms of lust and cruelty, such as conjugal infidelity, assault, and murder; and thus it seems to condone those manifestations of covetousness, lust, and cruelty which do not fall within its narrow limits.
But violence not only demoralizes public opinion, it excites in the minds of men a pernicious conviction that they move onward, not through the impulsion of a spiritual power, which would help them to comprehend and realize the truth by bringing them nearer to that moral force which is the source of every progressive movement of mankind,—but, by means of violence,—by the very factor that not only impedes our progress toward truth, but withdraws us from it. This is a fatal error, inasmuch as it inspires in man a contempt for the fundamental principle of his life,—spiritual activity,—and leads him to transfer all his strength and energy to the practice of external violence.
It is as though men would try to put a locomotive in motion by turning its wheels with their hands, not knowing that the expansion of steam was the real motive-power, and that the action of the wheels was but the effect, and not the cause. If by their hands and their levers they move the wheels, it is but the semblance of motion, and, if anything, injures the wheels and makes them useless.
The same mistake is made by those who expect to move the world by violence.
Men affirm that the Christian life cannot be established save by violence, because there are still uncivilized nations outside of the Christian world, in Africa and Asia (some regard even the Chinese as a menace of our civilization), and because, according to the new theory of heredity, there exist in society congenital criminals, savage and irredeemably vicious.
But the savages whom we find in our own community, as well as those beyond its pale, with whom we threaten ourselves and others, have never yielded to violence, and are not yielding to it now. One peoplenever conquered another by violence alone. If the victors stood on a lower plane of civilization than the conquered, they always adopted the habits and customs of the latter, never attempting to force their own methods of life upon them. It is by the influence of public opinion, not by violence, that nations are reduced to submission.
When a people have accepted a new religion, have become Christians, or turned Mohammedans, it has come to pass, not because it was made obligatory by those in power (violence often produced quite the opposite result), but because they were influenced by public opinion. Nations constrained by violence to accept the religion of the conqueror have never really done so.
The same may be said in regard to the savage elements found in all communities: neither severity nor clemency in the matter of punishments, nor modifications in the prison system, nor augmenting of the police force, have either diminished or increased the aggregate of crimes, which will only decrease through an evolution in our manner of life. No severities have ever succeeded in suppressing the vendetta, or the custom of dueling in certain countries. However many of his fellows may be put to death for thieving, the Tcherkess continues to steal out of vainglory. No girl will marry a Tcherkess who has not proved his daring by stealing a horse, or at least a sheep. When men no longer fight duels, and the Tcherkess cease to steal, it will not be from fear of punishment (the danger of capital punishment adds to the prestige of daring), but because public manners will have undergone a change. The same may be said of all other crimes. Violence can never suppress that which is countenanced by general custom. If public opinion would but frown upon violence, it would destroy all its power.
What would happen if violence were not employed against hostile nations and the criminal element in society we do not know. But that the use of violence subdues neither we do know through long experience.
And how can we expect to subdue by violence nations whose education, traditions, and even religious training all tend to glorify resistence to the conqueror, and love of liberty as the loftiest of virtues? And how is it possible to extirpate crime by violence in the midst of communities where the same act, regarded by the government as criminal, is transformed into an heroic exploit by public opinion?
Nations and races may be destroyed by violence—it has been done. They cannot be subdued.
The power transcending all others which has influenced individuals and nations since time began, that power which is the convergence of the invisible, intangible, spiritual forces of all humanity, is public opinion.
Violence serves but to enervate this influence, disintegrating it, and substituting for it one not only useless, but pernicious to the welfare of humanity.
In order to win over all those outside the Christian fold, all the Zulus, the Manchurians, the Chinese, whom many consider uncivilized, and the uncivilized among ourselves, there isonly one way. This is by the diffusion of a Christian mode of thought, which is only to be accomplished by a Christian life, Christian deeds, a Christian example. But instead of employing thisone wayof winning those who have remained outside the fold of Christianity, men of our epoch have done just the opposite.
In order to convert uncivilized nations who do us no harm, whom we have no motive for oppressing, we ought, above all, to leave them in peace, and act upon them only by our showing them an example of the Christian virtues of patience, meekness, temperance, purity, and brotherly love. Instead of this we begin by seizing their territory, and establishing among them new marts for our commerce, with the sole view of furthering our own interests—we, in fact, rob them; we sell them wine, tobacco, and opium, and thereby demoralize them; we establish our own customs among them, we teach them violence and all its lessons; we teach them the animal law of strife, that lowest depth of human degradation, and do all that we can to concealthe Christian virtues we possess. Then, having sent them a score of missionaries, who gabble an absurd clerical jargon, we quote the results of our attempt to convert the heathen as an indubitable proof that the truths of Christianity are not adaptable to everyday life.
And as for those whom we call criminals, who live in our midst, all that has just been said applies equally to them. There is onlyone wayto convert them, and that is by means of a public opinion founded on true Christianity, accompanied by the example of a sincere Christian life. And by way of preaching this Christian gospel and confirming it by Christian example, we imprison, we execute, guillotine, hang; we encourage the masses in idolatrous religions calculated to stultify them; the government authorizes the sale of brain-destroying poisons—wine, tobacco, opium; prostitution is legalized; we bestow land upon those who need it not; surrounded by misery, we display in our entertainments an unbridled extravagance; we render impossible in such ways any semblance of a Christian life, and do our best to destroy Christian ideas already established; and then, after doing all we can to demoralize men, we take and confine them like wild beasts in places from which they cannot escape, and where they will become more brutal than ever; or we murder the men we have demoralized, and then use them as an example to illustrate and prove our argument that people are only to be controlled by violence.
Even so does the ignorant physician act, who, having placed his patient in the most unsanitary conditions, or having administered to him poisonous drugs, afterward contends that his patient has succumbed to the disease, when had he been left to himself he would have recovered long ago.
Violence, which men regard as an instrument for the support of Christian life, on the contrary, prevents the social system from reaching its full and perfect development. The social system is such as it is, not because of violence, but in spite of it.
Therefore the defenders of the existing social system are self-deceived when they say that, since violence barely holds the evil and un-Christian elements of society in awe, its subversion, and the substitution of the moral influence of public opinion, would leave us helpless in face of them. They are wrong, because violence does not protect mankind; but it deprives men of the only possible chance of an effectual defense by the establishment and propagation of the Christian principle of life.
"But how can one discard the visible and tangible protection of the policeman with his baton, and trust to invisible, intangible public opinion? And, moreover, is not its very existence problematical? We are all familiar with the actual state of things; whether it be good or bad we know its faults, and are accustomed to them; we know how to conduct ourselves, how to act in the present conditions; but what will happen when we renounce the present organization, and confide ourselves to something invisible, intangible, and utterly unfamiliar?"
