Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2008 with funding from
Microsoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/essayslettersOOtolsrich
ESSAYS AND LETTERS
ESSAYS AND LETTERS
BY
LEO TOLSTOY
TRANSLATED BY
AYLMER MAUDE
UNIVERSITY
^
NEW YORK
FUNK AND WAGNALLS COMPANY
1904
SCHVrtTION
■ •
L TO BE DETAINED
: 20 1995
PRINTED BY
BILLINO AND SONS, LIMITED,
GUILDFORD, ENGLAND
A'7
PREFACE
The articles in this volume of Essays and Letters all belong to one period of Tolstoy's career (the years 1888-1903). The subjects with which they deal are religion and moral duty : what man should believe and do, and what he should not believe and not do.
Some of the letters are of the nature of rough essays or drafts of essays, but if less carefully finished than the longer essays, they have the special merit of show- ing Tolstoy's opinions in application to certain people and to certain definite conditions. They thus help to bridge the gulf between theory and practice.
Some of the articles in this book are now published, in English, for the first time ; and most of the articles are newly translated. During their preparation I have had the great advantage of receiving repeated assist- ance from Lea Tolstoy, as well as kind encouragement.
Footnotes that occur in the original are marked L. T. For those not so marked I am responsible.
AYLMER MAUDE. Great Baddow, Chelmsford.
[T]
CONTENTS
PAGE
preface v
i. industry and idleness .... 1
ii. why do men stupefy themselves? . . 16
iii. an afterword to ' the kreutzer sonata ' 36
iv. the first step . . . 53
v. non-acting ...... 94
vi.*an afterword to an account of relief
supplied to the famine-stricken . .123 vii. religion and morality . . . .128
viii. Treason and religion . . . .155
IX. SHAME ! . 160
X., XL ^LETTERS TO PETER VERIGIN, THE DOUK-
HOBOR. LEADER 167
XII. ^LETTER ON NON-RESISTANCE : TO E. H. CROSBY 177 XIII. *HOW TO READ THE GOSPELS, AND WHAT IS
ESSENTIAL IN THEM . . . . .189
XIV. *A LETTER TO RUSSIAN LIBERALS . . . 193
XV. *TIMOTHY BONDAREF 210
[ Vii]
viii CONTENTS
PAGE XVI. ^LETTERS ON HENRY GEORGE . . .213 XVII. MODERN SCIENCE . . . . .219 XVIII. *LETTER TO A NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER . 230 XIX.*PATRIOTISM AND GOVERNMENT . . . 238 XX. *e THOU SHALT NOT KILL ' .... 202 XXI. *TO THE TSAR AND HIS ASSISTANTS . . 270 XXII. *A REPLY TO THE SYNOD'S EDICT OF EXCOM- MUNICATION 277
XXIII. *WHAT IS RELIGION, AND WHEREIN LIES ITS
ESSENCE? 288
XXIV. *LETTER ON EDUCATION .... 338 XXV. *AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY . . . 341
XXVI. THOUGHTS SELECTED FROM PRIVATE LETTERS I
TWO VIEWS OF LIFE .... 365
MATTER IS THE LIMIT OF SPIRIT . . 366
THE SCAFFOLDING ..... 367
THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT . . . 367
THE FEAR OF DEATH .... 368
THE WAY TO KNOW GOD AND THE SOUL . 368
370
The articles marked in the above Table of Contents with an asterisk (*) are not included in the Moscow editions of Tolstoy's works ; being, for the most part, prohibited in Russia.
UNive
Sa
ESSAYS AND LETTERS
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS
' In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken.' — Gen. iii. 19.
The above are the title and the epigraph of a book by- Timothy Mihaylovitch Bondaref* which I have read in manuscript.
That book seems to me very remarkable for its strength, its clearness, and the beauty of its language, as well as for a sincerity of conviction that is apparent in every line, but above all for the importance, truth, and depth of its fundamental thought.
* T. M. Bondaref was born a serf in 1820. In 1858 he was sent to serve for twenty-five years in the army, but joining the sect of ' Sabbatarians ' (who accept the Old Testament as authoritative, and follow the^Jewish faith in many things), he was banished in 1867 to Udina in Siberia. There, as a ploughman of great energy, he built up for himself a fairly comfortable peasant home, but again im- poverished himself by efforts to spread his doctrine of 'bread-labour.' His book could not be published in Russia, but has been translated into French and other languages. Another title Bondaref gave to his book is 'The Agri- culturist's Triumph.'
A
2 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
The fundamental thought of the book is the follow- ing : Jn all the affairs of life the important thing is to know, not what is good and necessary, but what of all the good and necessary things in existence comes first in importance, what second, what third, and so on.
If that is important in worldly affairs, yet more is it important in matters of faith, which define man's duties.
Tatian, a teacher of the early Church, says that men's sufferings come not so much from their not knowing God, as from their acknowledging a false god and esteeming as God that which is not God. The same thought applies to the duties men acknowledge. Misfortune and evil come, not so much from men not knowing their duties, as from the fact that they acknow- ledge false duties and esteem as duties things that are not really such, while they do not recognise as a duty that which is really their first duty. Bdndaref declares that the misfortunes and evil in men's lives come from regarding many empty and harmful regulations as religious duties, while forgetting, and hiding from them- selves and others, that chief, primary, undoubted duty announced at the beginning of the Holy Scriptures : c In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.'
For those who believe in the sanctity and infallibility of the word of God as expressed in the Bible, the command there given by God Himself, and nowhere revoked, is sufficient proof of its own validity. But for those who do not acknowledge the Holy Scriptures, the importance and validity of this commandment (if only it be considered without prejudice as a simple, not supernatural, expression of human wisdom) may be >roved by a consideration of the conditions of human ife, as is done by Bdndaref in his book.
An obstacle to such consideration unfortunately exists in the fact that many of us are so accustomed to hear from theologians perverted and senseless inter- pretations of the words of Holy Scripture, that the mere reminder that a certain principle coincides with the teachings of Scripture, is enough to cause some people to distrust that principle.
I
INDUSTRY A lsTD IDLENESS 3
c What do I care for the Holy Scriptures ? We know that anything you like can be deduced from them, and that they are all rubbish.'
But this is unreasonable. Surely the Holy Scriptures are not to blame because people interpret them falsely ; and a man who says what is true, is not to blame because the truth he utters is contained in the Holy Scriptures.
One must not forget that, if it be granted that what are called the Scriptures are human productions, it has still to be explained why just these human writings, and not some others, have come to be regarded by men as the words of God Himself. There must be some reason for it.
And the reason is clear.
Superstitious people called the Scriptures Divine because they were superior to anything else that people knew ; and that is also the reason why these Scriptures, though always rejected by some men, have survived and are still considered Divine. These Scrip- tures are called Divine and have come down to us because they contain the highest human wisdom. And, in many of its parts, such is really the character of the Scriptures called the Bible.
And such, among these Scriptures, is that forgotten, neglected, and misunderstood saying which Bondaref has explained and set at the head of the corner.
That saying, and the whole story of Paradise, are commonly taken in a literal sense, as though every- thing actually happened as described ; whereas the meaning of the whole narrative is, that it figuratively represents the conflicting tendencies which exist in human nature.
Man fears death, but is subject to it. Man seems happier while ignorant of good and evil, yet strives irresistibly to reach that knowledge. Man loves idle- ness, and wishes to satisfy his desires without suffering, yet only by labour and suffering can he or his race have life.
The sentence Bondaref quotes is important, not
a 2
4 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
because it is supposed to have been said by God to Adam, but because it is true ; it states one of the indubitable laws of human life. The law of gravity is not true because it was stated by Newton ; but I know of Newton, and am grateful to him, because he showed an eternal law which explains to me a whole series of facts.
It is the same with the law: e In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.' That is a law which explains to me a whole series of facts. And having once known it, I cannot forget it, and am grateful to him who revealed it to me.
This law seems very simple and familiar, but that is only apparently so ; and to convince one's self of that fact we need only look around us. Not only do people not acknowledge this law, but they acknowledge the very reverse of it. People's belief leads them (from King to beggar) to strive, not to fulfil that law but to avoid fulfilling it. Bondaref 's book is devoted to explaining the permanence and immutability of that law, and the inevitable sufferings that flow from its neglect.
Bondaref calls that law the c first-born ' and chief of all laws.
Bondaref demonstrates that sins — i.e., mistakes, false actions — result solely from the violation of this law. Of all the definite duties of man, Bondaref considers that the chief, primary, and most immutable for every man, is to earn his bread with his own hands, understanding by bread-labour all heavy rough work necessary to save man from death by hunger and cold, and by ( bread ' food, drink, clothes, shelter, and fuel.
Bondaref s fundamental thought is that this law — that to live man must work — heretofore acknowledged as inevitable, should be acknowledged as being a benefi- cent law of life, obligatory on everyone.
This law should be acknowledged as a religious law, like keeping the Sabbath or being circumcised among the Jews, like receiving the Sacrament or failing among Church Christians, like praying five times a day among
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS 5
the Mohammedans. Bondaref says, in one place, that if people but recognised bread-labour as a religious obliga- tion, no private or special occupations could prevent their doing it, any more than special occupations prevent Church-people from keeping their holidays. There are about eighty holidays in the year,* but to perform * bread -labour,' according to Bondaref 's cal- culation, only forty days are needed.
However strange it may seem at first that such a simple method, intelligible to everyone, and involving nothing cunning or profound, can save humanity from its innumerable ills, yet more strange, when one comes to think of it, must it seem that we, having at hand so clear, simple, and long familiar a method, can, while neglecting it, seek a cure for our ills in various subtleties and profundities. Yet consider the matter well and you will see that such is the case.
A man omitting to fix a bottom to his tub, and then devising all sorts of cunning means to keep the water from running away, would typify all our efforts to heal existing ills.
Indeed, from what do all the ills of life arise, if we except those that people cause to one another directly, by murders, executions, imprisonments, fights, and the many cruelties in which men sin by using violence ? All the ills of humanity— except those produced by direct violence — come from hunger, from want of all kinds, from being overworked, or, on the other hand, from excess and idleness, and the vices they produce. What more sacred duty can man have than to co- operate in the destruction of this inequality — this want, on the one hand, and this temptation of riches on the other? And how can man co-operate in the destruction of these evils but by taking part in work which supplies human needs, and by liberating himself from super- fluities and idleness productive of temptations and vices
* Saints' days are numerous in Russia, but on the other hand, no Saturday or other weekly half-holiday is customary, so that the total time allowed for holidays comes to much the same in Russia as in England.
6 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
— how, that is, but by each man doing bread-labour to feed himself with his own hands, as Bdndaref ex- presses it ?
We have become so entangled, have involved our- selves in so many laws — religious, social, and family — have accepted so many precepts — as Isaiah says, precept upon precept, here a precept and there a precept — that we have completely lost the perception of what is good and what is bad.
One man performs Mass, another collects an army or the taxes to pay for it, a third acts as judge, a fourth studies books, a fifth heals people, a sixth instructs them, and freeing themselves from bread-labour under these pretexts, they thrust it on to others, and forget that men are dying of exhaustion, labour, and hunger ; and that, in order that there may be people to sing Mass to, to defend with an army, to judge, to doctor, or to instruct, it is necessary, first of all, that they should not die of hunger. We forget that there may be many duties, but that among them all there is a first and a last, and that one must not fulfil the last before fulfilling the first, just as one must not harrow before ploughing.
And it is to this first, undoubted duty in the sphere of practical activity, that Bdndarefs teaching brings us back. Bdndaref shows that the performance of this duty hinders nothing and presents no obstacles, yet saves men from the misery of want and temptation Above all, the performance of this duty would destroy that terrible separation of mankind into two classes which hate each other and hide their mutual hatred by cajolery. Bread-labour, says Bdndaref, equalizes all and clips the wings of luxury and lust.
One cannot plough or dig wells dressed in fine clothes, with clean hands, and nourishing one's self on delicate food. Work at one sacred occupation, common to all, will draw men together. Bread-labour, Bdndaref says, will restore reason to those who have lost it by standing aside from the life natural to man, and will give happiness and content to those engaged
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS 7
in work undoubtedly useful, and appointed by God Himself and by the laws of Nature.
Bread-labour, says Bondaref, is a medicine to save mankind. If men acknowledged this first-born law as an unalterable law of God — if each one admitted bread- labour (to feed himself by the work of his own hands) to be his inexorable duty — all men would unite in belief in one God and in love one to another, and the suffer- ings which now weigh us down would be destroyed.
We are so accustomed to a way of life which assumes the opposite of this — namely, assumes that riches (means to avoid bread-labour) represent either a blessing from God or a higher social status — that, without analysing Bondaref s proposition, we wish to consider it narrow, one-sided, empty, and stupid. But we must examine his position carefully, and consider whether it be just or not.
We weigh all kinds of religious and political theories. Let us weigh Bondarefs also as a theory. Let us con- sider what the result will be if, in accord with his thought, the influence of religious teaching is directed to the elucidation of this commandment, and all men are brought to admit this sacred, first-born law of labour.
All will then work, and eat the fruit of their own labours. Corn and articles of primary necessity will cease to be objects of purchase or sale.
What will be the result ?
The result will be that men will not perish from want. If from unfortunate circumstances one man fails to grow enough food for himself and his family, someone else, who from fortunate circumstances has grown too much, will supply the lack ; and will do so the more readily because there is no other use for his corn, it being no longer an article of commerce. Then men will not be tempted by want to get their bread by cunning or by violence. And not being so tempted, they will not use cunning or violence ; the need that now compels them will no longer exist.
If a man then still uses cunning or violence, it will
8 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
be because be loves such ways, and not because they are necessary to him — as at present.
Nor will it be necessary for the weak — those who, for some reason, are unable to earn their bread, or who have lost it in any way — to sell themselves, their labour, or sometimes even their souls, for bread.
There will not be the present general striving to free one's self from bread-labour and to put it on to others — a striving to crush the weak with overwork and to free the strong from all work. |
There will not be that tendency which now directs the greatest efforts of men's minds, not towards lighten- ing the labour of the workers, but towards lightening and embellishing the idleness of the idlers. The participation of all in bread-labour, and its recognition as first among human affairs, will accomplish what would be achieved by taking a cart, which stupid people were hauling along upside down, and turning it over on to its wheels. The cart would be saved from breaking, and would move easily.
And our life, with its contempt for, and rejection of, bread-labour, and our attempts at reforming that false life, are like a cart drawn along with its wheels in the air. All our reforms are useless till we turn the cart over and stand it right way up.
Such is Bondaref's thought, with which I fully agree. The matter presents itself to me again as follows. There was a time when people ate one another. The consciousness of unity among men developed until that became impossible, and they ceased to eat each other. Then came a time when people seized the fruits of labour by violence from their fellows, and made slaves of men. But consciousness developed till that also became impossible. Violence, though still practised in hidden ways, has been destroyed in its grosser forms : men no longer openly seize the fruits of one another's labour. In our day the form of violence practised is, that some people take advantage of the needs of others to exploit them In B unlareFs opinion the time is near when there will be such a
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS 9
perception of human unity that men will feel it impossible to take advantage of the need, the hunger, and the cold of others to exploit them ; and when men, acknowledging the law of bread-labour as binding on everyone, will recognise it as their bounden duty, without selling articles of prime necessity, to feed, clothe, and warm one another in case of need.
Approaching the matter from another side, I look at this problem of Brindaref s thus : We often hear reflec- tions on the insufficiency of merely negative laws or commandments — i.e., of rules telling us what not to do. People say, We need positive laws or commandments — rules telling us what to do. The five commandments of Christ — (1) to consider no one insignificant or in- sane, and to be angry with no one ; (2) not to consider sexual intercourse as a matter of pleasure, nor to leave the wife or husband with whom one has once united ; (3) to take no oaths to anyone, and not to give away one's freedom ; (4) to endure injuries and violence, and not to resist them by violence ; and (5) to consider no man an enemy, but to love enemies as friends — it is said that these five commandments of Christ's all tell only what should not be done, but that there are no commandments or laws telling what should be done.
And, indeed, it may seem strange that in Christ's teaching there are no equally definite commandments telling us what we ought to do. But this seems strange only to those who do not believe Christ's real teaching, which is contained, not in five commandments, but in the teaching of truth itself.
The teaching of truth expressed by Christ is not con- tained in laws and commandments, but in one thing only — the meaning given to life. And that meaning is, that life and the blessing of life are not to be found in personal happiness, as people generally suppose, but in the service of God and man. And this is not a command which must be obeyed to gain a reward, nor is it a mystical expression of something mysterious and unin- telligible, but it is the elucidation of a law of life previ- ously concealed ; it is the indication of the fact that
10 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
life can be a blessing only when this truth is understood. And, therefore, the whole positive teaching of Christ is expressed in this one thing : Love God, and thy neigh- bour as thyself. And no expositions of that precept are possible. It is one, because it contains all. The law and commandments of Christ, like the Jewish and Buddhist laws and commandments, are but indications of cases in which the snares of the world turn men aside from a true understanding of life. And that is why there may be many laws and many commandments, but the positive teaching of life — of what should be done — must and can be only one.
The life of each man is a movement somewhere : whether he will or not, he moves, he lives. Christ shows man the road, and at the same time indicates the paths leading from the right road — paths which lead astray. Of such indications there may be many — they are the commandments.
Christ gives five such commandments, and those He gave are such that up to the present not one can with advantage be added or spared. But only one direction showing the road is given, for there can be but one straight line showing a certain direction.
Therefore the idea that in Christ's teaching there are only negative commands and no positive ones seems true only to those who do not know, or do not believe, in the teaching of truth itself— the direction of the true path of life indicated by Christ. Believers in the truth of the path of life shown by Jesus will not seek for positive commandments in His teaching. All positive activity flowing from the teaching of the true path of life — most diverse as that activity may be — is always clearly and indubitably defined for them.
Believers in that path of life are, In Christ's simile, like an abundant spring of living water. All their activity is like the course of water, which flows every- where regardless of obstacles. A man believing in the teaching of Christ can as little ask what positive com- mands he is to obey as a stream of water, bursting from the ground, could ask the question. It flows, watering
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS 11
the earth, grass, trees, birds, animals, and men. And a man who believes Christ's teaching of life does likewise.
A believer in the teaching of Jesus will not ask what he is to do. Love, which becomes the motive-force of his life, will surely and inevitably show him where to act, and what to do first and what afterwards.
Not to speak of indications Christ's teaching is full of, showing that the first and most necessary activity of love is to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and help the poor and the prisoners, — our reason, conscience, and feelings all impel us (before undertaking any other service of love to living men) first to sustain life in our brethren by saving them from sufferings and death that threaten them in their too arduous struggles with Nature. That is to say, we are called on to share the labour needful for the life of man — the primary, rough, heavy labour on the land.