Men dread the uncertainty into which they would plunge if they were to renounce the familiar order of things. Certainly were our situation an assured and stable one, it would be well to dread the uncertainties of change. But so far from enjoying an assured position, we know that we are on the verge of a catastrophe.
If we are to give way to fear, then let it be before something that is really fearful, and not before something that we imagine may be so.
In fearing to make an effort to escape from conditions that are fatal to us, only because the future is obscure and unknown, we are like the passengers of a sinking ship who crowd into the cabin and refuse to leave it, because they have not the courage to enter the boat that would carry them to the shore; or like sheep who, in fear of the fire that has broken out in the farmyard, huddle together in a corner and will not go out through the open gate.
How can we, who stand on the threshold of a shocking and devastating social war, before which, as those who are preparing for it tell us, the horrors of 1793 willpale, talk seriously about the danger threatened by the natives of Dahomey, the Zulus, and others who live far away, and who have no intention of attacking us; or about the few thousands of malefactors, thieves, and murderers—men whom we have helped to demoralize, and whose numbers are not decreased by all our courts, prisons, and executions?
Moreover, this anxiety lest the visible protection of the police be overthrown, is chiefly confined to the inhabitants of cities—that is, to those who live under abnormal and artificial conditions. Those who live normally in the midst of nature, dealing with its forces, require no such protection; they realize how little avails violence to protect us from the real danger that surrounds us. There is something morbid in this fear, which arises chiefly from the false conditions in which most of us have grown up and continue to live.
A doctor to the insane related how, one day in summer, when he was about to leave the asylum, the patients accompanied him as far as the gate that led into the street.
"Come with me into town!" he proposed to them.
The patients agreed, and a little band followed him. But the farther they went through the streets where they met their sane fellow-men moving freely to and fro, the more timid they grew, and pressed more closely around the doctor. At last they begged to be taken back to the asylum, to their old but accustomed mode of insane life, to their keepers and their rough ways, to strait jackets and solitary confinement.
And thus it is with those whom Christianity is waiting to set free, to whom it offers the untrammeled rational life of the future, the coming century; they huddle together and cling to their insane customs, to their factories, courts, and prisons, their executioners, and their warfare.
They ask: "What security will there be for us when the existing order has been swept away? What kind of laws are to take the place of those under which we are now living? Not until we know exactly how ourlife is to be ordered will we take a single step toward making a change." It is as if a discoverer were to insist upon a detailed description of the region he is about to explore. If the individual man, while passing from one period of his life to another, could read the future and know just what his whole life were to be, he would have no reason for living. And so it is with the career of humanity. If, upon entering a new period, a program detailing the incidents of its future existence were possible, humanity would stagnate.
We cannot know the conditions of the new order of things, because we have to work them out for ourselves. The meaning of life is to search out that which is hidden, and then to conform our activity to our new knowledge. This is the life of the individual as it is the life of humanity.
The condition and organization of our society is shocking; it is upheld by public opinion, but can be abolished by it—Men's views in regard to violence have already changed; the number of men ready to serve the governments decreases, and functionaries of government themselves begin to be ashamed of their position, to the point of often not fulfilling their duties—These facts, signs of the birth of a public opinion, which, in becoming more and more general, will lead finally to the impossibility of finding men willing to serve governments—It becomes more and more clear that such positions are no longer needed—Men begin to realize the uselessness of all the institutions of violence; and if this is realized by a few men, it will later be understood by all—The time when the deliverance will be accomplished is unknown, but it depends on men themselves; it depends on how much each man is willing to live by the light that is within him.
The condition and organization of our society is shocking; it is upheld by public opinion, but can be abolished by it—Men's views in regard to violence have already changed; the number of men ready to serve the governments decreases, and functionaries of government themselves begin to be ashamed of their position, to the point of often not fulfilling their duties—These facts, signs of the birth of a public opinion, which, in becoming more and more general, will lead finally to the impossibility of finding men willing to serve governments—It becomes more and more clear that such positions are no longer needed—Men begin to realize the uselessness of all the institutions of violence; and if this is realized by a few men, it will later be understood by all—The time when the deliverance will be accomplished is unknown, but it depends on men themselves; it depends on how much each man is willing to live by the light that is within him.
The position of the Christian nations, with their prisons, their gallows, their factories, their accumulations of capital, taxes, churches, taverns, and public brothels, their increasing armaments, and their millionsof besotted men, ready, like dogs, to spring at a word from the master, would be shocking indeed if it were the result of violence; but such a state of things is, before all, the result of public opinion; and what has been established by public opinion not only may be, but will be, overthrown by it.
Millions and millions of money, tens of millions of disciplined soldiers, marvelous weapons of destruction, an infinitely perfected organization, legions of men charged to delude and hypnotize the people,—this is all under the control of men who believe that this organization is advantageous for them, who know that without it they would disappear, and who therefore devote all their energy to its maintenance. What an indomitable array of power it seems! And yet we have but to realize whither we are fatally tending, for men to become as much ashamed of acts of violence, and to profit by them, as they are ashamed now of dishonesty, theft, beggary, cowardice; and the whole complicated and apparently omnipotent system will die at once without any struggle. To accomplish this transformation it is not necessary that any new ideas should find their way into the human consciousness, but only that the mist which now veils the true significance of violence should lift, in order that the growing Christian public opinion and methods may conquer the methods of the pagan world. And this is gradually coming to pass. We do not observe it, as we do not observe the movement of things when we are turning, and everything around us is turning as well.
It is true that the social organization seems for the most part as much under the influence of violence as it seemed a thousand years ago, and in respect of armaments and war seems even more; but the Christian view of life is already having its effect. The withered tree, to all appearance, stands as firmly as ever; it seems even firmer, because it has grown harder, but it is already rotten at the heart and preparing to fall. It is the same with the present mode of life based upon violence. The outward position of man appears the same. There are the same oppressors, the same oppressed,but the feeling of both classes in regard to their respective positions has undergone a change. The oppressors, that is, those who take part in the government, and those who are benefited by oppression, the wealthy classes, do not constitute, as formerly, theéliteof society, nor does their condition suggest that ideal of human prosperity and greatness to which formerly all the oppressed aspired. Now, it often happens that the oppressors renounce of their own accord the advantages of their position, choosing the position of the oppressed, and endeavor, by the simplicity of their mode of life, to resemble them.
Not to speak of those offices and positions generally considered contemptible, such as that of the spy, the detective, the usurer, or the keeper of a tavern, a great many of the positions held by the oppressors, and formerly considered honorable, such as those of police officers, courtiers, judges, administrative functionaries, ecclesiastical or military, masters on a large scale, and bankers, are not only considered little enviable, but are already avoided by estimable men. Already there are men who choose to renounce such once envied positions, preferring others which, although less advantageous, are not associated with violence.