As a spring cannot question where its waters are to flow — upwards, splashing the grass and the leaves of the trees, or downwards to the roots of the grass and trees — so a believer in the teaching of truth cannot ask what he must do first — whether to teach people, defend them, amuse them, supply them with the pleasures of life, or save them from perishing of want. And just as water from a spring flows along the surface and fills ponds and gives drink to animals and men, only after it has soaked the ground, so a believer in the teaching of truth can serve less urgent human demands only after he has satisfied the primary demand : has helped to feed men, and to save them from perishing in their struggle against want. A man following the teaching of truth and love, not in words but in deeds, cannot mistake where first to direct his efforts. A man who sees the meaning of his life in service to others can never make such a blunder as to begin to serve hungry and naked humanity by forging cannon, manufacturing elegant ornaments, or playing the violin or the piano.
Love cannot be stupid.
As love for one man would not let us read novels to
12 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
him who was starving, or hang- costly earrings on him who was naked, so love for mankind will not let us serve it by amusing the well-fed while we leave the cold and hungry to die of want.
True love, love not merely in words hut in deeds, cannot be stupid— it is the one thing giving true per- ception and wisdom.
And, therefore, a man penetrated by love will not make a mistake, but will be sure to do first what love of man first requires : he will do what maintains the life of the hungry, the cold, and the heavy-laden, and that is all done by a direct struggle with Nature.
Only he who wishes to deceive himself and others, can, while men are in danger, struggling against want, stand aside from helping them, and, while he adds to their burden, assure himself and those who perish before his eyes, that he is occupied, or is devising means to save them.
No sincere man who sees that the purpose of his life is to serve others will say that. Or if he says it, he will' find in his conscience no confirmation of his de- lusion, but will have to seek it in the insidious doctrine of the division of labour. In all expressions of tru« human wisdom, from Confucius to Mohammed, he will find one and the same truth (and will find it most forcibly in the Gospels) — a summons to serve man not according to the theory of the division of labour, but in the simplest, most natural, and only necessary way : he will find a demand to serve the sick, the prisoners, the hungry, and the naked. And help to the sick, the prisoners, the hungry, and the naked, can be rendered only by one's own immediate direct labour — for the sick, hungry, and naked do not wait, but die of hunger and cold.
His own life, which consists of service to others, will guide a man confessing the teaching of truth, to that primary law expressed at the commencement of Genesis, ' In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread/ which liondaref calls "' first-born ' and puts forward as a positive command.
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS 13
And positive that law really is, for those who do not acknowledge the meaning of life which Christ disclosed. Such it was for men before Christ, and such it remains for those who do not acknowledge Christ's teaching. It demands that everyone should — according to the law of God expressed in the Bible and in our reason — feed himself by his own labour. That law was positive, and such it remains till the meaning of life is revealed to man by the teaching of truth.
But from the plane of the higher consciousness of life disclosed by Christ, the law of bread-labour, remain- ing true as before, fits into Christ's one positive teach- ing of service to man ; and must be regarded no longer as positive, but as negative. That law, from the Chris- tian point of view, merely indicates an ancient snare, and tells men what they should avoid in order not to stray from the path of true life.
For a follower of the Old Testament who does not acknowledge this teaching of truth, this law means : ( Produce thy bread by the labour of thine own hands/ But for a Christian its meaning is negative. To him this law says : ' Do not suppose it possible to serve men while you consume what others labour to produce, and do not produce your own maintenance with your own hands.'
This law, for a Christian, is an indication of one of the most ancient and terrible of the temptations from which mankind suffers. Against that temptation (terrible in its consequences, and so old that it is hard for us to admit that it is not a natural characteristic of man, but a deception) this teaching of Bdndaref is directed — a teaching equally obligatory on a believer in the Old Testament, on a Christian who believes in the Gospels, and on him who disbelieves in the Bible and follows only common-sense.
There is much I could and would write to prove the truth of this position and overthrow the various and complex arguments against it which rise to the lips of us all ; we know we are to blame, and are therefore always ready with justifications. But however much I
14 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
may write, however well I may write, and however logically exact I may be, I shall not convince my reader, so long as his intellect is pitted against mine and his heart remains cold.
And that is why I ask you, reader, to check for awhile the activity of your intellect, and not to argue nor to demonstrate, but to ask only your heart. Who- ever you may be, however gifted, however kind to those about you, however circumstanced, can you sit un- moved over your tea, your dinner, your political, artistic, scientific, medical, or educational affairs, while you hear or see at your door a hungry, cold, sick, suffering man? No. Yet they are always there, If not at the door, then ten yards or ten miles away. They are there, and you know it.
And you cannot be at peace — cannot have pleasure which is not poisoned by this knowledge. Not to see them at your door you have to fence them off, or keep them away by your coldness, or go somewhere where they rare not. But they are everywhere.
And if a place be found where you cannot see them, still, you can nowhere escape from the truth. What, then, must be done ?
You know these things, and the teaching of truth tells you them.
Go to the bottom — to what seems to you the bottom, but is really the top — take your place beside those who produce food for the hungry and clothes for the naked, and do not be afraid : it will not be worse, but better in all respects. Take your place in the ranks, set to work with your weak, unskilled hands at that primary work which feeds the hungry and clothes the naked : at bread-labour, the struggle with Nature ; and you will feel, for the first time, firm ground beneath your feet, will feel that you are at home, that you are free and stand firmly, and have reached the end of your journey. And you will feel those complete, unpoisoned joys which can be found nowhere else — not secured by any doors nor screened by any curtains.
You will know joys you have never known before ;
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS 15
you will, for the first time, know those strong, plain men, your brothers, who from a distance have fed you until now ; and to your surprise you will find in them such qualities as you have never known : such modesty, such kindness to yourself as you will feel you have not deserved.
Instead of the contempt or scorn you expected, you will meet with such kindness, such gratitude and respect for having — after living on them and despising them all your life — at last recollected yourself, and with unskilled hands tried to help them.
You will see that what seemed to you like an island on which you were saved from the sea that threatened to engulf you, was a marsh in which you were sinking ; and the sea you feared, was dry land on which you will walk firmly, quietly, and happily ; as must be the case, for from a deception (into which you did not enter of your own wish, but into which you were led) you will escape to the truth, and from the evasion of God's purpose you will pass to its performance.
[1888.]
?
II
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES?
What is the explanation of the fact that people use things that stupefy them : vodka, wine, beer, hashish, opium, tobacco, and other things less common : ether, morphia, fly-agaric, etc. ? Why did the practice begin? Why has it spread so rapidly, and why is it still spread- ing among all sorts of people, savage and civilized? How is that where there is no vodka, wine or beer, there we find opium, hashish, fly-agaric, etc., and that tobacco is used everywhere?
Why do people wish to stupefy themselves ?
Ask anyone why he began drinking wine and why he now drinks it. He will reply, ' Oh, it's pleasant, and everybody drinks/ and he may add, ' it cheers me up/ Some — those who have never once taken the trouble to consider whether they do well or ill to drink wine — may add that wine is good for the health and adds to one's strength ; that is to say, will make a statement long since proved baseless.
Ask a smoker why he began to use tobacco and why he now smokes, and he also will reply : ' To while away time ; everybody smokes/
Similar answers would probably be given by those who use opium, hashish, morphia, or flyagaric.
'To while away time, to be cheerful; everybody does it/ But it might be excusable to twiddle one's thumbs, to whistle, to hum tunes, to play a fife or to do something of that sort 'to while away time/ 'to be cheerful,' or ' because everybody does it ' — that is to say, it might be excusable to do something for which [ 16 ]
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 17
one need not waste Nature's wealth, nor spend what has cost great labour to produce, nor do what brings evident harm to one's self and to others. But to produce tobacco, wine, hashish, and opium, the labour of millions of men is spent, and millions and millions of acres of the best land (often amid a population that is short of land) are employed to grow potatoes, hemp, poppies, vines, and tobacco. Moreover, the use of these evidently harmful things produces terrible evils known and admitted by everyone, and destroys more people than all wars and contagious diseases added together. And people know this, so that it cannot be that they use these things { to while away time,' ' to be cheerful,' or because ( everybody does it.'
There must be some other reason. Continually and everywhere one meets people who love their children and are ready to make all kinds of sacrifices for them, but who yet spend on vodka, wine and beer, or on opium, hashish, and even on tobacco, as much as would quite suffice to feed their hungry and poverty-stricken children, or at least as much as would suffice to save them from misery. Evidently, if a man who has to choose between the want and sufferings of a family he loves, on the one hand, and abstinence from stupefying things on the other, chooses the former — he must be induced thereto by something more potent than the consideration that ' everybody does it/ or that it is pleasant. Evidently it is done not 'to while away time,' nor merely ' to be cheerful,' but he is actuated by some more .powerful cause.
* This cause — as far as I have detected it by reading about this subject and by observing other people, and particularly by observing my own case when I used to drink wine and smoke tobacco — this cause, I think, may be explained as follows :
When observing his own life, a man may often notice in himself two different beings : the one is blind and physical, the other sees and is spiritual. The blind animal being eats, drinks, rests, sleeps, propagates, and moves, like a wound-up machine. The seeing,
B
18 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
spiritual being that is bound up with the animal does nothing of itself, but only appraises the activity of the animal being ; coinciding with it when approving its activity, and diverging from it when disapproving.
This observing being may be compared to the arrow of a compass, pointing with one end to the north and with the other to the south, but screened along its whole length by something not noticeable so long as it and the arrow both point the same way ; but which becomes obvious as soon as they point different ways.
In the same manner the seeing, spiritual being, whose manifestation we commonly call conscience, always points with one end towards right and with the other towards wrong, and we do not notice it while we follow the course it shows : the course from wrong to right. But one need only do something contrary to the indication of conscience, to become aware of this spiritual being, which then shows how the animal activity has diverged from the direction indicated by conscience. And as a navigator, conscious that lie is on the wrong track, cannot continue to work the oars, engine, or sails, till he has adjusted his course to the indications of the compass, or has obliterated his con- sciousness of this divergence — each man who has felt the duality of his animal activity and his conscience, can continue his activity only by adjusting that activity to the demands of conscience, or by hiding from himself the indications conscience gives him of the wrongness of his animal life.
All human life, we may say, consists solely of these two activities : (1) bringing one's activities into harmony witli conscience, or (2) hiding from one's self the indica- tions of conscience in order to be able to continue to live as before.
Some do the first, others the second. To attain the first there is but one means : moral enlightenment — the increase of light in one's self and attention to what it si lows ; for the second — to hide from one's self the indications of conscience — there are two moans : one external and the other internal. The external means
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 19
consists in occupations that divert one's attention from the indications given by conscience ; the internal method consists in darkening conscience itself.
As a man has two ways of avoiding seeing an object that is before him : either by diverting his sight to other, more striking objects, or by obstructing the sight of his own eyes — just so a man can hide from him- self the indications of conscience in two ways : either by the external method of diverting his attention to various occupations, cares, amusements, or games ; or by the internal method of obstructing the organ of attention itself. For people of dull, limited moral feeling, the external diversions are often quite suf- ficient to enable them not to perceive the indications conscience gives of the wrongness of their lives. But for morally sensitive people those means are often insufficient.
The external means do not quite divert attention from the consciousness of discord between one's life and the demands of conscience. This consciousness hampers one's life : and people, in order to be able to go on living as before, have recourse to the reliable, in- ternal method, which is that of darkening conscience itself by poisoning the brain with stupefying substances.
One is not living as conscience demands, yet lacks the strength to reshape one's life in accord with its demands. The diversions which might distract atten- tion from the consciousness of this discord are insuffi- cient, or have become stale, and so — in order to be able to live on, disregarding the indications conscience gives of the wrongness of their life — people (by poison- ing it temporarily) stop the activity of the organ through which conscience manifests itself, as a man by covering his eyes hides from himself what he does not wish to see.
ii.
Not in the taste, nor in any pleasure, recreation, or mirth they afford, lies the cause of the world-wide con- sumption of hashish, opium, wine, and tobacco, but
b 2
20 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
simply in man's need to hide from himself the demands of conscience.
1 was going along the street one day, and passing some cabmen who were talking, I heard one of them say : ' Of course, when one's sober, one's ashamed to do it P
When one's sober one is ashamed of what seems all right when one is drunk. In these words we have the essential underlying cause, prompting men to resort to stupefiers. People resort to them, either to escape feeling ashamed after having done something contrary to their consciences, or to bring themselves, beforehand, into a state in which they can commit actions contrary to conscience, but to which their animal nature prompts them.
A man when sober is ashamed to go after a prosti- tute, ashamed to steal, ashamed to kill. Of none of these things is a drunken man ashamed, and therefore if a man wishes to do something his conscience con- demns—he stupefies himself.
I remember being struck by the evidence of a man cook who was tried for murdering a relation of mine, an old lady in whose service he lived. He related that when he had sent away his paramour, the servant-girl, and the time had come to act, he wished to go into the bedroom with a knife, but felt that while sober he could not commit the deed he had planned . . . ' when one's sober one's ashamed.' He turned back, drank two tumblers of vodka he had prepared before- hand, and only then felt himself ready, and committed the crime.
Nine-tenths of the crimes are committed in that way : 1 Drink to keep up your courage.'
Half the women who fall do so under the influence of wine. Nearly all visits to disorderly houses are paid by men who are intoxicated. People know this capacity of wine to stifle the voice of conscience, and intention- ally use it for that purpose.
Not only do people stupefy themselves to stifle their own consciences, but (knowing how wine acts) when
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 21
they wish to make others commit actions contrary to conscience, they intentionally stupefy them — that is, arrange to stupefy people in order to deprive them of conscience. In war, soldiers are usually intoxicated before a hand-to-hand fight. All the French soldiers in the assaults on Sevastopol were drunk.
When a fortified place has l>een captured, but the soldiers do not sack it and slay the defenceless old men and children, orders are often given to make them drunk, and then they do what is expected of them.*
Every one knows people who have taken to drink in consequence of some wrong-doing that has tormented their conscience. Any one can notice that those who lead immoral lives are more attracted, than others by stupefying substances. Bands of robbers or thieves, and prostitutes, cannot live without intoxicants.
Every one knows and admits that the use of stupefying substances is a consequence of the pangs of conscience, and that in certain immoral ways of life stupefying substances are employed to stifle conscience. Every one knows and admits also that the use of stupefiers does stifle conscience : that a drunken man is capable of deeds of which when sober he would not think for a moment. Every one agrees to this, but, strange to say, when the use of stupefiers does not result in such deeds as thefts, murders, violations and so forth — when stupefiers are taken not after some terrible crimes, but by men following professions which we do not consider criminal, and when the substances are consumed not in large quantities at once but con- tinually in moderate doses — then (for some reason) it is assumed that stupefying substances have no tendency to stifle conscience.
Thus, it is supposed that a well-to-do Russian's glass of vodka before each meal, and tumbler of wine with the meal ; or a Frenchman's absinthe ; or an English- man's port wine and porter ; or a German's lager-beer ;
* See the allusion to Skobelef s conduct at Geok-Tepe in a preface by Tolstoy, given in Grant Richards' sixpenny edition of ' Sevastopol and other Stories.'
22 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
or a well-to-do Chinaman's moderate dose of opium ; and the smoking of tobacco with them — is done only for pleasure, and has no effect whatever on these people's consciences.
It is supposed that if after this customary stupefac- tion no crime is committed : nor theft, nor murder, but only customary bad and stupid actions — then these actions have occurred of themselves and are not evoked by the stupefaction. It is supposed that if these people have not committed offences against the criminal law, they have no need to stifle the voice of conscience, and that the life led by people who habitually stupefy themselves is quite a good life, and would be precisely the same if they did not stupefy themselves. It is supposed that the constant use of stupefiers does not in the least darken their consciences.
Though everybody knows by experience that one's frame of mind is altered by the use of wine or tobacco, that one is not ashamed of things which but for the stimulant one would be ashamed of, that after each twinge of conscience, however slight, one is inclined to have recourse to some stupefier, and that under the influence of stupefiers it is difficult to reflect on one's life and position, and that the constant and regular use of stupefiers produces the same physiological effect as its occasional immoderate use does — yet, in spite of all this, it seems to men who drink and smoke moderately, that they use stupefiers not at all to stifle conscience, but only for the flavour or for pleasure.
But one need only think of the matter seriously and impartially — not trying to excuse one's self — to under- stand, first, that if the use of stupefiers in large occasional doses stifles man's conscience, their regular use must have a like effect (always first intensifying and then dulling the activity of the brain) whether they are taken in large or small doses. Secondly, that all stupefiers have the quality of stifling conscience, and have this always — both when under their influence murders, robberies, and violations are committed, and when under their influence words are spoken which
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 23
would not have been spoken, or things are thought and felt which would not have been thought and felt but for them ; and, thirdly, that if the use of stupefiers is needed to pacify and stifle the consciences of thieves, robbers, and prostitutes, it is also wanted by people engaged in occupations condemned by their own con- sciences, even though these occupations may by other people be considered proper and honourable.
In a word, it is impossible to avoid understanding that the use of stupefiers, in large or small amounts, occasionally or regularly, in the higher or lower circles of society, is evoked by one and the same cause, the need to stifle the voice of conscience in order not to be aware of the discord existing between one's way of life and the demands of one's conscience.
In that alone lies the reason of the widespread use of all stupefying substances, and among the rest of tobacco — probably the most generally used and most harmful.
It is supposed that tobacco cheers one up, clears the thoughts, and attracts one merely like any other habit — without at all producing the deadening of con- science produced by wine. But you need only observe attentively the conditions under which a special desire to smoke arises, and you will be convinced that stupefy- ing with tobacco acts on the conscience as wine does, and that people consciously have recourse to this method of stupefaction just when they require it for that purpose. If tobacco merely cleared the thoughts and cheered one up, there would not be such a pas- sionate craving for it, a craving showfrig itself just on certain definite occasions. People would not say that they would rather go without bread than without tobacco, and would not often actually prefer tobacco to food.
That man cook who murdered his mistress, said that when he entered the bedroom and had gashed her
24 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
throat with his knife, and she had fallen with a rattle in her throat and the blood had gushed out in a torrent — he lost his courage. ' I could not finish her off/ he said, 'but I went back from the bedroom to the sitting-room, and there sat down and smoked a cigarette/ Only after stupefying himself with tobacco was he able to return to the bedroom, finish cutting the old lady's throat, and begin examining her things.
Evidently the desire to smoke at that moment was evoked in him, not by a wish to clear his thoughts, or be merry, but by the need to stifle something that prevented him from completing what he had planned to do.
Any smoker may detect in himself the same definite desire to stupefy himself with tobacco at certain, specially difficult, moments. I look back at the days when I used to smoke : when was it that I felt a special need of tobacco? It was always at moments when I did not wish to remember certain things that presented themselves to my recollection, when I wished to forget — not to think. I sit by myself doing nothing and know I ought to set to work, but don't feel inclined to, so I smoke and go on sitting. I have promised to be at some one's house by five o'clock, but I have stayed too long somewhere else ; I remember that I have missed the appointment, but I do not like to remember it, so I smoke. I get vexed, and say un- pleasant things to some one, and know J am doing wrong, and see that I ought to stop, but I want to give vent to my irritability — so I smoke and continue to be irritable. I play at cards and lose more than I intended to risk — so I smoke. I have placed myself in an awkward position, have acted badly, have made a mistake, and ought to acknowledge the mess 1 am in and thus escape from it, but I do not like to acknowledge it, so I accuse others — and smoke. I write something and am not quite satisfied frith nliat 1 have written. I ought to abandon it, but I wish to finish what I have planned to do — so I smoke. I dispute, and see that my opponent and I do not under-
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 25
stand, and cannot understand, one another, but I wish to express my opinion, so I continue to talk — and I smoke.