It is not merely such as these who renounce their privileges; men influenced, not by religious motives, as was the case in former ages, but by growing public opinion, refuse to accept fortunes fallen to them by inheritance, because they believe that a man ought to possess only the fruits of his own labor.
High-minded youths, not as yet depraved by life, when about to choose a career, prefer the professions of doctors, engineers, teachers, artists, writers, or even of farmers, who live by their daily toil, to the positions of judges, administrators, priests, soldiers in the pay of government; they decline even the position of living on their income.
Most of the monuments at the present day are no longer erected in honor of statesmen or generals, still less of men of wealth, but to scientists, artists, and inventors,to men who not only had nothing in common with government or authority, but who frequently opposed it. It is to their memory that the arts are thus consecrated.
The class of men who will govern, and of rich men, tends every day to grow less numerous, and so far as intellect, education, and especially morality, are concerned, rich men and men in power are not the most distinguished members of society, as was the case in olden times. In Russia and Turkey, as in France and America, notwithstanding the frequent changes of officials, the greater number are often covetous and venal, and so little to be commended from the point of view of morality that they do not satisfy even the elementary exigencies of honesty demanded in government posts. Thus one hears often the ingenuous complaints of those in government that the best men among us, strangely enough as it seems to them, are always found among those opposed to them. It is as if one complained that it is not the nice, good people who become hangmen.
Rich men of the present day, as a general thing, are mere vulgar amassers of wealth, for the most part having but little care beyond that of increasing their capital, and that most often by impure means; or are the degenerate inheritors, who, far from playing an important part in society, often incur general contempt.
Many positions have lost their ancient importance. Kings and emperors now hardly direct at all; they seldom effect internal changes or modify external policy, leaving the decision of such questions to the departments of State, or to public opinion. Their function is reduced to being the representatives of state unity and power. But even this duty they begin to neglect. Most of them not only fail to maintain themselves in their former unapproachable majesty, but they grow more and more democratic, they prefer even to be bourgeois; they lay down thus their last distinction, destroying precisely what they are expected to maintain.
The same may be said of the army. The high officers, instead of encouraging the roughness and crueltyof the soldiers, which befit their occupation, promote the diffusion of education among them, preach humanity, often sympathize with the socialistic ideas of the masses, and deny the utility of war. In the late conspiracies against the Russian government many of those concerned were military men. It often happens, as it did recently, that the troops, when called upon to establish order, refuse to fire on the people. The barrack code of ideas is frankly deprecated by military men themselves, who often enough make it the subject of derision.
The same may be said of judges and lawyers. Judges, whose duty it is to judge and condemn criminals, conduct their trials in such a fashion as to prove them innocent; thus the Russian government, when it desires the condemnation of those it wishes to punish, never confides them to the ordinary tribunals; it tries them by court-martial, which is but a parody of justice. The same may be said of lawyers, who often refuse to accuse, and, twisting round the law, defend those they should accuse. Learned jurists, whose duty it is to justify the violence of authority, deny more and more frequently the right of punishment, and in its place introduce theories of irresponsibility, often prescribing, not punishment, but medical treatment for so-called criminals.
Jailers and turnkeys in convict prisons often become the protectors of those it is a part of their business to torture. Policemen and detectives are constantly saving those they ought to arrest. Ecclesiastics preach tolerance; they often deny the right of violence, and the more educated among them attempt in their sermons to avoid the deception which constitutes all the meaning of their position, and which they are expected to preach. Executioners refuse to perform their duty; the result is that often in Russia death-warrants cannot be carried out for lack of executioners, for, notwithstanding all the advantages of the position, the candidates, who are chosen from convicts, diminish in number every year. Governors, commissioners, and tax-collectors, pitying the people, often try to find pretextsfor remitting the taxes. Rich men no longer dare to use their wealth for themselves alone, but sacrifice a part of it to social charities. Landowners establish hospitals and schools on their estates, and some even renounce their estates and bestow them on the cultivators of the soil, or establish agricultural colonies upon them. Manufacturers and mill-owners found schools, hospitals, and savings-banks, institute pensions, and build houses for the workmen; some start associations of which the profits are equally divided among all. Capitalists expend a portion of their wealth on educational, artistic, and philanthropic institutions for the public benefit. Many men who are unwilling to part with their riches during their lifetime bequeath them to public institutions.
These facts might be deemed the result of chance were it not that they all originate from one source, as, when certain trees begin to bud in the spring of the year, we might believe it accidental, only we know the cause; and that if on some trees the buds begin to swell, we know that the same thing will happen to all of them.
Even so is it in regard to Christian public opinion and its manifestations. If this public opinion already influences some of the more sensitive men, and makes each one in his own sphere decline the advantages obtained by violence or its use, it will continue to influence men more and more, until it brings about a change in their mode of life and reconciles it with that Christian consciousness already possessed by the most advanced.
And if there are already rulers who do not venture on any undertaking on their own responsibility, and who try to be like ordinary men rather than monarchs, who declare themselves ready to give up their prerogatives and become the first citizens of their country, and soldiers who, realizing all the sin and evil of war, do not wish to kill either foreigners or their fellow-countrymen, judges and lawyers who do not wish to accuse and condemn criminals, priests who evade preaching lies, tax-gatherers who endeavor to fulfil as gently aspossible what they are called upon to do, and rich men who give up their wealth, then surely it will ultimately come to pass that other rulers, soldiers, priests, and rich men will follow their example. And when there are no more men ready to occupy positions supported by violence, the positions themselves will cease to exist.
But this is not the only way by which public opinion leads toward the abolition of the existing system, and the substitution of a new one. As the positions supported by violence become by degrees less and less attractive, and there are fewer and fewer applicants to fill them, their uselessness becomes more and more apparent.
We have to-day the same rulers and governments, the same armies, courts of law, tax-gatherers, priests, wealthy landowners, manufacturers, and capitalists as formerly, but their relative positions are changed.
The same rulers go about to their various interviews, they have the same meetings, hunts, festivities, balls, and uniforms; the same diplomatists have the same conversations about alliances and armies; the same parliaments, in which Eastern and African questions are discussed, and questions in regard to alliances, ruptures, "Home Rule," the eight-hour day. Changes of ministry take place just as of old, accompanied by the same speeches and incidents. But to those who know how an article in a newspaper changes perhaps the position of affairs more than dozens of royal interviews and parliamentary sessions, it becomes more and more evident that it is not these meetings, interviews, and parliamentary discussions that control affairs, but something independent of all this, something which has no local habitation.