What distinguishes tobacco from most other stupe- fiers, besides the ease with which one can stupefy one's self with it, and its apparent harmlessness, is its portability and the possibility of applying it to meet small, isolated occurrences that disturb one. Not to mention that the use of opium, wine, and hashish, in- volves the use of certain appliances not always at hand, while one can always carry tobacco and paper with one ; and that the opium-smoker and the drunkard evoke horror, while a tobacco-smoker does not seem at all repulsive — the advantage of tobacco over other stupe- fiers is, that the stupefaction of opium, hashish, or wine, extends to all the sensations and acts received or produced during a certain somewhat extended period of time — while the stupefaction from tobacco can be directed to any separate occurrence. You wish to do what you ought not to, so you smoke a cigarette and stupefy yourself sufficiently to enable you to do what should not be done, and then you are again fresh, and can think and speak clearly ; or you feel you have done what you should not — again you smoke a cigarette and the unpleasant consciousness of the wrong or awkward action is obliterated, and you can occupy yourself with other things and forget it.
But apart from individual cases in which every smoker has recourse to smoking, not to satisfy a habit or while away time, but as a means of stifling his con- science with reference to acts he is about to commit or has already committed, is it not quite evident that there is a strict and definite relation between men's way of life and their passion for smoking ?
When do lads begin to smoke ? Usually, when they lose their childish innocence. How is it that smokers can abandon smoking when they come among more moral conditions of life, and again start smoking as soon as they fall among a depraved set? Why do gamblers almost all smoke? Why among women do
26 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
those who lead a regular life smoke least? Why do prostitutes and madmen all smoke ? Habit is habit ; but evidently smoking stands in some definite con- nection with the craving to stifle conscience, and achieves the end required of it.
One may observe in the case of almost every smoker to what an extent smoking drowns the voice of con- science. Every smoker when yielding to his desire forgets, or sets at naught, the very first demands of social life — demands he expects others to observe, and which he observes in all other cases until his con- science is stifled by tobacco. Every one of average education considers it inadmissible, ill-bred, and in- humane to infringe the peace, comfort, and yet more the health, of others for his own pleasure. No one would allow himself to wet a room in which people are sitting, or to make a noise, shout, let in cold, hot, or ill-smelling air, or commit acts that incommode or harm others. But out of a thousand smokers not one will shrink from producing unwholesome smoke in a room where the air is breathed by non-smoking women and children.
If smokers do usually say to those present : ■ You don't object?' every one knows that the customary answer is : 'Not at all' (although it cannot be pleasant to a non-smoker to breathe tainted air, and to find stinking cigar-ends in glasses and cups or on plates and candlesticks, or even in ash pans).* But even if non-smoking adults did not object to tobacco-smoke, it could not be pleasant or good for the children whose consent no one asks. Yet people who are honourable and humane in all other respects, smoke in the presence of children at dinner in small rooms, vitiating the air with tobacco-smoke, without feeling the slightest twinge of conscience.
It is usually said (and I used to say) that smoking
* In the matters alluded to, the Russian customs are worse than the English, partly, perhaps, because in Russia, owing to a drier climate, the smell of stale tobacco in the rooms is less offensive than in England.
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 27
facilitates mental work. And that is undoubtedly true if one considers only the quantity of one's mental out- put. To a man who smokes, and who consequently ceases strictly to appraise and weigh his thoughts, it seems as if he suddenly had many thoughts. But this is not because he really has many thoughts, but only because he has lost control of his thoughts.
When a man works, he is always conscious of two beings in himself: the one works, the other appraises the work. The stricter the appraisement, the slower and the better is the work ; and vice versa, when the appraiser is under the influence of something that stupefies him, more work gets done, but its quality is lower.
1 If I do not smoke I cannot write. I cannot get on ; I begin and cannot continue/ is what is usually said, and what I used to say. What does it really mean ? It means either that you have nothing to write, or that what you wish to write has not yet matured in your consciousness, but is only beginning dimly to present itself to you, and the appraising critic within, when not stupefied with tobacco, tells you so. If you did not smoke you would either abandon what you have begun, or you would wait until your thought has cleared itself in your mind ; you would try to penetrate into what presents itself dimly to you, would consider the objections that offer themselves, and would turn all your attention to the elucidation of the thought. But you smoke, the critic within you is stupefied, and the hindrance to your work is removed. What to you when not inebriated by tobacco seemed insignificant, again seems important ; what seemed obscure, no longer seems so ; the objections that presented them- selves vanish, and you continue to write, and write much and rapidly.
But can such a small — such a trifling — alteration as the slight intoxication produced by the moderate use of wine or tobacco produce important consequences ?
28 ESSAYS AND LE1TERS
{lf a man smokes opium or hashish, or intoxicates himself with wine till he falls down and loses his senses, of course the consequences may be very serious ; but for a man merely to come slightly under the influence of hops or tobacco, surely cannot have any serious consequences,' is what is usually said. It seems to people that a slight stupefaction, a little darkening of the judgment, cannot have any important influence. But to think so, is as if one supposed that it may harm a watch to be struck against a stone, but that a little dirt introduced into it cannot do it any harm.
Remember, however, that the chief work actuating man's whole life is not work done by his hands, feet, or back, but by his consciousness. For a man to do any- thing with feet or hands, a certain alteration has first to take place in his consciousness. And this altera- tion defines all the subsequent movements of the man. Yet these alterations are always minute and almost imperceptible.
Brulof* one day corrected a pupil's study. The pupil, having glanced at the altered drawing, exclaimed : ( Wh^, you only touched it a tiny bit, but it is quite another thing.' Brulof replied: e Art begins where the tiny bit begins/
That saying is strikingly true, not of art alone, but of all life. One may say that true life begins where the tiny bit begins — where what seem to us minute and infinitely small alterations take place. True life is not lived where great external changes take place — where people move about, clash, fight, and slay one another — but it is lived only where these tiny, tiny, infinitesimally small changes occur.
llaskolnikoff lived his true life, not when he mur- dered the old woman or her sister. When murdering the old woman herself, and especially when murdering her sister, he did not live his true life, but acted like a machine, doing what he could not help doing — dis-
* K. P. Brulof, a celebrated Russian painter (1799-1S52). f The hero of Dostoyefsky's novel, ' Crime and Punish- ment.'
IN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 29
charging the cartridge with which he had long been loaded. One old woman was killed, another stood before him, the axe was in his hand.
Raskdlnikof lived his true life, not when he met the old woman's sister, but at the time when he had not vet killed any old woman, nor entered a stranger's lodging with intent to kill, nor held the axe in his hand, nor had the loop in his overcoat by which the axe hung — at the time when he was lying on the sofa in his room, deliberating not at all about the old woman, nor even as to whether it is, or is not, permissible at the will of one man to wipe from the face of the earth another, unnecessary and harmful, man, but was de- liberating whether he ought to live in Petersburg or not, whether he ought to accept money from his mother or not, and on other questions not at all relating to the old woman. And then — in that region quite inde- pendent of animal activities — the question whether he would or would not kill the old woman was decided. That question was decided — not when he, having killed one old woman, stood before another, axe in hand — but when he was doing nothing and was only thinking : when only his consciousness was active, and in that consciousness tiny, tiny alterations were taking place. It is at such times that one needs the greatest clearness to decide correctly the questions that have arisen, and it is just then that one glass of beer, or one cigarette, may prevent the solution of the question, may postpone the decision, stifle the voice of conscience, prompt a decision of the' question in favour of one's lower, animal nature — as was the case with Raskdlnikof.
Tiny, tiny alterations — but on them depend the most immense, the most terrible consequences. From what happens when a man has taken a decision and begun to act, many material changes may result : houses, riches, and people's bodies may perish, but nothing more im- portant can happen than what was hidden in the man's consciousness. The limits of what can happen are set by consciousness.
But from most minute alterations occurring in the
30 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
domain of consciousness, boundless results of unimagin- able importance may follow.
Do not let it be supposed tbat what I am saying has anything to do with the question of free-will or deter- minism. Discussion on that question is superfluous for my purpose, or for any other for that matter. Without deciding the question whether a man can, or cannot, act as he wishes to (a question, in my opinion, not cor- rectly stated), I am merely saying that since human activity is conditioned by infinitesimal alterations in consciousness, it follows (no matter whether we admit, or do not admit, the existence of free-will) that we must pay particular attention to the condition in which these minute alterations take place, just as one must be specially attentive to the condition of scales on which other things are to be weighed. We must, as far as it de- pends on us, try to put ourselves and others in condi- tions which will not disturb the clearness and delicacy of thought necessary for the correct working of con- science, and must not act in the contrary manner : try- ing to hinder and confuse the work of conscience by the use of stupefying substances.
For man is a spiritual as well as an animal being. Man may be moved by things that influence his spiritual nature, or may be moved by things that influence his animal nature, as a clock may be moved by its hands or by its main wheel. And just as it is best to regulate the movement of a clock by means of its inner mechan- ism, so a man — one's self or another — is best regulated by means of his consciousness. And as with a clock one has to take special care of the thing by means of which one can best move the inner mechanism, so with a man, one must attend most of all to the clean inl- and clearness of consciousness ; consciousness being the thing that best moves the whole man. To doubt this is impossible ; every one knows it. Uut a need to deceive one's self arises. People are not as anxious that consciousness should work correctly, as they are that it should seem to them that what they are doin^ is right, and they knowingly make use of substances that disturb the proper working of their consciousness.
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 31
People drink and smoke, not casually, not from dulness, not to cheer themselves up, not because it is pleasant, but in order to drown the voice of conscience in themselves. And if that is so, how terrible must be the consequences ! Indeed, think what a building- would be like erected by people who did not use a straight plumb-rule to get the walls perpendicular, nor right-angled squares to get the corners correct, but used a soft rule which would bend to suit all irregu- larities in the walls, and a square that expanded to fit any angle, acute or obtuse.
Yet, thanks to self-stupefaction, that is just what is being done in life. Life does not accord with con- science, so conscience is made to bend to life.
This is done in the life of individuals, and it is done in the life of humanity as a whole, which consists of the lives of individuals.
To grasp the full significance of such stupefying of one's consciousness, let each one carefully recall the spiritual conditions he has passed through at each period of his life. Every one will find that at each period of his life certain moral questions confronted him, which he ought to solve, and on the solution of which the whole welfare of his life depended. For the solution of these questions great concentration of attention was needful. Such concentration of attention is a labour. In every labour, especially at the com- mencement, there is a time when the work seems diffi- cult and painful, and wrhen human weakness prompts a desire to abandon it. Physical work seems painful at first; mental work seems yet more painful. As Lessing says : people are inclined to cease to think at the point at which thought begins to be difficult ; but it is just there, 1 would add, that thinking begins to be fruitful. A man feels that to decide the ques- tions confronting him needs labour — often painful labour — and he wishes to evade this. If he had no means of stupefying his faculties he could not expel
32 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
from his consciousness the questions that confront him, and the necessity of solving them would he forced upon him. But man finds that there exists a means to drive off these questions whenever they present them- selves— and he uses it. As soon as the questions awaiting solution hegin to torment him he has re- course to these means, and avoids the disquietude evoked by the troublesome questions. Consciousness ceases to demand their solution, and the unsolved questions remain unsolved till his next period of en- lightenment. But when that period comes, the same thing is repeated, and the man goes on for months, years, or even for his whole life, standing before those same moral questions, and not moving a step towards their solution. Yet it is in the solution of moral ques- tions that life's whole movement consists.
What occurs is as if a man who needs to see to the bottom of some muddy water to obtain a precious pearl, but who dislikes entering the water, should stir it up each time it begins to settle and become clear. Many a man continues to stupefy himself all his life long, and remains immovable at the same, once-accepted, obscure, self-contradictory view of life — pressing, as each period of enlightenment approaches, ever at one and the same wall against which he pressed ten or twenty years ago, and which he cannot break through because he intentionally blunts that sharp point of thought which alone could pierce it.
Let each man remember himself as he has been during the years of his drinking or smoking, and let him test the matter in his experience of other people, and every one will see a definite constant line dividing those who are addicted to stupefiers from those who are free from them. The more a man stupefies himself, the more he is morally immovable.
Terrible, as they are described to us, are the conse- quences of opium and hashish on individuals ; terrible, as we know them, are the consequences of alcohol to
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES? 33
flagrant drunkards ; but incomparably more terrible to our whole society are the consequences of what is considered the harmless, moderate use of spirits, wine, beer, and tobacco, to which the majority of men, and especially our so-called cultured classes, are addicted.
The consequences must naturally be terrible, admit- ting the fact, which must be admitted — that the guid- ing activities of society : political, official, scientific, literary, and artistic — are carried on, for the most part, by people in an abnormal state : by people who are drunk.
• It is generally supposed that a man who, like most people of our well-to-do classes, takes alcoholic drink almost every time he eats, is, next day, during work- ing hours, in a perfectly normal and sober condition. But this is quite an error. A man who drank a bottle of wine, a glass of spirits, or two glasses of ale, yester- day, is now in the usual state of drowsiness or depres- sion which follows excitement, and is therefore in a condition of mental prostration, which is increased by smoking. For a man who habitually smokes and drinks in moderation, to bring his brain into a normal condition would require at least a week, or more of abstinence from wine and tobacco. But that hardly ever occurs.*
* But how is it that people who do not drink or smoke are often morally on an incomparably lower plane than others who drink and smoke ? And why do people who drink and smoke often manifest the highest qualities both •mentally and morally ?
The answer is, first, that we do not know the height that those who drink and smoke would have attained had they not drunk and smoked. And, secondly, from the fact that morally gifted people achieve great things in spite of the deteriorating effect of stupefying substances, we can but conclude that they would have produced yet greater things had they not stupefied themselves. It is very probable, as a friend remarked to me, that Kant's works would not have been written in such a curious and bad style had he not smoked so much. Lastly, the lower a man's mental and
c
34 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
So that most of what goes on among us, whether done by people who rule and teach others, or by those who are ruled and taught, is done when the doers are not sober.
And let not this be taken as a joke or an exaggera- tion ; the confusion, and, above all, the imbecility, of our lives, arises chiefly from the constant state of in- toxication in which most people live. Could people who are not drunk possibly do all that is being done around us — from building the Eiffel Tower to accepting military service ?
Without any need whatever, a company is formed, capital collected, men labour, make calculations, and draw plans ; millions of working days and thousands of tons of iron are spent to build a tower ; and millions of people consider it their duty to climb up it, stop awhile on it, and then climb down again ; and the building and visiting of this tower evoke no other reflection than a wish and intention to build other towers, in other places, still bigger. Could sober people act like that ? Or take another case. All the European peoples have for dozens of years past been busy devising the very best ways of killing people, and teaching as many young men as possible, as soon as they reach manhood, how to murder. Everyone knows that there can be no invasion by barbarians, but that these preparations made by the different civilized and Christian nations are directed against one another ; all know that this is burdensome, painful, inconvenient, ruinous, immoral, impious, and irrational — but all continue to prepare for mutual murder. Some devise political combinations to decide who, with what allies, is to kill whom ; others
moral plane, the less does he feel the discord between his conscience and his life, and, therefore, the less does he feel a craving to stupefy himself; and, on the other hand, a parallel reason explains why the most sensitive natures — those which immediately and morbidly feel the discord between life and conscience — so often indulge in narcotics and perish by them. — L. T.
WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES ? 35
direct those who are being taught to murder ; and others, again, yield — against their will, against their conscience, against their reason — to these preparations for murder. Could sober people do these things ? Only drunkards who never reach a state of sobriety could do them, and could live on in the horrible state of discord between life and conscience in which, not only in this, but in all other respects, the people of our society are now living.
Never before, I suppose, have people lived with the demands of their conscience so evidently in contradic- tion to their actions.
Humanity to-day has, as it were, stuck fast. It is as though some external cause hindered it from occupying a position naturally in accord with its perceptions. And the cause — if not the only one, then certainly the greatest — is this physical condition of stupefaction, to which, by wine and tobacco, the great majority ot people in our society reduce themselves.
Emancipation from this terrible evil will be an epoch in the life of humanity ; and that epoch seems to be at hand. The evil is recognised. An alteration has already taken place in our perception concerning the use of stupefying substances. People have understood the terrible harm of these things, and are beginning to point them out, and this almost unnoticed alteration in perception will inevitably bring about the emancipation of men from the use of stupefying things — will enable them to open their eyes to the demands of their con- sciences, and they will begin to order their lives in accord with their perceptions.
And this seems to be already beginning. But, as always, it is beginning among the upper classes only after all the lower classes have already been infected.
[June 10, o.s., 1890.]
The above essay was written by Leo Tolstoy as a preface to a book on Drunkenness written by my brother-in-law, Dr. P. S. Alexeyef.— A. M.
c 2
Ill
AN AFTERWORD TO < THE KREUTZER SONATA '
Many letters from strangers have reached and still continue to reach me asking for a clear and simple explanation of what 1 meant by the story called ' The Kreutzer Sonata. ' 1 will try, to the best of my ability, to do what is asked of me, and explain briefly the essence of what I wished that story to convey, as well as the conclusions which, I think, may be derived from it.
In the first place I wished to say that a strong opinion has taken root in all classes of our society, and is supported by pseudo-science, to the effect that sexual intercourse is indispensable to health, and that, since marriage is sometimes out of the question, sexual inter- course without marriage and without involving the man in any obligation beyond a monetary payment, is per- fectly natural, and should therefore be encouraged.
To such an extent has this opinion prevailed and so firmly is it established, that parents on the advice of doctors actually arrange debauchery for their children ; while Governments — whose only purpose should be the moral well-being of their citizens — organize debauchery by regulating an entire class of women destined to perish physically and morally for the satisfaction of the supposed needs of men J* and unmarried people,
* The registration and medical examination of prostitutes, which was long practised in our garrisoned towns, is still generally, systematically, and unblusliingly carried on in Russian towns, on behalf of the civil as well as the military population.
[36]
AN AFTERWORD 37
with untroubled consciences, yield themselves to de- bauchery.
I intended to say that this is wrong ; for it cannot be right that some people should be destroyed body and soul for the health of others, any more than it can be right that some people for their health's sake should drink the blood of others.
The natural conclusion I would draw is that we must not yield to this error and deception. And to withstand it we must refuse to accept immoral doctrines, no matter what false sciences are quoted in their support. And we must, moreover, understand that sexual intercourse in which people either abandon the children who come as a result of their actions, or throw the whole burden of them on to the woman, or prevent the possibility of their birth, is a violation of the plainest claims of morality, and is shameful. And unmarried people who do not wish to act shamefully should refrain from such conduct.
That they may be able to refrain, they must lead a natural life : not drink intoxicants, nor overeat, nor eat flesh-meat, nor shirk labour (not gymnastics or play, but real fatiguing labour). Furthermore, they must not tolerate, even in thought, the possibility of intercourse with strange women, any more than with their own mothers, sisters, near relatives, or the wives of their friends.
That self-restraint is not only possible, but less dangerous or harmful to one's health than incontinence, is a fact of which any man may find hundreds of proofs around him.
That is the first thing I wanted to say.
Next — as a result of the fact that people regard amatory intercourse as both a necessary condition of health and a pleasure, and, more than that, as a poetic and elevating blessing — conjugal infidelity has, in all classes of our society, become extremely common. (Among the peasants conjugal infidelity is specially due to army service.)
And this I consider wrong. And the conclusion to be drawn is — that people should not behave so.
38 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
And in order that they may not behave so, it is necessary that this view of sex-love should he altered. Men and women must be trained, both by their parents and by public opinion, to look on falling in love and the accompanying sexual desire — whether before or after marriage — not as the poetic and elevated state it is now considered to be, but as an animal state de- grading to a human being. And the breach of the promise of fidelity given at marriage should be dealt with by public opinion at least as severely as a breach of pecuniary obligation, or a business fraud, and should on no account be eulogized, as is now done in novels, poems, songs, operas, etc.
That is my second point.
Thirdly (in consequence, again, of the false opinion held in our society about physical love), child-bearing is not properly regarded, and, instead of being the aim and the justification of marriage, it has become an impediment to the pleasurable continuance of amorous relations, and consequently, both among married and unmarried people (instructed by exponents of medical science), the employment of means to prevent the birth of children has spread ; and a practice has become common which did not exist formerly, and does not now exist in patriarchal peasant families — the continua- tion of conjugal relations during the months of preg- nancy and while the woman is still nursing.
And I think such conduct as that is wrong.
To use means to prevent child-birth is wrong : first, because it frees the parents from the anxiety and care for the children which are the redeeming feature ill sexual love, and, secondly, because it is an action very near to that which is most shocking to man's conscience, namely, murder. And incontinence at the time of pregnancy and nursing is wrong, because it wastes the physical, and, above all, the spiritual, strength of the woman.
The deduction which follows from this is, that such things should be avoided. And, in order to avoid them, it should be understood that continence, which
AN AFTERWORD 39
is an indispensable condition of human dignity to the unmarried, is still more obligatory on the married.
That is the third point.
Fourthly, in our society — in which children are regarded as an impediment to enjoyment, or as an unlucky accident, or (if only a prearranged number are born) as a special kind of pleasure — what is con- sidered in their training is not their preparation for the duties of life which await them as reasonable and loving beings, but merely the gratification they may afford to their parents. The result is that human children are brought up like the young of animals, and the chief care of the parents (encouraged by false medical science) is, not to prepare them for activities worthy of human beings, but to overfeed them, to increase their size, and to make them clean, white, well-conditioned and handsome. (If this is not the case among the lower classes, it is only because they cannot afford it. They look on the matter just as the upper classes do.)
And in these pampered children (as in all overfed animals) an overpowering sexual sensitiveness shows itself unnaturally early, causing them terrible distress as they approach the age of puberty. All the surround- ings of their life : clothes, books, sight-seeing, music, dances, dainty fare— everything, from the pictures on their boxes of bon-bons to the stories, novels, and poems they read — more and more increases this sensi- tiveness, and, as a result, the most terrible sexual vices and diseases are frequent incidents in the life of children of both sexes, and often retain their hold after maturity is reached.
And I consider that this is wrong. And the conclu- sion to be drawn is that human children should not be brought up like the young of animals, but in the educa- tion of human children other results should be aimed at than producing handsome, well-kept bodies.
That is the fourth point.
Fifthly, in our society, where the falling in love of young men and women (which still has physical
40 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
attraction as its root) is extolled as though it were the highest and most poetic aim of human endeavour (as all our art and poetry hears witness), young people devote the best part of their lives — the men to spying out, pursuing, and obtaining (whether in marriage or free union), those best suited to attract them ; the women and girls to enticing and entrapping men into free unions or marriages.
In this way the best powers of many people run to waste in activity not merely unproductive but injurious. Most of our insensate luxury results from this, as well as most of the idleness of the men and the shameless- ness of the women who are not above following fashions admittedly borrowed from depraved women, and ex- posing parts of the body that excite sensuality.
And this, I think, is wrong.
It is wrong because, however it may be idealized, to obtain connection — in marriage or without marriage — with the object of one's love is an aim as unworthy of a man as is that of securing tasty and abundant food, which seems to many people the highest good.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is that we must cease to consider sex-love as something specially elevated, and must understand that no aim that we count worthy of a man — whether it be the service of humanity, fatherland, science or art (not to speak of the service of God) — can be attained by means of connec- tion with the object of one's love (either with or with- out a marriage rite). On the contrary, falling in love and connection (however men may seek to prove the con- trary in prose and verse) never facilitate, but always impede, the attainment of any aim worthy of man.
That is the fifth point.
That is the substance of what I wanted to say, and thought I had said, by my story ; and it seemed to me that one might discuss the question of how to remedy the evils indicated, but that it was impossible not to agree with the considerations advanced. It seemed impossible not to agree : first, because these considera- tions quite coincide with what we know of the progress of
AN AFTERWORD 41
mankind (which has ever advanced from dissoluteness to greater and greater purity), and accord also with the moral perceptions of the community, and with our conscience, which always condemns dissoluteness and esteems chas- tity.* Secondly, hecause these propositions are merely unavoidable conclusions from the Gospel teaching, which we either profess or at least (even if uncon- sciously) admit to lie at the root of our ideas of morality.
But 1 was mistaken.
No one, it is true, directly disputes the statements that one should not be dissolute either before or after marriage, should not artificially prevent childbirth, should not make toys of one's children, and should not put amatory intercourse above everything else. In short, no one denies that chastity is better than depravity. But it is said : ( If abstinence is better than marriage, people ought certainly to follow the better course. But if they do, then the human race will come to an end, and the ideal for the race cannot be — its own extinction/ But — apart from the fact that the extinc- tion of the human race is not a new idea, but is for religious people one of the dogmas of their faith, and for scientists an inevitable conclusion from observations of the cooling of the sun — there is in that rejoinder a great, wide-spread, and old misunderstanding. It is said : ( If men act up to the ideal of perfect chastity, they will become extinct ; therefore the ideal is false/ But those who speak so, intentionally or unintention- ally confuse two different things — a rule or precept, and an ideal.
Chastity is not a rule or precept, but an ideal, or, rather, one condition of the ideal. But an ideal is an ideal only when its accomplishment is only possible in idea, in thought, when it appears attainable only in infinity, and when the possibility of approaching towards it is therefore infinite. If the ideal were attained, or if we
* The word is used in the sense of complete purity of mind and body, such as is commonly attributed to Jesus.
42 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
could even picture its attainment by mankind, it would cease to be an ideal.
Such was Christ's ideal — the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth— an ideal already foretold by the prophets, of a time when all men will be taught of God, will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks ; when the lion will lie down with the lamb, and all will be united in love. The whole meaning of human life lies in progress towards that ideal ; and therefore the striving towards the Christian ideal in its completeness, and towards chastity as one of its conditions, is farfrom rendering life impossible. On the contrary, the absence of that ideal would destroy progress, and with it the possibility of real life.
Arguments to the effect that the human race will end if men strive with all their might towards chastity, are like the one (sometimes actually used) to the effect that the race will perish if men try their best to sub- stitute the love of friends, of enemies, and of all that lives, for the prevailing struggle for existence. Such arguments come from not understanding the difference between two methods of moral guidance.
As there are two ways of telling a traveller his road, so there are two methods of moral guidance for seekers after truth. One way consists in pointing out the objects that will be met on the road, by which the traveller can shape his course ; the other way consists in only giving him the direction by a compass he carries, and on which he sees one invariable direction, and con- sequently is made aware of every divergence from it.
The first method of moral guidance is by externally denned rules : certain definite actions are indicated which a man must, or must not, perform.
'-. Keep the Sabbath ;' ' Be circumcised ;' ' Do not steal ;' ' Abstain from wine ;' ' Do not destroy life ;' ' Give tithes to the poor ;' * Wash and pray five times daily;' ' Baptize;' ( Receive the Eucharist,' etc. Such are the ordinances of external religious teaching : Brahnrinical, Buddhist, Mohammedan or Jewish, and of Ecclesiasticism, falsely called Christianity.
AN AFJTERWORD 43
The other method consists in indicating1 a perfection man can never reach, but which he consciously desires. An ideal is set before him by attending to which he can always see to what extent he deviates from the right road.
''Love God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself/ 6 Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect/ Such is the teaching of Christ.
The test of fulfilment of external religious teachings is the conformity of our conduct to the injunctions given, and such conformity is possible.
The test of the fulfilment of Christ's teaching lies in a consciousness of the extent of one's deviation from the ideal perfection. (The degree of one's approach to it is not seen ; but the degree of deviation from it is seen.)
A man who accepts an external law is like a man standing in the light thrown by a lantern fixed to a post. He stands in the light of this lantern, and it is light, around him, but he has no place towards which to advance. A man who accepts Christ's teaching is like one who carries a lantern before him on a pole : the light is always before him, and by lighting up fresh ground which attracts him, always invites him to advance.
The Pharisee thanks God he has fulfilled the whole law. The rich young man has also from his childhood fulfilled all, and cannot understand what more can be demanded. Nor can they think otherwise : they see nothing ahead of them towards which they might aspire. Tithes have been paid ; Sabbaths observed ; parents honoured ; they have not committed adultery, nor stolen, nor murdered. What more can be re- quired ? But for him who follows the Christian teach- ing, each step gained towards perfection makes plain the need of ascending another, from which he perceives a yet higher, and so on without end. He who follows the law of Christ is always in the position of the Publican — always conscious of imperfection, he does not look behind him at the road he has passed, but sees always before him the road he has still to travel.
44 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
In this lies the difference between Christ's teaching and all other religious teachings ; a difference not in the demands made, but in the guidance afforded. Jesus did not lay down rules of life. He established no institutions, and did not institute marriage. But men (not understanding the character of Christ's teaching, and accustomed to external teachings) wished to feel themselves justified — as the Pharisee felt himself justi- fied— and from the letter of his teaching, but contrary to its whole spirit, have constructed an external code of rules called Church doctrine, and with it have sup- planted Christ's true teaching of the ideal.
This has been done concerning government, law, war, the Church, and Church worship ; and it has also been done in relation to marriage.
In spite of the fact that Jesus not only never insti- tuted marriage, but (if we must seek external regula- tions) rather discountenanced it (' Leave thy wife and follow me '), the Church doctrine (called Christian) has established marriage as a Christian institution. That is to say, it has defined certain external conditions under which sexual love is supposed to be quite right and lawful for a Christian.
As, fhowever, the institution of marriage has no basis whatever in true Christianity, the result has been that people in our society have quitted one shore, but have not reached the other. They do not really believe in the ecclesiastical definitions of marriage, for they feel that such an institution has no foundation in Christ's teaching ; yet as they do not perceive Christ's ideal (which the Church doctrine has hidden) — the ideal of striving towards complete chastity — they are left, in relation to marriage, quite without guidance. This explains the fact (which seems so strange at first sight) that among Jews, Mohammedans, Lamaists, and others professing religious doctrines much lower than the Christian, but having strict external regulations concerning marriage, the family principle and conjugal fidelity are far firmer than in so-called Christian society. Those people have their regular systems of
AN AFTERWORD 45
concubinage, or polygamy, or polyandry, confined within certain bounds. Among us wholesale dissolute- ness finds place : concubinage, polygamy, and polyandry, free from all limitations, and concealed by the pretence of monogamy.
F6r no better reason than because the clergy, for money, perform certain ceremonies (called marriage services) over a certain number of those who unite, people in our society naively or hypocritically imagine that we are a monogamous people.
There never was, or could be, such a thing as Christian marriage, any more than Christian worship,* Christian teachers and Fathers of the Church, t Christian pro-
* ' And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites : for they love to stand and pray in congregations and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which, seeth in secret, shall recompense thee. And in praying use not vain repe- titions as the Gentiles do : for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them : for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.' — Matt. vi. 5-12.
' Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father. You know not whom you worship, but we worship him whom we know. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and by deeds : for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and by deeds.'— John iv. 21-24.
f ' But be not ye called teachers : for one is your Teacher, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father on the earth : for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters : for one is your Master, even the Christ.' — Matt, xxiii. 8-10.
(Where the Revised Version is not followed, Tolstoy's Union and Translation of the Four Gospels has been used. )
46 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
perty, armies, law-courts, or Governments, and this was understood by Christians who lived in the first centuries.
The Christian ideal is that of love to God and to one's fellow-man : it is the renunciation of one's self for the service of God and one's neighbour ; whereas sexual love, marriage, is a service of self, and con- sequently in any case an obstacle to the service of God and man, and therefore, from a Christian point of view, a fall, a sin.
To get married would not help the service of God and man, though it were done to perpetuate the human race. For that purpose, instead of getting married and producing fresh children, it would be much simpler to save and rear those millions of children who are now perishing around us for lack of food for their bodies, not to mention food for their souls.
Only if he were sure all existing children were provided for could a Christian enter upon marriage without being conscious of a moral fall.
It may be possible to reject Christ's teaching — which permeates our whole life and on which all our morality is founded — but once that teaching is accepted, we cannot but admit that it points to the ideal of complete chastity.
For in the Gospels it is said clearly, and so that there is no possibility of misinterpretation : First, that a married man should not divorce his wife to take another, but should live with her whom he has once taken. * Secondly, that it is wrong (and it is said of men generally, married or unmarried) to look on a
* c It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement : but I say unto you, that if anyone putteth away his wife, not only is he guilty of wantonness, but he leads her to adultery : and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery. '—Matt. v. 31, 32.
1 He saith unto them, Moses for your coarseness let you divorce from your wives : but this from the first was not right' — Matt. xix. 8.
AN AFTERWORD 47
woman as an object of desire.* And, thirdly, that for the unmarried it is better not to marry— i.e., it is better to be quite chaste. t
To most people these thoughts will seem strange, and even contradictory. And they really are contradictory, not in themselves but to the whole manner of our lives : and the question naturally presents itself: e Which is right ? These thoughts, or the lives lived by millions, including myself?'
That feeling forced itself upon me most strongly when I approached the conclusions I now express. I never anticipated that the development of my thoughts would bring me to such a conclusion. I was startled at my conclusions and did not wish to believe them, but it was impossible not to believe them. And how- ever they may run counter to the whole arrange- ment of our lives, however they may contradict what I thought and said previously, I had to admit them.
( But these are all general considerations, which may be true, but relate to the teaching of Jesus, and are binding only on those who profess it. But life is life, and it will not do merely to point to a distant and unattainable ideal, and then leave men with no definite guidance in face of a burning question, which affects every one and causes terrible sufferings. A young and
* ' Every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart' — Matt. v. 28.
t ■ The disciples say unto him, If the case of a man is so with his wife, it is not expedient to marry, But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, but they to whom it is given. For there are men who are virgin from lust from their mother's womb ; and there are some who have been deprived of their desire by men, and there are some who have become pure for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' — Matt. xix. 10-12.
Tolstoy's A Union and Translation of the Four Gospels has been followed in these quotations.
48 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
passionate man may, at first, be attracted by this ideal, but will not hold to it, and when once he has broken down, not knowing or acknowledging any fixed rules, he will lapse into complete depravity/
So people generally argue : ' Christ's ideal is un- attainable, therefore it cannot serve as a guide in practical life ; it may do to talk about, or dream about, but it is not applicable to life, and must therefore be put aside. We do not want an ideal, but a rule — a guidance — suited to our strength and to the average level of the moral forces of our society : honourable Church-marriage ; or even a marriage not quite honour- able, in which one party (as occurs with men among us) has already known many other women ; or, say, marriage with the possibility of divorce, or civil marriage, or even (advancing in the same direction) a marriage, Japanese fashion, for a certain term' — but why not go as far as brothels ? They are said to be preferable to street prostitution !
That is where the trouble comes in. Once you let yourself lower the ideal to suit your weakness, there is no finding the line at which to stop.
In reality, this argument is altogether unsound. It is untrue that an ideal of infinite perfection cannot be a guide in life, and that 1 must either throw it away, saying, ( It is useless to me since I can never reach it,' or must lower it to the level at which it suits my weak- ness to rest.
To argue so is as though a mariner said to himself: 6 Since I cannot keep to the line indicated by the compass, I must either throw the compass overboard and cease to bother with it* (i.e., must discard the ideal) ; ' or I must fix the needle of the compass in the position which corresponds to the direction my vessel is now following' (i.e., must lower the ideal to suit my own weakness).
The ideal of perfection Jesus gave is not a fancy, or a theme for rhetorical sermons, but is an indispen- sable and accessible guide to moral life, as the compass is an indispensable and accessible instrument where-
AN AFTERWORD 49
with to guide a ship. But the one must be believed in as implicitly as the other.
In whatever position a man may find himself, the teaching of the ideal that Jesus gave is sufficient to afford him always the best indications as to what he should or should not do. But he must entirely believe this teaching, and this alone, and must not trust to any other — just as a steersman guiding himself by the compass must not look to either side, but must keep his attention fixed on the compass.
One must know how to guide one's self by Christ's teaching as by a compass ; and for this the chief thing is to understand one's own position. One must not fear to define clearly one's own deviation from the direction of the ideal. Whatever plane a man may be on, it is always possible for him to move towards the ideal, and in no position can he say he has attained it and can approach no nearer.
Such is the case in regard to man's aspiration towards the Christian ideal in general, and it applies to the question of chastity in particular. If we take men in the most diverse positions that they can occupy, from innocent childhood to marriage without self-restraint, the teaching of Jesus and the ideal it holds up will afford clear and definite guidance as to what should and what should not be done at each stage.
1 What should a pure lad or maid do ?'
Keep themselves pure and free from snares ; and, in order to be able to give all their strength to the service of God and man, strive after greater and greater purity of thought and desire.
' What should a youth or a maid do who has fallen into temptation,, is absorbed by vague desire, or by love of some particular person, and who has thereby lost to some extent the power to serve God and man r
Again the same thing. Not allow themselves to fall (knowing that a fall will not free them from temptation, but will only render it stronger) ; but go on striving ever towards greater and greater purity, to be able more fullv to serve God and man.
50 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
' What should those do who have not been equal to the struggle and have fallen f
They must look on their fall, not as on a legitimate enjoyment (as is now done when it is sanctioned by a wedding service), nor as a casual pleasure which may be repeated with someone else, nor as a calamity, when the fall has been with an inferior and without ritual ; but they must look on this first fall as the only one, and regard it as the entrance to an actual indissoluble marriage.
This marriage, by the results that follow from it — the birth of children — restricts the married couple to a new and more limited field of service of God and man. Before marriage they could serve God and man directly and in most varied ways ; but marriage limits their sphere of activity, and demands from them the rearing and education of children, who may be future servants of God and man.