The same generals, officers, soldiers, cannon, fortresses, parades, and evolutions. But one year elapses, ten, twenty years elapse, and there is no war. And troops are less and less to be relied on to suppress insurrection, and it becomes more and more evident that generals, officers, and soldiers are only figure-heads intriumphal processions, the plaything of a sovereign, a sort of unwieldy and expensivecorps-de-ballet.
The same lawyers and judges, and the same sessions, but it becomes more and more evident that as civil courts make decisions in a great variety of causes without anxiety about purely legal justice, and that criminal courts are useless, because the punishment does not produce the desired result, therefore these institutions have no other object than the maintenance of men incapable of doing other things more useful.
The same priests, bishops, churches, and synods, but it becomes more and more evident to all that these men themselves have long since ceased to believe what they preach, and are therefore unable to persuade any one of the necessity of believing what they no longer believe themselves.
The same tax-gatherers, but more and more incapable of extorting money from the people by force, and it becomes more and more evident that, without such collectors, it would be possible to obtain by voluntary contribution all that is required for social needs.
The same rich men, and yet it becomes more and more evident that they can be useful only when they cease to be personal administrators of their possessions, and surrender to society their wealth in whole or part.
When this becomes as plain to all men as it now is to a few, the question will naturally arise: Why should we feed and support all those emperors, kings, presidents, members of departments, and ministers, if all their interviews and conversations amount to nothing? Would it not be better, as some wit expressed it, to set up an india-rubber queen?
And of what use to us are armies, with their generals, their musicians, their horses, and drums? Of what use are they when there is no war, when no one wishes to conquer anybody else? And even if there were a war, other nations would prevent us from reaping its advantages; while upon their compatriots the troops would refuse to fire.
And what is the use of judges and attorneys whosedecisions in civil cases are not according to the law, and who, in criminal ones, are aware that punishments are of no avail?
And of what use are tax-gatherers who are reluctant to collect the taxes, when all that is needed could be contributed without their assistance?
And where is the use of a clergy which has long ceased to believe what it preaches?
And of what use is capital in the hands of private individuals when it can be beneficial only when it becomes public property? Having once asked all these questions, men cannot but arrive at the conclusion that institutions which have lost their usefulness should no longer be supported.
And furthermore, men who themselves occupy positions of privilege come to see the necessity of abandoning them.
One day, in Moscow, I was present at a religious discussion which is usually held during St. Thomas's week, near the church in the Okhotny Ryad. A group of perhaps twenty men had gathered on the pavement, and a serious discussion concerning religion was in progress. Meanwhile, in the nobles' club near at hand, a concert was taking place, and a police-officer, having noticed the group of people gathered near the church, sent a mounted policeman to order them to disperse,—not that the police-officer cared in the least whether the group stayed where it was or dispersed. The twenty men who had gathered inconvenienced no one, but the officer had been on duty all the morning and felt obliged to do something. The young policeman, a smart-looking fellow, with his right arm akimbo and a clanking sword, rode up to us, calling out in an imperative tone: "Disperse, you fellows! What business have you to gather there?" Every one turned to look at him, while one of the speakers, a modest-looking man in a peasant's coat, replied calmly and pleasantly: "We are talking about business, and there is no reason why we should disperse; it might be better for you, my young friend, if you were to jump off fromyour horse and to listen to us. Very likely it would do you good;" and turning away he continued the conversation. The policeman turned his horse without a word and rode away.
Such scenes as this must be of frequent occurrence in countries where violence is employed. The officer was bored; he had nothing to do, and the poor fellow was placed in a position where he felt in duty bound to give orders. He was deprived of a rational human existence; he could do nothing but look on and give orders, give orders and look on, although both were works of supererogation. It will not be long before all those unfortunate rulers, ministers, members of parliaments, governors, generals, officers, bishops, priests, and even rich men, will find themselves—indeed they have already done so—in precisely the same position. Their sole occupation consists in issuing orders; they send out their subordinates, like the officer who sent the policeman to interfere with the people; and as the people with whom they interfere ask not to be interfered with, this seems to their official intelligence only to prove that they are very necessary.
But the time will surely come when it will be perfectly evident to every one that they are not only useless, but an actual impediment, and those whose course they obstruct will say gently and pleasantly, like the man in the peasant's coat: "We beg that you will let us alone." Then the subordinates as well as their instructors will find themselves compelled to take the good advice that is offered them, cease to prance about among men with their arms akimbo, and having discarded their glittering livery, listen to what is said among men, and unite with them to help to promote the serious work of the world.
Sooner or later the time will surely come when all the present institutions supported by violence will cease to be; their too evident uselessness, absurdity, and even unseemliness, will finally destroy them.
There must come a time when the same thing that happened to the king in Andersen's fairy tale, "TheKing's New Clothes," will happen to men occupying positions created by violence.
The tale tells of a king who cared enormously for new clothes, and to whom one day came two tailors who agreed to make him a suit woven from a wonderful stuff. The king engaged them and they set to work, saying that the stuff possessed the remarkable quality of becoming invisible to any one unfit for the office he holds. The courtiers came to inspect the work of the tailors, but could see nothing, because these men were drawing their needles through empty space. However, remembering the consequences, they all pretended to see the cloth and to be very much pleased with it. Even the king himself praised it. The hour appointed for the procession when he was to walk wearing his new garment arrived. The king took off his clothes and put on the new ones—that is, he remained naked all the while, and thus he went in procession. But remembering the consequences, no one had the courage to say that he was not dressed, until a little child, catching sight of the naked king, innocently exclaimed, "But he has nothing on!" Whereupon all the others who had known this before, but had not acknowledged it, could no longer conceal the fact.
Thus will it be with those who, through inertia, continue to fill offices that have long ceased to be of any consequence, until some chance observer, who happens not to be engaged, as the Russian proverb has it, in "washing one hand with the other," will ingenuously exclaim, "It is a long time since these men were good for anything!"
The position of the Christian world, with its fortresses, cannon, dynamite, guns, torpedoes, prisons, gallows, churches, factories, custom-houses, and palaces is monstrous. But neither fortresses nor cannon nor guns by themselves can make war, nor can the prisons lock their gates, nor the gallows hang, nor the churches themselves lead men astray, nor the custom-houses claim their dues, nor palaces and factories build and support themselves; all these operations are performed by men. And whenmen understand that they need not make them, then these things will cease to be.
And already men are beginning to understand this. If not yet understood by all, it is already understood by those whom the rest of the world eventually follows. And it is impossible to cease to understand what once has been understood, and the masses not only can, but inevitably must, follow where those who have understood have already led the way.
Hence the prophecy: that a time will come when all men will hearken unto the word of God, will forget the arts of war, will melt their swords into plowshares and their lances into reaping-hooks;—which, being translated, means when all the prisons, the fortresses, the barracks, the palaces, and the churches will remain empty, the gallows and the cannon will be useless. This is no longer a mere Utopia, but a new and definite system of life, toward which mankind is progressing with ever increasing rapidity.
But when will it come?
Eighteen hundred years ago Christ, in answer to this question, replied that the end of the present world—that is, of the pagan system—would come when the miseries of man had increased to their utmost limit; and when, at the same time, the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven—that is, of the possibility of a new system, one not founded upon violence—should be proclaimed throughout the earth.[20]
"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only,"[21]said Christ. "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."
When will the hour arrive? Christ said that we cannot know. And for that very reason we should hold ourselves in readiness to meet it, as the goodman should watch his house against thieves, or like the virgins who await with their lamps the coming of the bridegroom; and, moreover, we should work with all our might to hasten the coming of that hour, as the servants shoulduse the talents they have received that they may increase.[22]
And there can be no other answer. The day and the hour of the advent of the Kingdom of God men cannot know, since the coming of that hour depends only on men themselves.
The reply is like that of the wise man who, when the traveler asked him how far he was from the city, answered, "Go on!"
How can we know if it is still far to the goal toward which humanity is aiming, when we do not know how it will move toward it; that it depends on humanity whether it moves steadily onward or pauses, whether it accelerates or retards its pace.
All that we can know is what we who form humanity should or should not do in order to bring about this Kingdom of God. And that we all know; for each one has but to begin to do his duty, each one has but to live according to the light that is within him, to bring about the immediate advent of the promised Kingdom of God, for which the heart of every man yearns.
"REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND!"
1
Encounter with a train carrying soldiers to establish order among famine-stricken peasants—The cause of the disorder—How the mandates of the higher authorities are carried out in case of peasants' resistance—The affair at Orel as an example of violence and murder committed for the purpose of asserting the rights of the rich—All the advantages of the rich are founded on like acts of violence.
Encounter with a train carrying soldiers to establish order among famine-stricken peasants—The cause of the disorder—How the mandates of the higher authorities are carried out in case of peasants' resistance—The affair at Orel as an example of violence and murder committed for the purpose of asserting the rights of the rich—All the advantages of the rich are founded on like acts of violence.
2
The Tula train and the behavior of the persons composing it—How men can behave as these do—The reasons are neither ignorance, nor cruelty,nor cowardice, nor lack of comprehension or of moral sense—They do these things because they think them necessary to maintain the existing system, to support which they believe to be every man's duty—On what the belief of the necessity and immutability of the existing order of things is founded—For the upper classes it is based on the advantages it affords them—But what compels men of the lower classes to believe in the immutability of this system, when they derive no advantage from it, and maintain it with acts contrary to their conscience?—The reason lies in the deceit practised by the upper classes upon the lower in regard to the necessity of the existing order, and the legitimacy of acts of violence for its maintenance—General deception—Special deception—The conscription.
The Tula train and the behavior of the persons composing it—How men can behave as these do—The reasons are neither ignorance, nor cruelty,nor cowardice, nor lack of comprehension or of moral sense—They do these things because they think them necessary to maintain the existing system, to support which they believe to be every man's duty—On what the belief of the necessity and immutability of the existing order of things is founded—For the upper classes it is based on the advantages it affords them—But what compels men of the lower classes to believe in the immutability of this system, when they derive no advantage from it, and maintain it with acts contrary to their conscience?—The reason lies in the deceit practised by the upper classes upon the lower in regard to the necessity of the existing order, and the legitimacy of acts of violence for its maintenance—General deception—Special deception—The conscription.
3
How men reconcile the legitimacy of murder with the precepts of morality, and how they admit the existence in their midst of a military organization for purposes of violence which incessantly threatens the safety of society—Admitted only by the powers for whom the present organization is advantageous—Violence sanctioned by the higher authorities and carried out by the lower, notwithstanding the knowledge of its immorality, because, owing to the organization of the State, the moral responsibility is divided among a large number of participants, each of whom considers some other than himself responsible—Moreover, the loss of consciousness of moral responsibility is also due to a mistaken opinion as to the inequality of men, the consequent abuse of power by the authorities, and servility of the lower classes—The condition of men who commit acts contrary to their conscience is like the condition of a hypnotized person acting under the influence of suggestion—In what does submission to the suggestion of the State differ from submission to men of a higher order of consciousness or to public opinion?—The present system, which is the outcome of ancient public opinion, and which is already in contradiction to the modern, is maintained only through torpor of conscience, induced by auto-suggestion among the upper classes, and by the hypnotization of the lower—The conscience or intelligent consciousness of these men may awaken, and there are instances when it does awaken; therefore it cannot be said that any one of them will, or will not, do what he sets out to do—Everything depends on the degree of comprehension of the illegitimacy of the acts of violence, and this consciousness in men may either awaken spontaneously or be roused by those already awakened.
How men reconcile the legitimacy of murder with the precepts of morality, and how they admit the existence in their midst of a military organization for purposes of violence which incessantly threatens the safety of society—Admitted only by the powers for whom the present organization is advantageous—Violence sanctioned by the higher authorities and carried out by the lower, notwithstanding the knowledge of its immorality, because, owing to the organization of the State, the moral responsibility is divided among a large number of participants, each of whom considers some other than himself responsible—Moreover, the loss of consciousness of moral responsibility is also due to a mistaken opinion as to the inequality of men, the consequent abuse of power by the authorities, and servility of the lower classes—The condition of men who commit acts contrary to their conscience is like the condition of a hypnotized person acting under the influence of suggestion—In what does submission to the suggestion of the State differ from submission to men of a higher order of consciousness or to public opinion?—The present system, which is the outcome of ancient public opinion, and which is already in contradiction to the modern, is maintained only through torpor of conscience, induced by auto-suggestion among the upper classes, and by the hypnotization of the lower—The conscience or intelligent consciousness of these men may awaken, and there are instances when it does awaken; therefore it cannot be said that any one of them will, or will not, do what he sets out to do—Everything depends on the degree of comprehension of the illegitimacy of the acts of violence, and this consciousness in men may either awaken spontaneously or be roused by those already awakened.
4
Everything depends upon the strength of conviction of each individual man in regard to Christian truth—But the advanced men of the present day consider it unnecessary to explain and profess Christian truth, regarding it sufficient for the improvement of human life to change its outward conditions within the limits allowed by power—Upon this scientific theory of hypocrisy, which has taken the place of the hypocrisy of religion, men of the wealthy classes base the justification of their position—In consequence of this hypocrisy, maintained by violence andfalsehood, they can pretend before each other to be Christians, and rest content—The same hypocrisy allows men who preach the Christian doctrine to take part in arégimeof violence—No external improvements of life can make it less miserable; its miseries are caused by disunion; disunion springs from following falsehood instead of truth—Union is possible only in truth—Hypocrisy forbids such a union, for while remaining hypocrites, men conceal from themselves and others the truth they know—Hypocrisy changes into evil everything destined to ameliorate life—It perverts the conception of right and wrong, and therefore is a bar to the perfection of men—Acknowledged malefactors and criminals do less harm than those who live by legalized violence cloaked by hypocrisy—All recognize the iniquity of our life, and would long since have modified it, if it were not covered by the cloak of hypocrisy—But it seems as if we had reached the limits of hypocrisy, and have but to make an effort of consciousness in order to awaken—like the man who has nightmare—to a different reality.