'What must a married man and woman do, who, by rearing and educating children, are fulfilling the limited service of God and man which corresponds to their position ?'
Again the same thing. Together strive to free them- selves' from temptation, purify themselves, and cease from sin, by substituting for physical love, which hinders both public and private service of God and man, the pure relationship of brother and sister.
And, therefore, it is not true that we cannot guide ourselves by the ideal of Jesus, because it is so high, so perfect, and so inaccessible. If we cannot guide our- selves by it, that is only because we lie to ourselves and deceive ourselves. For if we say we require a rule more accessible than Christ's ideal, or, falling short of Christ's ideal, we shall become dissolute — what we say really amounts to this : not that Christ's ideal is too high for us, but that we do not believe in it and do not wish to appraise our conduct by it.
To say that when once we have fallen we shall have begun a loose life, is really to say that we decide in advance that a fall with an inferior is not a sin, but is
AN AFTERWORD 51
an amusement, an infatuation, which we are not bound to rectify by the permanent union called marriage. Whereas, if "we realized that a fall is a sin which should and must be redeemed by an inviolate marriage, and by all the activity involved in educating the children born of marriage — then the fall would by no means be a reason for taking to vice.
It is as if a husbandman learning to sow corn did not reckon as sown any field in which the sowing was unsuccessful, but went on sowing a second and a third field, and took into account only the one that succeeded. Evidently such a man would waste much land and much seed, and would not learn to sow properly.
Only acknowledge chastity as the ideal, and regard every fall (of whomsoever with whomsoever) as the one irrevocable life-long marriage, and it will be clear that the guidance given by Jesus is sufficient, and, more than that, is the only possible guidance.
* Man is weak, and his task must accord with his strength,' is what people say. But that is as if one said : e My hand is weak, and 1 cannot draw a line that shall be quite straight (the shortest between two points), so, to help matters, I will take as my model a crooked or broken line. ' In reality, the weaker my hand, the more I need a perfect model.
Having once recognised the Christian teaching of the ideal, we cannot act as if we were ignorant of it, and replace it by external rules. The Christian teaching of the ideal has been set before us just because it can guide us in our present stage of progress. Humanity has already outgrown the stage of religious, external ordinances, and people believe in them no more.
Christ's teaching of the ideal is the one teaching that can guide mankind. We must not and cannot replace the ideal of Jesus by external regulations ; but we must firmly keep that ideal before us in all its purity, and, above all, we must believe in it.
To the sailor while he kept near the coast one could say : ' Steer by that cliff, that cape, or that tower ' ; but a time has come when the sailor has left the land
d 2
52 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
behind, and his only guide can and must be the unattainable stars, and the compass showing a direc- tion.
And the one and the other are given us.
[September 26, o.s., 1890.
The above is a new translation, in preparing which I have been allowed to make free use of one that appeared in the New Age in 1897.
IV THE FIRST STEP
If a man is not making a pretence of work, but is work- ing in order to accomplish the matter he has in hand, his actions will necessarily follow one another in a certain sequence determined by the nature of the work. If he postpones to a later time what from the nature of the work should be done first, or if he altogether omits some essential part, he is certainly not working seriously, but only pretending. This rule holds unalterably true whether the work be physical or not. As one cannot seriously wish to bake bread unless one first kneads the flour and then heats the brick-oven, sweeps out the ashes, and so on, so also one cannot seriously wish to lead a good life without adopting a certain order of succession in the attainment of the necessary qualities.
With reference to right living this rule is especially important ; for whereas in the case of physical work, such as making bread, it is easy to discover by the result whether a man is seriously engaged in work or is only pretending, with reference to goodness of life no such verification is possible. If people, without knead- ing the dough or heating the oven, only pretend to make bread — as they do in the theatre — then from the result (the absence of bread) it becomes evident that they were only pretending ; but when a man pretends to be leading a good life we have no such direct indica- tions that he is not striving seriously but only pretend- [53]
54 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
ing, for not only are the results of a good life not always evident and palpable to those around, but very often such results even appear to them harmful. Respect for a man's activity, and the acknowledgment of its utility and pleasantness by his contemporaries, furnish no proof of the real goodness of his life.
Therefore, to distinguish the reality from the mere appearance of a good life, the indication given by a regular order of succession in the acquirement of the essential qualities is especially valuable. And this indication is valuable, not so much to enable us to dis- cover the seriousness of other men's strivings after goodness as to test this sincerity in ourselves, for in this respect we are liable to deceive ourselves even more than we deceive others.
A correct order of succession in the attainment of virtues is an indispensable condition of advance towards a good life, and consequently the teachers of mankind have always prescribed a certain invariable order for their attainment.
All moral teachings set up that ladder which, as the Chinese wisdom has it, reaches from earth to heaven, and the ascent of which can only be accomplished by starting from the lowest step. As in the teaching of the Brahmins, Buddhists, Confucians, so also in the teaching of the Greek sages, steps were fixed, and a superior step could not be attained without the lower one having been previously taken. All the moral teachers of mankind, religious and non-religious alike, have admitted the necessity of a definite order of suc- cession in the attainment of the qualities essential to a righteous life. The necessity for this sequence lies in the very essence of things, and therefore, it would seem, ought to be recognised by everyone.
But, strange to say, from the time Church-Christ- ianity spread widely, the consciousness of this neces- sary order appears to have been more and more lost, and is now retained only among ascetics and monks. Among worldly Christians it is taken for granted that; the higher virtues may be attained not only in the
THE FIRST STEP 55
absence of the lower ones, which are a necessary condi- tion of the higher, but even in company with the greatest vices ; and consequently the very conception of what it is that constitutes a good life, has reached, in the minds of the majority of worldly people to-day, a state of the greatest confusion.
Tn our times people have quite lost the consciousness of the necessity of a sequence in the qualities a man must have to enable him to live a good life, and, as a consequence, they have lost the very conception of what constitutes a good life. This, it seems to me, has come about In the following way.
When Christianity replaced heathenism it put forth moral demands superior to the heathen ones, and at the same time (as was also the case with heathen morality) it necessarily laid down one indispensable order for the attainment of virtues — certain steps to the attainment of a righteous life.
Plato's virtues, beginning with self-control, advanced through courage and wisdom to justice ; the Christ- ian virtues, commencing with self-renunciation, rise through devotion to the will of God, to love.
Those who accepted Christianity seriously and strove to live righteous Christian lives, thus understood Christianity, and always began living rightly by re- nouncing their lusts ; which renunciation included the self-control of the pagans.
But let it not be supposed that Christianity in this matter was only echoing the teachings of paganism ; let me not be accused of degrading Christianity from its lofty place to the level of heathenism. Such an accusation would be unjust, for I regard the Christian teaching as the highest the world has known, and as quite different from heathenism. Christian teaching replaced pagan teaching simply because the former was different from, and superior to, the latter. But both Christian and pagan teaching alike, lead men toward
m ESSAYS AND LETTERS
truth and goodness ; and as these are always the same, the way to them must also be the same, and the first steps on this way must inevitably be the same for Christian as for heathen.
The difference between the Christian and pagan teaching of goodness lies in this : that the heathen teaching is one of final perfection, while the Christian is one of infinite perfecting. Every heathen, non- Christian, teaching sets before men a model of final perfection ; but the Christian teaching sets before them a model of infinite perfection. Plato, for instance, makes justice the model of perfection, whereas Christ's model is the infinite perfection of love. ' Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.' In this lies the difference, and from this results the different rela- tion of pagan and Christian teaching toward different grades of virtue. According to the former, the attain- ment of the highest virtue was possible, and each step toward this attainment had its comparative merit — the higher the step the greater the merit ; so that from the pagan point of view men may be divided into moral and immoral, into more or less immoral — whereas, accord- ing to the Christian teaching, which sets up the ideal of infinite perfection, this division is impossible. There can be neither higher nor lower grades. In the Christian teaching, which shows the infinity of perfec- tion, all steps are equal in relation to the infinite ideal.
Among the heathens the plane of virtue attained by a man* constituted his merit; in Christianity merit con- sists only in the process of attaining, in the greater or lesser speed of attainment. From the heathen point of view, a man who possessed the virtue of reasonableness stood morally higher than one deficient in that virtue ; a man who, in addition to reasonableness, possessed courage stood higher still ; a man who to reasonableness and courage added justice stood yet higher. But one Christian cannot be regarded as morally either higher or lower than another. A man is more or less of a Christian only in proportion to the speed with which he
THE FIRST STEP 57
advances towards infinite perfection, irrespective of the stage he may have reached at a given moment. Hence the stationary righteousness of the Pharisee was worth less than the progress of the- repentant thief on the cross.
Such is the difference between the Christian and the heathen teachings. Consequently the stages of virtue, as, for instance, self-control and courage, which in paganism constitute merit, constitute none whatever in Christianity. In this respect the teachings differ. But with regard to the fact that there can be no advance toward virtue, toward perfection, except by mounting the lowest steps, paganism and Christianity are alike : here there can be no difference.
The Christian, like the heathen, must commence the work of perfecting himself from the beginning — i.e., at the step at which the heathen begins it, namely, self- control ; just as a man who wishes to ascend a flight of stairs cannot avoid beginning at the first step. The only difference is that for the pagan, self-control itself constitutes a virtue ; whereas for the Christian, it is only part of that self-abnegation which is itself but an indispensable condition of all aspiration after perfection. Therefore the manifestation of true Christianity could not but follow the same path that had been indicated and followed by paganism.
But not all men have understood Christianity as an aspiration towards the perfection of the heavenly Father. The majority of people have regarded it as a teaching about salvation — i.e., deliverance from sin by grace transmitted through the Church, according to Catholics and Greek Orthodox ; by faith in the Re- demption, according to Protestants, the Reformed Church, and Calvinists ; or, according to some, by means of the two combined.
And it is precisely this teaching that has destroyed the sincerity and seriousness of men's relation to the moral teaching of Christianity. However much the representatives of these faiths may preach that these means of salvation do not hinder man in his aspiration
.58 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
after a righteous life, but on the contrary contribute toward it — still, from certain assertions certain deduc- tions necessarily follow, and no arguments can prevent men from making these deductions, when once they have accepted the assertions from which they flow. If a man believe that he can be saved through grace trans- mitted by the Church, or through the sacrifice of the Redemption, it is natural for him to think that efforts of his own to live a right life are unnecessary — the more so when he is told that even the hope that his efforts will make him better is a sin. Consequently a man who believes that there are means other than per- sonal effort by which he may escape sin or its results, cannot strive with the same energy and seriousness as the man who knows no other means. And not striving with perfect seriousness, and knowing of other means besides personal effort, a man will inevitably neglect the unalterable order of succession for the attainment of the good qualities necessary to a good life. And this has happened with the majority of those who profess Christianity.
The doctrine that personal effort is not necessary for the attainment of spiritual perfection by man, but that there are other means for its acquirement, caused a relaxation of efforts to live a good life and a neglect of the consecutiveness indispensable for such a life.
The great mass of those who accepted Christianity, accepting it only externally, took advantage of the sub- stitution of Christianity for paganism to rid themselves of the demands of the heathen virtues — no longer neces- sary for a Christian — and to free themselves from all conflict with their animal nature.
The same thing happens with those who cease to believe in the teaching of the Church. They are like the before-mentioned believers, only they put forward — instead of grace, bestowed by the Church or through Redemption — some imaginary good work, approved of
THE FIRST STEP 59
by the majority of men, such as the service of science, art, or humanity ; and in the name of this imaginary good work they liberate themselves from the consecu- tive attainment of the qualities necessary for a good life, and are satisfied, like men on the stage, with pre- tending to live a good life.
Those who fell away from paganism without embrac- ing Christianity in its true significance, began to preach love for God and man apart from self-renunciation, and justice without self-control ; that is to say, they preached the higher virtues omitting the lower ones : i.e., not the virtues themselves, but the semblance.
Some preach love to God and man without self- renunciation, and others humaneness, the service of humanity, without self-control. And as this teaching, while pretending to introduce man into higher moral regions, encourages his animal nature by liberating him from the most elementary demands of morality — long ago acknowledged by the heathens, and not only not rejected but strengthened by true Christ- ianity— it was readily accepted both by believers and unbelievers.
Only the other day the Pope's Encyclical* on Socialism was published, in which, after a pretended refutation of the Socialist view of the wrongfulness of private property, it was plainly said : ' No one is com- manded to distribute to others that which is required for his own necessities and those of his household ; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep up becom- ingly his condition in life ; for no one ought to live unbecomingly.1 (This is from St. Thomas Aquinas, who says, Nullus enim inconvenienter vivere debet. ) l But when necessity has been fairly supplied, and one's position fairly considered, it is a duty to give to the indigent out of that which is over. That which remaineth give alms.'
Thus now preaches the head of the most wide-spread Church. Thus have preached all the Church teachers,
* This refers to the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. In the passage quoted the official" English translation of the Ency- clical has been followed. See the Tablet, 1891.
60 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
who considered salvation by works as insufficient. And together with this teaching of selfishness, which pre- scribes that you shall give to your neighbours only what you do not want yourself, they preach love, and recall with pathos the celebrated words of Paul in the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corin- thians, about love.
Notwithstanding that the Gospels overflow with demands for self-renunciation, with indications that self-renunciation is the first condition of Christian per- fection ; notwithstanding such clear expressions as : e Whosoever will not take up his cross . • .' ' Whoso- ever hath not forsaken father and mother . . .' 'Who- soever shall lose his life . . .' — people assure themselves and others that it is possible to love men without renouncing that to which one is accustomed, or even what one pleases to consider becoming for one's self.
So speak the Church people ; and those who reject not only the Church but also the Christian teaching (Freethinkers) think, speak, write, and act, in just the same way. These men assure themselves and others that without in the least diminishing their needs, with- out (Overcoming their lusts, they can serve mankind — i.e., lead a good life.
Men have thrown aside the heathen sequence of virtues ; but, not assimilating the Christian teaching in its true significance, they have not accepted the Christian sequence, and are left quite without guidance.
In olden times, when there was no Christian teach- ing, all the teachers of life, beginning with Socrates, regarded as the first virtue of life, self-control — iyKpdreca or <rio<f>po<r\jvr} ; and it was understood that every virtue must begin with and pass through this one. It was clear that a man who had no self-control, who had developed an immense number of desires and had yielded himself up to them, could not lead a good life. It was evident that before a man could even think of
THE FIRST STEP 61
disinterestedness, justice— to say nothing- of generosity or love — he must learn to exercise control over himself. According to our ideas now, nothing of the sort is necessary. We are convinced that a man who has developed his desires to the climax reached in our society, a man who cannot live without satisfying the hundred unnecessary habits that enslave him, can yet lead an altogether moral and good life. Looked at from any point of view : the lowest, utilitarian ; the higher, pagan, which demands justice ; but especially from the highest, Christian, which demands love — it should surely be clear to every one that a man who uses for his own pleasure (which he might easily forego) the labour, often the painful labour, of others, behaves wrongly ; and that this is the very first wrong he must cease to commit if he wishes to live a good life.
From the utilitarian point of view such conduct is bad, because as long as he forces others to work for him a man is always in an unstable position ; he accustoms himself to the satisfaction of his desires and becomes enslaved by them, while those who work for him do so with hatred and envy, and only await an opportunity to free themselves from the necessity of so working. Consequently such a man is always in danger of being left with deeply rooted habits which create demands he cannot satisfy.
From the point of view of justice such conduct is bad, because it is not well to employ for one's own pleasure the labour of other men who themselves cannot afford a hundredth part of the pleasures enjoyed by him for whom they labour.
From the point of view of Christian love it can hardly be necessary to prove that a man who loves others will give them his own labour rather than take from them, for his own pleasure, the fruit of their labour.
But these demands of utility, justice, and love, are altogether ignored by our modern society. With us the effort to limit one's desires is regarded as neither the first, nor even the last, but as an altogether un- necessary, condition of a good life.
62 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
On the contrary, according" to the prevailing and most widely spread teaching of life to-day, the augmen- tation of one's wants is regarded as a desirable condi- tion ; as a sign of development, civilization, culture, and perfection. So-called educated people regard habits of comfort, that is, of effeminacy, as not only harmless, but even good, indicating a certain moral elevation — as almost a virtue.
It is thought that the more the wants, and the more refined these wants, the better.
Nothing shows this more clearly than the descriptive poetry, and especially the novels, of the last two centuries.
How are the heroes and heroines who represent the ideals of virtue portrayed ?
In most cases the men who are meant to represent something noble and lofty — from Childe Harold down to the latest heroes of Feuillet, Trollope, or Maupassant — are simply depraved sluggards, consuming in luxury the labour of thousands, and themselves doing nothing useful for anybody. The heroines are the mistresses who in one way or another afford more or less delight to these men, are as idle as they, and are equally ready to cofnsume the labour of others by their luxury.
I do not refer to the representations of really abstemious and industrious people one occasionally meets with in literature. I am speaking of the usual type that serves as an ideal to the masses : of the character that the majority of men and women are trying to resemble. 1 remember the difficulty (in- explicable to me at the time) that I experienced when I wrote novels, a difficulty with which 1 contended and with which I know all novelists now contend who have even the dimmest conception of what constitutes real moral beauty — the difficulty of portraying ■ typo taken from the upper classes as ideally good and kind, and at the same time true to life. To be true to life, a description of a man or woman of the upper, educated classes must show him in his usual surroundings— that is, in luxury, physical idleness, and demand tag much.
THE FIRST STEP 63
From a moral point of view such a person is un- doubtedly objectionable. But it is necessary to represent this person in such a way that he may appear attractive. And novelists try so to represent him. I also tried. And, strange to say, such a representation, making an immoral fornicator and murderer (duellist or soldier), an utterly useless, idly drifting, fashionable buffoon, appear attractive, does not require much art or effort. The readers of novels are, for the most part, exactly such men, and therefore readily believe that these Childe Harolds, One'gins, Monsieurs de Camors,* etc., are very excellent people.
Clear proof that the men of our time really do not admit pagan self-control and Christian self-renuncia- tion to be good and desirable qualities, but, on the contrary, regard the augmentation of wants as good and elevated, is to be found in the education given to the vast majority of children in our society. Not only are they not trained to self-control, as among the pagans, or to the self-renunciation proper to Christians, but they are deliberately inoculated with habits of effeminacy, physical idleness, and luxury.
I have long wished to write a fairy-tale of this kind : A woman, wishing to revenge herself on one who has injured her, carries off her enemy^s child, and, going to a sorcerer, asks him to teach her how she can most cruelly wreak her vengeance on the stolen infant, the only child of her enemy. The sorcerer bids her carry the child to a place he indicates, and assures her that a most terrible vengeance will result. The wicked woman follows his advice ; but, keeping an eye upon the child, is astonished to see that it is found and adopted by a wealthy, childless man. She goes to the sorcerer and
* Onegin is the hero of a Russian poem by Poushkin. M. de Caniors is the hero of a French novel by Octave Feuillet.