Everything depends upon the strength of conviction of each individual man in regard to Christian truth—But the advanced men of the present day consider it unnecessary to explain and profess Christian truth, regarding it sufficient for the improvement of human life to change its outward conditions within the limits allowed by power—Upon this scientific theory of hypocrisy, which has taken the place of the hypocrisy of religion, men of the wealthy classes base the justification of their position—In consequence of this hypocrisy, maintained by violence andfalsehood, they can pretend before each other to be Christians, and rest content—The same hypocrisy allows men who preach the Christian doctrine to take part in arégimeof violence—No external improvements of life can make it less miserable; its miseries are caused by disunion; disunion springs from following falsehood instead of truth—Union is possible only in truth—Hypocrisy forbids such a union, for while remaining hypocrites, men conceal from themselves and others the truth they know—Hypocrisy changes into evil everything destined to ameliorate life—It perverts the conception of right and wrong, and therefore is a bar to the perfection of men—Acknowledged malefactors and criminals do less harm than those who live by legalized violence cloaked by hypocrisy—All recognize the iniquity of our life, and would long since have modified it, if it were not covered by the cloak of hypocrisy—But it seems as if we had reached the limits of hypocrisy, and have but to make an effort of consciousness in order to awaken—like the man who has nightmare—to a different reality.
5
Can man make this effort?—According to the existing hypocritical theory, man is not free to change his life—He is not free in his acts, but is always free to acknowledge or disregard certain truths already known to him—The recognition of truth is the cause of action—The cause of the apparent insolvability of the question of man's freedom—It lies only in the acknowledgment of the truth revealed unto him—No other freedom exists—The acknowledgment of the truth gives freedom, and points the way in which a man, willingly or unwillingly, must walk—The recognition of truth and of true freedom allows man to become a participant of the work of God, to be not the slave but a creator of life—Men have but to forego the attempt to improve the external conditions of life, and direct all their energies toward the recognition and profession of the truth that is known to them, and the present painful system of life will vanish forthwith, and that portion of the Kingdom of God which is accessible to men would be established—One has only to cease lying and shamming to accomplish this—But what awaits us in the future?—What will happen to mankind when they begin to obey the dictates of their conscience, and how will they exist without the customary conditions of civilization?—Nothing truly good and beneficial can perish because of the realization of the truth, but will only increase in strength when freed from the admixture of falsehood and hypocrisy.
Can man make this effort?—According to the existing hypocritical theory, man is not free to change his life—He is not free in his acts, but is always free to acknowledge or disregard certain truths already known to him—The recognition of truth is the cause of action—The cause of the apparent insolvability of the question of man's freedom—It lies only in the acknowledgment of the truth revealed unto him—No other freedom exists—The acknowledgment of the truth gives freedom, and points the way in which a man, willingly or unwillingly, must walk—The recognition of truth and of true freedom allows man to become a participant of the work of God, to be not the slave but a creator of life—Men have but to forego the attempt to improve the external conditions of life, and direct all their energies toward the recognition and profession of the truth that is known to them, and the present painful system of life will vanish forthwith, and that portion of the Kingdom of God which is accessible to men would be established—One has only to cease lying and shamming to accomplish this—But what awaits us in the future?—What will happen to mankind when they begin to obey the dictates of their conscience, and how will they exist without the customary conditions of civilization?—Nothing truly good and beneficial can perish because of the realization of the truth, but will only increase in strength when freed from the admixture of falsehood and hypocrisy.
6
Our system of life has reached the limit of misery, and cannot be ameliorated by any pagan reorganization—All our life, with its pagan institutions, is devoid of meaning—Are we obeying the will of God in maintaining our present privileges and obligations?—We are in this position, not because such is the law of the universe, that it is inevitable, but because we wish it, because it is advantageous for some of us—All our consciousness contradicts this, and our deliverance consists in acknowledging the Christian truth, not to do to one's neighbor that which onewould not have done to one's self—As our obligations in regard to ourselves should be subordinate to our obligations to others, so in like manner our obligations to others should be subordinate to our obligations to God—Deliverance from our position consists, if not in giving up our position and its rights at once, at least in acknowledging our guilt, and neither lying nor trying to justify ourselves—The true significance of our life consists in knowing and professing the truth, whereas our approval of, and our activity in, the service of the State takes all meaning from life—God demands that we serve Him, that is, that we seek to establish the greatest degree of union among all human beings, which union is possible only in truth.
Our system of life has reached the limit of misery, and cannot be ameliorated by any pagan reorganization—All our life, with its pagan institutions, is devoid of meaning—Are we obeying the will of God in maintaining our present privileges and obligations?—We are in this position, not because such is the law of the universe, that it is inevitable, but because we wish it, because it is advantageous for some of us—All our consciousness contradicts this, and our deliverance consists in acknowledging the Christian truth, not to do to one's neighbor that which onewould not have done to one's self—As our obligations in regard to ourselves should be subordinate to our obligations to others, so in like manner our obligations to others should be subordinate to our obligations to God—Deliverance from our position consists, if not in giving up our position and its rights at once, at least in acknowledging our guilt, and neither lying nor trying to justify ourselves—The true significance of our life consists in knowing and professing the truth, whereas our approval of, and our activity in, the service of the State takes all meaning from life—God demands that we serve Him, that is, that we seek to establish the greatest degree of union among all human beings, which union is possible only in truth.
I was just putting the finishing touches to this two years' work when, on the 9th day of September,[23]I had occasion to go by rail to visit districts in the governments of Tula and Ryazan, where certain peasants were suffering from last year's famine, and others were enduring still greater suffering from the same causes this year.[24]At one of the stations the train in which I was a passenger met the express, which carried the Governor and troops supplied with rods and loaded rifles for torturing and murdering the famine-stricken peasants.
Although corporal punishment was legally abolished in Russia thirty years ago, the custom of flogging as a means of making the decisions of authority respected has been revived, and has of late been frequently employed. I had heard of it, had read in the papers of the frightful tortures of which the Governor of Nijni-Novgorod, Baranov, has gone so far as to boast, and of the tortures that have been inflicted in Tchernigov, Tambov, Saratov, Astrakhan, and Orel, but I had never yet witnessed, as I did now, how these things were actually done.
And I myself saw well-meaning Russians, penetrated with the spirit of Christ, but armed with muskets and carrying rods, on their way to murder and torture their starving brothers.
The pretext was as follows:—
On the estate of a rich landowner, upon a piece of ground held by him in common with the peasants, a forest had been allowed to grow. (When I say thatthe forest "grew," I mean that the peasants had not only planted it, but had continued to take care of it.) They had always had the use of it, and therefore looked upon it as their own, or at least as common property; but the landowner, confiscating it entirely to himself, began to cut down the trees. The peasants lodged a complaint. The judge of the lower court pronounced an illegal decision (I call it illegal on the authority of the Procureur[25]and the Governor, who surely ought to understand the case) in favor of the landowner. The higher courts, as well as the Senate, although they could see that the case had been unfairly tried, confirmed the decision, and the wood was awarded to the landowner, who continued to fell the trees. But the peasants, believing it impossible that such an injustice could be perpetrated by the higher magistrates, refused to submit to the decision, and drove away the workmen sent to cut down the trees, saying that the forest belonged to them, and that they would appeal to the Czar himself before they would allow it to be touched.
The case was reported to St. Petersburg, from whence the Governor received the order to enforce the decision of the courts, and in order to execute the command, asked for troops.
Hence these soldiers who, armed with bayonets and provided with cartridges and rods expressly prepared for the occasion and stored in one of the vans, were on their way to enforce the decision of the higher authorities. The execution of an order from the ruling powers can be accomplished either by threats of torture and death, or by the enforcement of those threats, according to the degree of resistance on the part of the people.
If, for instance, in Russia (it is practically the same in other lands where state authority and the rights of ownership exist), the peasants offer to resist, the result is as follows: The superior officer makes a speech and orders them to obey. The excited crowd, accustomed to be duped by those in high places, understands not a word that the representative of authority is saying inhis official, conventional language, and is by no means pacified. Whereupon the commanding officer declares that unless they submit and disperse, he will be forced to have recourse to arms. If the crowd still refuses to yield and does not disperse, he orders his men to load the muskets and to fire over their heads, and then, if the peasants still stand their ground, he orders the soldiers to aim at the crowds; they fire, and men fall wounded and killed in the street. The crowd is dispersed, the soldiers, carrying out the orders of their commanders, having laid hands upon those whom they suppose to be the chief instigators, and arrested them. The dying, stained with blood, the wounded, mutilated, and dead, among whom are often women and children, are picked up. The dead are buried, the wounded sent to the hospitals. Those who are supposed to be the ringleaders are taken to the city and court-martialed, and if proved that they have used violence, they are summarily hung. This has happened in Russia repeatedly, and similar scenes must take place wherever the system of government is based upon violence. Such is the course adopted in cases of revolt.
If, on the other hand, the peasants submit, the scene that ensues is entirely original and peculiarly Russian. The Governor, on his arrival at the place, either quarters the soldiers in the different houses of the village, where their maintenance ruins the peasants, or, satisfied by threatening the people, he graciously pardons them and departs. Or, as more frequently happens, he addresses the multitude, upbraids it for disobedience, and announces that the ringleaders must be punished; he seizes a certain number of men considered as such, and without any form of trial causes them to be beaten with rods in his presence.
In order to give an idea of the manner in which such an affair is conducted, I will describe an instance of the kind which happened in Orel, which was approved by the higher authorities. Like the landowner in Tula, the landed proprietor at Orel chose to take possession of the peasants' property, and here, too, as in the formerinstance, the peasants resisted. In this case, the landowner, without the consent of the peasants, wished to dam up, for the benefit of his mill, a flow of water which supplied the meadows. The peasants resisted this.
The landlord lodged a complaint with the rural commissary, who illegally (as was afterward admitted by the court) decided the case in favor of the landowner, giving him leave to divert the water. The landowner sent workmen to close the channel through which the water descended. The peasants, excited at this unfair judgment, sent their women to prevent the landowner's men from damming the channel. The women proceeded to the dam, upset the carts, and drove the workmen away. The landowner entered a complaint against them for committing a lawless act. The rural commissary gave the order to arrest and lock up in the village jail one woman out of every family,—an order rather difficult to execute, since each family included several women; and as it was impossible to tell which of them to arrest, the police could not fulfil the order. The landowner complained to the Governor of the laxity of the police. The Governor, without stopping to consider the case, gave strict orders to theIspravnikto carry out at once the orders of the rural commissary. In obedience to his superior theIspravnikarrived in the village, and with that contempt for the individual peculiar to Russian authorities, ordered the police to seize the first women they could. Disputes and resistance arose. TheIspravnik, paying no attention to this, persisted in his order that the police should take one woman, innocent or guilty, from every household, and put her under arrest. The peasants defended their wives and mothers; they refused to give them up, and resisted the police and theIspravnik. Thus another and a greater offense was committed,—resistance to authority,—which was at once reported in town. Then the Governor, just as I saw the Governor of Tula, with a battalion of soldiers supplied with rods and muskets, backed by all due accessories of telegraph and telephone, accompanied by a learned physician who was to superintend the floggingfrom a medical standpoint, started on an express train for the spot, like the modern Genghis Khan predicted by Herzen. In theVolostnoye Pravlenie[26]were the soldiers, a detachment of police with their revolvers suspended on red cords, the principal peasants of the neighborhood, and the men accused. Around them had collected a crowd of perhaps a thousand.
Driving up to the house of theVolostnoye Pravlenie, the Governor alighted from his carriage and delivered an address, which had been prepared in advance, after which he inquired for the criminals, and ordered a bench to be brought. No one understood what he meant until the policeman, who always accompanied the Governor and made all the arrangements for the punishments which had already been enforced several times in the government of Orel, explained that the bench was to be used for flogging. This bench and the rods that had been brought by the party were both produced. The executioners had been previously selected from certain horse-thieves taken from the same village, the military having refused to do the business.
When all was ready the Governor bade the first of the twelve men who were pointed out to him by the landowner as the ringleaders to step forward. It so happened that he was the father of a family, a man forty-five years of age, respected in the community, whose rights he had manfully defended.
He was led to the bench, stripped, and ordered to lie down.
He would have begged for mercy, but realizing how little it would avail, he made the sign of the cross and stretched himself out on the bench. Two policemen held him down, and the learned doctor stood by, ready in case of need to give his scientific assistance. The executioners having spat upon their hands, swung the rods, and the flogging began. The bench, it seemed, was too narrow, and it was found difficult to keep the writhing victim, whose muscles twitched convulsively, from falling off. Then the Governor ordered to bebrought another bench, to which a plank was adjusted in such a way as to support it. The soldiers, ever ready with their continual salutes and responses of "Yes, your Excellency," swiftly and obediently executed the orders, while in the meantime the half-naked, pale, and suffering man, trembling, with contracted brows and downcast eyes, stood by waiting. When the bench was readjusted, he was again stretched out upon it, and the horse-stealers renewed their blows. His back, his legs, and even his sides were covered with bleeding wounds, and every blow was followed by the muffled groan which he could no longer repress. In the crowd that stood by one could hear the sobs of the wife and mother, the children, and the kinsfolk of the man, as well as of all who had been called to witness the punishment.