64 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
reproaches him, but he bids her wait. The child grows up in luxury and effeminacy. The woman is perplexed, but again the sorcerer bids her wait. And at length the time comes when the wicked woman is not only satisfied, but has even to pity her victim. He grows up in the effeminacy and dissoluteness of wealth, and owing to his good nature is ruined. Then begins a sequence of physical sufferings, poverty, and humilia- tion, to which he is especially sensitive and against which he knows not how to contend. Aspirations toward a moral life — and the weakness of his effemi- nate body accustomed to luxury and idleness ; vain struggles ; lower and still lower decline ; drunkenness to drown thought, then crime and insanity or suicide.
And, indeed, one cannot regard without terror the education of the children of the wealthy class in our day. Only the cruellest foe could, one would think, inoculate a child with those defects and vices which are now instilled into him by his parents, especially by mothers. One is awestruck at the sight, and still more at the results of this, if only one knows how to discern what is taking place in the souls of the best of these f children, so carefully ruined by their parents. Habits of effeminacy are instilled into them at a time when they do not yet understand their moral signifi- cance. Not only is the habit of temperance and self- control neglected, but, contrary to the educational practice of Sparta and of the ancient world in general, this quality is altogether atrophied. Not only is man not trained to work, and to all the qualities essential to fruitful labour — concentration of mind, strenuousness, endurance, enthusiasm for work, ability to repair what is spoiled, familiarity with fatigue, joy in attainment — but he is habituated to idleness, and to contempt for all the products of labour : is taught to spoil, throw away, and again procure for money Anything he fancies, without a thought of how things are made. Man is deprived of the power of acquiring the primary virtue of reasonableness, indispensable for the attainment of all the others, and is let loose in a world where people
THE FIRST STEP 65
preach, and praise, the lofty virtues of justice, the service of man, and love.
It is well if the youth he endowed with a morally feehle and ohtuse nature, which does not detect the difference between make-believe and genuine goodness of life, and is satisfied with the prevailing mutual deception. If this be the case all goes apparently well, and such a man will sometimes quietly live on with his moral consciousness unawakened till death.
But it is not always thus, especially of late, now that the consciousness of the immorality of such life fills the air, and penetrates the heart unsought. Frequently, and ever more frequently, it happens that there awakens a demand for real, unfeigned morality ; and then begin a painful inner struggle and suffering which end but rarely in the triumph of the moral sentiment.
A man feels that his life is bad, that he must reform it from the very roots, and he tries to do so ; but he is then attacked on all sides by those who have passed through a similar struggle and have been vanquished. They endeavour by every means to convince him that this reform is quite unnecessary : that goodness does not at all depend upon self-control and self-renuncia- tion, that it is possible, while addicting himself to gluttony, personal adornment, physical idleness, and even fornication, to be a perfectly good and useful man. And the struggle, inmost cases, terminates lamentably. Either the man, overcome by his weakness, yields to the general opinion, stifles the voice of conscience, distorts his reason to justify himself, and continues to lead the old dissipated life, assuring himself that it is redeemed by faith in the Redemption or the Sacra- ments, or by service to science, to the State, or to art ; or else he struggles, suffers, and finally becomes insane or shoots himself.
It seldom happens, amid all the temptations that surround him, that a man of our society understands what was thousands of years ago, and still is, an elementary truth for all reasonable people : namely, that for the attainment of a good life it is necessary,
E
66 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
first of all, to cease to live an evil life ; that for the attainment of the higher virtues it is needful, first of all, to acquire the virtue of abstinence or self- control, as the pagans called it, or of self-renunciation, as Christianity has it, and therefore it seldom happens that, by gradual efforts, he succeeds in attaining this primary virtue.
ft
I have just been reading the letters of one of our highly educated and advanced men of the 'forties, the exile Ogaryof, to another yet more highly educated and gifted man, Herzen. In these letters Ogaryof gives expression to his sincere thoughts and highest aspirations, and one cannot fail to see that — as was natural to a young man — he rather shows off before his friend. He talks of self-perfecting, of sacred friendship, love, the service of science, of humanity, and the like. And at the same time he calmly writes that he often irritates the companion of his life by, as he expresses it, ' returning home in an unsober state, or disappearing for many hours with a fallen, but dear creature. . . .'
Evidently it never even occurred to this remarkably kind-hearted, talented, and well-educated man that there was anything at all objectionable in the fact that he, a married man, awaiting the confinement of his wife (in his next letter he writes that his wife has given birth to a child), returned home intoxicated, and dis- appeared with dissolute women. It did not enter his head that until he had commenced the struggle, and had, at least to some extent, conquered his inclination to drunkenness and fornication, he could not think of friendship and love, and still less of serving any one or any thing. But he not only did not struggle against these vices — he evidently thought there was something very nice in them, and that they did not in the least hinder the struggle for perfection ; and, therefore, instead of hiding them from the friend in whose eyes
THE FIRST STEP 07
he wishes to appear in a good light, he exhibits them.
Thus it was half a century ago. I was contemporary with such men. I knew Ogaryof and Herzen them- selves, and others of that stamp, and men educated in the same traditions. There was a remarkable absence of consistency in the lives of all these men. Together with a sincere and ardent wish for good, there was an utter looseness of personal desire, which, they thought, could not hinder the living of a good life, nor the per- formance of good, and even great, deeds. They put unkneaded loaves into a cold oven, and believed that bread would be baked. And then, when with advancing years they began to remark that the bread did not bake — i.e., that no good came of their lives — they saw in this something peculiarly tragic.
And the tragedy of such lives is indeed terrible. And this same tragedy apparent in the lives of Herzen, Ogaryof, and others of their time, exists to-day in the lives of very many so-called educated people who hold the same views. A man desires to lead a good life, but the consecutiveness which is indispensable for this is lost in the society in which he lives. As fifty years ago Ogaryof, Herzen, and others, so also the majority of men of the present day are persuaded that to lead an effeminate life, to eat sweet and fat dishes, to delight one's self in every way and satisfy all one's desires, does not hinder one from living a good life. But as it is evident that a good life in their case does not result, they give themselves up to pessimism, and say, ' Such is the tragedy of human life.'
What is also strange in the case is that these people know that the distribution of pleasures among men is unequal, and regard this inequality as an evil, and wish to correct it, yet do not cease to strive to augment their own pleasures — i.e., to augment inequality in the dis- tribution of pleasures. In acting thus, these people are like men who being the first to enter an orchard hasten to gather all the fruit they can lay their hands on, and vet wish to organize a more equal distribution of the
e 2
68 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
fruit of the orchard between themselves and later comers, while they continue to pluck all the fruit they can reach.
The delusion that men while addicting themselves to their desires and regarding this life of desire as good, can yet lead a good, useful, just and loving life, is so astonishing, that men of later generations will, 1 should think, simply fail to understand what the men of our time meant by the words c good life,' when they said that the gluttons — the effeminate, lustful sluggards — of our wealthy classes led good lives. Indeed, one need only put aside for a moment the customary view of the life of our wealthy classes, and look at it, I do not say from the Christian point of view, but from the pagan standpoint, from the standpoint of the very lowest demands of justice, to be convinced that, living amidst the violation of the plainest laws of justice or fairness, such as even children in their games think it wrong to violate, we, men of the wealthy classes, have no right even to talk about a good life.
Any man of our society who would, I do not say begin a good life, but even begin to make some little approach towards it, must first of all cease to lead a bad life, must begin to destroy those conditions of an evil life with which he finds himself surrounded.
How often one hears, as an excuse for not reforming our lives, the argument that any act that is contrary to the usual mode of life would be unnatural, ludicrous — would look like a desire to show off, and would therefore not be a good action. This argument seems expressly framed to prevent people from ever changing their evil lives. If all our life were good, just, kind, then and only then would an action in conformity with the usual mode of life be good. If half our life were good and the other half bad, then there would be as much chance of an action not in conformity with the usual mode of life being good as of its being bad. But when life is altogether bad and
THE FIRST STEP GO
wrong, as is the case in our upper classes, then a man cannot perform a single good action without disturbing the usual current of life. He can do a bad action without disturbing this current, but not a good one.
A man accustomed to the life of our well-to-do classes cannot lead a righteous life without first coming out of those conditions of evil in which he is immersed — he cannot begin to do good until he has ceased to do evil. It is impossible for a man living in luxury to lead a righteous life. All his efforts after goodness will be in vain until he changes his life, until he performs that work which stands first in sequence before him. A good life according to the pagan view, and still more according to the Christian view, is, and can be, measured in no other way than by the mathematical relation between love for self and love for others. The less there is of love for self with all the ensuing care about self and the selfish demands made upon the labour of others, and the more there is of love for others, with the resultant care for and labour bestowed upon others, the better is the life.
Thus has goodness of life been understood by all the sages of the world and by all true Christians, and in exactly the same way do all plain men understand it now. The more a man gives to others and the less he demands for himself, the better he is : the less he gives to others and the more he demands for himself, the worse he is.
And not only does a man become morally better the more love he has for others and the less for himself, but the less he loves himself the easier it becomes for him to be better, and contrariwise. The more a man loves himself, and, consequently, the more he demands labour from others, the less possibility is there for him to love and to work for others, and less not only in as many times as his love for himself has increased, but in some enormously greater degree less, as happens if we move the fulcrum of a lever from the long end to the short one : this will not only lengthen the long arm, but will also shorten the short one. So, also, if a man,
70 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
possessing* a certain faculty, love, augment his love and care for himself, he will thereby diminish his power of loving and caring for others, not only in proportion to the love he has transferred to himself, but in a much greater degree. Instead of feeding others a man eats too much himself ; by so doing he not only diminishes the possibility of giving away the surplus, but, by overeating, he deprives himself of power to help others.
In order to love others in reality and not in word only, one must cease to love one^s self also in reality and not merely in word. In most cases it happens thus : we think we love others, we assure ourselves and others that it is so, but we love them only in words, while ourselves we love in reality. Others we forget to feed and put to bed, ourselves — never. Therefore, in order really to love others in deed, we must learn not to love ourselves in deed, learn to forget to feed ourselves and put ourselves to bed, exactly as we forget to do these things for others.
We say of a self-indulgent person accustomed to lead a luxurious life, that he is a e good man ' and ' leads a good life.5 But such a person — whether man or woman — although he may possess the most amiable traits of character, meekness, good nature, etc., cannot be good and lead a good life, any more than a knife of the very best workmanship and steel can be sharp and cut well unless it is sharpened. To be good and lead a good life means to give to others more than one takes from them. But a self-indulgent man accustomed to a luxurious life cannot do this, first because he himself is always in want of much (and this not on account of his selfishness, but because he is accustomed to luxury and it is painful for him to be deprived of that to which he is accustomed) ; and secondly, because by consuming all that he receives from others he weakens himself ami renders himself unfit to labour, and therefore unfit to serve others. A self-indulgent man who sleeps long upon a soft bed, eats and drinks abundance of fat, sweet food, who is always dressed cleanly and suitably
THE FIRST STEP 71
to the temperature, who has never accustomed himself to the effort of laborious work, can do very little.
We are so accustomed to our own lies and the lies of others, and it is so convenient for us not to see through the lies of others, that they may not see through ours, that we are not in the least astonished at, and do not doubt the truth of, the assertion of the virtuousness, sometimes even the sanctity, of people who are leading a perfectly unrestrained life.
A person, man or woman, sleeps on a spring bed with two mattresses, and two smooth, clean sheets, and feather pillows in pillow-cases. By the bedside is a rug, that the feet may not get cold on stepping out of bed, though slippers also lie near. Here also are the necessary utensils, so that he need not leave the house — whatever uncleanliness he may produce will be carried away and all made tidy. The windows are covered with curtains that the daylight may not awaken him, and he sleeps as long as he is inclined. Besides all this, measures are taken that the room may be warm in winter and cool in summer, and that he may not be disturbed by the noise of flies or other insects. While he sleeps, water, hot and cold, for his ablutions, sometimes baths and preparations for shav- ing, are provided. Tea and coffee are also prepared, stimulating drinks to betaken immediately upon rising. Boots, shoes, galoshes — several pairs dirtied the previous day — are already being cleaned and made to shine like glass freed from every speck of dust. Similarly are cleaned various garments, soiled on the preceding day, differing in texture to suit not only summer and winter, but also spring, autumn, rainy, damp, and warm weather. Clean linen, washed, starched, and ironed, is being made ready with studs, shirt buttons, button- holes, all carefully inspected by specially appointed people.
If the person be active he rises early— at seven o'clock — i.e., still a couple of hours later than those who are making all these preparations for him. Besides clothes for the day and covering for the night, there is
72 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
also a costume and foot-gear for the time of dressing — dressing-gown and slippers ; and now he undertakes his washing, cleaning, brushing, for which several kinds of brushes are used, as well as soap and a great quantity of water. (Many English men and women, for some reason or other, are specially proud of using a great deal of soap and pouring a large quantity of water over themselves.) Then he dresses, brushes his hair before a special kind of looking-glass (different from those that hang in almost every room in the house), takes the things he needs, such as spectacles or eyeglasses, and then distributes in different pockets a clean pocket-handkerchief to blow his nose on ; a watch with a chain, though in almost every room he goes to there will be a clock ; money of various kinds, small change (often in a specially contrived case which saves him the trouble of looking for the required coin) and bank-notes ; also visiting cards on which his name is printed (saving him the trouble of saying or writing it) ; pocket-book and pencil. In the case of women, the toilet is still more complicated : corsets, arranging of long hair, adornments, laces, elastics, ribbons, ties, hairpins, pins, brooches.
iiutrat last all is complete and the day commences, generally with eating : tea and coffee are drunk with a great quantity of sugar ; bread made of the finest white flour is eaten with large quantities of butter, and some- times the flesh of pigs. The men for the most part smoke cigars or cigarettes meanwhile, and read fresh papers, which have just been brought. Then, leaving to others the task of setting right the soiled and dis- ordered room, they go to their office or business, or drive in carriages produced specially to move such people about. Then comes a luncheon of slain beasts, birds, and fish, followed by a dinner consisting, if it be very modest, of three courses, dessert, and coffee. Then playing at cards and playing music — or the theatre, reading, and conversation, in soft spring arm- chairs, by the intensified and shaded light of candles, gas, or electricity. After this, again tea, again eating
THE FIRST STEP 73
— supper — and again to bed, shaken up and prepared with clean linen, and with washed utensils to be again made foul.
Thus pass the days of a man of modest life, of whom, if he is good-natured and does not possess any habits specially obnoxious to those about him, it is said that he leads a good and virtuous life.
But a good life is the life of a man who does good to others ; and can a man accustomed to live thus do good to others? Before he can do good to men he must cease to do evil. Reckon up all the harm such a man, often unconsciously, does to others, and you will see that he is far indeed from doing good ; he would have to perform many acts of heroism to redeem the evil he commits, but he is too much enfeebled by his life full of desires to perform any such acts. He might sleep with more advantage, both physical and moral, lying on the floor wrapped in his cloak, as Marcus Aurelius did ; and thus he might save all the labour and trouble involved in the manufacture of mattresses, springs, and pillows, as also the daily labour of the laundress — one of the weaker sex burdened by the bearing and nursing of children — who washes linen for this strong man. By going to bed earlier and getting up earlier he might save window-curtains and the evening lamp. He might sleep in the same shirt he wears during the day, might step barefooted upon the floor, and go out into the yard ; he might wash at the pump — in a word, he might live like those who work for him, and might thus save all this work that is done for him. He might save all the labour expended upon his clothing, his refined food, his recreations. And he knows under what conditions all these labours are performed : how' in performing them men perish, suffer, and often hate those who take advantage of their poverty to force them to do it.
How, then, is such a man to do good to others and lead a righteous life, without abandoning this self- indulgent, luxurious life ?
But we need not speak of how other people appear
74 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
in our eyes — every one must see and feel this concerning himself.
I cannot but repeat this same thing again and again, notwithstanding the cold and hostile silence with which my words are received. A moral man, living a life of comfort, a man even of the middle class (I will not speak of the upper classes, who daily consume to satisfy their caprices the results of hundreds of working days), cannot live quietly, knowing that all that he is using is produced by the labour and crushed lives of working people, who are dying without hope — ignorant, drunken, dissolute, half-savage creatures employed in mines, factories, and at agricultural labour, producing the articles that he uses.
At the present moment I who am writing this and you who will read it, whoever you may be — both you and I have wholesome, sufficient, perhaps abundant and luxurious food, pure, warm air to breathe, winter and summer clothing, various recreations, and, most important of all, we have leisure by day and undisturbed repose at night. And here, by our side, live the working people, who have neither wholesome food, nor healthy lodgings, nor sufficient clothing, nor recrea- tion^, and who, above all, are deprived not only of leisure but even of rest : old men, children, women, worn out by labour, by sleepless nights, by disease, who spend their whole lives providing for us those articles of comfort and luxury which they do not possess, and which are for us not necessaries but super- fluities. Therefore, a moral man, I do not say a Christian, but simply a man professing humane views or merely esteeming justice, cannot but wish to change his life and to cease to use articles of luxury produced under such conditions.
If a man really pities those who manufacture tobacco, then the first thing he will naturally do will be to cease smoking, because by continuing to buy and smoke tobacco he encourages the preparation of tobacco, by which men's health is destroyed. And so with every other article of luxury. Jf a man can still
THE FIRST STEP &
continue to eat bread notwithstanding the hard work by which it is produced, this is because he cannot forego what is indispensable while waiting for the present conditions of labour to be altered. But with regard to things which are not only unnecessary but are even superfluous, there can be no other conclusion than this : that if I pity men engaged in the manu- facture of certain articles, then I must on no account accustom myself to require such articles.
But nowadays men argue otherwise. They invent the most various and intricate arguments, but never say what naturally occurs to every plain man. According to them, it is not at all necessary to abstain from luxuries. One can sympathize with the condition of the working men, deliver speeches and write books on their behalf, and at the same time continue to profit by the labour that one sees to be ruinous to them.
According to one argument, I may profit by labour that is harmful to the workers, because if I do not another will. Which is something like the argument that I must drink wine that is injurious to me, because it has been bought, and if I do not drink it others will do so.
According to another argument, it is even beneficial to the workers to be allowed to produce luxuries, as in this way we provide them with money — i.e., with the means of subsistence : as if we could not provide them with the means of subsistence in any other way than by making them produce articles injurious to them and superfluous to us. '
But according to a third argument, now most popular, it seems that, since there is such a thing as division of labour, any work upon which a man is engaged — whether he be a Government official, priest, landowner, manufacturer, or merchant — is so useful that it fully compensates for the labour of the working classes by which he profits. One serves the State, another the Church, a third science, a fourth art, and a fifth serves those who serve the State, science, and art ; and all are
76 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
firmly convinced that what they give to mankind cer- tainly compensates for all they take. And it is astonish- ing how, while continually augmenting their luxurious requirements without increasing their activity, these people continue to be certain that their activity com- pensates for all they consume.