The wretched Governor, intoxicated with power, who had no doubt convinced himself of the necessity for this performance, counted the strokes on his fingers, while he smoked cigarette after cigarette, for the lighting of which several obliging persons hastened to offer him a burning match.
After fifty blows had been given, the peasant lay motionless, without uttering a sound, and the doctor, who had been educated in a government school that he might devote his scientific knowledge to the service of his country and his sovereign, approached the tortured man, felt his pulse, listened to the beating of his heart, and reported to the representative of authority that the victim had become unconscious, and declared that, from a scientific point of view, it might prove dangerous to prolong the punishment. But the unfortunate Governor, utterly intoxicated by the sight of blood, ordered the flogging to go on until seventy strokes had been given, the number which he for some reason deemed necessary. After the seventieth blow the Governor said:—
"That will do! Now bring on the next one!"
They raised the mutilated and unconscious man, with his swollen back, and carried him away, and the next was brought forward. The sobs and groans of the crowd increased, but the tortures were continued.
So it went on until each of the twelve men had received seventy strokes. They begged for mercy, they groaned and screamed. The sobs and moans of the women grew louder and more heartrending, and the faces of the men of the crowd more gloomy. But there stood the troops, and the torture did not cease until it had seemed sufficient to the unfortunate, half-intoxicated, erring man called the Governor.
Not only did the magistrates, the officers, and the soldiers sanction this act by their presence, but they took part in it, preventing the crowd from interfering with the order of its execution.
When I asked one of the chief officials why these tortures were inflicted after the men had already submitted, he replied, with the significant air of a man who understands all the fine points of political wisdom, that it was done because it had been proved by experience that if the peasants are not punished they will soon begin again to oppose the decrees of authority, and that the punishment of a few strengthens forever the power of authority.
And now I saw the Governor of Tula, with his clerks, officers, and soldiers, on his way to perform a similar act. Once more by murder or torture the sentence of the higher authorities was to be carried out,—a sentence whose object was to enable a young landowner, the possessor of a yearly income of 100,000 roubles, to receive 3000 more for a tract of wood of which he had basely defrauded a whole community of needy and starving peasants, the price of which he would squander in a few weeks in the restaurants of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Paris. Such was the errand of the men I met.
It would seem as if there must be some purpose in this encounter, when, after two years of incessant contemplation, of continuous thought in one direction, fate should, for the first time in my life, bring me face to face with this phenomenon, a living illustration of the theory I have so long cherished; namely, that the entire organization of our life rests, not on any principle of justice, as men who occupy and enjoy advantageous positionsunder the existing system like to imagine, but on the rudest and most barefaced violence, on the murder and torture of human beings.
Those who possess large estates and large capital, or who receive high salaries collected from the needy working-classes, from the people who often lack the necessaries of life; merchants, clerks, doctors, lawyers, artists, scientists, writers, coachmen, cooks, and valets, who earn their living in the service of rich men,—fondly believe that the privileges which they enjoy are not the outcome of violence, but the natural result of a voluntary interchange of services; that these privileges are by no means the result of the outrages and floggings endured by their fellow-men, such as took place last summer, in Russia, in Orel and elsewhere, as the like took place in many parts of Europe and America. They prefer to believe that the privileges they enjoy are the spontaneous result of a mutual agreement among men; that violence is only the natural result of certain universal and superior laws, judicial, political, or economic. They try not to see that the privileges they possess are only held by them in consequence of some circumstance, not unlike that which compelled the peasants, who had tended the growing forest and greatly needed it, to surrender it to the rich landowner, who had taken no pains to preserve it, and who did not require it for his own use; men who will either be flogged or murdered if they refuse to surrender it. Now, if it is an undeniable fact that the mill in Orel was made to yield an increased income to the proprietor, and that the forest raised by the peasants was given to the landowner only because of the flogging and the executions either threatened or actually suffered, then it must be equally evident that all the other exclusive rights of the rich, which deprive the poor of the bare necessaries of life, rest on the same basis.
If the peasants who need land in order to support their families may not cultivate the land around them, and if land sufficient to feed a thousand families is in the hands of one man, a Russian, an Englishman, an Austrian, a rich landowner of whatever nationality; and if the merchant whobuys grain from the needy grower keeps it in his warehouses in the midst of a destitute and famishing population, or sells it for three times its value to those of whom he bought it at the lowest price,—it evidently springs from the same cause.
And if, beyond a certain line called the frontier, one man is not allowed to purchase certain goods without paying duties to other men who have nothing to do with their production, and if a man is obliged to part with his last cow in order to pay taxes which are distributed by the government among its officials, or used for the support of soldiers who may kill the taxpayers, it would seem evident that all this is not the result of certain abstract rights, but of incidents like those which may even now be going on in the government of Tula, which in one form or another occur periodically all the world over, wherever state organization exists, and wherever there are rich and poor.
Owing to the fact that outrage and murder do not accompany all social relations founded on violence, those who possess the exclusive privileges of the governing classes assure themselves and others that the advantages which they enjoy are not the result of violence and bloodshed, but derived from certain vague and abstract rights. Still it ought to be evident that if those men, who realize the injustice of it all (as is the case with the working-classes at the present day), continue to surrender the greater part of their earnings to the capitalist and the landowner, and if they pay taxes, knowing that such taxes are not put to a good use, they do this, not because they acknowledge the justice of certain abstract rights, whose meaning is unknown to them, but only because they know that they will be whipped and put to death if they refuse to comply.
If it is not always necessary to imprison men, to flog them, or to put them to death when the landowner collects his rents, if the needy peasant pays a treble price to the merchant who deceives him, or the mechanic accepts wages absurdly small in comparison with the income of his master, or the poor man parts with his last rouble forduties and taxes, it is because he remembers that men have been flogged and put to death for trying to avoid compliance with what was demanded of them. Like a caged tiger, who does not touch the meat that lies before his eyes, and who when he is ordered to leap over a stick obeys at once, not because he likes it, but because he has not forgotten past hunger or the red-hot iron which he felt every time he refused to obey; so it is with men, who, when they submit to a law which is not for their advantage, to a law which is disastrous to their interests, or to one which they firmly believe to be unjust, do so because they remember what they will have to suffer if they refuse to comply.