Whereas, if you listen to these people's judgment of one another, it appears that each individual is far from being worth what he consumes. Government officials say that the work of the landlords is not worth what they spend, landlords say the same about merchants, and merchants about Government officials, and so on. But this does not disconcert them, and they continue to assure people that they (each of them) profit by the labours of others exactly in proportion to the service they render to others. So that the payment is not determined by the work, but the value of the imaginary work is determined by the payment. Thus they assure one another, but they know perfectly well in the depth of their souls that all their arguments do not justify them ; that they are not necessary to the working men, and that they profit by the labour of these men, not on account of any division of labour, but simply because they have the power to do so, and because they are so spoiled that they cannot do without it.
And all this arises from people imagining that it is possible to lead a good life without first acquiring the primary quality necessary for a good life.
And this first quality is self-control.
There never has been, and cannot be, a good life without self-control. Apart from self-control, no good life is imaginable. The attainment of goodness must begin with that.
There is a scale of virtues, and it is necessary, if one would mount the higher steps, to begin with the lowest ; and the first virtue a man must acquire if he wishes to acquire the others, is that which the ancients
THE FIRST STEP 77
called iyKpdreia or <rw<ppoa6pr) — i.e., self-control or moderation.
If, in the Christian teaching, self-control was included in the conception of self-renunciation, still the order of succession remained the same, and the acquirement of no Christian virtue is possible without self-control — and this not because such a rule has been invented by any one, but because such is the essential nature of the case.
But even self-control, the first step in every righteous life, is not attainable all at once, but only by degrees.
Self-control is the liberation of man from desires — their subordination to moderation, awcppoauvr). But a man's desires are many and various, and in order successfully to contend with them he must begin with the fundamental ones — those upon which the more complex ones have grown up — and not with those complex lusts which have grown up upon the fundamental ones. There are complex lusts, like that of the adornment of the body, sports, amusements, idle talk, inquisitiveness, and many others ; and there are also fundamental lusts — gluttony, idleness, sexual love. And one must begin to contend with these lusts from the beginning : not with the complex, but with the fundamental ones, and that also in a definite order. And this order is determined both by the nature of things and by the tradition of human wisdom.
A man who eats too much cannot strive against lazi- ness, while a gluttonous and idle man will never be able to contend with sexual lust. Therefore, according to all moral teachings, the effort towards self-control commences with a struggle against the lust of gluttony — commences with fasting. In our time, however, every serious relation to the attainment of a good life has been so long and so completely lost, that not only is the very first virtue — self-control — without which the others are unattainable, regarded as superfluous, but the order of succession necessary for the attainment of this first virtue is also disregarded, and fasting is quite forgotten,
78 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
or is looked upon as a silly superstition, utterly un- necessary.
And yet, just as the first condition of a good life is self-control, so the first condition of a life of self- control is fasting.
One may wish to be good, one may dream of good- ness, without fasting ; but to be good without fasting is as impossible as it is to advance without getting up on to one's feet.
Fasting is an indispensable condition of a good life, whereas gluttony is, and always has been, the first sign of the opposite — a bad life ; and, unfortunately, this vice is in the highest degree characteristic of the life of the majority of the men of our time.
Look at the faces and figures of the men of our circle and day — on all those faces with pendent cheeks and chins, those corpulent limbs and prominent stomachs, lies the indelible seal of a dissolute life. Nor can it be otherwise. Consider our life and the actuating motive of the majority of men in our society, and then ask yourself, What is the chief interest of this majority ? And, strange as it may appear to us who are accus- tomed f to hide our real interests and to profess false, artificial ones, you will find that the chief interest of their life is the satisfaction of the palate, the pleasure of eating — gluttony. From the poorest to the richest, eating is, I think, the chief aim, the chief pleasure, of our life. Poor working people form an exception, but only inasmuch as want prevents their addicting them- selves to this passion. No sooner have they the time and the means, than, in imitation of the higher classes, they procure what is most tasty and sweet, and eat and drink as much as they can. The more they eat, the more do they deem themselves, not only happy, but also strong and healthy. And in this conviction they are encouraged by the upper classes, who regard food in precisely the same way. The educated classes (follow- ing the medical men who assure them that the most expensive food, flesh, is the most wholesome) imagine that happiness and health consist in tasty, nourishing,
THE FIRST STEP »
easily digested food — in gorging ; though they try to conceal this.
Look at rich people's lives, listen to their conversa- tion. What lofty subjects seem to occupy them : philosophy, science, art, poetry, the distribution of wealth, the welfare of the people, and the education of the young ; but all this is, for the immense majority, a sham, — all this occupies them in the intervals of business, real business : between lunch and dinner, while the stomach is full and it is impossible to eat more. The only real living interest of the majority both of men and women, especially after early youth, is eating — How to eat, what to eat, where and when to eat?
No solemnity, no rejoicing, no consecration, no opening of anything, can dispense with eating.
Watch people travelling. In their case the thing is specially evident. e Museums, libraries, Parliament — how very interesting ! But where shall we dine ? Where is one best fed?' Look at people when they come together for dinner, dressed up, perfumed, around a table decorated with flowers — how joyfully they rub their hands and smile !
If we could look into the hearts of the majority of people, what should we mid they most desire ? Appe- tite for breakfast and for dinner. What is the severest punishment from infancy upwards? To be put on bread and water. What artisans get the highest wages ? Cooks. What is the chief interest of the mistress of the house? To what subject does the conversation of middle-class housewives generally tend? If the conversation of the members of the higher classes does not tend in the same direction, it is not because they are better educated or are occupied with higher interests, but simply because they have a house-keeper or a steward who relieves them of all anxiety about their dinner. But once deprive them of this con- venience, and you will see what causes them most anxiety. It all comes round to the subject of eating : the price of grouse, the best way of making coifee, of baking sweet cakes, etc. People come together —
80 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
whatever the occasion : a christening", a funeral, a wedding, the consecration of a church, the departure or arrival of a friend, the consecration of regimental colours, the celebration of a memorable day, the death or birth of a great scientist, philosopher, or teacher of morality — men come together as if occupied by the most lofty interests. So they say ; but it is only a pretence : they all know that there will be eating- — good tasty food — and drinking, and it is chiefly this that brings them together. For several days before, to this end, animals have been slaughtered, baskets of provisions brought from gastronomic shops ; cooks and their helpers, kitchen boys and maids, specially attired in clean, starched frocks and caps, have been ' at work.' Chefs, receiving £50 a month and more, have been occupied in giving directions. Cooks have been chop-
f>ing, kneading, roasting, arranging, adorning. With ike solemnity and importance a master of the cere- monies has been working, calculating, pondering, adjusting with his eye, like an artist. A gardener has beenr employed upon the flowers. Scullery-maids. . . . An army of men has been at work, the result of thousands of working days are being swallowed up, and all this that people may come together to talk about some great teacher of science or morality, or to recall the memory of a deceased friend, or to greet a young couple just entering upon a new life.
In the middle and lower classes it is perfectly evident that every festivity, every funeral or wedding, means gluttony. There the matter is so understood. To such an extent is gluttony the motive of the assembly that in Greek and in French the same word means both ' wedding' and * feast.' But in the upper classes of the rich, especially among the refined, who have long possessed wealth, great skill is used to conceal this, and to make it appear that eating is a secondary matter, necessary only for appearance. And this pretence is easy, as in the majority of cases the guests are satiated in the true sense of the word — they are never hungry.
THE FIRST STEP 81
They pretend that dinner, eating, is not necessary to them, is even a burden ; but this a lie. Try giving them — instead of the refined dishes they expect, I do not say bread and water, but — porridge or gruel or something of that kind, and see what a storm it will call forth, and how evident will become the real truth, namely, that the chief interest of the assembly is, not the ostensible one, but — gluttony.
Look at what men sell ; go through a town and see what men buy — articles of adornment and things to devour. And indeed this must be so, it cannot be otherwise. It is only possible not to think about eat- ing, to keep this lust under control, when a man does not eat except in obedience to necessity ; but if a man ceases to eat only in obedience to necessity — i.e., when the stomach is full — then the state of things cannot but be what it actually is. If men love the pleasure of eating, if they allow themselves to love this pleasure, if they find it good (as is the case with the vast majority of men in our time, and with educated men quite as much as with uneducated, although they pretend that it is not so), there is no limit to the augmentation of this pleasure, no limit beyond which it may not grow. The satisfaction of a need has limits, but pleasure has none. For the satisfaction of our needs it is necessary and sufficient to eat bread, porridge, or rice ; for the augmentation of pleasure there is no end to the possible flavourings and seasonings.
Bread is a necessary and sufficient food. (This is proved by the millions of men who are strong, active, healthy, and hard-working on rye bread alone.) But it is pleasanter to eat bread with some flavouring. It is well to soak the bread in water boiled with meat. Still better to put into this water some vegetable or, better yet, several vegetables. It is well to eat flesh. And flesh is better not stewed, but roasted ; and it is better still with butter, and underdone, and choosing out certain special parts of the meat. But add to this vegetables and mustard. And drink wine with it, red wine for preference. One does not need any more, but
p
82 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
one can yet eat some fish if it is well flavoured with sauces and swallowed down with white wine. It would seem as if one could get through nothing more, either rich or tasty, but a sweet dish can still be managed : in summer ices, in winter stewed fruits, preserves, etc. And thus we have a dinner, a modest dinner. The pleasure of such a dinner can be greatly augmented. And it is augmented, and there is no limit to this aug- mentation : stimulating snacks, hors-d'oeuvres before dinner, and entremets and desserts, and various com- binations of tasty things, and flowers and decorations and music during dinner.
And, strange to say, men who daily overeat them- selves at such dinners — in comparison with which the feast of Belshazzar, that evoked the prophetic warning, was nothing — are naively persuaded that they may yet be leading a moral life.
Fasting is an indispensable condition of a good life ; but iri fasting, as in self-control in general, the ques- tion arises, with what shall we begin ? — How to fast, how often to eat, what to eat, what to avoid eating ? And as we can do no work seriously without regarding the necessary order of sequence, so also we cannot fast with- out knowing where to begin — with what to commence self-control in food.
Fasting ! And even an analysis of how to fast, and where to begin ! The notion seems ridiculous and wild to the majority of men.
I remember how, with pride at his originality, an Evangelical preacher, who was attacking monastic asceticism, once said to me, ' Ours is not a Christianity of fasting and privations, but of beefsteaks/ Christ- ianity, or virtue in general — and beefsteaks !
During a long period of darkness and lack of all guidance, Pagan or Christian, so many wild, immoral ideas have made their way into our life (especially into that lower region of the first steps toward a good life — our relation to food, to which no one paid any atten-
THE FIRST STEP 83
tion), that it is difficult for us even to understand the audacity and senselessness of upholding, in our days, Christianity or virtue with beefsteaks.
We are not horrified by this association, solely because a strange thing has befallen us. We look and see not : listen and hear not. There is no bad odour, no sound, no monstrosity, to which man cannot become so accus- tomed that he ceases to remark what would strike a man unaccustomed to it. Precisely so it is in the moral region. Christianity and morality with beefsteaks !
A few days ago I visited the slaughter-house in our town of Toula. It is built on the new and improved system practised in large towns, with a view to causing the animals as little suffering as possible. It was on a Friday, two days before Trinity Sunday. There were many cattle there.
Long before this, when reading that excellent book, The Ethics of Diet, I had wished to visit a slaughter- house, in order to see with my own eyes the 'reality of the question raised when vegetarianism is discussed. But at first I felt ashamed to do so, as one is always ashamed of going to look at suffering which one knows is about to take place, but which one cannot avert ; and so I kept putting off my visit.
But a little while ago I met on the road a butcher returning to Toula after a visit to his home. He is not yet an experienced butcher, and his duty is to stab with a knife. I asked him whether he did not feel sorry for the animals that he killed. He gave me the usual answer: ' Why should I feel sorry? It is necessary/ But when I told him that eating flesh is not necessary, but is only a luxury, he agreed ; and then he admitted that he was sorry for the animals. ( But what can I do ? I must earn my bread,' he said. i At first I was afraid to kill. My father, he never even killed a chicken in all his life/ The majority of Russians cannot kill ; they feel pity, and express the feeling by the word 'fear.' This man had also been ' afraid/ but he was so no longer. He told me that most of the
f 2
8J= ESSAYS AND LETTERS
work was done on Fridays, when it continues until the evening.
Not long ago I also had a talk with a retired soldier, a butcher, and he, too, was surprised at my assertion that it was a pity to kill, and said the usual things about its being ordained ; but afterwards he agreed with me : ( Especially when they are quiet, tame cattle. They come, poor things ! trusting you. It is very pitiful.'
This is dreadful ! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unneces- sarily, the highest spiritual capacity — that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself — and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life !
Once, when walking from Moscow,* I was offered a lift by some carters who were going from Serpouhof to a neighbouring forest to fetch wood. It was the Thursday before Easter. I was seated in the first cart, witfra strong, red, coarse carman, who evidently drank. On entering a village we saw a well-fed, naked, pink pig being dragged out of the first yard to be slaughtered. It squealed in a dreadful voice, resembling the shriek of a man. Just as we were passing they began to kill it. A man gashed its throat with a knife. The pig squealed still more loudly and piercingly, broke away from the men, and ran off covered with blood. Being near-sighted I did not see all the details. I saw only the human-looking pink body of the pig and heard its desperate squeal ; but the carter saw all the details and watched closely. They caught the pig, knocked it down, and finished cutting its throat. When its squeals ceased the carter sighed heavily. fDo men really not have to answer for such things?' he said.
* When returning to Yasnaya Polyana in spring, after his winter's residence in Moscow, Tolstoy repeatedly chose to walk the distance (something over 130 miles) instead of going by rail. Serpouhof is a town he had to pass on the way.
THE FIRST STEP 85
So strong is man's aversion to all killing. But by example, by encouraging greediness, by the assertion that God has allowed it, and, above all, by habit, people entirely lose this natural feeling.
On Friday I decided to go to Toula, and, meeting a meek, kind acquaintance of mine, I invited him to accompany me.
i Yes, I have heard that the arrangements are good, and have been wishing to go and see it ; but if they are slaughtering I will not go in.'
' Why not? That's just what I want to see ! If we eat flesh it must be killed.5
' No, no, I cannot !'
It is worth remarking that this man is a sportsman and himself kills animals and birds.
So we went to the slaughter-house. Even at the entrance one noticed the heavy, disgusting, fetid smell, as of carpenter's glue, or paint on glue. The nearer we approached, the stronger became the smell. The building is of red brick, very large, with vaults and high chimneys. We entered the gates. To the right was a spacious enclosed yard, three-quarters of an acre in extent — twice a week cattle are driven in here for sale — and adjoining this enclosure was the porter's lodge. To the left were the chambers, as they are called — i.e., rooms with arched entrances, sloping asphalt floors, and contrivances for moving and hang- ing up the carcasses. On a bench against the wall of the porter's lodge were seated half a dozen butchers, in aprons covered with blood, their tucked-up sleeves disclosing their muscular arms also besmeared with blood. They had finished their work half an hour before, so that day we could only see the empty cham- bers. Though these chambers were open on both sides, there was an oppressive smell of warm blood ; the floor was brown and shining, with congealed black blood in the cavities.
One of the butchers described the process of slaugh- tering, and showed us the place where it was done. I did not quite understand him, and formed a wrong,
86 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
but very horrible, idea of the way the animals are slaughtered ; and 1 fancied that, as is often the case, the reality would very likely produce upon me a weaker impression than the imagination. But in this I was mistaken.
The next time I visited the slaughter-house I went in good time. It was the Friday before Trinity — a warm day in June. The smell of glue and blood was even stronger and more penetrating than on my first visit. The work was at its height. The dusty yard was full of cattle, and animals had been driven into all the enclosures beside the chambers.
In the street, before the entrance, stood carts to which oxen, calves, and cows were tied. Other carts drawn by good horses and filled with live calves, whose heads hung down and swayed about, drew up and were unloaded ; and similar carts containing the carcasses of oxen, with trembling legs sticking out, with heads and bright red lungs and brown livers, drove away from the slaughter-house. By the fence stood the cattle- dealers' horses. The dealers themselves, in their long coats, with their whips and knouts in their hands, were walking about the yard, either marking with tar cattle belonging to the same owner, or bargaining, or else guiding oxen and bulls from the great yard into the enclosures which lead into the chambers. These men were evidently all preoccupied with money matters and calculations, and any thought as to whether it was right or wrong to kill these animals was as far from their minds as were questions about the chemical composition of the blood that covered the floor of the chambers.
No butchers were to be seen in the yard ; they were all in the chambers at work. That day about a hundred head of cattle were slaughtered. I was on the point of entering one of the chambers, but stopped short at the door. I stopped both because the chamber was crowded with carcasses which were being moved about, and also because blood was flowing on the floor and dripping from above. All the butchers present were besmeared with blood, and had I entered 1, too, should
THE FIRST STEP 87
certainly have been covered with it. One suspended carcass was being taken down, another was being moved toward the door, a third, a slaughtered ox, was lying with its white legs raised, while a butcher with strong hand was ripping up its tight-stretched hide.
Through the door opposite the one at which I was standing, a big, red, well-fed ox was led in. Two men were dragging it, and hardly had it entered when I saw a butcher raise a knife above its neck and stab it. The ox, as if all four legs had suddenly given way, fell heavily upon its belly, immediately turned over on one side, and began to work its legs and all its hind- quarters. Another butcher at once threw himself upon the ox from the side opposite to the twitching legs, caught its horns and twisted its head down to the ground, while another butcher cut its throat with a knife. From beneath the head there flowed a stream of blackish-red blood, which a besmeared boy caught in a tin basin. All the time this was going on the ox kept incessantly twitching its head as if trying to get up, and waved its four legs in the air. The basin was quickly filling, but the ox still lived, and, its stomach heaving heavily, both hind and fore legs worked so violently that the butchers held aloof. When one basin was full, the boy carried it away on his head to the albumen factory, while another boy placed a fresh basin, which also soon began to fill up. But still the ox heaved its body and worked its hind legs.
When the blood ceased to flow the butcher raised the animal's head and began to skin it. The ox continued to writhe. The head, stripped of its skin, showed red with white veins, and kept the position given it by the butcher ; on both sides hung the skin. Still the animal did not cease to writhe. Then another butcher caught hold of one of the legs, broke it, and cut it off. In the remaining legs and the stomach the convulsions still continued. The other legs were cut off and thrown aside, together with those of other oxen belonging to the same owner. Then the carcass was dragged to the hoist and hung up, and the convulsions were over.
88 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
Thus I looked on from the door at the second, third, fourth ox. It was the same with each : the same cutting off of the head with bitten tongue, and the same convulsed members. The only difference was that the butcher did not always strike at once so as to cause the animal's fall. Sometimes he missed his aim, whereupon the ox leaped up, bellowed, and, covered with blood, tried to escape* But then his head was pulled under a bar, struck a second time, and he fell.
I afterwards entered by the door at which the oxen were led in. Here 1 saw the same thing, only nearer, and therefore more plainly. But chiefly I saw here, what I had not seen before, how the oxen were forced to enter this door. Each time an ox was seized in the enclosure and pulled forward by a rope tied to its horns, the animal, smelling blood, refused to advance, and sometimes bellowed and drew back. It would have been beyond the strength of two men to drag it in by force, so one of the butchers went round each time, grasped the animal's tail and twisted it so violently that the gristle crackled, and the ox advanced.
When they had finished with the cattle of one owner, they brought in those of another. The first animal of this next lot was not an ox, but a bull— a fine, well-bred creature, black, with white spots on its legs, young, muscular, full of energy. He was dragged forward, but he lowered his head and resisted sturdily. Then the butcher who followed behind seized the tail, like an engine-driver grasping the handle of a whistle, twisted it, the gristle crackled, and the bull rushed forward, upsetting the men who held the rope. Then it stopped, looking sideways with its black eyes, the whites of which had filled with blood. But again the tail crackled, and the bull sprang forward and readied the required spot. The striker approached, took aim, and struck. But the blow missed the mark. The bull leaped up, shook his head, bellowed, and, covered with blood, broke free and rushed back. The men at the doorway all sprang aside ; but the experienced butchers,
THE FIRST STEP 89
with the dash of men inured to danger, quickly caught the rope ; again the tail operation was repeated, and again the bull was in the chamber, where he was dragged under the bar, from which he did not again escape. The striker quickly took aim at the spot where the hair divides like a star, and, notwithstanding the blood, found it, struck, and the fine animal, full of life, collapsed, its head and legs writhing while it was bled and the head skinned.
c There, the cursed devil hasn't even fallen the right way !' grumbled the butcher as he cut the skin from the head.
P'ive minutes later the head was stuck up, red instead of black, without skin ; the eyes, that had shone with such splendid colour five minutes before, fixed and glassy.
Afterwards I went into the compartment where small animals are slaughtered — a very large chamber with asphalt floor, and tables with backs, on which sheep and calves are killed. Here the work was already finished ; in the long room, impregnated with the smell of blood, were only two butchers. One was blowing into the leg of a dead lamb and patting the swollen stomach with his hand ; the other, a young fellow in an apron besmeared with blood, was smoking a bent cigarette. There was no one else in the long, dark chamber, filled with a heavy smell. After me there entered a man, apparently an ex-soldier, bringing in a young yearling ram, black with a white mark on its neck, and its legs tied. This animal he placed upon one of the tables, as if upon a bed. The old soldier greeted the butchers, with whom he was evidently acquainted, and began to ask when their master allowed them leave. The fellow with the cigarette approached with a knife, sharpened it on the edge of the table, and answered that they were free on holidays. The live ram was lying as quietly as the dead inflated one, except that it was briskly wagging its short little tail and its sides were heaving more quickly than usual. The soldier pressed down its uplifted head gently,
90 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
without effort ; the butcher, still continuing the con- versation, grasped with his left hand the head of the ram and cut its throat. The ram quivered, and the little tail stiffened and ceased to wave. The fellow, while waiting for the blood to flow, began to relight his cigarette, which had gone out. The blood flowed and the ram began to writhe. The conversation continued without the slightest interruption. It was horribly revolting.
*****
And how about those hens and chickens which daily, in thousands of kitchens, with heads cutoff and stream- ing with blood, comically, dreadfully, flop about, jerking* their wings ?
And see, a kind, refined lady will devour the car- casses of these animals with full assurance that she is doing right, at the same time asserting two contra- dictory propositions :
First, that she is, as her doctor assures her, so deli- cate that she cannot be sustained by vegetable food alone, and that for her feeble organism flesh is indis- pensable ; and, secondly, that she is so sensitive that she is unable, not only herself to inflict suffering on animals, but even to bear the sight of suffering.
Whereas the poor lady is weak precisely because she has been taught to live upon food unnatural to man ; and she cannot avoid causing suffering to animals — for she eats them.
We cannot pretend that we do not know this. We are not ostriches, and cannot believe that if we refuse to look at what we do not wish to see, it will not exist. This is especially the case when what we do not wish to see is what we wish to eat. If it were really indispens- able, or, if not indispensable, at least in some way useful ! But it is quite unnecessary,* and only serves
* Let those who doubt this read the numerous books upon the subject, written by scientists and doctors — such as Dr. A. Haig's little book, Diet and Food, or his larger
THE FIRST STEP 91
to develop animal feelings, to excite desire, and to promote fornication and drunkenness. And this is continually being confirmed by the fact that young, kind, undepraved people — especially women and girls — without knowing how it logically follows, feel that virtue is incompatible with beefsteaks, and, as soon as they wish to be good, give up eating flesh.
What, then, do I wish to say ? That in order to be moral people must cease to eat meat? Not at all.
I only wish to say that for a good life a certain order of good actions is indispensable ; that if a man's aspira- tions toward right living be serious they will inevitably follow one definite sequence ; and that in this sequence the first virtue a man will strive after will be self- control, self-restraint. And in seeking for self-control a man will inevitably follow one definite sequence, and in this sequence the first thing will be self-control in food — fasting. And in fasting, if he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because, to say nothing of the excitation of the passions caused by such food, its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling — killing ; and is called forth only by greediness and the desire for tasty food.
The precise reason why abstinence from animal food
scientific work on Uric Acid as a Factor in the Causation of Disease — in which it is proved that flesh is not necessary for the nourishment of man. And let them not listen to these old-fashioned doctors who defend the assertion that flesh is necessary, merely because it has long been so regarded by their predecessors and by themselves ; and who defend their opinion with tenacity and malevolence, as all that is old and traditional always is defended. — L. T.
While this volume was in preparation, a letter was re- ceived from Tolstoy with instructions to include the above reference to Dr. Haig's works, which had not been mentioned in previous editions of this essay.
92 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
will be the first act of fasting and of a moral life is admirably explained in the book, The Ethics of Diet ; and not by one man only, but by all mankind in the persons of its best representatives during all the con- scious life of humanity.
But why, if the wrongfulness — i.e., the immorality — of animal food was known to humanity so long ago, have people not yet come to acknowledge this law? will be asked by those who are accustomed to be led by public opinion rather than by reason.
The answer to this question is, that the moral pro- gress of humanity — which is the foundation of every other kind of progress — is always slow ; but that the sign of true, not casual, progress is its uninterrupted- ness and its continual acceleration.
And the progress of vegetarianism is of this kind. That progress, is expressed both in the words of the writers cited in the above-mentioned book and in the actual life of mankind, which from many causes is involuntarily passing more and more from carniv- orous habits to vegetable food, and is also deliber- ately following the same path in a movement which shows evident strength, and which is growing larger and larger — viz., vegetarianism. That movement has during the last ten years advanced more and more rapidly. More and more books and periodicals on this subject appear every year ; one meets more and more people who have given up meat ; and abroad, especially in Germany, England, and America, the number of vegetarian hotels and restaurants increases year by year.
This movement should cause especial joy to those whose life lies in the effort to bring about the kingdom of God on earth, not because vegetarianism is in itself an important step towards that kingdom (all true steps are both important and unimportant), but because it is a siirn that the aspiration of mankind toward moral perfection is serious and sincere, for it has taken the one unalterable order of succession natural to it, beginning with the first step.
THE FIRST STEP 93
One cannot fail to rejoice at this, as people could not fail to rejoice who, after striving to reach the upper story of a house by trying vainly and at random to climb the walls from different points, should at last assemble at the first step of the staircase and crowd towards it, convinced that there can be no way up except by mounting this first step of the stairs.
[1892.]
The above essay was written as Preface to a Russian translation of Howard William's The Ethics of Diet
V NON-ACTING
The editor of a Paris review, thinking that the opinions of two celebrated writers on the state of mind that is common to-day would interest me, has sent me two extracts from French newspapers — one containing Zola's speech delivered at the banquet of the General Association of Students, the other containing a letter from Dumas to the editor of the Gaulois.
These documents interested me profoundly, both on account of their timeliness and the fame of their authors, and also because it would be difficult in present-day literature to find in such concise, vigorous, and brilliant form, an expression of the two funda- mental forces the sum of which moves humanity. The one is the force of routine, tending to keep humanity in its accustomed path ; the other is the force of reason and love, drawing humanity towards the light.
The following is Zola's speech in extenso :
Gentlemen,
You have paid me a great honour, and conferred on me a great pleasure, by choosing me to preside at this Annual Banquet. There is no better or more charming society than that of the young. There is no audience more sympathetic, or before whom one's heart opens more freely with the wish to be loved and listened to.
I, alas ! have reached an age at which we begin to regret our departed youth, and to pay attention to the efforts of [ 94 J
NON-ACTING 95
the rising generation that is climbing up behind us. It is they who will both judge us and carry on our work. In them I feel the future coming to birth, and at times I ask myself, not without some anxiety, What of all our efforts will they reject, and what will they retain ? What will happen to our work when it has passed into their hands ? For it cannot last except through them, and it will dis- appear unless they accept it, to enlarge it and bring it to completion.
That is why I eagerly watch the movement of ideas among the youth of to-day, and read the advanced papers and reviews, endeavouring to keep in touch with the new spirit that animates our schools, and striving vainly to know whither you are all wending your way — you, who represent the intelligence and the will of to-morrow.
Certainly, gentlemen, egotism plays its part in the matter ; I do not hide it. I am somewhat like a workman who, finishing a house which he hopes will shelter his old age, is anxious concerning the weather he has to expect. Will the rain damage his walls ? May not a sudden wind from the north tear the roof off ? Above all, has he built strongly enough to resist the storm ? Has he spared neither durable material nor irksome labour ? It is not that I think our work eternal or final. The greatest must resign them- selves to the thought that they represent but a moment in the ever-continuing development of the human spirit ; it will be more than sufficient to have been for one hour the mouthpiece of a generation ! And since one cannot keep a literature stationary, but all things continually evolve and recommence, one must expect to see younger men born and grow up, who will, perhaps, in their turn cause you to be forgotten. I do not say that the old warrior in me does not at times desire to resist, when he feels his work attacked. But, in truth, I face the approaching century with more of curiosity than of revolt, and more of ardent sympathy than of personal anxiety ; let me perish, and let all my generation perish with me, if, indeed, we are good for nothing but to fill up the ditch for those who follow us in the march towards the light.
Gentlemen, I constantly hear it said that Positivism is at its last gasp, that Naturalism is dead, that Science has reached the point of bankruptcy, having failed to supply either the moral peace or the human happiness it promised.
96 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
You will well understand that I do not here undertake to solve the great problems raised by these questions. I am an ignoramus, and have no authority to speak in the name of science or philosophy. I am, if you please, simply a novelist, a writer who has at times seen a little way into the heart of things, and whose competence consists only in having observed much and worked much. And it is only as a witness that I allow myself to speak of what my genera- tion— the men who are now fifty years old, and whom your generation will soon regard as ancestors — has been, or at least has wished to be.
I was much struck, a few days ago, at the opening of the Salon du Champ- de- Mars, by the characteristic appearance of the rooms. It is thought that the pictures are always much the same. That is an error. The evolution is slow ; but how astonished one would be to-day were it possible to revert to the Salons of some former years ! For my part, I well remember the last academic ana romantic exhibitions, about 1863. Work in the open air {le plein air) had not yet triumphed ; there was a general tone of bitumen, a dirtying of canvas, a prevalence of burnt colours, the semi- darkness of studios. Then, some fifteen years later, after the victorious and much-contested influence of Manet, I can recall quite other exhibitions, where the clear tone of full sunlight shone ; it was, as it were, an inundation of light, a care for truth which made each picture-frame a window opened upon Nature bathed in light. And yesterday, after another fifteen years, I could discern, amid the fresh limpidity of the productions, the rising of a kind of mystic fog. There was the same care for clear painting, but the reality was changing, the figures were more elongated, the need of originality and novelty carried the artists over into the land of dreams.
If I have dwelt on these three stages of contemporary painting, I have done so because it seems to me that they correspond very strikingly to the contemporary movements of thought. My generation, indeed, following illustrious predecessors of whom we were but the successors, strove to open the windows wide to Nature, in order to see all and to say all. In our generation, even among those least conscious of it, the long efforts of positive philosophy and of analytical and experimental science came to fruition. Our fealty was to Science, which surrounded us on all sides ; in her we
NON-ACTING 97
lived, breathing the air of the epoch. I am free to confess that, personalty, I was even a sectarian, who lived to trans- port the rigid methods of Science into the domain of Litera- ture. But where can the man be found who, in the stress of strife, does not exceed what is necessary, and is content to conquer without compromising his victory ? On the whole I have nothing to rfgret, and I continue to believe in the passion which wills and acts. What enthusiasm, what hope, were ours ! To know all, to prevail in all, and to conquer all ! By means of truth to make humanity more noble and more happy !
And it is at this point, gentlemen, that you, the young, appear upon the scene. I say the young, but the term is vague, distant, and deep as the sea, for where are the young ? What will it — the young generation — really become ? Who has a right to speak in its name ? I must of necessity deal with the ideas attributed to it, but if these ideas are not at all those held by many of you, I ask pardon in advance, and refer you to the men who have misled us by untrust- worthy information, more in accord, no doubt, with their own wishes than with reality.
At any rate, gentlemen, we are assured that your genera- tion is parting company with ours, that you will no longer put all your hope in Science, that you have perceived so great a social and moral danger in trusting fully to her, that you are determined to throw yourselves back upon the past, in order to construct, from the debris of dead faiths, a living faith.
Of course, there is no question of a complete divorce from Science ; it is understood that you accept her latest con- quests and mean to extend them. It is agreed that you will admit demonstrated truths, and efforts are even being made to fit them to ancient dogmas. But, at bottom, Science is to stand out of the road of faith— it is thrust back to its ancient rank as a simple exercise of the intelligence, an inquiry permitted so long as it does not infringe on the supernatural and the hereafter. It is said that the experi- ment has been made, and that Science can neither repeople the heavens she has emptied nor restore happiness to souls whose naive peace she has destroyed. The day of her mendacious triumph is over ; she must be modest since she cannot immediately know everything, enrich everything, heal everything. And if they dare not yet bid intelligent
98 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
youth to throw away its books and desert its masters, there are already saints and prophets to be found going about to exalt the virtue of ignorance, the serenity of simplicity, and to proclaim the need a too-learned and decrepit humanity should experience of recuperating itself in the depths of a prehistoric village, among ancestors hardly detached from the earth, anteceding all society and all knowledge.
I do not at all deny the crisis we are passing through — this lassitude and revolt at the end of the century, after such feverish and colossal labour, whose ambition it was to know all and to say all. It seemed that Science, which had just overthrown the old order, would promptly reconstruct it in accord with our ideal of justice and of happiness. Twenty, fifty, even a hundred years passed. And then, when it was seen that justice did not reign, that happi- ness did not come, many people yielded to a growing impatience, falling into despair, and denying that by know- ledge one can ever reach the happy land. It is a common occurrence ; there can be no action without reaction, and we are witnessing the fatigue inevitably incidental to long journeys : people sit down by the roadside — seeing the inter- minable plain of another century stretch before them, thejr despair of ever reaching their destination, and they finish by even doubting the road they have travelled, and regretting not to have reposed in a field, to sleep for ever under the stars. What is the good of advancing, if the goal is ever further removed ? What is the use of know- ing, if one may not know everything? As well let us keep our unsullied simplicity, the ignorant happiness of a child.
And thus it seemed that Science, which was supposed to have promised happiness, had reached bankruptcy.
But did Science promise happiness ? I do not believe it She promised truth, and the question is, whether one will ever reach happiness by way of truth. In order to content one's self with what truth gives, much stoicism will certainly be needed : absolute self-abnegation and a serenity of the satisfied intelligence which seems to be discoverable only among the chosen few. But, meanwhile, what a cry of despair rises from suffering humanity ! How can life be lived without lies and illusions ? If there is no other world — where justice reigns, where the wicked are punished and the good are recompensed — how are we to live through this
NON-ACTING 99
abominable human life without revolting ? Nature is unjust and cruel, Science seems to lead us to the monstrous law of the strongest — so that all morality crumbles away and every society makes for despotism. And in the reaction which results — in that lassitude from too much knowledge of which I have spoken — there comes a recoil from the truth which is as yet but poorly explained, and seems cruel to our feeble eyes that are unable to penetrate into and to seize all its laws. No, no ! Lead us back to the peaceful slumber of ignorance ! Reality is a school of perversion which must be killed and denied, since it will lead to nothing but ugli- ness and crime. So one plunges into dreamland as the only salvation, the only way to escape from the earth, to feel confidence in the hereafter and hope that there, at last, we shall find happiness and the satisfaction of our desire for fraternity and justice.
That is the despairing cry for happiness which we hear to-day. It touches me exceedingly. And notice that it rises from all sides like a cry of lamentation amid the re-echoing of advancing Science, who checks not the march of her waggons and her engines. Enough of truth ; give us chimeras ! We shall find rest only in dreams of the Non- existent, only by losing ourselves in the Unknown. There only, bloom the mystic flowers whose perfume lulls our sufferings to sleep. Music has already responded to the call, literature strives to satisfy this new thirst, and painting follows the same way. I have spoken to you of the exhibition at the Champ-de-Mars ; there you may see the bloom of all this flora of our ancient windows — lank, emaciated virgins, apparitions in twilight tints, stiff figures with the rigid gestures of the Primitivists. It is a reaction against Naturalism, which we are told is dead and buried. In any case the movement is undeniable, for it manifests itself in all modes of expression, and one must pay great attention to the study and the explanation of it, if one does not wish to despair of to-morrow.
For my part, gentlemen, I, who am an old and hardened Positivist, see in it but an inevitable halt in the forward march. It is not really even a halt, for our libraries, our laboratories, our lecture-halls and our schools, are not deserted. What also reassures me is that the social soil has undergone no change ; it is still the democratic soil from which our century sprang. That a new art should flourish,
\
UNJV£P
0
100 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
or a new faith change the direction in which humanity is travelling — that faith would need a new soil which would allow it to germinate and grow : for there can be no new society without a new soil. Faith does not rise from the dead, and one can make nothing but mythologies out of dead religions. Therefore the coming century will but con- tinue our own in the democratic and scientific rush forward which has swept us along, and which still continues. What I can concede is, that in literature we limited our horizon too much. Personally, I have already regretted that I was a sectarian, in that I wished art to confine itself to proven verities. Later comers have extended the horizon by recon- quering the region of the unknown and the mysterious ; and they have done well. Between the truths fixed by science, which are henceforth immovable, and the truths Science will to-morrow seize from the region of the unknown to fix in their turn, there lies an undefined borderland of doubt and inquiry, which, it seems to me, belongs to literature as much as to science. It is there we may go as pioneers, doing our work as forerunners, and interpreting according to our characters and minds the action of unknown forces. The ideal — what is it but the unexplained : those forces of the infinite world in which we are plunged without knowing them ? But if it be permissible to invent solutions of what is unknown, dare we, therefore, call in question ascertained laws, imagining them other than they are, and thereby denying them ? As science advances it is certain that the ideal recedes : and it seems to me that the only meaning of life, the only joy we ought to attribute to life, lies in this gradual conquest, even if one has the melancholy assurance that we never shall know everything.
In the unquiet times in which